Where Seattle's Most Documented 1926 Murder Left a Ghost
7201 E Greenlake Dr N, Seattle, WA 98115
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free. Seattle city park, no admission fee.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved 2.8-mile loop path around the lake. Gaines Point accessible from path between the boathouse and the wading pool on the north shore.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1912 · Seattle History · True Crime History · Olmsted Parks System · 1920s Washington State
Green Lake Park was designed by the Olmsted Brothers between 1907 and 1912 as part of Seattle's comprehensive parks system. The lake itself was given to the city by Washington State in 1905, and over the following years it was diked, dredged, and reduced from its original footprint to become an urban recreation destination.
Sylvia Gaines was born in Massachusetts in 1904 and graduated from Smith College before traveling to Seattle in September 1925 to visit her father, Robert Gaines, whom she barely knew. The visit became a stay. By June 1926 she had made plans to leave — to move to her uncle William Gaines' home.
On June 17, 1926, two men found her body on the north shore of the lake. A bloody rock lay nearby. Sylvia Gaines was 22 years old.
Robert Gaines was arrested and tried. The prosecution's theory, supported by witness testimony, was that he had killed Sylvia to prevent her from leaving and from revealing the nature of their relationship — what the 1926 trial called an 'unnatural' arrangement. The jury deliberated just over three hours and returned a guilty verdict. Gaines was the 25th person executed in Washington State, put to death on August 31, 1928, at the Walla Walla penitentiary.
The grove of alder trees planted at Green Lake in Sylvia's memory was later removed after falling limbs became a public safety concern. The point of land where her body was found retains her name: Gaines Point. It sits between the Green Lake Boathouse and the Green Lake Wading Pool on the lake's north shore.
Sources
Gaines Point sits on the north shore of Green Lake, between the boathouse and the wading pool, named for the young woman whose body was found on its shore in June 1926. The lake is busy during daylight — runners, cyclists, families, dogs. After dark the north shore quiets, and it is in that quiet that accounts of Sylvia Gaines cluster.
Visitors walking the lake path at night have described a female figure at Gaines Point — standing near the water, present and then absent without having moved through the observable space. The accounts are not dramatic. She is seen, and then she is not.
The ghost narrative attached to this location has the characteristic specificity that distinguishes it from generic lake ghost stories: a documented name, a documented death site, a documented injustice. The particular cruelty of Sylvia's situation — killed by the parent she had come to know, in an act meant to silence her — gives the location's folklore a weight that generic tragedy does not.
HistoryLink, the authoritative Seattle history archive, has documented the Sylvia Gaines case in detail. The location's dark history is verifiable; the figure on the north shore is reported but not documented.
Notable Entities
Green Lake Park's 2.8-mile paved loop encircles one of Seattle's most popular urban parks. Gaines Point — the northern shoreline promontory between the boathouse and the wading pool — is where the body of 22-year-old Sylvia Gaines was discovered on June 17, 1926. The point retains her name. Evening walks around the north shore are the most atmospheric for those interested in the site's history.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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