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When the Vultures Circled · The Grim: Haunted Cemeteries & Graveyard Tales

• 0:14
  Kristin: Grim.
• 0:14
  Kristin: Mourning and welcome to the Grim.
• 0:16
  Kristin: I'm your host, Kristin.
• 0:18
  Kristin: On today's episode, we'll be opening the gate and entering Georgiana Cemetery, located in Merritt Island, Florida.
• 0:25
  Kristin: So grab your favorite mug, cozy up and let's take a dig into history.
• 0:30
  Kristin: We're trading fog for Florida this episode, but don't let the sunshine fool you.
• 0:35
  Kristin: Beneath the warm glow of Merritt Island's skies lies a quieter, more unsettling shadow.
• 0:41
  Kristin: This isn't your typical haunted hilltop or ivy-wrapped tomb.
• 0:45
  Kristin: We're headed to a place where the palm trees sway gently, but the past clings tighter than the coastal humidity.
• 0:52
  Kristin: Tucked beneath the palms and Spanish moss, Georgiana Cemetery, known to locals as Crooked Mile Cemetery, waits in the shade, whispering old secrets through the heat haze.
• 1:03
  Kristin: While Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral pull in the crowds, this hidden burial ground keeps to itself.
• 1:09
  Kristin: It may not make the tourist brochures, but those who've wandered its crooked mile speak of ghostly encounters, restless graves and a lingering feeling that something or someone is watching.
• 1:22
  Kristin: Merritt Island was shaped by quieter forces.
• 1:25
  Kristin: Its stories not shouted in headlines but carved in crumbling stone and whispered through moss-laden oaks.
• 1:32
  Kristin: Jorniata Cemetery, often overlooked beneath the heavy hush of Spanish moss and time, holds the remains of the area's earliest settlers.
• 1:41
  Kristin: Soldiers from the Civil War rest here, as do veterans from great global conflicts that followed.
• 1:47
  Kristin: Their stories now soften by lynching and salt air.
• 1:50
  Kristin: Just a short walk away from Georgiana, church still stands, founded in 1886.
• 1:56
  Kristin: It's weathered wood and still-used pews serving as a rare link between the living and the dead.
• 2:02
  Kristin: Nearby Provost Hall, on the side of the old Georgiana Railway, whisper of a time when this sleepy stretch of land was once a lifeline between rivers, a route of trade, faith and farewells.
• 2:14
  Kristin: This isn't just a cemetery.
• 2:16
  Kristin: It's a pocket of the past that still breathes, and the roots of Florida history run deep and sadly tragic.
• 2:23
  Kristin: The salty air and sun can make anyone forget the force of the ocean on a stormy day, but the cemetery knows better, or three of its residents do.
• 2:32
  Kristin: Their graves lie side by side in Georgiana Cemetery, marked by a single sorrowful headstone that bears the name of three young sisters, myrtle Mary and Martha Smith.
• 2:44
  Kristin: The dates carved into the stone all match June 14, 1916.
• 2:49
  Kristin: Beneath a shade of moss-covered oaks, their story lingers like a chill off the water, one that still grips the heart over a century later.
• 2:58
  Kristin: That summer, the girls, accompanied by their grandfather, jj Ramsey, their aunt and 10-year-old cousin, set out across the Banana River.
• 3:06
  Kristin: The plan was simple spend a week on the beach, playing in the surf, sleeping beneath the canvas and hunting for turtles along the shore A family memory in the making.
• 3:17
  Kristin: But the weather had other intentions.
• 3:19
  Kristin: A heavy cyclone gale was already raging, but Ramsey, against better judgment, decided to make the crossing anyway.
• 3:27
  Kristin: Their vessel, a humble rowboat outfitted with a sail, was loaded beyond reason Six people, a tent and a month's worth of provisions.
• 3:36
  Kristin: Just a mile from shore, the wind shifted violently, snapping the sail and dragging it into the water.
• 3:42
  Kristin: The boat capsized, snapping the sail and dragging it into the water.
• 3:47
  Kristin: The boat capsized, thrown into the water's angry chop.
• 3:48
  Kristin: Ramsey managed to gather Florence and the girls to the upturned hull.
• 3:50
  Kristin: For a moment there was hope, but the storm was merciless.
• 3:54
  Kristin: One by one, the girls slipped from his grasp, the water claiming them.
• 3:59
  Kristin: Before help could arrive.
• 4:00
  Kristin: Ramsey and his son clung to the wreckage until it drifted close enough to shore to be seen by a man named William Vente, one of the campers who they had planned to join.
• 4:10
  Kristin: He pulled them to safety.
• 4:12
  Kristin: Florence's body was found the next day, the other girls following soon after.
• 4:17
  Kristin: When they recovered Florence, her hand was tightly clenched around a lock of hair, proof that, even as the waters pulled her under.
• 4:24
  Kristin: She had tried to save one of the other girls and, as if the tragedy wasn't deep enough, the three girls were the only children of Martin Gaither Smith.
• 4:32
  Kristin: He had already lost their mother, elizabeth, during the birth of his youngest daughter not many years earlier.
• 4:38
  Kristin: Now.
• 4:39
  Kristin: He was left utterly alone To this day.
• 4:42
  Kristin: Visitors to the Georgiana cemeteries sometimes leave trinkets or flowers at the girls' graves.
• 4:47
  Kristin: Somewhere they hear laughter carried on the wind, soft and bleeding like waves against the riverbank, and on stormy nights when the air feels heavy and the palms groan in the wind, some say, the sorrow of that day still stirs just beneath the surface, never leaving.
• 5:04
  Kristin: It wasn't long before the sleepy island of Merritt, florida, was visited by tragedy.
• 5:09
  Kristin: Once again, there was 1934.
• 5:12
  Kristin: Nestled along the slow-moving Indian River, merritt Island was the kind of place where life unfolded quietly, where gossip traveled faster than any train and where strangers were noticed immediately.
• 5:26
  Kristin: But in the chill of a November evening, that familiar stillness was shattered and something dark seeped into the heart of the town.
• 5:34
  Kristin: It began with vultures, a swirling black cloud of them that gathered near the riverbank, just off what is now US Route 1.
• 5:42
  Kristin: Of them that gathered near the riverbank, just off what is now US Route 1.
• 5:45
  Kristin: Drawn by an unnatural sight, a passerby made a grim discovery.
• 5:47
  Kristin: Half buried in the sand and tangled in the underbrush lay the mutilated, partially burned body of a young woman.
• 5:53
  Kristin: Her throat had been viciously slashed from ear to ear.
• 5:56
  Kristin: Her skull caved in by repeated blunt force trauma.
• 5:59
  Kristin: Whoever had done this to her just didn't want her dead.
• 6:03
  Kristin: They'd wanted to obliterate her to ensure that even the memory of her would be desecrated.
• 6:08
  Kristin: She was only 19 years old.
• 6:11
  Kristin: Her name was Ethel Allen.
• 6:13
  Kristin: The identification came slowly, painfully, from the few fragments left untouched by fire and violence.
• 6:21
  Kristin: A small tattoo on her thigh, said to be a butterfly or a flower, survived, as did a simple ring still clinging to one finger.
• 6:30
  Kristin: Her identity was confirmed by the clothes.
• 6:32
  Kristin: She had been last seen wearing a lightweight dress, a cardigan, sweater and cheap leather shoes.
• 6:38
  Kristin: Witness remembered seeing Ethel alive just a few nights earlier at Jack's Tavern, a rough, dimly lit roadhouse near nearby Rockledge, known for cheap whiskey, gambling and trouble.
• 6:49
  Kristin: She was last seen there with a man named Billy Wilson, a local drifter with a charming smile and a reputation for shady dealings.
• 6:57
  Kristin: Some say he worked odd jobs along the river, others whispered of bootlegging and petty crime.
• 7:04
  Kristin: Ethel had reportedly told friends that she and Billy were headed inland to Huachula where her mother lived.
• 7:10
  Kristin: But Ethel never arrived and Billy?
• 7:14
  Kristin: He vanished the day her body was found, later testified that he was seen in a rush, packing up his belongings, clothing, tools, even his mattress, into a battered car and fleeing town.
• 7:27
  Kristin: Before dawn Police launched a search.
• 7:29
  Kristin: Radio bulletins blared his name across central Florida.
• 7:33
  Kristin: Rewards were posted.
• 7:34
  Kristin: Deputies combed back roads and riverbanks, but Billy Wilson had slipped away like smoke, never to be seen again.
• 7:42
  Kristin: Rumors sped like wildfire.
• 7:44
  Kristin: Some claimed Billy had ties to a traveling carnival, that he had hidden among the show folk and slipped across state lines.
• 7:51
  Kristin: Others insisted darker forces were involved Whispers of gambling debts or jealous lovers or something more sinister lurking beneath the town's quiet surface.
• 8:03
  Kristin: Despite widespread suspicion and public outrage, the investigation quickly stalled.
• 8:09
  Kristin: Evidence was scant, witnesses' memories faded or grew suspiciously vague, and no one was ever charged with Ethel Allen's murder.
• 8:18
  Kristin: The official record grew cold.
• 8:20
  Kristin: Her story became more of a warning whisper to young women than a case anyone believed would ever be solved.
• 8:28
  Kristin: Ethel Allen was laid to rest in Georgiana Cemetery on Merritt Island, just a short drive from where her body was found.
• 8:36
  Kristin: Her grave is humble, a handmade stone worn by saltwater and time, bearing only her name and dates.
• 8:43
  Kristin: Yet it draws visitors.
• 8:45
  Kristin: Still fresh flowers, coins and trinkets Uneven handwritten letters, appear at her resting place, placed by those who remember her or those who are simply moved by the tragic weight of her story.
• 8:58
  Kristin: Some say Ethel's spirit lingers in Georgiana's cemetery.
• 9:02
  Kristin: That on cold November nights you can feel a sudden drop in temperature near her grave.
• 9:07
  Kristin: That if you listen carefully, beneath the rustle of Spanish moss and the cheering of crickets, you just might hear the faint echo of her voice crying out for the justice that never came.
• 9:19
  Kristin: Others claim she's not bound to the grave at all and that on rare nights, when the fog rolls off the Indian River and covers Merritt Island like a shroud, a young woman in a cardigan sweater can be seen walking the roadside, her face obscured, in shadow, searching for a way home.
• 9:37
  Kristin: She was denied.
• 9:39
  Kristin: Ethan Allen's story is one of violence, mystery and heartbreaking injustice.
• 9:44
  Kristin: Nearly a century later, her memory endures, not because she found peace, but because those who passed by her simple grave could not help but feel the heavy silence she left behind.
• 9:57
  Kristin: The tavern where she was last seen, now called Ashley's Restaurant, has its own reputation.
• 10:03
  Kristin: Lights flicker, doors slam.
• 10:05
  Kristin: Staff reported seeing a woman in 1930s-style clothing lingering near the ladies' restroom or pacing the upstairs hallway.
• 10:14
  Kristin: Her face is sometimes visible, other times just a shadow.
• 10:19
  Kristin: There are those who believe this is Ethel, still seeking peace, so wanting for someone to tell her story with the weight and care it deserves.
• 10:28
  Kristin: And so, nearly a century later, her case remains unsolved.
• 10:32
  Kristin: Her memory lingers not only in stone and newspaper clippings, but in the spaces she once knew in the river breeze, in the old tavern's floorboards and in the shade of Crooked Mile.
• 10:48
  Kristin: Cemetery is easily overlooked, its modest precedence, eclipsed by the towering marbles of the nearby Kennedy Space Center.
• 10:56
  Kristin: Tourists speed past with their eyes turned skyward, chasing rockets and the promise of distant worlds, never realizing that just beyond the veil of trees, a different kind of history lingers, one rooted not in triumph but in tragedy.
• 11:12
  Kristin: Ethel Allen's story, and those of countless others, live not in headlines but in whispers, carried by the moss-draped oaks that shade the forgotten dead.
• 11:23
  Kristin: As the sun slips beneath the horizon, the cemetery awakens.
• 11:27
  Kristin: Spanish monsters like ghostly curtains in a thickening air, and the world seems to hold its breath.
• 11:34
  Kristin: Paranormal investigators, thrill-seekers and the quietly curious gather at its rusty gates, drawn by rumors of the restless and the unseen, hoping for even the faintest brush with the other side.
• 11:48
  Kristin: Though modest in size, Georgiana Cemetery holds a heavy, inescapable presence, one that clings to visitors like the humid Florida night, leaving them glancing over their shoulders long after they've left.
• 12:01
  Kristin: To walk its grounds is a step into a forgotten 90s horror film, where the spirits are patient and darkness feels endless and the line between the living and the dead blurs just a little too easy.
• 12:13
  Kristin: The next time you pass by Merritt Island, remember not everything that reaches for you comes from the stars.
• 12:20
  Kristin: At Georgiana Cemetery, some things still wait beneath the moss and not all of them stay buried.
• 12:27
  Kristin: The grave grind for Georgiana Cemetery was a blended, sweet, plain café con leche from Café de Havana.
• 12:35
  Kristin: For more honorary crimes in the area, please visit the-grim.
• 12:38
  Kristin: com.
• 12:40
  Kristin: For now we're closing the gate on Georgiana Cemetery.
• 12:43
  Kristin: We hope you enjoyed our dig into history If you did subscribe today to join us next time when we open the gate on the Grim.