HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
The unsolved 1905 murder of Katie DeWitt James gave this Deer Creek bridge its name — and a crying-woman legend.
Arapaho Road (Deer Creek Bridge), Weatherford, OK 73096
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public road bridge; no admission fee and no formal site infrastructure.
Access
Limited Access
Rural two-lane road bridge over Deer Creek; roadside shoulder viewing only, no pedestrian trail or facilities.
Equipment
Photos OK
Site of the unsolved 1905 murder of Katie DeWitt James · Subject of a 1982 Chronicles of Oklahoma article by researcher Sue Woolf Brenner · Named community and landmark in Custer County, Oklahoma
Katie DeWitt James, a 29-year-old schoolteacher, filed for divorce from her husband, Martin Luther James, on July 6, 1905, citing cruelty. The next day she boarded a train in Custer City with her 14-month-old daughter, Lulu Belle, planning to stay with a cousin in Ripley while the divorce proceeded. She never arrived. When her father, Henry DeWitt, lost contact with her, he hired private detective Sam Bartell to investigate.
Bartell traced James to Weatherford, where she and the baby had spent a night at the home of William Moore, brought there by Moore's sister-in-law, Fannie Norton, known locally as Mrs. Ham. Witnesses reported that Norton, James, and the baby left by buggy the next morning; Norton returned alone roughly 45 minutes later. The infant was later found abandoned nearby, her clothing stained with blood but otherwise unharmed.
On August 31, 1905, James's body was discovered near Deer Creek, about twenty miles east of Clinton. Bartell confronted Norton, who denied involvement; she took her own life before formal charges were filed. The case was never solved. Martin James took custody of Lulu Belle. The bridge over Deer Creek where investigators traced the crime became known locally as Dead Woman's Crossing, a name that has held for more than a century.
Sources
For more than a century, travelers on the road between Weatherford and Clinton have reported hearing a woman's screams and a baby's cries near the Deer Creek bridge after dark, along with the creak of an old buggy crossing wood planks that were replaced decades ago. Some accounts describe a figure walking the creek bank, said to be Katie DeWitt James searching for the daughter she never reached. Local paranormal investigators have visited the site periodically, reporting cold spots and unexplained lights near the water.
Unlike many bridge legends built on invented backstories, the Dead Woman's Crossing case is documented: contemporary newspaper coverage and a 1982 Chronicles of Oklahoma article by researcher Sue Woolf Brenner both confirm the underlying 1905 murder. The ghost story layered onto that history — the crying, the buggy sounds — is oral tradition without documentation beyond visitor and local accounts, but the crime itself is not in dispute.
Notable Entities
A rural bridge over Deer Creek northeast of Weatherford, on the road where investigators traced the final movements of Katie DeWitt James before her 1905 murder. The current bridge, built in the 1980s, replaced the original wooden crossing. No marker or memorial exists on site; visitors view the bridge and creek from the roadside.
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