So, this family found an ancient coffin in their backyard — and probably a ghost too
A family in San Francisco had been hearing footsteps in their backyard for years, and they had no idea why. Well, we’ve been alive long enough to know that the answer to these kinds of situations is usually a ghost. What else could it be?
Sure enough, construction workers discovered a coffin in the family’s backyard. Like we said — ghost. The coffin was from the 1800s, and it held the ghost body of a 2-year-old girl who died from a protein deficiency in 1876. Her name was Edith Howard Cook. Ericka and John Karner, the couple living in the haunted house, said the presence of footsteps was there since they moved in, and they knew it wasn’t from their kids.
"When we discovered her we thought, 'That could be my little girl,'" John Karner told the local ABC station.
The Karners were especially moved when they found that the protein deficiency she died from could have easily been cured today, and Edith’s life would have been spared.
After the coffin was removed from the Karner backyard, the Garden of Innocence National, a nonprofit that provides dignified burials for abandoned children, gave little Edith a tombstone at Colma’s Green Lawn Cemetery with “The Child Loved Round The World” etched into it.
The freakiest part about the story is that, now that the coffin is gone and placed in a proper cemetery, the Karners no longer hear any ghost footsteps puttering around their backyard.
We guess Edith has found her rightful resting place, so we’ll have to bid a bittersweet farewell to this cute little ghost for now.