Type
Vehicle bridge over water
Legend
There are two distinctly different legends associated with this bridge, only one of which involves a baby. In this version, a mother is driving her car down Greely Chapel Road with her baby late one Halloween night. Right around midnight, the mother is driving over the bridge when she is involved in a car accident. Both mother and baby die in the accident.
Every Halloween since then, it is said that if you drive your car over the bridge on Greely Chapel Road at the stroke of midnight, you will hear what sounds like a baby crying. Some even report hearing what can only be described as the noise a baby’s rattle would make when being shook.
As for the original story associated with this bridge, it does not contain any references to babies crying. In fact, there’s no mention of a baby at all. Rather, the story involves a group of teenagers who, on Halloween night, were all murdered on the bridge, their “bodies scattered all around.” One of the bodies was allegedly even “draped over the Stop sign”. In this version, if you go to the bridge at midnight on Halloween night, you just might catch a glimpse of the teenagers’ bodies lying all along the road and even one dangling from a bloody Stop sign near the far side of the bridge. As for the murders themselves, they are said to have gone unsolved and that no one was ever even arrested.
Ritual
Be near or on the bridge at midnight on Halloween.
Location
The bridge crosses over the Auglaize River at the far end of Greely Chapel Road, just before it dead-ends into River Line Road.
Notes
As I noted, there are several legends associated with this particular bridge. The Crybaby Bridge version, however, is the one currently attached to the bridge. As of right now, I have been unable to pinpoint a time frame when the story “flipped” and became all about babies as opposed to murdered teenagers. Either way, since both stories make reference to needing to be on the bridge at midnight, it’s pretty safe to assume that particular aspect of the tale migrated from one story to the next.
And while it’s not directly related to the Crybaby version, I should note that one of the earliest versions of the “teenagers” story has them being killed in a head-on collision as opposed to being murdered. In that version, the accident is so violent that the teenagers are thrown from their car, which might explain the reference to bodies being “scattered all around” and the bloodstains on the Stop sign in later versions.
Bridgehunter.com also contains an interesting history/timeline for the bridge: that it was built in 1906, rehabilitated in 1979, and replaced completely in 2001. Using that timeline as a go-by, it appears to me that perhaps the original legend—a simple cautionary tale about slowing down on this road lest you be involved in a horrific accident—attached itself to the original bridge. Around the time the bridge was renovated, the “murder” version of the legend came into play. And then, when the bridge was completely replaced, the legend changed again, this time bringing in the Crybaby angle. Just a thought, but the pattern seems to fit.
Regardless, I have not found anything in the public records or newspapers that reference any murders or accidents involving fatalities anywhere near this bridge. You’re shocked, right?
Personal Experiences
One night back around 2001 a bunch of us went out to the bridge. We wanted to see if you could really see the bodies laying all over the road like what the story says. We didn’t see any bodies but what we did see was what looked like blood all over the stop sign. It looked like fresh blood, too. None of us had a camera or else we would have taken a picture of it. We went back a couple of nights later and there wasn’t even a stop sign where we saw it. I don’t know if kids were messing around and then took the sign, but I know we saw a bloody stop sign that night and it wasn’t there a couple of days later.
–Michael M., Lima, OH
Seen or heard anything strange at this bridge? Let me know at jim@strangeandspooky.com
Additional Information
Bridge Hunter: Greely Chapel Road Bridge
Ohio Exploration
The Shadowlands
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