Archive for the ‘What Were They Thinking?’ Category

A mother and her teenage son were among six people arrested early today “hunting for ghosts” amid the abandoned cluster of century-old brick wards at the former Essex County Hospital Center, officials said.

“There are no ghosts, goblins or boogie men at the old hospital complex,” Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said after his officers and Cedar Grove police made the arrests.

The patrols came upon two empty vehicles parked on Upland Way on the sprawling campus, whose brick structures are being demolished to make way for a 90-acre passive park.

As they combed the dark grounds shortly after 1 a.m., they spotted a trespasser, dressed entirely in black, running through the adjacent woods, officials said. In minutes, four men and two women — all from Hudson County — were arrested.

The six said they were ghost-hunting, officials said.

“That’s what they told the officers,” Fontoura said. “People find weird ways to get kicks. … I hope people will come to their senses. The only thing you’re going to find is a uniformed cop, and that’s not a ghost.”

The suspects were identified as David Cerezo, 39, of Weehawken; Jose Marti, 25, of Union City; Michael Lyngholm, 18; Antoniett Degirolamo, 39, her son, Brian Degirolamo, 18; and his friend, Gina Ambrosio, 18, all of Secaucus, officials said.

They were charged with defiant trespass, criminal trespass and obstruction of the administration of law and issued summons to appear in municipal court in Cedar Grove.

Today, Armando said trespassers, who will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, can get injured in the darkened buildings and even fall through a floor.

In early 2007, Essex County moved the last of the patients out of the sprawling, 16-building complex in Cedar Grove to a new $83 million hospital less than a mile away.

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The three teens told police they heard the Old Salem Jail is haunted and wanted to take pictures.

Three Revere teens on the hunt for ghosts at the Old Salem Jail yesterday will tell a judge today why they should stay out of the current jail.

Police arrested Jeremy McCarthy, 18, Anthony Enriquez, 19, and Anthony Pio, 18, on charges of breaking and entering to commit a misdemeanor and trespassing. One of the teens did have a camera with him.

Police Lt. Scott Englehardt said police received a call at 6:20 p.m. to say three men jumped a fence at the old jail property, which is under construction.

Patrolmen James Johnson, Rafael Gonzales and Brian St. Pierre responded to the Old Salem Jail and jumped the fence themselves.

New Boston Ventures plans to convert the jail, a burned-out jail keeper’s house and a crumbling old barn, which will be replaced, into 23 residences.

In addition, they plan a restaurant and a jail exhibit space, which will display three of the old jail cells. Some of the cell doors will be inlaid into the walls of the corridors of the main jail building.

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