Stafford Cabin

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Sam and Sarah happened to be on their yearly hike through the woods on that cold, damp, fall evening, when they noticed the unexpected light in the window.

The Cabin was on Sarah’s family land, and nobody had inhabited that cabin for 60 years, not since the tragedy that occurred so long ago.

In the fall of 1962, a family was brutally murdered in the cabin. Years went by before anyone would attempt to stay at what was once known as the most beautiful and peaceful place to stay on the Stafford Hills Land, The Stafford Cabin.

The family tried to open the cabin to visitors, but nobody was able to stay an entire night. They fled in sheer horror without explanation as to what they had witnessed. The cabin slowly began to deteriorate and each attempt to destroy the cabin came with its own inexplicable and unfortunate fatal accidents.

Finally, the family lost hope in trying to do anything with the cabin and eventually abandoned that area of the woods, letting nature take its course.

Sam was always more of a risk taker, and while Sarah was more level-headed, even she was curious to find out who could possibly be in the cabin. Sam loved a good mystery and with excitement and without reserve, he took off with a quick pace towards the cabin. Sarah’s intrigue, however, quickly dissipated and was replaced with crippling anxiety the closer she got to the cabin. Every step she took up the crumbling path became more difficult with the intensity of her heart beat and the heaviness of her own hiking boots slowing her down. She was regretting her decision to go along with Sam’s plan, and she felt something was very, very wrong.

Sam arrived first and impatiently encouraged Sarah to move faster. Once she arrived at the rotting porch of the cabin, they both peeked through the window and saw what appeared to be the silhouette of an elderly woman facing away from the window. Sam banged on the window to get the woman’s attention with no success. They heard a deep, guttural voice quietly say, “come to me, come to me, help me find what he took from me”.

The woman slowly turned towards the window, and Sam and Sarah were shocked at sight of the woman. Her cheeks were sunken in, as well as the sockets where her eyes should be. Her white hair was matted and dirty and they noticed a gaping bloody hole in the side of her head. She had something small in her bony hands that looked like bloody clothing. Although it was a frightening sight, Sam’s feelings quickly changed from fear of the woman to pity for her and he left Sarah’s side.

Sarah was frightened and panicked and felt hot searing pain in her left side and skull. She reached for Sam crying and screaming and that was when she noticed that Sam was in the cabin with the old woman. She screamed for him, but he couldn’t hear her. She saw another figure enter the room, with Sam and the old woman, with a huge ax. She tried to scream out to Sam to warn him of the man in the room, but the pain in her head was so excruciating she could barely scream, it distorted her vision, and she couldn’t see what was happening inside the cabin. She clenched her teeth and grabbed her head and that was when she noticed that she was bleeding from a gaping hole in her head and before collapsing to the ground the last thing she saw was Sam’s bloodied face.

The Cabin lay a mile north of our campsite here, and every fall you can still hear the cries of the old woman “come to me, come to me, help me find what he took from me”.

She was looking for her murdered children Sam and Sarah.

What we know is that 60 years ago, on a cold, damp fall evening, Elise Stafford and her two children Sam and Sarah Stafford were staying at the Cabin. Elise and Sam were found murdered inside the Cabin and Sarah outside the cabin, all with fatal head wounds.

It is believed that every year on the Anniversary of the murders, Elise shines a candle in the window of the cabin, so that her two children can find their way back to her, and Sam and Sarah make their hike to relive the horror of their untimely death.

To this day, they have not found out who murdered the Stafford Family.