Decades ago it was the home and death place for a woman rumored to have had an ornery reputation. But the blame, Bolling said, falls squarely on his own status as a magnet for the paranormal.

"Maybe I’m crazy, but she sees it, too," he said, referring to his live-in girlfriend, Pat Poche. "A lady I spent 12 years with, she’s seen it. A lady I spent six years with, she’s seen it. Everybody that I’m around experiences, no matter where I live."

From 1972 to 1983, Bolling spent his days with the recently deceased as a homicide investigator with Avoyelles and St. Charles parishes. It was about then that his alleged paranormal visits began. The ghost of a priest sharing his Indian ancestry, Bolling said, began to follow his every move.

Bolling said photographs taken over decades reveal the priestly apparition, its face bearing jutting features typical of his forebears.

Outside of a few annoyances that usually occur after he’s angered the spirit, like rearranging furniture or inducing him to vomit, Bolling said the priestly ghost is an acceptable companion.

"This thing has never hurt me at all. People get used it. Everybody gets used to it," he said.

Getting used to a ghost is easier said than done, contends Poche, Bolling’s girlfriend for more than a year.

Poche maintains that in 66 years of life she had only one experience with the supernatural, a vision of her late husband.

Then she moved in with Bolling, and the spiritual visits came at a rapid pace.

One night, a lampshade began spinning, she said, until Bolling scolded the presumed ghost and told it to leave.

The next morning, she said, the lamp was set atop a different nightstand, and its shade was stashed under the bed.

On any given day a clock will wander off a bookshelf or a deadbolt will randomly unlock.

One night, Poche said, they re-locked a deadbolt on the front door only to discover the backdoor lock broken.

Another night, she said, they were lying in bed when an invisible liquid suddenly engulfed them.

Bolling acknowledged the occurrences could be psychosomatic, but the physical mark left behind proves they’re grounded in reality, he added.

"A lot of it could be a lot of imagination, because I know that the bed was not wet and it was in my head -- I don’t know," Bolling said.

"But I felt it too, and your clothes were wet. I was soaking wet," Poche said. "The clothes he was in, he took them off, and the next morning they were still wet. You could wring water out of them."

It’s these unexplained encounters that Bolling pins on his ghost, which he said first revealed itself on film in 1985.

He was atop a Santa Fe, N.M. mountain in an adobe church.

The church houses a candle that locals say never burns out.

Bolling took several pictures of the room, one of which he said reveals the priestly image, whose shimmering face pokes through flowing robes.

Eight months ago, the priestly apparition showed up on film a second time, Bolling said, at Breaux’s Hide-Away in Lockport.

Breaux’s Hide-Away is a tavern next to an abandoned church where, locals recall, members prayed over the body of a dead baby tucked in an ice chest in an unsuccessful attempt to resurrect it.

Photos taken one night at Breaux’s Hide-Away show what Bolling said are the wispy apparitions of three faces above himself and Poche.

"Everybody who’s looked at it so far knows it’s not smoke. Smoke is not that white," he said.

Bolling admitted that some will doubt his experiences, but contended that they refuse to accept the supernatural.

And addressing the skeptics, he said "Look at it real good. Have an open mind."

Staff Writer Ben Lundin can be reached at 448-7635 or ben.lundin@dailycomet.com