We have created an audio version of Sena Maddison’s “The Whitmire Ghoul: What We Know.” Sena adds more details from the police reports and the FBI file on a case that continues to be a significant part of Pensacola’s local folklore, with the story being passed down through generations.
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Over the years, we have received several emails about the case. In 2007, a retired CID criminal investigator (FBI and Scotland Yard trained) wrote:
“It has been a fascinating but, thus far, frustrating search for official information pertaining to the so-called “Whitmire Cemetery Ghoul” (1957-58). The PNJ completely ignores any of my email requests for info. The ECSO claims the absence of both memory and files of this incident. The PPD has not responded to my email inquiry. Mr. John Appleyard, our esteemed historian, simply has no memory of this bit of local history. Then, I recalled your newspaper is in the business of reporting news that our local “guardians of the truth” conceal from us. I found your brief past article pertaining to the Whitmire Ghoul.
I was 11 years old at the time of the incident in question and recall much of the printed PNJ news at the time. I am looking into this case as a hobby, but I don’t believe it went unsolved, and I don’t believe our local police had been so inefficient as not to have utilized available physical evidence.
I am sure there had been plenty, including size 13 shoe prints, that could have aided in the search for the identity and apprehension of the perpetrator. I am asking for your help in locating sources, historical files, newspaper archives, and anything that will assist me in this endeavor.
It is difficult for me to believe that there is a local family (as rumor had it at the time ) still so powerful that after 50 years, they can stifle the truth. Apparently, the PNJ and local police agencies are not in the business of providing this type of information.
Do any of you bloggers, or your parents and grandparents, remember the Whitmire Cemetery Ghoul?”