“During the Depression, Frank Stranahan, the owner of the house,
tied himself in chains and jumped in [the river.”
By Ryan Brown
I met Bill Metz for
the first time inside a small party room in the back of an Oakland
Park Denny’s about 20 miles north of Miami. He traveled there from
his home in Miami Lakes, with his wife Lourdes, to give a lecture to
a group of paranormal enthusiasts.
“I think that when
you die, it’s probably not that bad,” a man in the audience told
Bill, “but to become a ghost seems like a horrible fate.…”
“It is,” Bill
responded. “Life as a ghost is like when a CD starts skipping.
You’re living the same moment of your life over and over … and most
of the time, ghosts don’t even notice people.”
Another audience
member seemed intent on arguing his theory that ghosts and spirits
are created from violent deaths.
“Like the Stranahan
house in Fort Lauderdale,” he said. “The owner committed suicide …
that’s a violent death!”
“It’s possible,”
Bill responded. “For those who don’t know, the Stranahan house is
near a river. During the Depression, Frank Stranahan, the owner of
the house, tied himself in chains and jumped in. What a lot of
people don’t know is that there’s also an Indian burial ground
[nearby].”
Bill was speaking
as founder and head of the Paranormal Awareness Society of South
Florida, which consists of 13 people who conduct investigations of
possible paranormal activity, free of charge, and don’t accept
donations.
According to Bill,
people all over Miami contact PAS to conduct investigations in their
homes or businesses. “Investigations are 100 percent
client-contact,” he said. “We’re not cemetery chasers, hopping
fences.”
The only exception
is for historical sites, like the reputedly haunted Biltmore Hotel.
“We’ve been thrown out of the Biltmore twice,” Bill noted.
Bill and Lourdes
were certified as paranormal investigators by a man named Dennis
Hauck, a paranormal writer and technical advisor for supernatural
films including 2005’s White Noise.
Toward the end of
his lecture, Bill mentioned his next investigation, which would take
place at a local “spiritual healing center.”
Continued |
