Book lists 32 haunted spots in state

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- For a man who considers himself somewhat skeptical when it comes to the supernatural, Jason Offutt has had several brushes with ghostly phenomenon himself.

Offutt has published his new book -- "Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to the Show-Me State's Most Spirited Spots."

Does he believe in ghosts?

"I get that question a lot," he said. "Belief ... you don't have to have evidence to believe something. But I like to have evidence to believe that something exists.

"That being said, when I was 10, I saw the ghost of a little boy standing in my house."

He writes: "He was dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans, his hair was dark and tousled. He didn't smile. He didn't frown. He didn't say anything. He just looked at me and I just looked at -- and through -- him. Yeah, through."

Offutt said he never told anyone about the boy because he knew people wouldn't believe him.

But the boy is why he wrote the book.

"There are things we don't know about. Things that wander in and out of the shadows in your home," he added.

Offutt always has been interested in the paranormal. As a boy he loved stories about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster.

When he was in college, he took a writing class filled with people who said they wanted to write a novel. But none of them did.

"I didn't want to be like one of those people," he said, so he wrote a fantasy novel upon graduation that never was published.

His newest book -- his third -- apparently is more engaging; a steady flow of interested buyers flowed into the Downtown Book and Toy recently for a book signing. At the Borders bookstore in St. Joseph, visitors lined up before the appointed time to get their copies signed.

Many of the visitors want to relate to him their own paranormal experiences.

The book is a guide for people interested in visiting 32 of Missouri's public haunted spots.

Offutt said he had three criteria for including a site. "I wanted every place to be historic, open to the public and haunted," he said. "I wanted people to be able to visit every place I talk about in the book."

Not all the ghosts are frightening. Carrie Crittenden, a former governor's daughter who died of diptheria, reportedly haunts the Governor's Mansion.

"She's a friendly ghost," said Mary Pat Abele, director of Missouri Mansion Preservation Inc.

During his research, Offutt experienced some of the paranormal activity others had reported before him.

For example, at the Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, Offutt walked into "an area of cold deep enough to raise goosebumps on my arms and dry the sweat on my temples."

In an unrelated incident, Offutt said he's generally skeptical of psychics. But when one -- whom he'd just cold-called for an interview -- was able to relate details of his own family's life, he was unnerved.

"So, who knows?" he wondered.

Offutt -- a journalism instructor at Northwest Missouri State University -- said he wanted to retell other people's ghost stories. He's not as interested in experiencing, or debunking, the paranormal himself.

"I'm a journalist," he explains. "I'm not a ghostbuster."