Ghost hunters to explore Decatur courthouse

Cathy Vogel gets a creepy feeling when she approaches the door to a rarely used marble staircase at the Old Courthouse on the Square in Decatur.

“I just felt like there was something back there,” Vogel said, of the first time she came close to the door, “an overwhelming feeling of sadness.”

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Joey Ivansco/jivansco@ajc.com

Leslie Borger of the Dekalb History Center climbs a staircase in Decatur’s Old Courthouse that has given some visitors chills.

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On Saturday night, a local ghost-hunter group will check out the claims of Vogel and others that something otherworldly lives in that four-story stairwell.

A metro area all-volunteer group called GRASP — Georgia Research of Apparitional Sightings and the Paranormal — will unleash its infrared cameras, electromagnetic field detectors, audiorecorders and laser thermometers on the 1898 building that has not been used as a courthouse since the 1960s.

With 10 investigations already under its belt, GRASP contacted the DeKalb History Center about a month ago.

“They asked if we knew of any haunted buildings in DeKalb County and we said, ‘Yes, our building!’ ” said heritage educator Leslie Borger.

The old granite courthouse is now home to the history center, and what was once the Superior Courtroom is now an open marble-walled, high-ceilinged ballroom that’s a popular rental spot for weddings, parties and meetings.

The staircase that leads to the back of the courtroom is said to be the lone staircase that was used to transport prisoners. It’s virtually abandoned and has not been significantly altered possibly since 1918, Borger said, when the interior of the courthouse was rebuilt after a fire.

A History Center newsletter from the 1990s recounts a volunteer’s experience with the door that Vogel, a former center board member, dreads nearing.

According to the article, the volunteer said a visitor stopped in his tracks at the door, felt cold and sensed someone was behind the stairs crying and saying he wasn’t guilty.

Vogel spent many hours at the courthouse during the early 1990s, helping reopen the building after the History Center conducted the building’s major renovation.

“I never ran into the cold,” Vogel said, of her experience at the staircase door, “but I didn’t stick around for long.”

On Saturday night, Kennesaw resident Benjamin Carroll, founder of GRASP, and 12 members of his group, will stick around for six hours — not in hopes of finding something unusual, but to try to explain the unexplained.

“Our main goal is to find the logical reason behind seemingly abnormal circumstances,” Carroll said, of his group’s pro bono work. “We’re mostly about research and about helping people who are afraid, especially children who are afraid.”

After reviewing what’s captured by eight cameras and 10 audiorecorders, GRASP will let the History Center know what it found, if anything.

Ninety percent of the time, weird phenomena can be logically explained, Carroll said.

“Even if something’s there,” Carroll said, “most of the time it’s nothing to be afraid of.”