Does the ghost of Sigrid Stevenson still haunt Kendall Hall? According to rumors at what is now The College of New Jersey, yes, it does.
The murder of 25-year-old graduate student Stevenson happened just as classes were gearing up in fall 1977. The campus was already abuzz due to stories of the Son of Sam terrorizing nearby New York City, but when the murder was in one of the university’s buildings? That brought the terror home.
Shortly before midnight on Sunday, September 4, a campus police officer noticed a bicycle that had been left chained up near Kendall Hall. All of the building’s external doors were locked, and the last people said to have used the facility was a group of actors and theater crew members. One theory supposes Stevenson had attended that performance, and stayed behind by herself to practice on the building’s piano. Again, though, that’s just one theory.
When the officer entered Kendall Hall that night, he spotted a blood trail on the stage that led to the piano. He lifted the instrument’s dust cover and found Sigrid’s lifeless body stashed beneath it. She had been stripped naked and tied up, her head and facial features so badly bludgeoned that a professor could only identify Stevenson by her hair color.
Police found no sign of robbery. The medical examiner found no evidence of sexual assault, and determined that Stevenson died of a fractured skull, compounded by profuse bleeding.
Although they lacked modern tools such as DNA testing, investigators questioned more than 100 individuals in their pursuit of justice. Among those interrogated, dozens took lie-detector tests, including at least one campus police officer. Divers scoured a local lake in hope of finding a murder weapon. Nothing turned up. Authorities reportedly even brought in a psychic to zero effect.
No leads, let alone conclusions, emerged — not then in 1977 and still, 39 years later, not now. Police have never even been able to name a single suspect. Click here to see a photograph of Stevenson.
All that persists is the rumor of Sigrid Stevenson’s ghost in Kendall Hall, along with the tragic questions of her loved ones that remain unanswered.
Read more:
The College of New Jersey Signal
NJ.com
Weird NJ
Photo: Dedicated Public Domain (CC0) Photo of Kendall Hall taken by Tom Sulcer.