The Season of the Witch With Halloween fast approaching we must share with you the tale of an alleged witch from Philly's foggy folkloric past. Of course, the term "witch" was once applied to any individual who seemed to harbor dark powers, whether in the form of prediction, healing or the art of voodoo, and many such people were often perceived as evil and usually exorcised in the only way possible—by death. Tuggy the so-called......

The Swan Day Spa in wealthy Berwyn on the Main Line was a front for a brothel, and the three people who ran it were arrested in Nevada and Pennsylvania yesterday. Vandals pushed over more than 200 headstones at a historic African American cemetery in Collingdale, including the stone of famed Philadelphia civil-rights activist Octavius V. Catto. A state trooper and member of a collision/accident-reconstruction team in Philadelphia was arrested for allegedly using his state-issued......

"Two bills aimed at cleaning up commercial breeding kennels in Pennsylvania are slated for committee votes in Harrisburg today." A new veterans cemetery to be known as Washington Crossing National Cemetery is scheduled to start construction in Bucks County next year, with the first burials starting toward the end of the year. The plans for the new cemetery will be available for review tonight during a public briefing by the Department of Veterans Affairs at......

Fiery Ghosts! One of the most classic anomalies this strange planet has ever produced is known as "ball lightning." It's a phenomenon that has been suggested to be anything from ghostly activity, to electricity in the air, to a will-o-the-wisp-type effect, to the fiery origin of Spontaneous Human Combustion. Such manifestations have also been connected to phantom hounds, with many such bizarre ghost dogs often appearing at first as balls of fire, or transforming into......

Hellhounds! The black phantom dog is one of the world's most sinister and intriguing legends. Several theories have been put forward to explain such ghastly spectres which take on varying forms, but always have the characteristics of huge, fiery-eyed dogs. Such manifestations have been observed headless and often roaming old cemeteries, whilst on other occasions they have been seen wearing heavy chains around their necks. Ghostly hellhounds also appear red, white, yellow and blue in......

Laurel Hill Cemetery is haunted - according to South Jersey Paranormal Research, anyway. 2,350 unionized janitors and maintenance workers who clean Center City buildings could strike at midnight tonight when their contracts expire, unless they come to an agreement with management before then. Talks are continuing, so we'll see what happens... Around 12:50AM Saturday morning in Springfield Township, Delaware County, an 18-year-old recent Springfield High School graduate driving a 2004 Ford Mustang Cobra struck......

The Inquirer has the details on yesterday's Phillies pep rally, which folks are claiming was the largest pep rally in the city's history. Today is the one year anniversary of the Amish school shooting. The Penn student who died on September 9th of meningococcal meningitis was discharged from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania only days earlier and told she had a viral infection that would soon clear up. Penn officials are still claiming......

Performances: A Twilight Performance of Spoon River Anthology (The Late Laureates of Laurel Hill ) (No Future Showtimes.) Pulling up the rear in this edition of the Phillyist Philly-Live-Fringical-of-Arts Diary series we celebrate the ultimate Halloween pre-game. Just in time for CVS' pre-pre-trick-or-treating candy fest comes a reading from the dead in a place of the dead with a cast and audience pretty close to death themselves (I jest, of course. Respect your elders kids!)......

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This suburban Phillyist used to work in the city, and commuted daily into Center City via SEPTA from Paoli. Imagine our surprise one day when, blearily staring out the window as the suburban landscape rushed by, we saw a tiny cemetery and historical marker mere feet away from the train tracks. Not quite convinced that we'd hallucinated the stone fence-enclosed minuscule graveyard, we made it our mission over the next few weeks to figure out......

Yesterday we told you the disturbing details of a domestic dispute, wherein a woman attacked her boyfriend with a knife. But today we have a perhaps even more disturbing story: an Erie, PA woman was having a fight with her boyfriend and decided to strike him with the only weapon she had handy - her own 4-week-old baby boy. She swung the child through the air and hit her boyfriend with the baby's head. The......

- Is the Phanatic bummed about the Phil's latest performance? Phreaking Philly thinks so. - The CLOG questions the veracity of a ghost sighting in a cemetery in Berks County. - Are you a local musician? Then snooble and RadioGrounds would like to hear from you. -Is the Philly condo bubble about to burst? (We sure hope so. Someday we'd like to be able to afford exorbitant condo fees instead of just exorbitant rental......

Mother's Day has Philadelphia origins, having been conceived by resident Anna May Jarvis, as well as recognized here first as an official holiday. We only feel the need to share these facts because this Sunday is Mother's Day (and if you're just realizing this now, Phillyist has to warn you that all the good Mother's Day cards are already taken), and we wanted to let you know there are some things happening around town to......

94 years ago this month, The Titanic made her first and final voyage. Six of her passengers are interred in Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery, and on April 8th, the historic boneyard will be hosting a Titanic-themed memento mori. R.M.S. Titanic - 95 Years Later: Her Victims and Survivors will take guests on a guided tour of the cemetery to visit the burial sites of the six passengers and to learn their stories, following which they......

Apparently the ground underneath Philly is loaded with bodies. The Philadelphia School District was using a ground-penetrating radar to scan the abandoned Franklin playground in Kensington - which was a cemetery up until the late 1940s, and which they hoped in the future would be the site of a new Frances E. Willard School - when they discovered that as many as 330 human graves were never removed. They probably won't be able to......

We see dead people. You might too, considering you can't swing a dead cat in Philadelphia without hitting someone with a ghost story. Professional ghost hunters like the Philadelphia Ghost Hunters Alliance probably never have a shortage of haunted sites to investigate. But you don't have to be a professional or go on a tour to find the spirits -- you simply need to know where to look. Phillyist recommends just hanging out in......

Historic Laurel Hill Cemetary - where the city's historic dead look over the bluff at the Schuylkill River - has two ways for you to get your Halloween Haunting on. On October 22nd, you can attend the Grave Digger's Ball - a black-tie fundraiser being held on the cemetery grounds from 7PM till the witching hour. Ball festivities will include a seated dinner, an open bar, a silent auction, and - for the braver among......