by Jessica Pope • Photos by Pat Gallagher
October 31, 2007 02:14 pm
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Folklore has it that a man by the name of James Bell hung himself in the house presently occupied by Vito’s Pizzeria and Lounge at 500 North Ashley Street. Many Valdostans have long speculated that the house is haunted as evidenced by the plethora of stories on the World Wide Web and city streets.
Previously a bed and breakfast known as The Bell House and a Cajun eatery known as Warren’s Blue Bayou, old owners and customers have supposedly had many ghostly encounters inside the house. At least one discovered chairs turned upside down on table tops at closing the night before on the floor the following morning. Another expressed concern about being locked out of her office as she walked down the hall to use the bathroom.
Vito’s Pizzeria and Lounge owners Rob and Kayza Nixon and customers are no exception. A few have complained of water dripping on their heads and shoulders during dinner, but no one has been able to find any sort of leak. Several employees have witnessed objects flying off shelves on more than one occasion. Rob has seen the ghostly figure of a young girl walking through the restaurant.
“At first, I thought it might be a customer’s child wondering around,” he said. “So, I followed it. It walked through the dining room, around the bar area and disappeared. It was like 2 a.m., and I had to ask someone else if they saw it too. They did.”
To date, no one has had a negative paranormal experience at Vito’s Pizzeria and Lounge, Rob said. The ghosts all appear to be friendly ones.
Several months ago, Rob was contacted by Holly Catanzarita and her diverse team of investigators from Tifton’s Southern Ghost Hunters Paranormal Investigations of Georgia, founded in March 2004. She had heard numerous stories of the hauntings at The Bell House, Warren’s Blue Bayou and Vito’s Pizzeria and Lounge and wanted to find out once and for all if there was any truth to them or not.
Rob welcomed Holly and her Southern Ghost Hunters Paranormal Investigations of Georgia team to Vito’s Pizzeria and Lounge one Sunday. He said they spent several hours on the second floor of the house, where they captured some spirit voices on their audio recording equipment.
Among the electronic voice phenomena captured was a female humming, a female singing and a male saying what sounds like “Why did you shove me?” Holly said this last one occurred as she was sitting alone. It accompanied a temperature drop.
Holly continued, “One of the (more) interesting electronic voice phenomena we captured sounds like a two-way conversation. We hear a male voice say, ‘I love you, too.’ (What follows is distorted on the tape.) The same male voice replies, ‘Ummmm hmmmm.’ Then a different voice, possibly female (but) hard to tell, says what sounds like the name Gerald. We also captured a female voice saying, ‘Hi.’”
No one from Southern Ghost Hunters Paranormal Investigations of Georgia captured any orbs, ghost lights, apparitions, spirits, residuals, demons, rods, ectoplasms, vortexes, shadow ghosts or angels on film that Sunday. However, this is not uncommon during an initial investigation. Holly and her team plan to schedule a follow-up investigation in the future.
“I am open to more investigations,” Rob said. “It’s interesting, and I want to know what is here.”
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