Unsolved Mysteries vol. 3: Is the ghost in apartment 14 still there?

I didn’t want to be greedy because the first two batches of Unsolved Mysteries volume 3 already contained two haunting episodes, “Something in the Sky” and “Paranormal Rangers.” Volumes 1 and 2 only had one each. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder (hope) if the next batch that dropped on November 1 would have another paranormal episode. To my surprise (and delight), it did: “The Ghost in Apartment 14.”

Since it is an Unsolved Mysteries episode, it’s not just about someone who lived in a haunted place or has a ghost story. This one has a true crime connection that, since the victim’s remains still haven’t been found, made me wonder several things. Among them, if there’s still paranormal activity in the apartment where she used to live.

Which, I guess this is also a good time to drop the “spoilers ahead” warning if you haven’t seen the episode yet. It’s impossible not to talk about it without going into details.

Also, if haunted dolls give you the heebie-jeebies, be warned. There’s also one of those ahead too. But it’s just a minor part of the overall story, and we get it out of the way pretty quickly.

Breakdown of “The Ghost in Apartment 14” Episode

“My Liz” and the Ghost in Apartment 14

Haunting, disturbing dreams. Ones involving a dungeon.

“The Ghost in Apartment 14” opens with Jodi Foster recalling dreams she had shortly after moving into the Walnut Garden apartments in Chico, California. But don’t be fooled. While she shares the same name as the famous Silence of the Lambs actress, they spell their names slightly differently. There’s no “e” at the end of the Jodi Foster in the Unsolved Mysteries episode.

On January 31, 2000, Jodi and her three-year-old daughter Hannah moved into the apartment. “It’s hard to explain, but when I first moved in, it didn’t feel peaceful,” she said.

It didn’t stay peaceful inside the apartment for very long either. Not only were Jodi’s dreams troubled, but other things started happening too.

For one, her daughter suddenly started speaking to someone who wasn’t there. A woman she called, “My Liz.”

Jodi seemed to take it in stride at first. Creepy? Sure. But she didn’t discourage her daughter from talking to what Jodi believed was just an imaginary friend.

Until things escalated.

Like one night, when they went out to dinner. They came back and found the receiver from their wall phone in the back bedroom. Hannah’s toys had also been rearranged into a big pile. Most alarming of all was the Sleep and Snore Ernie doll, which sat atop the pile with a noose around its neck. (In the episode, Jodi called it Sleep and Snore, but I believe it’s also known as Sing and Snore Ernie.)

As you can imagine, Jodi called the cops. However, she said they didn’t put much stock in her claims. All they did was take her report over the phone.

Soon the strange activity amplified to a degree she could no longer shake off and definitely couldn’t ignore.

The Night Sleep and Snore Ernie Came Alive in Apartment 14

In February 2000, Jodi said she woke up to the sound of the TV on, hissing static. Confused, she got up and saw it was, in fact, on. Then, straight out of Poltergeist, her apartment came alive around her. The cupboards flapped open and closed, a burner on the stove came on, and then the Ernie doll came alive. Over and over, it kept repeating, “I feel great! I feel great!”

Jodi had several options at this point. She went with the logical one first. She turned off the TV and stove, then took the batteries out of the doll. But it didn’t stop it. Next, it started singing, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.”

When all the lights came on by themselves, logic flew out the window, and Jodi hightailed it out of the apartment. She went next door to her neighbor, who was also the apartment complex manager. She had a poodle and brought it over with her to see what was going on.

The dog gets in the apartment and starts barking out of control, the cord on a lamp rotates in the outlet as if it’s a jump rope, the Ernie continues to repeat, “I feel great!”

Needless to say, they all fled.

The Disappearance of Marie Elizabeth Spannhake

Early the next morning, Jodi was sitting out at the pool crying. A man who had lived there for 25 years stopped to talk with her. He basically told her not to feel bad. No one ever stayed in apartment 14 long. Not since the girl who had once lived there went missing.

He couldn’t recall her name, but that would be the first time Jodi learned of the woman she’d later come to find out was Marie Elizabeth Spannhake, who went by the nickname, “Marliz.”

The last time anyone saw Marliz alive was on Jan. 31, 1976, after she and her boyfriend had gone to a flea market. The couple had a disagreement. She decided to walk home, but she never made it back to apartment 14.

But where did she go? It seemed she vanished into thin air. That’s the question that remains to this day, but thanks in part to Jodi’s dreams, which came back even after she moved into another apartment, and a book, we have a pretty good idea of the fate that Marliz met.

Perfect Victim

Jodi’s story and eventual connection with Marliz’s disappearance had a few serendipitous moments. Her reaction to one of them reminded me of a reaction I once had. It was one that contributed to me starting Haunt Jaunts and involved paranormal activity I’d encountered while staying at the Shiloh Inn in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Afterward, I’d heard that was the hotel where a woman had committed murder-suicide. She’d thrown her seven children out a window, then flung herself out the window and followed them to her death.

I never investigated to find out what all had happened or when, but I shared the experience of the giggling children who had woken me up that confusing night in a blog post. I’ll never forget when someone shared a newspaper article with me about it.

My reaction was much the same as Jodi’s when her boyfriend came across a book, Perfect Victim: The True Story of the Girl in the Box by Christine McGuire and Carla Norton.

Not that Jodi doubted someone had gone missing from the same apartment she’d once lived in, but this book confirmed it really happened. Even though the book mentioned Marliz, it was actually about Colleen Stan and her horrific account of being held captive for seven years by a sadistic man, Cameron Hooker, and his wife, Janice, in their basement. But Janice would eventually help Colleen escape, and she’d also shed light on what had happened to Marliz.

Cameron and Janice Hooker

After finally fleeing from her husband and riddled with guilt, Janice Hooker came forth to authorities to turn her husband in. She explained how they had offered Marliz a ride on Jan. 31, 1976, with the intention of kidnapping her. Not because it was her. Cameron had made it clear he wanted to kidnap a woman, and he wanted Janice to help him.

After questioning Marliz and finding out she had no relatives in the area and no one really knew where she was, and therefore wouldn’t draw a lot of attention if she went missing, Cameron had found the perfect victim.

He’d put a lot of thought and energy into his crime, even creating a “head box” made of wood and foam to put on his victim’s head. This not only effectivity immobilized and blinded them, but it also absorbed any screams they might make. But to be sure, he also had studied how to cut vocal cords. The trouble is, he botched the procedure on Marliz, and that would contribute to her death.

The couple drove north from their home in Red Bluff, California, and buried Marliz’s body in an unmarked grave somewhere near Lassen Park, California.

Marliz’s Final Resting Place

Even though Marliz’s remains are still waiting to be found, Janice did try to help detectives locate them. She retraced the steps she and her husband had made from their home to where they’d buried Marliz many years earlier. The trouble was, she couldn’t remember exactly where the gravesite was. Just the general vicinity.

Jodi Foster tried to help in her own way, too. About a year after moving out of apartment 14, she ended up having more dreams. Ones that involved “35.76”  and a capital “A” with the number “17.” She wondered if that might represent coordinates or something. Her gut told her it did. Particularly the “35.76,” which she believed correlated to the distance from the Hooker’s Red Bluff home to where they’d buried Marliz.

She took a chance on contacting the Red Bluff Police Department. As you might imagine, investigator Kevin Hale was skeptical, as he always is, when someone calls with information on a case that allegedly “came to them in a dream.”

But because Jodi explained she had once lived in Marliz’s apartment, he decided to hear her out about potential information she might have about Marliz’s gravesite. Truthfully, the timing of her call freaked him out. Red Bluff PD hadn’t made it public that they were opening up a cold case on Marie Elizabeth Spannhake. Jodi’s timing in calling with a potential new lead could be coincidental —or serendipitous.

As it turned out, A17 referred to a road that led very near to where Janice indicated Marliz had been buried. But even freakier was when Detective Hale explained the significance of “35.76” and the “northeasterly direction” she felt Marliz’s grave site was.

In a meeting with Jodi, he explained that after talking with her, they used Janice’s info with mapping software “and actually pinpointed” the distance from the Red Bluff home to where they thought Marliz may be. The number the mapping software came back with was 35.77.

The Trial and End of “Ghost in Apartment 14” Shocker

Cameron Hooker was not tried for Marliz’s death due to lack of evidence, but in 1985 he was sentenced to 104 years in the Colleen Stan case. Newsweek reported that the sentencing judge deemed Cameron Hooker “the most dangerous psychopath ever encountered.”

Therefore, it’d be reasonable to assume he’d die in jail. And he still might. However, in one of the most shocking Unsolved Mysteries episode endings ever, it was revealed he’d been granted parole.

What?

But as Detective Hale explained, “he will probably be held at a mental health hospital for several years.”

However, he also added, “But at any time, he could be released from that, potentially.”

Let’s hope not. Even though Cameron Hooker is 69 years old now, it’s likely he harbors his same sadistic proclivities and would act on them again.

But there had to be more to the story of why he was paroled. Hunting for an answer is what led me to the Newsweek article in the first place.

They reported that a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman told them, “Cameron Hooker was released from prison to parole on Sept. 27, 2021; however, he is not on parole supervision in the community. Hooker is currently in the custody of the California Department of State Hospitals undergoing Sexual Violent Predator proceedings pursuant to state law.”

He’s also not eligible for another parole hearing until 2030. I’m guessing that means the type of parole where he’s released into the community. Let’s hope that never happens, or if it does, he is too old and frail to be a menace to any other woman ever.

Questions about “The Ghost in Apartment 14”

Now that we’ve recapped the episode, there were six questions it raised and/or I wish the producers had addressed.

1. Did the producers try to find the police report Jodi had filed in 2000?

Or did they try to see if there was any record of the call she made? Not that I doubt she called, but it would’ve been interesting to see if they could find whoever had taken her report and if they had any recollection of it. And to find out why they hadn’t sent someone out to investigate a potential break-in.

Then again, I’m pretty sure I know why the police handled it the way they did back then. Nothing was taken, no one was harmed, and it was the 1970s. Things were different then.

2. Why didn’t they interview the apartment complex manager?

Again, not that I doubt Jodi’s story of apartment 14 coming to life with cupboards flapping open and closed and a lamp cord swinging like a jump rope. However, since the apartment manager also allegedly witnessed it, her testimony would make it even more credible.

So what happened to her? Did they try to find her? If they did find her, did she decline to be interviewed? What’s her story?

3. What happened to Marliz’s boyfriend?

Not that he was involved in her disappearance, and I’m not sure he could’ve added anything to the episode except one thing. He could’ve humanized her even more by sharing his memories of her.

Which, to be fair, her sister also did this. But she was really the only one. It would’ve been even more powerful to see Marliz through her ex’s eyes.

4. Does a ghost still haunt apartment 14?

Jodi Foster moved into Marliz’s old apartment in 2000. Cameron Hooker had been sentenced in 1985. No, not for Marliz’s murder, but clearly the activity stemmed from the fact Marliz wanted something. Either to be found, to be seen, or simply just not to be forgotten.

So does she still haunt the apartment? Do residents still struggle to stay there for very long? And will the “Ghost in Apartment 14” Unsolved Mysteries episode stir up more activity?

5. Does the Hookers’ Red Bluff home have any paranormal activity?

If apartment 14 in Chico did, perhaps the Red Bluff home does too? Not that Marliz really saw it or spent much time there. She had that head box on, and was only alive for maybe 12 hours total after the Hookers picked her up. Maybe that wasn’t enough time for her to imprint on that place, and that’s why she returned to apartment 14?

One of the oft-debated theories in the paranormal community is that spirits haunt where they die. From a paranormal research standpoint, here’s a case that might provide insight one way or another into that theory.

6. What happened to the Sleep and Snore Ernie?

I’m being cheeky with this question because the doll in and of itself wasn’t haunted. Not like how Annabelle or Robert the Doll reputedly are.

But I can’t be the only one wondering if Jodi and her daughter took it with them when they moved, can I? Or did they leave it behind, donate it, throw it away, or what?

Because if they don’t still have it, there’s a possibility the doll is still out there. Somewhere.

For More Info

If you’d like to read more about Jodi Foster’s connection with this unsolved murder, she wrote a book about it, Forgotten Burial: A Cry for Justice from Beyond the Grave.

Check-In

Did the story of “The Ghost in Apartment” raise any questions in your mind?