In his Viewpoint column in the May 4 Maple Leaf, Hambden Township resident Sheldon Firem questioned whether the Geauga County Maple Festival might be cursed with predictably unpredictable weather — rain, cool, wind, dreary skies and rumors of sunshine.
In his Viewpoint column in the May 4 Maple Leaf, Hambden Township resident Sheldon Firem questioned whether the Geauga County Maple Festival might be cursed with predictably unpredictable weather — rain, cool, wind, dreary skies and rumors of sunshine.
One possible explanation he gave was the melonheads curse. But who are the Melonheads?
There are two popular legends of how the Melonheads came to be. They both involve a mysterious figure known as Dr. Crow (or Crowe, Krohe or Kroh, or known as Dr. Melonhead).
Legend of the Melonheads
According to local lore, the federal government commissioned Crow shortly after World War II to treat children who suffered from a rare condition known as hydrocephalus, which causes large pockets of water within the brain. Crow ran a small institution of sorts for these children and donated not only his services, but his home in the woods in Chardon Township, just off of Wisner Road, for the venture.
The government sent him these children — purportedly in the middle of the night — thinking he was doing a good deed and a great favor to society. And, according to one version of the legend, Crow had devoted his life to helping the children, who were ostracized from the community due to the size of their heads.
Crow took mercy on these poor children and allowed them to live with him in the woods, shielding them from the cruelty of the outside world, where he studied them and searched for a cure. Unfortunately, Dr. Crowe died of natural causes without finding a cure.
Unsure of what to do next, the children simply decided to hang around the old buildings and there they have remained to this very day. While the house is now nothing more than ruins, legend has it that if you can find your way back there, you might encounter a Melonhead or two. But don’t fret, if you do spot one, chances are they will just stand there and stare blankly back at you.
A more widely held — and second — version of the legend paints a more sinister picture of the doctor. Crow is said to have performed macabre medical experiments on the children, who developed larger, hairless, bulbous heads and tiny, malformed bodies. Crow is rumored to have injected even more fluid into their swollen brains, causing their heads to swell up like melons. Eventually, legend continues, the children killed Crow, burned the orphanage and retreated into the surrounding forests.
As the years passed, the Melonheads grew. The ones who survived reproduced, creating more deformed offspring. The insanity was passed as well as the physical characteristics.
It is said these Melonheads hate all human beings and occasionally emerge from hiding places to attack people in the area. They were blamed for numerous attacks and some kidnappings. Some accounts say they stole livestock, pets, even children, using them as a food source. Cannibalism was not out of the question in desperate times.
There is yet another story that wicked Crow was married to a kindly woman who was loved by the children. One night Crow and his wife were arguing and Mrs. Crow was killed, either intentionally or by accident, when she fell against a cabinet and hit her head.
The children became enraged and blamed the doctor, viciously killing him and burning down the institute.
East side high school students — Chardon High School students included — past and present, paranormal investigators, cryptozoologists and legend seekers have traveled along Wisner Road in Chardon Township and Kirtland day and night, hoping to catch a glimpse of them. They allegedly have been spotted near the alleged site of the Crow residence for decades. They typically have been described as a small humanoid creatures with extremely large, misshapen heads. They are often hairless with deformed limbs, razor-like teeth and glowing red eyes — a horrific sight to see for those lucky (or unlucky) enough to catch a rare glimpse of them.
Tales of these legendary beings and urban legends are not limited to our area, however. They also have been reported to exist in parts of Michigan and Connecticut. Different variations of the legend attribute different origins. The Melonhead legend also has been popularized on the internet and movies have been made based on the legend.
Wisner Road Melonheads
Locally, the Melonheads are associated with Wisner Road. They also are rumored to have been sighted on King Memorial Road, especially in or near the King Memorial Cemetery there. When the road enters Geauga County, it becomes Mentor Road in Chardon Township, and the graveyard commonly called King Memorial technically is named Larned Cemetery.
The main location, though, is the section of Wisner Road that winds its way through the woods and alongside the East Branch of the Chagrin River. Follow Wisner Road until it crosses over an old bridge — which is said to be a Crybaby Bridge — and you reach the dead end. (A crybaby bridge is a bridge upon which paranormal events are supposedly witnessed relating to babies and/or their mothers. Legend has it, along the bridge cries and screams of babies can be heard in the distance.) Once there, you officially have entered Melonhead Territory, as the remains of Dr. Crow’s facility are said to be back in these woods. And around those ruins lurk the Melonheads.
Accounts of Melonhead sighting have been reported — mostly at night — including in the blog “Creepy Cleveland,” “Weird Ohio,” “Haunted Ohio” and other internet sites.
“I used to live by the woods on Wisner Road near the Lundgren barn. When I was ten years old I had a brief encounter with a Melonhead,” blogger Jeff B. wrote in 2009. “It was an early autumn night around 10 p.m. when I heard my dog bark and I ran outside to see what was going on. When I went outside to see what the commotion was all about, I found my dog lying there bleeding. I looked toward the woods and saw what I believed to be a small figure with very pale skin and a large head. When the creature saw me it ran into the woods. I went out the next morning and followed the tracks but they stopped near a creek.”
In 2008, blogger Alyssa Morrow went to Wisner Road hoping to prove what was real or what was fake.
“My aunt drove, her friend Meggan, my brothers and their friend came along. We got lost in the area of Mitchell’s Mill and Wisner, but we kept seeing shadows in the woods and when we came along a black gate in the woods of Wisner Road, we all had that GUT feeling. The kind of feeling that tells you that you aren’t about to be in a good situation,” Morrow wrote. “Well, my brothers and their friend thought it would be cool, to make them not seem like sissys, to get out of the car. Well, they walked down a little side road for a few moments, and my aunt and I got scared, so we beeped the horn several times . . . and they ran back to the car, all diving in. They claim that there was something that ran across the road. It suddenly got extremely foggy outside. Momentarily, my brother Keith realized he lost his phone while running back to the car. We were in no mood, and none of us had the courage, to turn back.”
Alex grew up in Kirtland and was dating a girl from Chardon. They often found themselves driving many of the secluded roads rumored to be in Melonhead Territory looking for a place to ‘park.’
“I know all of this sounds manufactured and sensational, and as I was growing up, even I brushed off this story as nothing more than a legend,” he blogged in 2009. “In fact, I used to get mad at people who spread such ridiculous stories.”
That all changed in July 1995, when Alex was 18.
“While traveling down Chardon-Windsor Road, I came face to face with one of these beasts and I can tell you they are as real as real gets,” he wrote.
Alex said nature called and he needed to get out of the car.
“Suddenly, I heard the car start up and lurch into gear, and out of the corner of my eye saw it move backwards as the headlights came on,” he wrote.
“The headlights were pointed into the woods and, through the foliage, I saw the silhouettes of three or four shadowy shapes lumbering around. One was already on the edge of the road, moving through the bushes and tall grass toward me. From what I could make out, it was no taller than three feet and it had the biggest, most bulbous head I’d ever seen,” he said. “It wasn’t really running, per se, as the equilibrium caused by its disproportion only allowed it to move at a limited speed. I couldn’t really get a good look at the thing through the darkness and thick underbrush, but in a split second, I realized that the very childhood story I had heard about these woods may just be true. I really feared that if I didn’t act fast I would be attacked.”
He concluded, “Since that time, I have never laughed when I hear stories of the Melon Heads. I don’t brush them off and I never make fun of others who are scared of them. Heed my words as a warning: Don’t mess around in the woods around Chardon or Kirtland . . . or near the Chagrin River unless you want to come face to face with the hideous Melon Heads. Or theirs’ might be the last faces you will ever see.”
Then there is this story from Tony that doesn’t really stick to the blueprint. It was from October 2001.
“My stepfather, mom, stepbrother and I were driving down Chillicothe Rd. in Chardon. We had been driving up and down roads in the same area for almost an hour with no luck.
“We were just about to go home when we came up on this stretch of road that had fields on both sides and an irrigation ditch running parallel with each side of the road.
“Just then, I look out my window and I saw him — a Melonhead! He, or it, was running along next to the ditch. Since the ditch was too wide to jump over, it was coming close (like it was about to jump) and then pulling away. At the time, we were going about 45-50 mph. The Melonhead was actually keeping up with us.
“It didn’t look anything like I’d heard in the stories. He looked about the same height as me (5’7″), was wearing brown pants, which were very ripped up, and where the seams would be, it was held together by what looked like corn husk.
“It wore a white shirt with brown and red stains all over it (hoping that the red stains weren’t blood). Its head was a very light-brown tint. It had two holes in the sides of its head, which think were ears. Its head was swelled up, and its eyes were very big looking. Just as we turned a curve, it jumped into the woods.”
Jay gave this account of a possible sighting on Weird Ohio.
“My brother and I were driving along Mitchell’s Mill and I saw a quick flash out of the corner of my eye. I looked right and saw something by a tree. It was very blurry, though. I was so scared I screamed, and my brother looked out of his window. ‘What the hell was that?’ he said. I guess he saw it, too, because he turned around at the spring and we headed back. This was near Mentor Road, which is off of Auburn.”
‘Finding the Truth’
In 2016, paranormal investigators, brothers Jonathan and Micah Klein, went searching for these deformed cannibals of Wisner Road to find any truth behind the legend. They filmed their investigation as part of their YouTube production “Finding the ‘Truth.’”
“We’re pretty experienced in finding the truth about local legends,” Jonathan said. “Whether it’s hunting ghosts at the Geauga Theater or tracking Mothmen in West Virginia.”
So one summer night the two ventured into Melonhead Territory.
“Most people would be a little scared to go searching for monsters in the middle of the night, especially monsters with large heads, razor-sharp teeth, pale skin, dark lifeless eyes, hairless heads and distorted bodies,” said Jonathan. “We weren’t a little scared. If I recall correctly, we were terrified.”
He explained they have never found any real “truth” in the form of evidence.
“Though many people claim to see a clear shot of a Melonhead in our video at the 2 minute and 24 second mark, we frankly don’t know what they are referring to,” he added.
Their verdict on the Melonheads legend:
“Obviously the legend is real. But are the melonhead monsters real? Are the stories true?” Jonathan said. “Although we lack substantial evidence beyond some shaky camera footage, I can confidently say, ‘Yes, there is a Melonhead, Virginia!’”
He added, “People do not make up stories purely for amusement. There must be some basis of reality in the middle of all these tales or the tales wouldn’t exist. And I feel these tales bring us closer together as neighbors and improve the community.”
Urban Legend or Real Life Horror? (PART 2)
Earlier this month, we interviewed the great-niece of the infamous Dr. Crow. In part 2 of our story, which will appear in the June 8 issue, we will separate fact from fiction.
