The subject, a current student at University of Southern California, and a personal friend of mine, told me this legend about her friend’s mom in Switzerland. I asked my friends in my dorm room if they had any ghost stories, and my friend, the subject, stepped up. The subject learned of this ghost story when she was at a sleepover in middle school. As a standard activity at a sleepover, the subject and her friends started telling ghost stories, when her friend’s mom volunteered to tell a legend that personally happened to her. This event happened to her friend’s mom when she was a teenager, when she lived in Rochester, New York.

Transcript of the legend:

My friend’s mom was driving in the car with her and a couple of friends down this like isolated forest where a little girl had been murdered a couple years back. So as they were driving they heard some like random screaming but they didn’t think it was anything so they continued driving. But the screaming gets louder and louder and then like all of a sudden they see like a figure run past the car and they freak out and they like stop the car and then they look in the forest and they see the dead corpse of the girl who was like walking in the forest. They knew it was the girl because apparently she was wearing the clothing they found her in, because they found that girl’s dead body in a particular clothing that was torn up. They had pictures on the news and stuff because it was a known murder and it was a small town. They sped off and just went home and told their parents, and the parents though they were lying but to this day her mom refuses to drive past the forest in Rochester. 

It is very common for ghosts to appear at the place where they died because it has strong emotional connections to the deceased. I believe that there would be an apparition where the girl died, because she was murdered and therefore has unfinished business. Not only was there a visual, but there was also auditory sensory of the girl screaming. I believe that the ghost of the girl is there to warn people of the dangers that a forest- a place where danger lurks.