Episode 16: The Haunting of Lake Lanier

lake laner is located about an hour away from Atlanta and stretches across five Georgia counties it was constructed in the 1950s to serve as flood protection from the chattah huchi river and to provide Power and Water to Atlanta and the surrounding areas which sounds like a good thing right I mean who doesn't love Water and Power yeah for real we need those yeah but the area where the government and the US Army corpse of Engineers wanted to build this Lake while it was already inhabited by hundreds of families animals and a and complete with a thriving ecosystem and since the lak's creation there has been nearly 700 deaths Jes yeah about 200 of them just since 1994 holy not even in the last what is that 20 years almost it's over 20 years we were born you were born in 92 so just take off two years from your age so what 29 29 yeah I was close just in 29 years 200 deaths making Lake linear as unsuspecting as it might seem one of the deadliest lakes in the US but why maybe it has something to do with all the cemeteries still located beneath the murky Waters or the dark history of the land Lake linear now occupies or maybe it's the ghost of the Lady of the Lake [Music] okay so let's dive in to Lake ler I'm not you can yeah I'm not jumping in that Lake uh lake laner is named after Georgia poet musician and confederate soldier Sydney laner who wrote the poem Song of the chattah huchi way down y on the chattahi I don't think that's it but hotter than a hoochie coochi I don't know but according to CNN sorry I just went from hoochi coochie to okay according to CNN but honestly according to CNN lake lanir has about 625 billion gallons of water which is the equivalent of 950,000 Olympic siiz swimming pool pools damn oh whoa yeah Michael phel swim that [Laughter] at the buer dam the lake is more than 200 feet deep that's creepy as I don't like water if I can't see like physically see the bottom so like basically it has to be clear enough and lakes are just never clear they're always like murky and muddy and and groy yeah I mean I guess so are oceans but yeah lakes oceans no I do pools that's what I do those can still be a little gross yes depending on where you go the Netflix show Ozark starring Jason baitman filmed at Lake lineer the season 3 premiere of fx's show Atlanta referenced Lake laner and the fact that it's very much haunted yeah that episode freaked me out it's creepy because they're out there at well it's creepy that they're out there MH and it's at night I don't like that yeah it'd be creepy to go there during the daytime just knowing the history um but it never actually named the lake but you know what they were talking about a horror film titled laner is expected out this September which I'm super excited about it looks super creepy me too I can wait to see it I hope it's good me too it looks good I've seen some teasers it looks really good yeah I hope they don't just like mess it up but yeah I have faith I guess there are tons of parks campsites and Recreation areas around Lake laner including Margaritaville which as of this summer just a couple weeks ago actually they announced they announced some crazy yeah they announced that they will be banning swimming at their Lake linear location yeah according to Fox 5 Atlanta it is due to unspecified safety concerns they have even put up a fence preventing anyone from entering the lake from their Beach yeah and I actually did a little bit of research on this and um well I watched a like news article or two and they have the fence in the water and they're like people can still lay out on the beach you just can't get in the water but they also have like a big pool and like a water park with a water slide yeah and all kinds of stuff so they're like trying to promote that more than having people in go in the water but no news station has been able to get an answer as to why yeah they just keep saying like unspecified safety concerns yeah and no one knows what that means I did um find an article Le um I think it was by yeah an an article by WSB TV in Atlanta oh that's one of my favorites I mean Fox 5 is good too but I grew up watching Glen burs so yeah that according to WSBTV last year a 20-year-old man named Jose car Caramelo probably butchering that name because you know we suck at names um we try we try we try but um he drown about 30 yards offshore while in the swimming area at Margaritaville so um I think it was like over Memorial Day weekend and that's this weekend yeah yeah so that's why I wanted to do the episode on Lake laner now because it's like the start of Lake season everybody going to the lake like be cautious if you're going to any Lake but yes if you're going to Lake lener just don't go you know yeah and if you extra cautious yeah go into the pool or the water slide and out the lake don't get in the water yeah go hang out at margaritaville's water park cuz that's what they want you to do anyway but yeah I think it probably has something to do with like what you said them promoting that stuff more but also like where that guy died near their property they don't want that to happen again and they're probably getting sick of people dying hopefully they are but they can't stop people because you can still rent paddleboats and like kayaks and go out on the water which that would still scare the out of me but yeah me too accidents can still happen so um and people can still access the lake from other locations it's just some Margaritaville location yeah they said it's just um it's going to be very like secure it it's weird I don't know why they're doing this but maybe it is because that happened last year but no one like you said no one's been able to really get a straight answer from them so yeah it's weird R&B singer Usher stepson Kyle Glover was killed on Lake laner back in 2012 when Jeffrey Simon hubard who is riding a jet ski he ended up running over Glover and a teenage girl while they were on inner tubes being pulled by a pontoon boat yeah Hubbert was sentenced to four years in prison for the incident but was it an accident or part of the Lake's curse because one can expect that each year with millions of visitors going out to any Lake that there will be some drownings but on Lake laner there are more than just drownings there have been a number of freak accidents and strange occurrences like boats just suddenly Catching Fire I don't know I think it's cursed the cost to build the lake was about $45 million the government acquired over 50,000 Acres of mostly Farmland from hundreds ofes families who lived in the area to build the lake they also had to move several businesses churches and relocate about 20 cemeteries but did they move all the bodies like they were supposed to well if you've ever watched the show Expedition X they proved after diving into Lake lineer which hell no I would not do yeah I've heard that there's worldclass divers that refuse to dive until L which is I don't blame him I don't blame him so the show Expedition X proved after they were diving into Lake lineer that like they found some Graves with like the stones and everything still intact at the bottom of the lake yeah yeah so that's creepy the footage that they had of the graves it looked like the bodies had never been moved cuz I mean you would probably move the gravestone too so like they have a marker wherever you take the body and the fact that all of that's just still down there a little weird little Eerie yeah so I also read somewhere so the government was supposed to you know take care of all of this you know relocating the bodies and everything and I read somewhere that if the government couldn't obtain permission from the families that to move the bodies then the bodies stayed put but I don't know how true that is but regardless the government did make some sort of effort to move the bodies but it obviously didn't move all of them there's no way they moved them all no and it is also believed that there were several unmarked Graves of slaves and possibly Native American burial grounds that are now lost underneath the water as well which you don't with the ancestors of slaves and you do not with Native American Bar that's that's calls for curse curse yeah so the land underneath the lake has a dark history before the Lake's creation there was this dark history and that's what we're going to get into the dark history started around the 1830s the Cherokee Native Americans had occupied areas of Georgia for hundreds of years but around 1830 gold was discovered on their lands and they were forced out by nonetheless white Settlers of course yep according to Georgia encyclopedia. org In 1832 Georgia leaders divided the former Cherokee lands into 10 counties including for Scythe the Cherokees were removed forcibly from their Georgia lands in 1838 and relocated to reservation lands in Oklahoma that's interesting yeah they made him go all the way out to Oklahoma from Georgia ridiculous so far I'd be pissed hence probably the curse you know um but uh in 1951 before Lake lir was created a man by the name of Joseph Caldwell discovered and excavated the Samora Mound the mound was then buried underneath the lake it resurfaced yeah right it resurfaced again in 2007 when the lake reached low water levels it is considered sacred ground and shows the history of Native Americans in that area and it adds to the very likely possibility that there are Native Americans buried underneath the lake for sure about a hundred years later in 1912 in what used to be the town of oscarville Georgia located in fory county and now buried beneath Lake lanir was once a flourishing africanamerican Community full of farmers carpenters and blacksmiths but in 1912 things drastically changed when an 18-year-old white woman named May Crow was sexually assaulted and found unconscious with her throat slashed in a wood nearby a wooded area nearby she would eventually die from her injuries there was also some sort of a pocket mirror that was found near her one of these black residents was a 17-year-old boy named Ernest Knox Knox had gathered with several others to see what the commotion was all about when May's body was discovered someone asked KNX if the pocket mirror that was found near May belonged to him and it's like not known if he knew that the mirror was found near her body um when they asked him that so he admitted to owning it he's like yeah it's his mirror well basically they just assumed he was guilty from then on because the mirror found near her body he claimed to own so they assumed how else would it have gotten there unless he was the one that did it and he was then coerced and harassed until he confessed to the crime of hurting May and KNX was then taken and held at the Fulton County Jail which I think is messed up because one he could have been like yeah I'll I'll claim that mirror like maybe he didn't know that it was found near her body and he was like I'll claim that mirror because maybe he needed one yeah and yeah and then two I need one yeah me too uh mine's like the glue like came off of it and now it like keeps falling out every time I open it I could probably just glue that back together but um he also it could have been his maybe he was walking in that part of the woods and dropped it like a day or two before who knows and it just happened to be there um someone could have planted it knowing that it was his planted it there very true yeah also though when you were reading that it made me think back to the Martinville 7 yes that's what I was thinking of too like when I was reading this whole thing I thought of the Martinville 7 like the whole time because it's like it's so messed up it gets worse oo so people in the community started spreading rumors that KNX had accomplice this oh so oh really does yeah really does remind you about the Martinsville 7 because I just heard cohorted and bullied about a white lady that and was sexually assaulted yeah uh yeah so by the next morning police had arrested 24-year-old Rob Edwards Edwards was the husband of knox's cousin Jane Daniel Edwards was taken to a jail in cuming Georgia the next part may be hard to hear so warning yeah after news spread of Edward's arrest an angry mob broke into the jail and Drug Edwards outside and lynched him by hanging him from a telephone pole and shot his dead body multiple times in downtown coming that's so yeah um Edward's wife Jane Daniel her 17-year-old brother Oscar Daniel and a man named ed Collins who was their neighbor at the time were also all arrested in connection with this crime committed upon mro and the yeah and they were also taken to jail a few Weeks Later the prisoners were escorted to cuming Georgia to stand trial the thing that's messed up about it why would Edward's wife like be a part of it be yeah that that's what blows my mind like why would she sat there why while her husband assaulted and and murdered would this woman like I mean I know some women are weird and crazy and creepy like that but like I don't I don't see that I mean I just I mean it could happen it could happen but I don't think it did um it's widely believed that all of these men and Jane were innocent of this crime by the way according to the Atlanta History Center at the trial prosecutors told this narrative that Knox Oscar Daniel and Edwards attacked and assaulted mro while Jane Daniel held a lantern borrowed from Ed Collins yeah that sounds that sounds stupid yeah I'll hold this Lantern so y'all can like rape this woman yeah and also like was Ed Collins only implicated because it was his Lantern like I let her borrow it so now I'm on trial for murder like none of this makes any sense no like bizarre yeah so Knox and Oscar Daniel have separate trials Oscar Daniel maintains his innocent throughout the entire Tri but it did not matter because an all-white jury convicted Knox and Oscar of the sexual soul and murder of mro Jesus Christ yeah and the judge sentenced the two men to execution by hanging as stated by hair ofthe doet as part of a plea bargain Jane Daniel changed her story and agreed to turn States witness her and Collins cooperated this story and this narrative that yeah it was his Lantern Jane was holding it they uh they did it so let us yep exactly so the charges against Jane and Ed Collins were dropped in exchange for their testimony and um so because of yeah I mean and it's hard to tell what the cops like told them they were probably like well if you don't do this then you're going to hang too yeah so there was no other evidence linking Oscar Daniel to the crime except his sister's testimony so basically her testimony ured his death wow that's sad yeah I couldn't do that and her husband had already died so she lost her brother her cousin and her husband to this whole incident oh my God mhm Knox and Daniel's execution was scheduled for October 25th 1912 the execution was not supposed to be a public Affair it was ordered to be private with only family and law enforcement in attendance a fence was erected to keep the public out but the night before the executions the fence was burned down by the angry mob and an estimated 5 to 8,000 people showed up to watch the these two young men hang that's a lot of people to watch people die yeah and it's it's messed up that they wanted to watch it that bad yeah so after the death of mro a group of men in fory County called The Night Riders harassed and terrorized the black residents in the county and forced them all to flee their homes and their land many of the black residents left with only what they could carry some of of them were able to sell their land but at a loss and some of them had their land straight up stolen from the white residents there when they left behind like they just took it over damn according to the 1920 census of the county only 30 African-Americans remained in the entire area that was for Scythe County and for Scythe County to this day is mostly still white oscarville the flourishing African-American Community was right where the lake is now so like over 1,00 African-Americans that lived in forsa County ended up fleeing that's that's crazy yeah and many of them had lived there for like Generations we have Native American Energy we have all of this negative racial Energy deaths from it energy yeah deaths from drownings and freak accidents mhm and we're not done God we're we're not done though wait for it yes now we're going to fast forward about 46 years later to 1958 when dilia may Parker Young and Susie Roberts two friends who had just sped away from a local gas station without paying for their gas wow yeah were on their way to the three Gables a local Roadhouse located in Dawsonville Georgia Susie was driving a 1954 Ford when she lost control and crashed into Lake lanir from the Jerry D Jackson Bridge the only evidence of the crash was skid marks left behind on the bridge so everybody assumed that they drove into the lake and um divers searched the lake but had no luck finding the bodies shortly after the crash people reported seeing an apparition of a woman in a Blue Dress Dilo was wearing a Blue Dress the night of the accident reports also stated The Apparition of the woman didn't have any hands that's so creepy a year after the crash in 1959 a fisherman discovered a body of a woman floating near the same Bridge with the girls had crashed into the lake the woman's body was bloated and missing her hands and a few toes what the yeah well they think like fish like with her body being water that long yeah yum yum and the tum tum so she could not be positively identified but it was widely believed that it was the body of dilia yeah because of the area the area and the blue dress both add up they can't be coincidences 31 years later the Jerry D Jackson Bridge was in need of some repairs when workers began dredging the bottom of the lake to prepare for these Renovations they made a grim Discovery they found su's 1954 Ford with suie still inside oh yeah so it never made it out no so it was concluded at that time that the remains that were found back in 1959 were indeed that of dilia since they found Susie makes sense dilia has become known as the Lady of the Lake and reportedly if you believe she is still seen today wandering the bridge in her blue dress yes that's weird because um why is it weird you know that one band from when we were in high school be more specific census fail oh yeah yeah I remember them they have a song called lady in a blue dress I think oh I wonder if that's about her yeah according to multiple reports there are still 27 bodies underneath the Waters of Lake laner Vic VI that have never been recovered a different kind of 27 Club creepy 27 Club many believe the hauntings at the lake are that of dilia but also the victims that are underneath the water wanting to be found well I was going to state that when I was doing research uh mhm a lot of a couple people said a lot of people that have drowned there have got stuck or sucked into old uh pieces of the Town yeah because there and that there's actually a gas station I think still under there there's a racetrack under there yeah that's what I heard and I was like is that the gas station or is that like an actual like you know racetrack I don't know oh no it's an it's an actual Speedway RAC trck okay I don't know if RAC trcks were around in the 50s I don't think so I don't know like race track gas stations yeah people people do get stuck in hung on these things they end up drowning yeah that's what I've heard too that it could be the debris and stuff because there's so much debris under the lake yeah but also could it be ghosts like yeah cuz many people who've escaped nearly drowning at Lake laner said it felt like someone or something was trying to tug or pull them down yeah because I watched a interview of a lady who took her son to go to Margaritaville and it was her and her son and her assistant and she went to go get a sip of water and her son was like playing in the lake and she turned around and he wasn't there and she freaked and she found him and they had to do CPR and everything but I believe she said he said it felt like someone was pulling or tugging at him like trying to keep him under yeah I saw a couple reports of people saying that yeah that's so weird so creepy and yeah so this lake has a pretty horrid history that began years before the lake was even thought of um exactly like this lake is Curse cursed big curs yeah so that coupled with everything that's occurred since the lakes's creation it's a perfect storm for the Paranormal and it's near water isn't that something that is very like yeah like um I don't know it seems like areas closer to bodies of water seem to have more activity for some reason yeah I don't know why but who knows yeah that's creepy ass Lake laner you won't catch my ass there and I live in Georgia that actually actually I do I'll take that back I do want to go to Lake lar I don't want to get in the water at all oh know it'd be creepy just even walking around yeah I want to go to the bridge where the crash [Music] happened yeah and I want to go just walk around the lake um and like at night and the daytime and just see at night you crazy just see if we pick up any like EVPs or anything yeah if you see if you no you will the you mean see if yeah well I mean it's haunted it's cursed we already know that yeah you won't I defin bring it home with you yeah yeah I don't want to bring it home with me it can that all right we did the damn thing we did it we did it we did the damn thing Lake ler episode 16 episode 16 and it's going to be a little while before you hear our voices yeah we're taking a little bit of a summer break to work on new content new episodes and just bring in you better content better quality audio hopefully if I get this new microphone we'll take some promo picks yeah we we have a lot of things that we're going to be working on so we're taking a break but we're not really taking a break we're not really taking a break we're working the whole time to make better giving y'all a break y'all can catch up while we do this yeah yeah give us feedback email us if you have suggestions on episodes or anything follow us on social media yeah cuz once we hit a certain thing we have a couple surprises couple giveaways we're gonna be doing a giveaway we got things we got things a brewing they're they're coming together we have plans we got plans people we got plans man so um we'll be back with new episodes starting July 7th so it's a little bit of a long break but I feel it'll be worth it because I feel like the podcast going to be so much better when we when we come back from break I do too but while we're doing our damn thing y'all need to stay spooky yes stay spooky we love y'all thanks for the support so far and we yes we really appreciate it it means the world to us what 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