The Curse of Greenwood Cemetery: Did Fred Weeks Get the Revenge He Wanted?

In the late 1800s, Fred Weeks was 62 years old and living in Indiana with his wife, Grace. They had been together for a long time but never had any children, and as they got older, Fred began thinking about where the two of them would eventually be buried.

Around the same time, Florida's citrus industry was booming. Orlando was growing quickly, and Fred saw an opportunity to invest some of the money he'd worked hard to earn over the years. So he and Grace packed up their lives in Indiana and moved south to Florida. Not long after arriving, Fred heard about a new cemetery being developed in Orlando called Greenwood Cemetery. With the city growing around it, he thought it sounded like the perfect place for him and Grace to eventually be laid to rest. Even in death, they would be part of the growing community they had chosen as their new home.

At the time, the cemetery was reportedly owned by three lawyers. They told Fred about a particularly nice section of land where he could purchase burial plots for himself and Grace. There was only one problem: Fred couldn't actually see the plots. The land was still being cleared, and according to the story, smoke and debris made it difficult to get a good look at exactly what he was buying. But Fred trusted the men. They were lawyers, after all, and presumably respectable businessmen involved in developing a new cemetery. So he paid for the plots without seeing them first.

About a month later, Fred returned to the cemetery to finally see the place where he and Grace would someday be buried. The lawyers were nowhere to be found. And those beautiful burial plots he'd purchased? They were swamp. The land was essentially useless, and certainly wasn't the nice final resting place Fred believed he'd paid for.

Fred Wants His Money Back

Understandably, Fred was angry. He tried to find the three lawyers, but they had disappeared. Unable to confront them in person, he wrote asking for his money back. Their answer was essentially: all sales are final. No refund. That apparently didn't sit well with Fred.

He had worked hard for his money, and as far as he was concerned, these fancy lawyer types had deliberately cheated him. What might have started as anger over losing money gradually became something much more personal. Fred became obsessed with getting revenge. So obsessed, in fact, that it began affecting his relationship with Grace.

Eventually, Fred came up with a plan. If the lawyers weren't going to give him his money back, he would make sure they paid another way. He bought three more burial plots in the same swampy section of Greenwood Cemetery. One for each lawyer. Then he placed headstones on the plots with curses directed at the men who had supposedly cheated him.

Fred's intention, according to the legend, was to make sure that when the lawyers eventually died, their souls would be drawn back to Greenwood Cemetery and trapped in the swamp forever. It's a pretty extreme response to a bad real-estate transaction. But Fred apparently believed that if he couldn't get his money back, he could at least make the men responsible suffer for what they had done.

And then something strange happened. The lawyers came back.

The Curse Apparently Worked

Some time passed, and Fred eventually got on with his life. He even managed to make back the money he'd lost in the cemetery deal. Then the three lawyers returned to Orlando. According to the story, all three were in terrible shape.

They had been having nightmares about the swamp and seeing the cursed headstones in their dreams. Each felt as though something were somehow pulling him back toward Greenwood Cemetery. Even stranger, they had apparently contacted one another and discovered they were experiencing the same thing. And it wasn't just nightmares. Their lives had begun falling apart. One lawyer's wife left him. Another's house burned down. All three became increasingly obsessed with the swamp and whatever was waiting for them there.

Eventually, they returned to Greenwood Cemetery. And there were the headstones. The things they had supposedly been seeing in their dreams were real. Standing in the cemetery looking at three markers bearing curses against them, the lawyers realized Fred Weeks had something to do with what was happening.

So they went looking for him. When they found Fred, he didn't exactly deny it. According to the legend, he told them: "I cursed you, and I'm glad about it."

The lawyers had had enough. They offered to buy the plots back from Fred for twice what he had originally paid. Fred had made his point, they said. Now they wanted their lives back. Eventually, he agreed. The lawyers got their land back, Fred got his money, and theoretically that should have been the end of the whole thing.

Except by then, Fred had a new problem. He believed the curse had actually worked.

Grace Leaves

When Fred originally told Grace about his plan to curse the lawyers, she apparently wasn't particularly concerned about the supernatural consequences. Curses weren't real. Fred could put whatever he wanted on a headstone, but that didn't mean anything was actually going to happen to these men.

Then the lawyers came back. They told Fred about the nightmares. They had supposedly seen the headstones before ever returning to the cemetery. Their lives had fallen apart, and they believed whatever Fred had done to them was responsible. Suddenly, Grace wasn't so sure anymore.

Fred had already become consumed with getting revenge, and now he had what he considered proof that he possessed the ability to curse someone. Grace couldn't handle what was happening with him anymore. She left Fred and returned to her family up north.

Fred had gotten his revenge and his money back, but he'd lost his wife in the process. And somehow, he still wasn't finished.

Fred Tries One More Time

Fred remained convinced that his curse had been real. The problem was that by selling the plots back to the lawyers, he had also given up the thing he'd used to bind them to the cemetery in the first place.

So over the next several years, he came up with another plan. This time, Fred purchased a different piece of land at Greenwood Cemetery and built a mausoleum for himself. But this wasn't going to be just his final resting place.

According to the legend, Fred placed another curse there, one designed to tether the souls of the three lawyers not merely to some burial plots they could buy back, but to Fred's own grave. This time, there would be no transaction that could undo it.

When Fred eventually died, he was buried in his mausoleum at Greenwood Cemetery. And that's where the story takes one final turn.

Who Did Fred Actually Curse?

Today, the legend says Fred Weeks can still sometimes be seen walking around his mausoleum at Greenwood Cemetery. The three lawyers? Apparently not. No one seems to see them wandering around Fred's grave. There are no stories of the three men trapped beside the mausoleum for eternity, exactly as Fred supposedly intended.

Instead, the person who reportedly remains there is Fred himself. Which raises a much more interesting question about the entire story. Did Fred's final curse work?

Maybe he really did manage to tether the lawyers' souls to his grave and, for whatever reason, they simply don't appear to visitors. Maybe the original curse, the nightmares and everything that happened afterward were coincidences that grew into a much better story as they were retold. Or maybe Fred spent so many years consumed by revenge, so determined to bind three other people to that cemetery forever, that the only person he ultimately managed to trap there was himself.

If that's the case, Fred Weeks got his curse. Just not quite the one he intended.

The Curse Apparently Worked

Some time passed, and Fred eventually got on with his life. He even managed to make back the money he'd lost in the cemetery deal. Then the three lawyers returned to Orlando. According to the story, all three were in terrible shape. They had been having nightmares about the swamp and seeing the cursed headstones in their dreams. Each felt as though something were somehow pulling him back toward Greenwood Cemetery. Even stranger, they had apparently contacted one another and discovered they were experiencing the same thing.

And it wasn't just nightmares. Their lives had begun falling apart. One lawyer's wife left him. Another's house burned down. All three became increasingly obsessed with the swamp and whatever was waiting for them there. Eventually, they returned to Greenwood Cemetery.

And there were the headstones. The things they had supposedly been seeing in their dreams were real. Standing in the cemetery looking at three markers bearing curses against them, the lawyers realized Fred Weeks had something to do with what was happening. So they went looking for him.

When they found Fred, he didn't exactly deny it. According to the legend, he told them: "I cursed you, and I'm glad about it." The lawyers had had enough. They offered to buy the plots back from Fred for twice what he had originally paid. Fred had made his point, they said. Now they wanted their lives back. Eventually, he agreed.

The lawyers got their land back, Fred got his money, and theoretically that should have been the end of the whole thing. Except by then, Fred had a new problem. He believed the curse had actually worked.

Grace Leaves

When Fred originally told Grace about his plan to curse the lawyers, she apparently wasn't particularly concerned about the supernatural consequences. Curses weren't real. Fred could put whatever he wanted on a headstone, but that didn't mean anything was actually going to happen to these men. Then the lawyers came back.

They told Fred about the nightmares. They had supposedly seen the headstones before ever returning to the cemetery. Their lives had fallen apart, and they believed whatever Fred had done to them was responsible. Suddenly, Grace wasn't so sure anymore.

Fred had already become consumed with getting revenge, and now he had what he considered proof that he possessed the ability to curse someone. Grace couldn't handle what was happening with him anymore. She left Fred and returned to her family up north. Fred had gotten his revenge and his money back, but he'd lost his wife in the process.

And somehow, he still wasn't finished.

Fred Tries One More Time

Fred remained convinced that his curse had been real. The problem was that by selling the plots back to the lawyers, he had also given up the thing he'd used to bind them to the cemetery in the first place. So over the next several years, he came up with another plan. This time, Fred purchased a different piece of land at Greenwood Cemetery and built a mausoleum for himself. But this wasn't going to be just his final resting place.

According to the legend, Fred placed another curse there, one designed to tether the souls of the three lawyers not merely to some burial plots they could buy back, but to Fred's own grave. This time, there would be no transaction that could undo it. When Fred eventually died, he was buried in his mausoleum at Greenwood Cemetery. And that's where the story takes one final turn.

Who Did Fred Actually Curse?

Today, the legend says Fred Weeks can still sometimes be seen walking around his mausoleum at Greenwood Cemetery. The three lawyers? Apparently not.

No one seems to see them wandering around Fred's grave. There are no stories of the three men trapped beside the mausoleum for eternity, exactly as Fred supposedly intended. Instead, the person who reportedly remains there is Fred himself. Which raises a much more interesting question about the entire story.

Did Fred's final curse work? Maybe he really did manage to tether the lawyers' souls to his grave and, for whatever reason, they simply don't appear to visitors. Maybe the original curse, the nightmares and everything that happened afterward were coincidences that grew into a much better story as they were retold.

Or maybe Fred spent so many years consumed by revenge, so determined to bind three other people to that cemetery forever, that the only person he ultimately managed to trap there was himself.

If that's the case, Fred Weeks got his curse. Just not quite the one he intended.