Jess had contacted us though our Instagram account and told us she had both a haunted house AND a haunted car, and that she was not only willing to tell us about them, she invited us over to check them out! From the get go, I knew she was fabulous- not just because we share a name, or because she fed John and I maple sugar bacon when we went to her house to meet her and interview her for Haunted Worcester, but because she’s one of those friendly people who is smart, creative, and has a whole lot of stuff going on.
When we first began chatting, she told us all about her house, how she found it, what she discovered on the initial tour (hellooooo secret doorway to the attic and creepy basement) and what she’s experienced since she bought it and moved in (her house is absolutely haunted). While I was fascinated by those stories (we’ll post the house stories later), I was dying to know more about Lucy, her haunted car.
The following is Jess telling the story of Lucy, transcribed from the recording of our interview:
You want to hear the whole story of Lucy? Well, I had just separated from my ex-husband and I was thinking, what gets you over heartbreak? I should buy something! I suppose if I had been normal, I would have gone out and gotten a manicure. Not me. I was like, I’m going to go out and buy myself a 67 Impala!
I was actually just looking around and I figured my practicality would take over and stop me from buying something crazy. I actually looked at a couple other cars- there was this one Camaro in Hew Hampshire I checked out- but the minute I saw [Lucy], I knew she was my car.
*Note: at this point in the recording I had to interrupt Jess to ask if she had pets in the house as I kept hearing something running up and down the stairs (I thought she may have had a dog in the house and she’d been holding out on me. I love me some puppus snuggles). While she had a dog at one point, it now lived with her step-dad. There were no pets in the house. Being no stranger to ghostly animals (see our story about the ghost cat in our house) we quickly went back to talking about Lucy.
So, I bought Lucy a year and a half ago- July 2017. I found her on Ebay. The guy I bought her from was a deputy warden in the Maine State prison system. They have a program called cars for convicts, or convicts for cars, and people who are low risk offenders- small time drug stuff, small time larceny- they have a program where they can get their ASE certification, so when they get out of prison they can get a job. You know people who get out or are repeat offenders have a hard time finding jobs, so this [program] trains inmates to work on cars and how to restore cars.
So Lucy was a teaching car.
Lucy was in prison.
They put a new carburetor and a new air cleaner and a bunch of newer stuff on her, but they kept all the originals. The deputy warden gave me a box with all of the original stuff in it and said, “Here ya go.” I’m really into original numbers matching, and they had kept all the original stuff! I learned how to restore carburetors just so I could restore hers. I learned how to restore everything so I could restore her to how she was originally. I mean everything- the interior- everything is original on her.
One of the selling points of the car, because I’m a creep, was when you open the trunk, there’s a big red stain on it, as if someone got shot in there. It’s not rust, and it’s not paint. It doesn’t come off.
* Note: someone on the recording burst out with “Holy crap!” at this point. It was totally me.
Yeah, that was one thing, but there’s more. I learned that a guy in Uxbridge owned her previous to her being in the prison in Maine, though the original owner was out in Washington State somewhere. He left her in a barn for years and she got waterlogged, but they cleaned her up. Oh! She does have new carpet. That’s the only part that IS new. There’s some rust on the glove compartment because it’s all metal, but I like it that way.
There’s something else about Lucy. She was burning oil last year, and I knew there had to be an issue with the crankshaft. I don’t have a lift here at the house, so I can do minor things, but not big things. I knew she needed an engine rebuild. I mean, the engine block hadn’t been cracked like, ever. [It] hadn’t been open since 1967. It came of the factory floor and nothing had been done to it.
I took her to my mechanic and he sent her off to an engine place. He came back and said it looked like the crankshaft. Then he said, “I know you want to keep everything original, so we found a guy out in Minnesota, and he’s the foremost crankshaft expert in the world.” or something like that. I didn’t even know that was a thing!
*Note: I didn’t either!
They sent Lucy’s crankshaft out there to be repaired by the guy. They eventually called me and told me she was ready to be picked up. I drove over and I forget exactly how the exchange went, but Bob, the guy who owns the garage, looked really freaked out when I walked in.
I said something to the effect of “I’m sorry Lucy has been such a problem. She just has this energy around her, bad vibes or something.” I was actually joking around, but he just looked at me and sighed this heavy sigh. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I asked if the crankshaft was okay.
He said, “Yeah, everything’s fine, but that’s the last crankshaft that guy’s going to send out.”
“Why, was she so much trouble and now he hates the car or something?”
He just looked at me and said, “No, he’s dead.”
Soooo…. This was uncomfortable, and in uncomfortable situations, I always end up trying to make a joke, and so I blurted out “Did Lucy give him a heart attack?”
Bob said, “Nope. He shipped out your crankshaft and them committed suicide.”
So there I am standing in my mechanics office and all I can say is “Oh God.” All the while I was thinking what the hell to normal people with good social skills do in this situation?! Of course I was horrified, and I was so sorry to hear that, but my next thought was along the lines of, okay, my crazy car killed a man!
I actually have a placard that I take to car shows. I like to think I’m funny and I made it like a little personal ad for her. It says Hello my name is Lucy. Status: Single (If you know of any rust free boy cars, let me know.). Interesting fact: I once killed a man. People ask me about it, and I tell them, because the story is just so crazy.
Once a guy came up and said “That car. That’s… something. I’m getting a feeling about this car.” I didn’t really press him. It was like, 900 degrees out and I didn’t want to get into it. She is her own beast. That car has quite the personality. I almost feel, and this is going to sound weird, that she is talking to me sometimes. I can totally feel that the car is like a living being. She gets a LOT of attention.
Lucy is my girl. I love her. Seriously.
But even I call her Christine sometimes.