We've been asking what happens after death for ages and have usually turned to religion for the answer. Religious authorities argue that those who die peacefully or naturally usually go to a new place (heaven, hell, purgatory, again to Earth through reincarnation), or are sometimes transformed (Nirvana, moksha, unifying the entity with the entirety).

But what about murder?

What happens to men and women who are not supposed to die but are forced to die against their will? Storytellers argue that, unlike those who die peacefully, those who die malignantly and unjustly are usually trapped here on Earth, their souls, their spirits unrest. These restless spirits become the makings of ghosts.

Ghosts are made and vent their fate through haunting while always searching for peace, for rest. Some of the most haunted places in Chicago can usually trace its paranormal origins to some gruesome night of murder: a shooting, a stabbing, a fire.

How many times have you heard of a haunted hotel, nightclub, theater, ballroom or bar where some murder or mysterious killing took place? Many times, I'm sure, but doesn't that seem strange. You would think there would be more hauntings in place that had more murders, not the places where people drink and demand entertainment. What about Chicago 's more economically depressed neighborhoods were violence is a means for survival? Wouldn't there be more ghosts there and more ghost hauntings?

The logical thing to do, of course, was to take Ursula Bielski's Chicago Hauntings Ghost Tours. When I found the black and purple mini-bus on the corner of Clark and Ohio , across the street from the Rainforest Café, I found out that Ursula (author of Chicago Haunts: Ghostlore of the Windy City ) would not be leading the tour, but instead it would be her husband, David Cowan.

Cowan, a Chicago firefighter and author of Great Chicago Fires: Historic Blazes That Shaped a City , is a masterful storyteller. He wove us through the streets of Chicago as well a story in history and mystery, in murder and mayhem. There were so many sites of death, some in very well-known places, others in the obscure.

I don't want to give away the secrets, but I will tell you this: there are ghosts in the projects.

Late into the night, Cowan pulled the mini-bus into an abandon parking lot across the street from Cabrini Green. There was quiet for sometime before Cowan rose from the driver's seat to address the 17 of us on the tour:

“At the turn of the century, an African-American man, living in what would later become Cabrini Green, was known as an excellent painter. One day a rich man from the city commissioned the African-American man to paint his daughter. A short time thereafter, his daughter became pregnant. The infuriated rich man hired two thugs to kill the painter. The hitmen first cut off the painter's painting hand. Then dragged him into an open field with beehives. Then they stripped him of his clothes, coated him with honey and released the bees, which stung him to death. Afterward, the took the painter's body and burned the remains.”

We all squirmed and adjusted in our seats.

Then Cowan said, “I don't know about you, but that seems like the perfect way to make a ghost.”

After a few uncomfortable laughs Cowan continued that the dead painter became known as the Candyman and has been haunting the children of Cabrini Green ever since. In fact, a movie, released in the early ‘90s, appropriately called Candyman , was made for this reason and was shot completely on location.

In the movie, a graduate student from the University of Chicago goes to Cabrini Green to prove the Candyman ghost false. As legend has it, the Candyman haunts only those who don't believe in him and provoke him by calling his name five times in succession.

I thought Cowan was finished with the story, but instead after a chilling pause, Cowan, dead serious, whispered, “Candyman.”
There were a couple of chuckles.
And then another whisper, “Caaandyman.”
There was a voice from the back of the bus that pleaded, “Aw man, don't be playin' like that.”
The plead was ignored for another, “Caaaaaandyman.”
Silence.
“Candyman” was whispered once more.
There was a pause, a very long pause.
I felt a wave of sweat heat my neck. I couldn't believe it. This was it. I was going to die, and it was going to be in a mini-bus.
          “I think four is enough for now,” Cowan said in his regular voice.
          We all collectively exhaled and leaned back in our seats.
I could not help but wonder if the hauntings of the Candyman had any part in the violence in Cabrini Green over the years. Probably not. I mean, of course not, right? That's foolish, irrational, ignorant, even insensitive to think that a ghost, who was probably made up to scare kids, had anything to do the socio-economic blunder that the residents of Cabrini Green have been victims to over the last 50 years.

However, I'm curious what the future holds.

As we witness the high-rise buildings come crashing down so that rich white people can gobble them up and spit out condos, I wonder if the murdered, the restless spirits will remain. Will the abused, the oppressed, the ghosts of the Cabrini Green will haunt the new residents of the area? I'd sure like to take that tour.