Legend has it that a young woman was killed in Warriner Hall many years ago after her head was crushed by an elevator.

The legends claim the girl’s ghost haunts Warriner Hall and in one of the windows, lights can be seen flickering and her silhouette can be seen.

Is this just an urban legend?

According to a June 2, 1937, edition of Central State Life (the predecessor of Central Michigan Life), Theresa Elizabeth Schumacher, a 19-year-old cafeteria worker from Nottawa Township, was killed May 29 after her head was trapped within a small window in a door leading to an elevator shaft. She died from strangulation.

It remains unclear as to why her head was in the door. There were no witnesses to the incident.

Cindy Smith worked as a custodian in Warriner Hall throughout the ’90s and said she has encountered the ghost many times.

She said the elevator would open and close by itself.

“There was one time, I was in the elevator and the door flew open,” she said. “The ghost came on and went down to the basement with me.”

Smith said she saw the ghost flash across the stage in Plachta Auditorium and her vacuum would occasionally turn on and off by itself.

Smith eventually got used to the ghost and would even be friendly with her.

“I would ask if she wanted to help me clean and would give it a rag to help,” she said.

Is it real?

Keith Voeks, assistant director of University Events, had a similar experience while with director Bob Ebner.

One night in 1982, they were taking down a show set on the stage of Warriner Hall’s Plachta Auditorium.

It was late at night and they were by themselves. The doors had already been locked. Then, out of nowhere, a shadow-like apparition ran across the stage.

“We saw a shadow move across the stage and we were out of there in no less than 30 seconds,” Voeks said.

He said in the 1980s, the stage had a fire curtain, which worked as a wall that would come down over the stage and protect the audience from a fire if one broke out.

Voeks said the fire curtain would malfunction by falling and crushing things.

“We would constantly find broken chairs and music stands,” he said.

One night, Voeks said he saw the fire curtain right on top of the piano.

But the piano remained unharmed with only a layer of dust on the surface from the speed of the fire curtain.

“Theresa was playing with us,” Voeks said. “At the very least the piano lid would have been broken.”

Keeping an eye out

Voeks said he has received many reports of seeing lights from the sixth set of windows on Warriner Hall.

But that cannot be possible, he said. The sixth set of lights is an empty space of only about five feet between the fifth floor and the roof.

No lights were ever installed.

He said it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Theresa’s spirit could revisit the place of her death.

“I do believe Theresa is a spirit that keeps an eye on Warriner,” Voeks said.

E-mail the author: Joe Borlik