With all of the deaths on Crawford Road. Yorktown, Virginia. The road is only getting creepier and creepier. All along the road, there have been multiple deaths, murders, car accidents, and even suicides. From the murder in 1990 to the most recent one in 2016. For more than three decades, the ghosts of Crawford Road have been haunting all of their visitors.
With the first murder of James “Jimmy” Johnson. He went missing on January 30, 1990, and was found in the woods by a crew cutting trees. He was found bound by his feet and hands with a gunshot wound. Juannito Edwards was the suspect and got two life sentences with 22 years. However, a woman tried to connect Edwards to a different death, Capt. Troy Lyon, the captain of investigations of the sheriff’s office, denied the allegation.
Adding to the numerous murders, in 1996, another body was found at the bridge. Langley Airman Eric Nesbitt, was shot eight times and robbed by two men, who later were convicted to a life in prison.
In 2000, in the woods, the body of Shawn Demonta Mabry was found beaten. The two men who murdered the teen were sentenced to 99 years in prison. The last death of Crawford Road is the most recent. As of 2016, the convicted murderer, Julian Rios, confessed to the murder of 17-year-old Austin Baxley.
Those were illegal murders, but there were also many legal murders. Many believe that the deaths mostly happened with the Ku Klux Klan, the KKK, still said to be secretly meeting at the bridge. There are multiple reports of seeing things like fog hiding black figures that jump from the bridge just to not touch the ground and start swaying. White body frames are supposedly shown surrounding the figures.
The KKK was not the only legal genocide that happened in the area. Along the woodline, Civil War battles happened. Spine-chilling, contorted soldiers are supposedly seen running across the road, rushing into battle.
With not only murders happening on Crawford Road. Decades ago, before all of the homicides, a bride ran away from the altar, trying to escape the unhappy life she would have attended. In an attempt to be free from the miserable life that was ahead of her, she hung herself from the bridge.
The KKK and soldiers were not the only ghosts seen, because since the suicide, many people have reported driving under the bridge and seeing a woman in a white figure hang herself.
Some say after seeing the bodies, cars swerve and wreck. Before the bridge, there is a curve that is home to numerous crashes. While many people don’t believe the ghost stories, the wrecks and murders are true. So whenever you ride down Crawford Road at night, always be weary of the infamous sights.
A Gloucester High School student says, “I do believe that the road is haunted. As soon as I went under the bridge, I saw a bride hanging herself. Haven’t been down it since” (London Volpe, 9).
