Some spooked by tales former Raeford funeral home is haunted

The house at 411 West Prospect St. was once the Lentz Funeral Home, where some 1,300 bodies were prepared for eternal rest. These days its chipped paint, broken windows and wide-eyed cats on windowsills lend a certain storybook feel to the structure.

"I just like the house. I love my house,” Nettie Adams said.

Adams, a librarian, says the reports are true: her home is indeed haunted. She said a ghostly man appeared in her bedroom doorway.

"Because it scared me, and I turned around, and then I turned back around, and he was gone. I couldn't find him anywhere in the house,” Adams said.

Adams says her basement lights routinely, and inexplicably, turn on. Things disappear for days only to mysteriously reappear.

As a result of all the strange happenings, her home has not only appeared on the front page of The News-Journal, but also in a political cartoon.

"It used to be a funeral home, so anything is possible. Haunted? Oh my God, I don't know,” Raeford resident Catherine Okeke said.

A book titled, "If These Walls Could Speak" is being written by Raeford native Ina Griesbeck. Her father owned the funeral home, which doubled as the family home. It should make for a spooky read.

"I've had a lot of people ask me if I'm scared to live there. I'm not afraid,” Adams said.

Griesbeck, who now resides in Florida, said she has had offers from two publishers.  The book still needs some work and has no date yet for its release, she said.