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By James Dempsey
In the late 1970s, a rumor spread around campus that nationally syndicated astrologer Jeane Dixon had predicted an axe murder in a college dormitory overlooking a Jesuit cemetery at a Catholic college. The murder was supposed to take place in 1978.
Daniel Day '78, then editor of The Crusader and now managing editor of the Modesto(Calif.) Bee, investigated the rumor in a Crusader piece published Oct. 21, 1977. A spokesperson for Dixon's syndicate told him that no such prediction had been made. Day did manage to trace a similar rumor to Georgetown University, where a mass murder in a dormitory overlooking the Jesuits' cemetery had been predicted. Folklore expert Professor Bronner says that such unfounded rumors of mass murder are quite common.
Still, the rumor at Holy Cross inspired one Mount St. James wag to create a "crime scene" in front of Lehy dormitory, showing the outline of a body in masking tape. The sidewalk artist further showed off his chops by placing an outline of the murder weapon itself nearby and splashing around a good quantity of ketchup.
The fatal year of 1978 came and went with no murders on campus.
Read more Myths & Legends:
"The Fenwick Exorcism"
The Jeane Dixon Axe Murder Rumor
"Letters to Tomorrow"
The Cow That Came in From the Cold
The Plot Against the Greenhouse
The Naked Bunch
The Immurement of Father Crowley
The Lord of the Rings on Mount St. James?
More myths and legends...revealed!
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