We started looking for the usual stuff — weird police calls, oddball crime reports, maybe a stolen lawn gnome or two. You know, the kind of bizarre incidents that make for good Friday afternoon reading.
What we found instead was something much darker lurking in recent Salem police reports: multiple calls to a place called Crybaby Bridge.
The Police Reports That Started It All
The recent entries were simple enough. Officers on patrol on Egypt Road located a green Toyota Camry parked at Crybaby Bridge at 12:49 p.m. July 3. The driver had a suspended license and got cited. Another report from July 2 showed officers advising trespassers to move along from the same location.
Standard trespassing calls, nothing too unusual. But the location name — Crybaby Bridge — that was worth a deeper look.
Following the Breadcrumbs
What started as casual curiosity about an odd place name quickly spiraled into something much more complex. This wasn’t just some quirky local landmark with a silly nickname. Salem’s Crybaby Bridge carries decades of dark history, unsolved murder, and ongoing legal battles.
The bridge sits on what used to be West Pine Lake Road, now a decommissioned stretch accessible only on foot through Perry Township. Property owner Randall Howells has been fighting trespassers for years. “A lot of people just go down there partying,” Howells said. “They think it’s a public park. It’s not. It’s private property.”
From Rural Road to Urban Legend
The transformation from functional roadway to infamous landmark began in the 1980s when authorities closed the section of West Pine Lake Road where the bridge crossed a small creek. Left to rust and be reclaimed by vegetation, the iron bridge became the perfect setting for local folklore.
But the supernatural stories weren’t always about crying babies. Ghost stories have been swirling around the bridge off Egypt Road for decades, but it wasn’t originally known as a Crybaby Bridge. The earliest stories simply mentioned a “satanic cult” that practiced in the area.
In 1983, allegedly a strange satanic cult formed and practiced often at the bridge. Many animals were found dead near the bridge that were reportedly sacrificed by the cult. The “Crybaby Bridge” legend didn’t emerge until much later — around 2005 according to local interviews.
Real Crime in a Fictional Setting
The bridge’s reputation for supernatural activity took a decidedly real turn in October 2010. A township officer found the body of 60-year-old Ardes Bauman burned near a van in the closed-off area. Perry Township Police Chief Mike Emigh confirmed the coroner ruled Bauman’s death a homicide — the first murder in Perry Township in more than 20 years.
The case remains unsolved. Bauman didn’t live on Egypt Road, so investigators believe the isolated location was chosen specifically for body disposal.
Modern Problems at an Ancient Bridge
While ghost hunters and thrill seekers continue to visit, Howells deals with the very real problems of vandalism, graffiti, illegal dumping and constant trespassing. People tear down his private property signs, spray paint profanity across the bridge and surrounding area, and dump trash he has to clean up.
The bridge has even become part of Salem’s tourist offerings through the Salem Historical Society’s haunted trolley tours, despite sitting on private property.
When Police Reports Lead to Bigger Stories
What began as a search for bizarre police reports revealed something much more substantial — a location where local folklore, real tragedy, property rights and law enforcement intersect in ways that continue playing out decades later.
Those routine trespassing calls that caught our attention? They’re just the latest chapter in a story that spans cult rumors, unsolved murder, and the transformation of forgotten infrastructure into cultural landmark.
Sometimes the best stories aren’t the weird one-off incidents we set out to find. Sometimes they’re hiding in plain sight in the most ordinary police reports, waiting for someone to ask why officers keep getting called to the same strange place.
In Salem’s case, that place happens to be a rusted bridge where legend and reality have become impossibly tangled, and where police continue writing new chapters in a story that started decades ago.
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