At Sinister Coffee and Creamery we love coffee, ice cream and a good ghost story! Got one you want to share? Click here. As paranormal investigators we have a natural curiosity about potential haunted locations, and as a good friend of ours always says it’s the history that makes it interesting. Cathedral Park sits quietly beneath the St. Johns Bridge in a neighborhood outside Portland, Oregon. Its picturesque beauty is shrouded in a grizzly past and lingering folk lore. Is the park being haunted by the ghost of Thelma Taylor? Are the screams of her still heard in the darkness? Read to find out!
The Past Influencing the Present
71 years, to the day, after the murder of Thelma Taylor shocked local communities in and around Portland Oregon, our investigation crew ventured into the depths of Cathedral Park with questions about what spirits if any, remained there. Cathedral Park is an iconic park under the St. John’s bridge in the Johns neighborhood of Portland Oregon, frequently the place of music performances and festivals throughout the year. Cathedral Park 71 years ago was considerably different, being less a residential park more of an industrial dumping ground. In fact, Cathedral Park wasn’t officially a city park until the 1980’s. To read more about Cathedral Park specific history check this article out from Claudia Amezcua written in 2019.
A young life taken
Oregonlive.com
15 year old Thelma Taylor found herself waiting for a ride to the nearby town of Hillsboro for a job picking berries when she was lured away from her bus stop, and later murdered by Morris Leland. Leland held her under the St. Johns bridge near the Willamette river. The next morning Thelma Taylor called for help when she heard workers at the nearby train yard. Leland than struck her several times in the head with a steel bar and stabbed her. Leland cleared the scene of evidence, and then buried Thelma Taylor in a shallow grave under a pile of drift wood. Leland was later convicted and executed on January 9, 1953 at the Oregon State Penitentiary for his crimes. Interested in more on Thelma Taylor read this article by Donna Stewart, author of Ghosthunting Oregon. Click Here
Cathedral Park Lore
To this day visitors of Cathedral Park claim to hear the screams of Thelma Taylor. Noted during our investigation were repeated sounds coming from above us, most likely sounds of traffic, wind and the bridge. We came to this conclusion through some deductive reasoning and several instances of what sounded like screaming. However, what’s to say Thelma Taylor’s scream or energy isn’t captured in the landscape of Cathedral Park embedding what happened to her in the very park itself? Watch our August 5,2020 investigation to gather your own conclusions about Cathedral Park, Thelma Taylor and the spirits that may reside there!
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*We do not recommend any kind of investigation without proper safety measures. We also do not recommend instigating entities for fun or entertainment. We take our investigations very seriously and offer many follow ups to ensure we have left the places in better shape then we found it.