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Doug Clark: Lawyer turned storyteller celebrates spooky Spokane
The night something truly chilling happened.
On the surface, the pale brick Pearl Apartments at Second Avenue and Adams Street don’t look frightening.
Ah, but in the 1990s, as Caskey loves to tell the brave souls who sign up for his tours, this was a place of sinister doings.
It was the Helen Apartments back then. It was also the lair of one Stanley Pietrzak, the murderous apartment manager who once bragged to dinner guests about eating a victim.
Like always, Caskey launched into his spiel about cannibalism as well as the crematorium/murder room/torture chamber that the police found in the sub-basement after Pietrzak’s arrest.
That’s when a “rough looking” guy, attracted by the ghost tours signage on the bus, came out of the Pearl and began banging on the door for admittance.
“I had no idea if he wanted to punch me or what,” recalled Caskey, adding that the man introduced himself as Mark and asked for the mic.
“I want to tell you about the hell we go through on a daily basis,” declared Mark, according to Caskey.
The 30 passengers listened in shocked awe as the tenant told them about “menacing ghosts” that prowled the apartments. And how some poor residents had actually taken to placing star-shaped “hex signs” on their doors to ward away the evil.
A showman at heart, Caskey knows a good thing when he hears one.
As Mark wound down, the ghost guide leaned over and asked the interloper if he might be open to a repeat performance when the ghost tour returned on Thursday night.
“I’m here every night,” was the ominous reply.
Caskey kills me.
I met him Thursday morning in a coffee shop just a short walk from the dreaded Pearl/Helen.
Clad entirely in black, a silver amulet containing some sort of mystical root hanging around his neck, the tall man had me mesmerized from the moment he opened his mouth.
“I came to Spokane to die,” the 63-year-old told me of his moving here from New Orleans in 2006 with wife Catherine.
That plan didn’t work out, obviously.
Not that Caskey’s kicking about beating the odds on his cancer, which is in remission.
Looking for something to do, Caskey spent four-plus years as the historian for Spokane’s community cemeteries. All those strolls among the tombstones eventually hatched the idea of starting a ghost tour enterprise.
“I’m a storyteller,” he said with a laugh. “Only 2 percent of what I say during my tours is a lie. I just don’t reveal which 2 percent that is.”
Besides “ghostologist,” Caskey calls himself a “recovering lawyer” who practiced 30 years and taught college law after that.
“I’m not proud of what I’ve done,” he quipped.
Add author to his resume.
Caskey has written a number of poltergeist-related books, including his latest, “Spooky Spokane: The Ghosts, Killers and Dark History of the City.”
He will be telling some of his stories 7 p.m. Oct. 28 at Auntie’s Bookstore. With him will be Candess Campbell, the psychic sidekick whom Caskey gives consulting credits to on “Spooky Spokane.”
Anyone wanting to sign up for one of his tours (they run about $15) can do so by calling the city’s Parks Department or by dialing Caskey’s tour line at (509) 747-1335. Most of the tours run Thursday through Saturday, he said.
The tours cover many of the so-called haunted landmarks in his books, places like the old Carnegie Library, S. 10 Cedar St., where apparitions have been reported, and the Ridpath Hotel, 515 W. Riverside Ave., where Elvis once stayed and I enjoyed my wedding night.
I can’t speak for Elvis, but nothing paranormal happened to me until about 10 a.m. That’s when a maid barged in on my lovely bride, Sherry, and me.
No ghosts, true, but my wails of fright were probably heard echoing down the halls.
Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by email at dougc@spokesman.com.