A ghost was the only plausible explanation for the mysterious creaks, weird lights, and shadowy figures in the house on West Moncrieff Place in Denver, Colo.
It all started after a horrible crime was committed there. On Oct. 17, 1941, the homeowner, Philip Peters, 73, was found dead in his bedroom. Peters' walking stick, broken in half, the butt of a pistol, and a stove shaker were near his body. Someone used the three items to bludgeon him at least 30 times.
Peters was kind, steady, and well-respected. He worked for Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad for 40 years until his retirement in 1930. He and his wife Helen had a married son in Grand Junction, about 250 miles away. For fun, Peters played in a mandolin band for many years. No one who knew him could imagine anyone wanting to do him harm.
Helen had been in the hospital for a few weeks with a broken hip. Peters' neighbors eased his burden by inviting him to share meals. When he failed to show up for dinner on Oct. 17, his friends checked on him and found his body.
Robbery seemed unlikely because money and other items of value were still in the house. There was one other strange detail. All the doors were locked from the inside.
The house stayed empty until Helen was sent home in February 1942, but she soon re-injured her hip and went back to the hospital. When she returned again in April, she was bedridden and needed a housekeeper. A few took the job, only to quit within days.
One woman fled in terror, saying that she would not stay in a haunted house. Another handed in her resignation when she spotted a pale bony hand sliding around an open door.
Unable to find steady help, Helen moved in with her son and daughter-in-law.
The house stayed vacant, but that didn't stop reports of what was now known as the Moncrieff Ghost. Strange things kept happening.
Investigations into the murder went cold, but police continued to keep an eye on the place. One steamy July night, two officers noticed a curtain move. Guns drawn, they broke down the front door and followed noises to a closet. There they spotted a skinny leg, disappearing through a small hole in the ceiling.
One officer grabbed the leg and pulled hard.
What popped out was not a ghost but a scrawny, smelly man dressed in rags that were held together by strings. He fainted as he was dragged from his hiding place.
"Worst case of malnutrition I have ever seen," declared the ambulance doctor who examined him. At just around six feet tall, the man weighed about 75 pounds.
The hole in the ceiling led to the lair of the "Denver Spider Man Slayer," as the press would soon dub the peculiar lodger. Filthy blankets, an ironing board, and stacks of newspapers, some 20 years old, had been fashioned into a bed. Other odd items — empty bottles, cans of tomatoes, a lightbulb, and a radio — were crammed into the space. The stench was overwhelming.
After a meal and a bath, the man offered his name and age — Theodore Edward Coneys, 59 — along with his life story and a confession.
Born in Illinois, Coneys was a sickly child who was too frail to play outside, so he spent his days practicing mandolin. Doctors predicted that he might not make it to age 18.
When he was 17, his family moved to Colorado, where he met Peters at the mandolin club. The couple soon started inviting the teen over for dinner.
Coneys grew up and got a few jobs, but he couldn't hold onto them. In 1917, he started drifting around the country. He landed back in Denver in 1941 and went to the home of the couple who had once been kind to him.
Peters was at the hospital with his wife, but he had left the door unlocked. Coneys slipped in, grabbed some food, and came up with a plan.
"I thought this attic would become my shelter," he told detectives. "I would sneak out at night and get bits of food from the icebox, and they wouldn't even know I was there." Every night, he'd sneak down as soon as he heard Peters snoring.
It worked fine, until the old man woke up and saw a gaunt, tattered stranger raiding his fridge.
"Peters didn't recognize me," Coneys said. "I guess I've changed a lot in 30 years."
Coneys grabbed an old revolver hanging from a wall and whacked Peters on the head. "He said he was going to call the police, so I followed him and hit him again."
He grabbed the stove shaker and continued the attack. "I just kept hitting him until he didn't move anymore," he said. Then Coneys grabbed some food and retreated to the attic.
There he stayed through the winter, almost freezing to death in the unheated house. For water, he would sneak to the roof to get snow to melt. He subsisted on cornmeal, preserves, and canned food he found in the basement.
He described his months in the attic as "a hellish, terrible nightmare."
Coneys got a life sentence, but life behind bars turned out to be softer than trying to make his way in the world. He made no trouble, and was known as the "forgotten man of the penitentiary," until his death in 1967 at age 85.
