Local Ghost Stories of Dubious Truthfulness
The Williams' House
Tucked away in Davis, California, a small college town northeast of San Francisco, lies the site of one of the most brutal murders in American history. As one passes along the quiet, tree-lined street, the Williams house seems to fade into the background -one would never guess that 11 people were butchered in this small, unassuming residence.
The year was 1946 and Davis was in the midst of change. Historically a farming town, Davis had long been dominated by sprawling farms and ranches, but after the founding of University Farm in 1905 (Now known as the University of California, Davis) the town’s population had steadily risen. This rising population called for more housing, and suburbs began appearing along Russell Boulevard and the surrounding areas.
Jonathan Williams, born November 17th, 1910, was a college professor and acclaimed botanist who moved to Davis with his wife, Eleanor, and six year old twin girls, Nancy and Opal. The young family moved to Douglass Avenue, in the midst of the newly constructed suburbs, where they began to settle in.
Williams, eager to prove his worth, began spending long hours working at the University laboratory, where he sought to improve the shelf life of tomatoes through selective breeding and cutting-edge soil additives. Prone to jealousy, Eleanor began to suspect that Jonathan had other, more carnal motives for staying out so late most nights of the week.
On February 23rd, the twins' birthday, Eleanor was excited and eager to please her daughters. She worked tirelessly throughout the day, decorating the house and preparing food for the girls party that night, but as dusk began to fall and guests started to arrive, there was still no sign of Jonathan. Eleanor kept her chin up and put on a façade of gaiety for the guests and her children, but as more hours passed, her husband’s conspicuous absence became too much for her pride to bear. She would teach him that there were consequences for infidelity. She slipped into the kitchen, and emptied a container of arsenic into the cake batter. Later, as the children gathered around the table, donning party hats and blowing noisemakers, Eleanor started singing from the kitchen as she brought the cake into the room. The rest joined in and shadows cast from the flickering candles piercing the white frosting, danced across her stoic face.
Hours later, the guests were writhing on the floor, having consumed a nonlethal dose of arsenic, yet enough to incapacitate them. Eleanor felt that she had failed, so she went into the garage, where she found an old hammer which she used to finish them off, one by one. Apparently this was not enough, as she proceeded to hang the bodies on meat hooks hung from the living room ceiling, where she sat and waited for her husband's arrival wearing her wedding dress drenched in blood, perhaps to remind him of the sacred oaths he had broken.
The ghosts of the twin girls have been reported to peer through windows of neighboring houses. —Davishistorian
