This four-part series delves into the history of Pine Street Station, which currently serves as home to the UMB Department of Police and Public Safety.
Note: Please see the video at the end of this article. Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 on "The Elm."
Searching for Answers
When 410 Paranormal, a group of amateur ghost hunters, showed up at Pine Street Station, they knew many of the building’s current tenants had experienced something … odd. A push. A sound. A feeling.
Rob Triplett, Carrie Carter, and Allison Shelley showed up with a bevy of equipment: electronic voice phenomena (EVP) readers, which listen for unexplained voices, whispers, or sounds; electromagnetic field (EMF) readers, which measure invisible energy waves produced by electrical devices; and a new camera.
“It reads thermal, but then it also outlines heat signatures that look like a person,” says Shelley, who also works in Pine Station as UMB’s Clery compliance coordinator. “It looks like a little stick figure on the screen.”
The Hunt Begins
The ghost hunters started in the area with the most reported activity: the Chief’s Suite. Moving between offices, the ghost hunters used their special cameras to search for an unseen presence.
A few figures started to appear on the screen. When they arrived at Chief Leone’s office, the temperature plummeted. Suddenly, Triplett felt something brush up against him.
“Are you standing here next to us?” he asked. “Did you just touch my hand?”
They were convinced — something was there. That’s when they brought out the Spirit Box, which picks up scattered AM/FM radio waves. The person using the Spirit Box puts on noise-canceling headphones and a blindfold to remove external stimuli and allow them to focus only on the sounds coming through.
Things got interesting when they arrived in the conference room, where employees say the TV turns on and off and the volume turns up on its own.
Is That You, Captain?
Shelley sat in the large executive chair in the conference room, nervously rocking back and forth with her eyes and ears covered.
“I tend to be more skeptical with the Spirit Box. When I’ve done it in the past, it can be very boring,” says Shelley. In the conference room, the Spirit Box was certainly not boring. “I’ve never done it before and had so many words come through.”
Only seconds into the session, the first message came: “TV.”
Employees unplugged the TV after numerous help desk tickets couldn’t fix the unexplained activity. Were the spirits frustrated that their mischievous activities were stopped?
The hunters continued to ask questions in the room, though Shelley couldn’t hear what they were saying. Sometimes, minutes would go by without any messages coming through the Spirit Box.
“My name’s Rob, what’s your name?” asked Triplett.
“Alfie,” came the quick reply — a direct response to the question asked. The name is unfamiliar.
Six minutes in, the Spirit Box revealed its next surprise: “heart attack.”
Captain Kahler’s sudden death inside Pine Station, the subject of Part 3 of this series, was ruled a heart attack. His personal physician, Dr. William Gilroy, told The Sun that Kahler “suffered from a chronic heart condition” and his “health had not been of the best in recent years.” But Kahler’s first name was Charles, not Alfie. Could it be unrelated?
“Framed”
Next: “Framed.”
The word came twice a few seconds apart. The hunters asked what the word meant. Was it a prisoner who was framed? A cop who had framed someone?
That’s when the department’s public information officer, Carin Cardella, MA, MS, remembered a series of articles that she’d previously thought was irrelevant. Kahler became captain of the Eastern District in 1928 to “clean up the territory.” He cracked down on bookmakers and closed dance halls and nightclubs. The Sun reported that Kahler worked with such zeal that he “even stopped the roulette wheels at church carnivals.”
Local politicians weren’t happy. They leveraged their considerable political pressure to have Kahler removed, but the governor and commissioner backed the captain. Ultimately, a grand jury adopted a resolution commending Kahler’s record.
Four years later, Kahler raided a bookmaking establishment and arrested proprietor John O’Connor. In return, O’Connor accused Kahler of taking “protection” bribes. During the trial, the judge characterized O’Connor’s testimony as “reeking with perjury,” but the accusations cast a cloud over Kahler’s spotless service. After weeks of investigation and two grand juries, Kahler was cleared.
“I Did”
A few minutes later, the Spirit Box provided another clue: “water.”
Kahler had been on the way to the water cooler when he’d slumped into a chair. Thirty minutes later, he was dead. Could that be another connection?
So many words from the Spirit Box were pointing toward the captain who died in the building nearly a century ago. If it was Kahler, maybe they could get some answers.
During her research, Cardella found multiple reports that Kahler died while questioning a robbery suspect. According to The Sun, “The captain, 61, was working until half an hour before the end at a task he always approached with zest — the questioning of a suspect in an effort to make him confess.” Another article said he “was stricken while questioning a robbery suspect. He died a few minutes later.” Cardella decided to take a shot in the dark.
“Captain, are you upset that you didn’t get your confession before you died?” she asked.
“I did,” came the immediate reply.
How could that be?
Extensive research had only uncovered Kahler’s failure to get a confession. He had told his wife the night before that he “feared he would not be able to ‘break’ the man’s alibi.”
Maybe the response from the Spirit Box was meaningless, but Cardella’s curiosity was piqued.
“Leave”
Next stop: Pine Street basement. The area, which largely sits vacant today, once held the roll call room, break room, and locker rooms for UMB Police.
Dameon Carter Sr., Coppin State University Police Chief, once worked in Pine Station as an assistant chief at UMB Police. He describes basement televisions unexpectedly turning on and the volume turning up just like the TVs on the second floor. More startling: He said the basement walls would "breathe."
“Maintenance said the drywall wasn’t secured to the studs and the air was making it move back and forth,” Carter says. “How is that possible? I’ve never heard of that happening.”
The ghost hunters expected to see a wealth of activity in the basement, but they were surprised to find it relatively quiet. The only response they got was when they asked the Spirit Box, “Do you want us to stay or leave?”
“Leave.”
They left.
Putting the Pieces Together
The ghost hunters’ results were interesting, but there wasn’t a silver bullet. Cardella had some lingering questions. If Captain Kahler died before getting his confession, why did the Spirit Box say the opposite? And who is Alfie? She decided to dive back into the archives.
Everything Cardella found about Kahler’s death said he had failed to secure a confession. As she combed through articles once again, she found something she’d initially missed.
An article printed one week after Kahler’s death describes the bail hearing for Clarence Douglas, the man Kahler had been questioning the night he died. The second-to-last sentence in the article — almost a footnote — says, “Captain Kahler had obtained a confession from Douglas just a few minutes before he was stricken.”
Kahler did get the confession.
All the answers from the Spirit Box started to point to Captain Kahler: “Heart attack.” “Framed.” “Water.” “I did.”
Shelley was the one who repeated the words out loud when she heard them coming through the Spirit Box. “I didn’t know what you guys were asking or even if you were saying anything,” says Shelley. “When I watched it back, I got goosebumps.”
Lingering Questions
So, if 410 Paranormal was talking to Kahler, then who is Alfie?
Cardella had a theory: Kahler’s middle initial was “A.” Could “A” stand for Alfred?
Cardella went down a rabbit hole to find out. She searched dozens of news articles. Nothing. She tracked down historical records: Army enlistment paperwork; World War I draft card; veteran schedule; Federal Census from 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930; Baltimore City directories; divorce record; military pension; passport application; ship manifests; land deeds; Veteran’s Administration card; marriage license; even Kahler’s gravestone. All simply read, “Charles A. Kahler.”
Cardella had one last hail Mary; she requested Kahler’s death certificate from the Maryland State Archives. When it arrived: “Charles A. Kahler.”
The trail had run cold.
Cardella never found an answer to the question of Alfie's identity. Despite searching decades of records, she couldn't establish whether Kahler's middle initial stood for Alfred — or whether the name belonged to someone else entirely.
For nearly 150 years, Pine Street Station has witnessed arrests, interrogations, confessions, and even death. Some of its history can be reconstructed through newspapers, photographs, and public records. Others survive only in the memories of those who experience the unexplained sounds, sights, and sensations.
The investigation is over. The questions remain.