Puzzle Palooza Owner Reports Possible Ghostly Presence in Occoquan

A ghostly child may be haunting Puzzle Palooza in Occoquan, according to owner Donna Carleton and local paranormal investigator Kay Pietrewicz.

Puzzle Palooza opened earlier this year and sells puzzles of all kinds. Since opening the shop in February, Carleton and her business partner Holly VandenHeuvel have observed many incidents that they chalk up to paranormal activity.

Carleton met with Pietrewicz to ask her to communicate with this possible ghost.

A couple weeks after they opened, Carleton called VandenHeuvel's son and suggested that he close up shop early that day, since it was a rainy day.

"The first words out of his mouth were, 'We have a ghost!'" Pietrewicz said. "He went on to say that the lights kept flickering on and off. She dismissed this as just the effects of the stormy weather. Then he told her the internet kept going in and out. He then told her about the door coming open several times."

Pietrewicz asked if they had a back door, to determine whether one door could have opened from the draft from another door. However, the son insisted he had closed the door properly, and that it kept opening anyway.

"While she was on the phone with him she heard a bang in the background," Pietrewicz said. "She said, 'What was that?' He said a puzzle had just fallen of the shelf. Once again, there could be a logical explanation, but it made her question whether there might, in fact, be something paranormal happening."

VandenHeuvel also reported a strange encounter. After coming in to work one day, she put her lunch in the refrigerator in the back room. At noon, she came back to get her lunch, and noticed that there were four puzzle boxes set end to end just in front of the refrigerator door, so close that she would have disturbed the boxes had they been there when she had put her lunch into the refrigerator that morning, Pietrewicz said.

"Donna was very much intrigued by the events, so one day she left a floor puzzle out with a couple of pieces left to the side. When she came in the next day, she noticed a piece of the puzzle had been completed and that some towels she had put in the back had been left on top of the pile," Pietrewicz said. "Donna decided to try leaving another puzzle out on the bench.  When she came in again, not only was the puzzle completed, but it was moved to another part of the bench."

After pulling out her TASCOM DR-05 recorder and dowsing rods, Pietrewicz set out to try to communicate with this reported ghost. From the recording and activity, Pietrewicz said that the building is haunted by a 7-year-old boy named Tad who was an only child. His father worked in Occoquan, and he did not have the use of his left arm.

Have you experienced any activity that you believe to be paranormal? Find out more about Haunted Occoquan at haunted-occoquan.com.