Sorority and Fraternity Houses

Former University Registrar Alma Preinkert was much beloved on campus. She was brutally murdered in her Washington, D.C. home in 1954 - a devastating blow to the university community. Oh, and did we mention that the murder was never solved?

University Archivist Anne Turkos on Haunted Greeks. (Quicktime)

Preinkert's soul may still be unsettled, because members of the campus sorority she helped found, Kappa Delta, say she haunts their sorority house. Members of the sorority told The Diamondback student newspaper in 2002 that there are other spirits too. They described "crazy paranormal things" that included "girls in white dresses dancing on the KD sundeck over the summer" when the house is closed.

Another Maryland sorority, Alpha Omicron Pi, says their members have seen or heard the ghost of Julie Renee Peace - a sorority sister who died in a tragic 1995 car accident. Reports include music playing without warning or human intervention and even computers operating on their own. Residents have been scared when objects just seemed to fall on their own, and at least one sorority sister clamed to see a set of red eyes staring at her.

In 1976, interviews done with students and staff about the alleged hauntings of Delta Tau Delta House came to light. 24 year old student Donald Jenkins related to investigator Deborah Koch (Maryland Folklore Archive Project) in 1976 that soon after fraternity brother Dan Carroll was killed in an automobile accident in 1955, there were reports of strange happenings in the house. Furniture was shifted around in the middle of the night. The cook was afraid to be in the kitchen because a piece of Carroll's furniture was moved there. Jenkins said the cabinet was always warm to the touch inside.

One night Jenkins was studying and he heard chairs moving late at night. "I went running back there and I couldn't find anybody," he says. "So I heard some more chairs moving and I decided it was time to go to bed." A semester later, it happened to Jenkins again.