A Collector’s Dream Became a Nightmare on Wheels
Date: November 5, 2025
Location: Scottsdale, Arizona
Witness: David McCallister (collector), family of previous owner
Investigator: Southwest Paranormal Research Team (SPRT)
Status: Active Investigation
PART 1: THE AUCTION
On October 12, 2025, David McCallister attended an estate auction in Scottsdale, Arizona. The property belonged to the late Harold Finch, a wealthy businessman who had passed away six months earlier at the age of 84. Finch was known in local car clubs as a meticulous restorer of classic American muscle cars.
The centerpiece of the auction was a 1967 Ford Mustang GT – a stunning example in Candyapple Red with a white interior. It had been fully restored three years ago and had fewer than 500 miles on the odometer since the restoration.
“I knew I had to have it,” David told our team. “I’ve been collecting for twenty years, and this was one of the cleanest Mustangs I’d ever seen. The bidding was intense, but I got it for $85,000.”
As David was completing the paperwork, Harold Finch’s daughter, Margaret, approached him with a troubled expression.
“She said, ‘I need to tell you something about the car,'” David recalled. “I thought she was going to mention some mechanical issue. But she said, ‘My father loved that car, but he stopped driving it at night. He said there was something in the back seat. Please, just don’t drive it after midnight.'”
David thanked her for the warning but dismissed it as superstitious old man talk. “I figured Harold had maybe dozed off at the wheel once and scared himself. Classic cars have quirks. I wasn’t worried.”
PART 2: THE FIRST NIGHT DRIVE
For two weeks, David kept the Mustang in his climate-controlled garage, admiring it, showing it to friends, but not driving it much. Then, on October 28, he decided to take it out for a real drive – a late-night cruise through the desert roads outside Scottsdale.
“It was about 1 AM. I just wanted to feel the engine open up on an empty highway,” he said.
The drive was exhilarating. The V8 roared, the desert air rushed through the partially open window. David was in heaven.
At exactly 3:17 AM, he glanced in the rearview mirror.
“I saw her. A little girl, maybe eight years old, with long dark hair, wearing a white dress. She was sitting in the back seat, right in the middle, staring at me. Her eyes were… empty. Like dark pools.”
David’s blood turned to ice. He swerved, nearly running off the road. He slammed on the brakes and whipped his head around.
The back seat was empty.
“I sat there for a minute, heart pounding, telling myself I imagined it. Stress, lack of sleep, whatever. I drove home as fast as I could, not looking in the mirror again.”
When he arrived, he parked the car and went inside, trying to forget. But the next morning, he noticed something strange: the back seat was damp, as if someone had been sitting there in wet clothes.
“I touched it. Cold. And there was a faint smell – like old flowers, like a funeral home.”
PART 3: THE DASH CAM
David decided to install a dash cam aimed at the back seat. “I needed proof, one way or another. If I was losing my mind, I wanted to know.”
He bought a high-resolution night vision camera and mounted it on the dashboard, pointing backward. For three nights, he drove the same route at the same time.
Nothing happened.
On the fourth night, at 3:17 AM, he checked the footage the next morning.
“What I saw made me throw up.”
The video, which we have obtained exclusively, shows the following:
Time stamp 3:16:45 AM – The back seat is empty.
3:17:02 AM – A faint glow appears in the center of the seat.
3:17:11 AM – A translucent figure materializes – a small girl in a white dress, sitting perfectly still, facing forward.
3:17:19 AM – The girl turns her head slowly toward the camera. Her eyes are black voids. Her mouth opens, but no sound is recorded.
3:17:28 AM – She raises one hand and points directly at the camera.
3:17:35 AM – The image distorts with static, and the girl vanishes.
PART 4: CONTACTING THE FAMILY
David immediately contacted Margaret Finch, the daughter of the previous owner. When he described what he had seen, she was silent for a long moment.
“My father saw her too,” she finally said. “He wouldn’t talk about it. He just stopped driving the car at night. He said she only appears at 3:17 AM. He called her ‘the little passenger.'”
Margaret agreed to meet with David and share what she knew. She brought old family photos and a diary her father had kept during the final years of his life.
In the diary, Harold Finch wrote:
“April 12, 2023: Took the Mustang out tonight. Around 3:15, I felt cold. Looked in the mirror. She was there. Same little girl. I’ve seen her three times now. I think she’s trying to tell me something. I think she died in this car.”
“May 3, 2023: Hired a private investigator to trace the car’s history. Found something. The Mustang was originally owned by a family in Tucson. In 1972, their daughter, Emily, age 8, disappeared. She was never found. The car was sold a year later. I think… I think she’s still in it.”
PART 5: THE HISTORY
David and Margaret hired a researcher to dig deeper. What they uncovered is heartbreaking.
The 1967 Mustang was originally purchased by Robert and Linda Hayes of Tucson, Arizona. They had one child, Emily, born in 1964. Emily was described as a shy, imaginative girl who loved wearing white dresses and playing pretend.
In July 1972, Emily disappeared from her own backyard. She had been playing near the garage while her mother hung laundry. When Linda turned around, Emily was gone.
A massive search ensued, but no trace of Emily was ever found. The case remains open to this day.
The Hayes family sold the Mustang in 1973, unable to bear the memories. The car changed hands several times over the decades, eventually ending up with Harold Finch, who restored it without knowing its tragic history.
But the car knew.
PART 6: THE INVESTIGATION
David contacted the Southwest Paranormal Research Team (SPRT) , a group based in Phoenix specializing in vehicle-related hauntings. Lead investigator Maria Santos, a former detective with a background in forensic science, agreed to take the case.
“We’ve investigated haunted houses, hotels, even a bridge,” Santos said. “But a haunted car? That’s rare. Vehicles are mobile, which means the energy can move with them. It also means the spirit might be trying to go somewhere.”
The SPRT team spent three nights with the Mustang, parked in David’s garage. They set up:
- Full-spectrum cameras
- EMF meters
- Digital voice recorders
- Thermal imaging
- Motion sensors
For two nights, nothing occurred. On the third night, at 3:17 AM, the equipment went wild.
“Every EMF meter spiked to maximum,” Santos reported. “The temperature in the back seat dropped 20 degrees in seconds. And on the full-spectrum camera, we saw her – Emily, sitting in the back, just as David described.”
The team attempted communication. Using a technique called “transcommunication,” they asked questions through a device that scans radio frequencies for responses.
What came through, captured on digital recorder, was a faint child’s voice:
“I want to go home. I’m lost. The car took me.”
PART 7: EXPERT ANALYSIS
We consulted Dr. Helen Graves, a child psychologist and parapsychologist at the University of Arizona, who has studied cases of alleged child hauntings.
“This is extraordinarily rare,” Dr. Graves said. “If genuine, it suggests that Emily’s spirit became attached to the car at the moment of her death – perhaps she was playing near it, or in it, and something traumatic occurred. The fact that she appears at the same time each night indicates a residual loop, a replaying of the trauma. But her ability to respond to questions suggests some level of awareness.”
Dr. Graves cautioned that the evidence, while compelling, is not conclusive. “We need more data, more sessions. But I’ve reviewed the footage and audio, and I have to say – it’s among the most convincing I’ve seen.”
PART 8: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
After the investigation, David faced a difficult decision. Keep the car and continue trying to communicate with Emily? Or try to help her move on?
He chose the latter. With the help of a local priest and a Native American spiritual advisor from the Tohono O’odham nation, a ceremony was performed to “release” Emily from the vehicle.
The ceremony took place on November 4, at sunset, in the desert where David had first seen her. The priest offered prayers, while the spiritual advisor burned sage and spoke in his native language, asking the spirits to guide Emily home.
That night, David drove the Mustang one last time at 3:17 AM. The back seat remained empty. The next morning, the car’s interior was dry, and the faint floral smell was gone.
But the investigation isn’t over. The SPRT team continues to monitor the vehicle, and they’ve placed a small camera inside permanently. So far, no further activity has been recorded.
PART 9: THE FAMILY’S RESPONSE
Margaret Finch, when informed of the ceremony’s outcome, was relieved.
“My father would have wanted that,” she said. “He was a kind man. He wouldn’t want a little girl trapped in his car. I hope she’s at peace now.”
Robert and Linda Hayes, Emily’s parents, both passed away in the 1990s, never knowing what happened to their daughter. But a cousin of the family, still living in Tucson, was contacted.
“We always wondered,” the cousin said. “The not knowing was the hardest part. If Emily’s spirit is finally free… that’s a comfort.”
PART 10: THE CAR TODAY
The Mustang now sits in David’s garage, rarely driven. He’s considering donating it to a museum that focuses on paranormal artifacts, but he’s torn.
“It’s a beautiful car,” he said. “And it’s part of Emily’s story now. Maybe it belongs somewhere people can learn from it.”
For now, the car remains under observation. And at 3:17 AM each night, David checks the camera feed.
So far, the back seat remains empty.