n 1962, Indianapolis was the epitome of the conservative Midwestern, Bible Belt, medium-sized city. The new City/County Building had just been opened. Unigov wasn’t even on the map, and the citizens liked things quiet and reasonable. Three women were residing in a house on North Delaware Street in 1962. On March 11th, the start of a chain of events occurred in the house that were so extraordinary that they made national news and gave the city some unwanted attention. Thirty-two year old Renate Beck was the head of the household, her 13 year old daughter Linda lived with her, as did Mrs. Beck’s 61 year old mother Lina Gemmecke. Mrs. Beck was a divorcee from Vienna, Austria. Her ex-husband had been a U.S. Embassy officer in Vienna. Mrs. Beck was well educated and spoke fluent English. Mrs. Gemmecke was a wealthy widow, whose late husband had published a newspaper in Germany. She had come to Indianapolis in 1959 after her husband’s death to live with her daughter. Linda was described as very shy and very quiet. The women did not get along well. Mrs. Gemmecke was a strong willed woman who was very critical of everything and was used to getting her way. She disliked Americans and felt her granddaughter was not being properly raised. Neighbors claimed that angry yelling often came from the house.
Shortly after 10 p.m. on March 11, the women saw a glass rise out of the kitchen sink of it’s own accord and fly across the room of it’s own accord. It landed behind a flower pot. They didn’t know what to think. At 10:37 they heard a crash upstairs. Investigating, they found a large piece of German crystal had fallen off a bookcase and shattered. After 11 p.m., a glass ashtray flew across the living room and broke. The ladies left the house and checked into a hotel for the night. They returned the next day but almost immediately the phenomenon started up again. Glasses and crockery stared flying and breaking in the kitchen. A cup nearly hit Mrs. Gemmecke. The police were called.
Over the next two weeks the police came back several times to try to find out what was causing the disturbances. On March 12, IPD officer Ray Patton was walking through the house with Mrs. Beck observing the damage. They went into an upstairs bedroom. As they were walking out of the empty room a glass hit officer Patton in the back with such force that it left a bruise. Officer Patton could not explain the incident. A paranormal investigator was called in and claimed to have been hit by a glass thrown by an invisible hand.
Mrs. Beck’s purse disappeared. The lady had recently opened a restaurant and the purse contained $125 operating money. The ladies, the police, and even reporters scoured the house looking for the purse. Another distinct phenomenon occurred when bite marks started appearing on both Mrs. Beck and Mrs. Gemmecke. They were painful puncture wounds that appeared on the arms, necks and throats of the women. An examining doctor said the marks resembled the bite marks of a bat. As a police officer was interviewing Mrs. Gemmecke, he saw her grab her throat. When he looked at her throat, there were two new puncture wounds.
By March 22 the incidents had peaked and then subsided. The house was a wreck with broken glass and mirrors littering the floors, chips in the plaster and dents in the woodwork where objects had hit them. On March 25, Mrs. Beck’s purse showed up in a rather obvious place. The purse contained only $35 of the $125. On March 26, neighbors called police back to the house. They found Mrs. Gemmecke passed out on the living room floor. One of the officers said that he later observed Mrs. Gemmecke throw a glass against the wall and kick over a piano stool. Mrs. Gemmecke was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct and despite Mrs. Beck’s objections had to spend the night in jail. At Lina Gemmecke’s hearing, a Marion County Judge told her he would waive a psychiatric examination and release her if she would agree to go back to Germany within 10 days. She agreed and returned to her native land.
The police and the newspapers claimed that Mrs. Gemmecke had been the cause of the disturbances all along. A police psychologist named Francis Dix spent 90 minutes with the women. He had the three of them sit together and not leave his sight. He said nothing happened. He said that it was only if one of he women left that the breaking glass and other destructive activities occurred and as far as the police were concerned, the mystery had been solved and the case was closed. The news media was satisfied that the incidents were caused by one or more of the women and moved on to other stories.
A family friend, Emil Nosada said that he and his wife came to support Mrs. Beck while the incidents were occurring. He said he and his wife witnessed things that Mrs. Gemmecke couldn’t have possibly caused. The paranormal investigator made the same observation and also asked how the bite marks could be explained. The incidents halted before Mrs. Gemmecke left. After she was gone there were no further reports of any disturbances. Just a thought provoking note — the word poltergeist is German for “noisy ghost.” The first reported poltergeist was in Germany in 856 AD.
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