Woman on route 127

My mother still lives in the same small village of New Miami where I grew up. I have made the 4 ½ mile trip from my home in Hamilton to hers hundreds of times over the years with out incident. Tonight, however, that all changed.

I was driving my mother home from having dinner at my house. We were heading down the stretch of Route 127 that connects Hamilton to New Miami when we saw the strangest thing. A woman was walking along side the road. Her back was toward us and she looked so out of place with her style of clothing. As well as the fact that she had no coat on and it was pouring the rain and freezing outside. My mother made the comment, “That woman is just asking for trouble out walking this road at this time of night.” The time was 11:10 p.m.

I finished driving my mother home and seen her safely inside, and then I headed back to town. Coming down the same stretch of Route 127, I seen I was approaching the woman who now was on the same side of the road as I was.

I thought I should stop and see if she needed a ride back into the village. I knew she had to be frozen. I slowed my mini van down and just started to roll down the passenger side window and yelled at her to get her attention. She was even with the passenger window now. She turned her head to look at me, and I about died with what I saw.

She had long blond hair that framed a skeleton face. Her jaw dropped and this horrifying scream came out. Her eyes were not red as if you usually hear other people state when they come upon something like this. Her eyes were just blank sockets. However, I knew she could see me.


I was so scared; all I could do was stare at her in complete horror. There I was, still leaning over with my hand on the lever to roll the window down, staring into the face of this thing. I could not even scream back at her. All of a sudden, she screamed at me again, brought this bony hand up, and put it on my window. I screamed this time. Then I hit the gas. I whipped that mini van out into the other lane right in front of a pickup truck. He swerved and I swerved, both of us slamming breaks. We both stopped in the middle of the highway. He got out of his truck and walked over to my side of the mini van. At first, he started to scream at me, then after seeing my face, he asked me if I was all right.

I started rambling about what I seen. He asked me if I meant the girl walking along side the road. I said it’s not a girl, it is a dead thing. He knew I had to seen something with the tone of my voice and the fact that I was still freaking out and rambling as if I was a nut.

He walked to the rear of my mini van and screamed at that thing himself. It ignored him, so he took a couple more steps toward it and screamed at it again. The thing stopped and turned toward him. It screamed at him as it did at me. He turned on a flashlight he was carrying, (I didn’t even notice it before). He shined it into the thing’s face and he about fell to the ground running back to his truck.

He took off like a rocket, and so did I. I didn't stop until I got home. I ran into the house and told my Husband. He thinks I really need a good night sleep.

I called my mother and told her about my adventure. She took a deep sigh and said, “That must had been Saqara. Don’t you know you should never stop to pick her up? She is the cause of many wrecks on that stretch of road. Why do you think they call it suicide alley?"

I went dead silent on the phone. I had heard stories of this woman, but I always thought the reason they called that stretch of road "suicide alley" was because drivers would speed down that flat stretch at speeds of 100 mph.

Saqara was 16 years old back in the day when New Miami was named the Co-Cotta (named from the coke plant that once was in business there). Saqara’s father worked at the coke plant and was one of the poor workers who were up for a chance at a new foreman position when he heard that the head foreman was thinking about giving the job to another worker. Therefore, he went to the head foreman and made a deal with him that if he would give him the position, he would give his 16-year-old daughter to him as a wife. The head foreman agreed.

Saqara was going to go along with the arrangement because she knew the new job would bring in more money for the family. There were six other children besides her. She was the oldest.

Two nights before they were to be married, the head foreman came to see Saqara at her father’s home just outside the village. The man became angry when she fought of his drunken advances toward her. He told her father the deal was off. Saqara’s father was so angry that he beat the girl badly, and then splashed her with gasoline and set her on fire. She went running down Route 127 heading toward her aunt’s house in the village until she fell and died.

You can bet it will be a long time before I will drive my mother home after dark again.