Witching Historical Fiction

More than 300 unmarked graves have been identified in two Minnesota graveyards in the past 2 years.

Out of the 151 at St. Joseph’s cemetery in Perham, one man and his family caught the interest of researcher Bob Riepe.

Louie the father, was not in the cemetery along with his family.

After searching, Bob found him in the Otter Tail County Poor Farm Cemetery.

After his death they did an autopsy on him and found rough on rats rat poisoning in his stomach,” said Bob Riepe.

Since then, Bob has come out with a book, on Louie’s mysterious life.

When asked what was special about Louie’s life, Bob said, “He didn’t commit suicide, and that murder was involved and leave it up to the reader to decide what was what.”

Along with Louie, Bob has identified 161 graves in Poor Farm with more in the works. And with help, he got detailed information about all of the bodies.

Genealogist Mary Pfeffer at the East Otter Tail County said,”We find dates, day of death and family connections, things like that So you could start off with the years and that kind of helped in this process.”

With hundreds of unmarked graves, how did bob identify all of these bodies?

It’s called Witching. A method using simply two metal rods to determine a person’s age and sex.

“If I come across the male body, it’ll cross like that, automatically…if it’s a female, I’ll walk on top of the body and it’ll spread out like this,” said Bob.

This mysterious method is helping Bob and others.

“There’s a couple out in Oregon that are coming up this spring and I know exactly where their great grandparents are buried and they’re both out at the poor farm, so that’s a good feeling,” said Bob.

With more to be bodies to be identified and marked at Poor Farm, more books will follow.

You can try witching out yourself with Bob September 12, 2015 @ 1:00pm. To sign up call 218-346-7676