Standing below the hay loft, Julie Bukovich listened to the heavy grunts and creaks of the old barn as the sun set outside and the evening grew colder. She’d been living with her boyfriend on the 19-acre Chesapeake farm for long enough that the sounds were familiar. But the feeling she’d recently been getting — a sense, like an invisible presence, something hovering, something watching her — was new. On this March evening, she watched the expert she’d called to investigate go to work.
The lanky, blue-eyed teenager strode through the barn, past rows of hanging tools and between stacks of horse feed. He held a bundle of smoldering sage above his head like an Olympic torch and left a trail of scented smoke.
“Thank you. Thank you for being here,” Bukovich said, opening a side door and pointing into a hallway, fumbling to find a light switch. “In there is where there’s been a lot of activity.”
Ghost hunter William Abbitt, 18, took a deep breath, pulled out a bottle of holy water that had been blessed by a Catholic priest in Virginia Beach, and stepped into the darkness.
Abbitt isn’t a devout follower of any one religion but knows items such as holy water and crucifixes calm the nerves of those who do or believe. He often suspects a haunting has more to do with faulty wiring, chemical-induced hallucinations or anxiety.
He walked into the dim hallway that led to a storage area, sprinkled the holy water on the far door and recited a Catholic prayer.
“St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection …”
Abbitt started investigating suspected paranormal activities as a sophomore at Grassfield High School in Chesapeake. His reputation has grown among his peers as he’s outlined cases on his website and in videos on a YouTube channel dedicated to the exploits of his team: WTCW Paranormal.
He has led WTCW Paranormal on 35 investigations into local lore and claims of the supernatural in Hampton Roads, at historical sites, businesses and homes. The group’s mission is to research and remain skeptical. He isn’t sure how much he believes in the supernatural. Which is why he got into the whole ghost thing in the first place.
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When Abbitt was around 7, he, his mom and his two big sisters moved into a Virginia Beach house where doors opened and closed inexplicably and it felt like he was living with an angry spirit. “Classic poltergeist activity,” he now says.
After the family moved to Chesapeake, he wanted to disbelieve what he remembered. Except he couldn’t.
In high school, he started by reading the Bible and the Torah.
He moved to theology and dabbled in demonological literature with texts including Frank and Ida Mae Hammond’s “Pigs in the Parlor: The Practical Guide to Deliverance” and dove into mysticism with texts such as the anonymously authored grimoire “The Lesser Key of Solomon.” He combed through online parapsychological studies and developed a disdain for TV shows that depicted paranormal investigations lacking the scientific method.
Too many people, he thought, took the subject too lightly. Plus, he was having fun.
Abbitt started saving money he made after school at Wendy’s and during the winter break selling Christmas trees to buy equipment that he’d read was essential for paranormal investigations: A camcorder with night vision; a digital audio recorder; flashlights and headlamps; six motion sensors; an infrared laser temperature reader in case ghosts prompt drops in temperature; an ambient temperature deviation device that doubles as a spirit box which cycles through radio frequencies and may be a useful tool for the dead to speak through; an EMF reader, based on hypotheses that ghosts cause shifts in electromagnetic field strengths; frankincense; myrrh; holy water; and walkie-talkies, all of which he stores in a traveling case.
WTCW stands for the founders’ first names: William, Tate, Chris and William. Abbitt is the only founder remaining. Two left the group to pursue other interests and one died this year. But on July 14, 2022, they were all together when they set out to conduct their first “big” investigation.
The four of them spent part of the night at the Ferry Plantation House, which dates back to about 1830 and is said to have multiple spirits. Abbitt’s camcorder caught a creaking sound like someone walking up the stairs.
At her farm in March, Bukovich found nothing funny about what she had experienced in and around her barn. She’d been scared by an icky presence in the barn and showed Abbitt a recording on her security cameras which showed a bright orb of light floating in her driveway. She felt more at ease after his visit and liked the seriousness with which he performed the cleansing ritual in her barn. She felt heard.
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Abbitt frequently posts online notices for new team members, and responses come in from teens to people older than 50. They want to be investigators, camera operators, psychics or demonologists for the team, which has fluctuated between two and eight people.
Recently he got his first post-high school job working construction and uses it to fund WTCW Paranormal. In May, he investigated the Wells Theatre in downtown Norfolk with his then-newest team member. Sammi Cocuzzo, 25, a psychic from Chesapeake, was excited. According to the Wells, the theater is home to three ghosts, including Ned the Stagehand, who haunts the backstage fly rail where he used to raise and lower stage backdrops.
On a Friday morning, theater staff led the team backstage. The performance space was dark, and Abbitt handed out headlamps. Two team members stayed on the first floor, and he and Cocuzzo climbed a staircase toward a balcony overlooking the stage and Ned’s favorite stomping grounds.
Standing the dark, Cocuzzo lifted her hands to about chest height, one palm facing out.
“I’m picking up on a woman,” she said, and spoke into Abbitt’s nearby spirit box, hoping for a reply.
“Ned, if you’re here can you give us a sign? Can you manipulate this energy?” she later asked.
She continued to ask questions. Abbitt stared at the EMF meter. Then, suddenly, they heard a bang from the staircase. It sounded like the thud of a heavy object after a fall, and Abbitt’s walkie-talkie lit up.
Yes, Abbitt said. But no one had seen anything.
“They’re really active,” Cocuzzo said, standing close to Abbitt. “But they are kind of chilling.”
“Yeah, they aren’t really messing with us right now,” Abbitt said. “That’s probably a good thing.”
He’d brought his skepticism to the investigation, but in the moment he sounded like a believer.
Cocuzzo looked over her shoulder.
“I get the feeling that they like it here.”
Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com
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