Elżbieta Wojdyla

This is a veritable Who's Who by †Seán Manchester that goes beyond what is already known to dig beneath the surface and list familiar names, the not so familiar, plus the downright obscure.

I begin this Who's Who of cameo entries with the first person I personally encountered who was enmeshed by the supernaturalism afoot at Highgate Cemetery that drew me into investigating the case. Her name is Elżbieta Wojdyla. I invite comments and questions on any of the entries I make.

Elżbieta Wojdyla and Barbara Moriarty, two sixteen-year-old students of La Sainte Union Convent (near Highgate, London), were walking home late at night after visiting friends in Highgate Village. Their journey took them down Swains Lane which intersects Highgate Cemetery, a Victorian graveyard in two halves on a steep hill. These intelligent students could not believe their eyes as they passed the cemetery's north gate at the beginning of their downward path between the two graveyards. For there before them, amongst the jutting tombstones and stone vaults, the dead seemed to be emerging from their graves.

Elżbieta Wojdyla recounted: "We both saw this scene of graves directly in front of us. And the graves were opening up; and the people were rising. We were not conscious of walking down the lane. We were only conscious of this graveyard scene."

A series of nightmares then began to plague Elżbieta Wojdyla; all with one thing in common: something was trying to enter her bedroom window at night. A deathly-pale face identical to the corpses leaving their graves appeared behind the glass pane on some occasions.

During the summer of 1969, I had a chance meeting with Elżbieta Wojdyla who appeared anaemic and listless. She was nevertheless anxious to get something off her chest. Now resident in an area not too far from the cemetery, she told me that her nightmares had returned with a vengeance. This time she was able to give a better description of the unwelcome spectre that haunted her nights, and, once again, I tape-recorded her words on a reel-to-reel machine:

"[It has] the face of a wild animal with glaring eyes and sharp teeth, but it is a man with the expression of an animal. The face is gaunt and grey."

Two weeks later, Elżbieta Wojdyla's boyfriend, Keith Maclean, contacted me and reported on further deterioration:

"[Her] condition has grown worse. ... She is withering away at such a rate that she is only just barely alive. ... She is being overcome by something."

I came to know Keith Maclean much better, but did not know him at all until Elżbieta Wojdyla introduced me to him in 1969.

Elżbieta Wojdyla can be heard speaking about her experiences at 2:36 on this video about the case: