I think that the mysterys in life that play with your mind are by far the most disturbing, don't you? s your imagine can make things much worse than they may really be. I've heard it said that our imagination can be our biggest enemy! However, the imagination wasn't the only bad thing for this young girl. I'm sure that it only helped intensify the situation, though!
The Phantom Whistler
1950
In February, eighteen year old Jacquelyn Cadow of Paradis, Louisiana began hearing wolf whistles outside her bedroom window at night. The home she shared with her mother was also broken into by an intruder. She reported the incidents to the authorities, but nothing came of it. Night after night, she heard the same whistles until she announced her engagement to State Trooper Herbert Belsom. The whistler changed his tune to a menacing funeral dirge.
Around this time, Jacquelyn also received telephone threats, the voice on the other end of the call promising to come to her home and stick a knife in her if she went ahead with her marriage. Her sleep continued to be broken by whistling dirges and bloodcurdling moans. Newspapers picked up the story, and hundreds of curiosity seekers began driving by the house in the hope of catching a glimpse of the phantom whistler or his victim.
Jacquelyn suffered a collapse when she, her mother, her aunt, and a New Orleans States-Item reporter heard the whistler at work. The reporter and Belsom searched the yard, but found no one. Investigations by the State police and the sheriff’s office turned up nothing. The harassed bride-to-be, her nerves shattered, tried staying with relatives. The whistler soon followed. And when she went to the home of Belsom’s parents, the whistler called her mother with a message: “Tell Jackie I know she’s at Herbert’s house.”
On October 1, she and Belsom married. Was the whistler at the wedding as he’d promised? If so, he never spoke up, nor did he carry out his threats. The local sheriff considered the case closed—a hoax by persons he declined to name. Who was the phantom whistler and why did he choose to terrify Jacquelyn Cadow? We’ll never know.
I do hope that this young girl was finally able to get on with her life. Maybe she was able chaulk this whole thing up to a very bad experience and move forward to a much more peaceful life.
We better have our coffee inside this morning. A little storm is bringing in some bad weather.
