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Bellefonte Gazette March 12 2005, page 11
Wanna hear a good ghost story??
By Shaina Daugherty
"In conclusion to the article published two weeks ago called Who is Monks???, I interviewed the owner of Cool Beans Coffee and Tea, where Monks was held in the 1800's and I learned some very interesting things about the man known as James Monks. First of all Kim and Jerry Reitz purchased the coffeeshop on February 1st of 2003, a mere nine days prior to the hanging of Monks all those years ago. Anyway before the owners knew anything about the horror that had gone on there in earlier days, they had started to experience some very strange things. Such as Kim (one of the owners) was going through the store from the front to the back and out the back door for something and she was locked outside. The door literally closed as if someone had pulled it shut and she was locked out. The second experience that she recalled was one morning when she wasn't opening, another employee was, and that particular employee could not open the door with the key that he had been given. It seemed that maybe someone had given him the wrong key because it would not work in the door. The perplexity with this, is that James Monks was a woodsman and locksmith and it seems that he was known for his fascination with locks. The third and last experience that provoked them to do some research about the mysteries was when the light breakers were flipped off mysteriously and you could clearly see that someone had physically pushed the breaker down and they could not come to any logical explanation. After this last experience they decided to find some things out. They started by talking to some people who at that time lived upstairs and the assumed story was a mixture of the two hangings that had occurred. By doing more research she was able to differentiate as to Don Byers being the first and James Monks being the second. The funny thing is that whenever something strange does happen, they refer to Monks and' say "Oh, Monks is just acting up". They were able to find out that he had died on January 23rd and were able to pinpoint that a lot of crazy things had happened on or around that time.
Kim was able to tell me that previous employees had reported that they would be sitting at the bar alone and they would hear a loud bang in the back. Whenever this was checked out there was a huge hole in the men's restroom that had not been there just two minutes earlier. Also very erie is when you know that no one is in the store and there is only one entrance (so no one could have sneaked in). Nonetheless you hear strange sounds of someone being present in the cafe, just the sounds of chairs scraping on the floor, or footsteps of someone walking near you, or noises that go along with someone picking up a book and putting it down very hard.
It is also advised to watch out for the front door that's infamous for opening and closing with a BANG! I also learned that if I ever want to go see a haunted house, I might think about checking out the upstairs. It's reported that when the one tenant was taking a shower, for reasons unknown, she happened to look out and saw a man with a beard standing there and we now know he fits the description of James Monks! Even scarier is the story about one of the tenants going upstairs to get something. The room had one of those doors that only a skeleton key could open (they happened to not have one for that door). The tenant went into the room and was instantly locked in. She starts screaming and the person living in the other apartment at the time came from across the hall and had to take the door off its hinges to get her out!
The only other thing that was reported is the recurring incidence of the books flying off the bookshelf as if someone had put their hands behind the books and pushed them like dominos!
I'd say it takes guts to be in the cafe past dark. I was once dared to stay overnight in a house in Jacksonville that was haunted. The lady that owned the house was a beautician and she offered me a cut and color for staying in the house. Well, I got the color and cut, but only because she felt bad for me. I didn't make it half the night before I ran out screaming."
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