The Ghost of Exit 82 on NJ's Garden State Parkway

Perhaps it's apropos that in our fast moving, highly mobile state, many of our most notable ghosts are seen hanging out at the side of the road, where it is said that they met their untimely demise. These roadside apparitions have been witnessed by countless motorists over the course of several generations. They seem to be content to wander their own stretch of paranormal pavement year in and year out, eternally reenacting their final living moments here on this Earth.

So could a road as legendary as New Jersey's famed Garden State Parkway not have a highway haunting associated with it? No way! Unexplainable encounters and close calls around Exit 82 at Route 37 in Toms River are attributed locally to the "Parkway Phantom." Ever since the completion of the Parkway in 1955, people have reported seeing a person trying to cross the road, waving his arms. This Phantom appears only at night and only around an eight-mile stretch in the vicinity of Toms River Barracks of the New Jersey State Police. The apparition is described as being very tall with a long topcoat belted at the waist. The strangest thing about this apparition is the way he waves his arms, which is synchronously, both bending from the elbow. It has been described as looking like a strange football cheer. Although the State Police are reluctant to comment, a former state trooper admitted that that section of the highway has seen more than its fair share of auto accidents.

Weird NJ readers share their stories of the Parkway Phantom:

We all work as paramedics in Ocean County, and we see a lot of fatal accidents. About five years ago, on a rainy night along the spot on the Parkway where it is also Route 9, there was a guy whose car broke down on the curve. He pulled off to the side and began to walk along the shoulder when a driver hit him, throwing him into the woods and killing him.

When the paramedics got there they knew someone had been hit, but due to the darkness and rain they could not find him. They finally did and tried to revive him, but it was too late. Several weeks later the same medic crew was coming back from Kimball Medical Center in Lakewood, heading toward Toms River, when they saw someone on the side of the road waving them down. By the time they were able to pull over and back up to the spot the man was gone, but they noticed it was in the same spot where the man was hit only weeks before. They just blew off the event until..........

Read Full Story: Asbury Park Press

THE PEOPLE'S COURT Case of the Tom's River Haunted House (video)

Several months ago a family moved into a house in Tom's River N.J. after one week they moved out claiming the house was haunted, the landlord was not to happy. Claiming that the house was not haunted and wanted to sue the family for breaking the lease. Well they decided to settle their grievances on TV or as we know it "The People's Court".

"This is a case about the New Jersey Tom's River couple, Josue Chinchilla and Michele Callan, who claim that their house that they rented is haunted with a ghostly past where they are hearing voices and things moving around at random times and even an cross turned upside with the ghosts making marks on their body as well"! 

The question is, in a court of law, is this story enough to get their money back and leave the exorcist embodied house??

Well the episode aired last week and is now available for you viewing pleasure "below" and in 2 parts

Enjoy !!!

NJ Haunted House case heads to People's Court

TOMS RIVER — Don’t take the supernatural into your own hands, you take ‘em to court.

A Toms River couple filed a lawsuit in April against their landlord for renting an alleged haunted house. Both parties have agreed to have their case heard on the nationally syndicated television program, “The People’s Court.”

Kerstin Augur, publicist for the show, confirmed Wednesday that the case will be heard today before Judge Marilyn Milian in the program’s New York studio.


While a studio audience will be present for the taping of the program, the television courtroom is closed to the general public as well as to the media, and the outcome of the case is not expected to be released until the program airs in a few weeks, or even a few months. All of the parties also are required to sign contracts stipulating to such secrecy.

Josue Chinchilla and Michele Callan, 37 and 36 respectively, who are engaged to be married, moved into the home March 1 with Callan’s teenage daughter and 6-year-old son.

After the family settled into their new residence, they said they would come home and find their clothes and towels ejected from closets and strewn over the floors. Doors would creak open and slam closed in unoccupied parts of the house.

Toms River NJ Family Flee Haunted House (video)

Michele Callan, daughter Ashley and fiancé Josue Chinchilla

Just one week after Josue Chinchilla and Michele Callan moved into their new home in Toms River, the couple and her two children plodded into the lobby of a local hotel about 1:15 a.m. and asked for a room.

As soon as the family had settled into the three-bedroom ranch at the corner of Terrace and Lowell avenues on March 1, they began to suspect they were not its only tenants.

The family would come home and find their clothes and towels ejected from the closets and strewn over the floors. Doors would creak open and slam closed in unoccupied areas of the house. Lights switched on and off without human intervention. At night, footsteps could be heard from the kitchen after everyone was tucked in and unintelligible whispering seemed to fade in and out of thin air, according to the couple.

The most disturbing and consistent phenomenon, they claim, is the sound that comes through the vents to the basement — the muffled din of something lumbering seven feet below their feet.