The following is an excerpt from Christopher Balzano’s latest book Haunted Southwest Florida, published August 5, 2025, by The History Press. Available in paperback. 160 pages, $21.95. Available where books are sold, or online at: Amazon, Amazon.ca, Barnes and Noble, and Books-a-Million.
Chapter 11 – Crossing the Road at Saint Leo
There is a central theme that runs through everything you find out about Saint Leo University in Pasco County. In the last one hundred years, the school has done its best to be part of the community as it works to carve its own identity into the Florida landscape it inhabits. Former students talk about how everyone knows each other or how they could recognize someone across campus even if they never spoke to them. Staff members know the feeling of kinship and family there is one of the things that makes it different from the other large campuses across the state. People from Saint Leo’s take pride in having experienced college there. It is no wonder their mascot is a lion.
When it comes to Saint Leo’s ghosts, there is a similar sense of connection, although the community part slips away a bit. Students and staff fall into two camps and firmly plant their feet down in them. The first group will tell you they have never seen a spirit and they do not know of anyone who has. They have never heard the stories—and if there were stories, they would know, because everyone talks, and the group is small. Then there is the other group. They speak of ghostly monks walking across streets and visiting graves and old housekeepers walking through walls. They say everyone knows about the ghosts and talks freely about them. They would know, because everyone talks, and the group is small.
Saint Leo’s is an oddity in its environment. It originally opened in 1889 when a Catholic named Edmund Dunne moved into the area, wanting to establish a more solid foundation for his religion in an area of Florida where Catholicism was not the popular belief system. The school, named for Pope Leo the Great, who lived and ascended to the papacy in the fifth century, it has shifted its educational focus with the times without losing sight of its overall mission. It has been Saint Leo High School and Leo College Preparatory School as well as Saint Leo Military College. It might be this latter incarnation that gives the campus one of its more unique but overwhelming aesthetic qualities. The school does not feel like other campuses in Florida but rather has the Benedictine feel of a school in New England. The Abbey is the center of campus, overlooking an artificial landscape, but that same area is dotted with wooden buildings that look like they come from a makeshift military base. These are no longer dorms but still dominate that part of campus. There is a statue near the library that also looks out of place and unsettling. It appears to be either a hooded, black monk or the Angel of Death. It was originally placed there as a marker for a time capsule in late 1983 and is said to represent the Benedictine monks who call the campus home. Unlike the friendly statue of Fritz the Lion, it is also said to move around campus and even follow students.
One account on the paranormal website Backpackerverse talks about a student who saw a hooded figure, much like the statue, several places on campus. He was convinced the dark man was following him. He saw him in the library and on the football field as well as in the hallways of the school and several dorms. He did not make the connection to the monk statue but and said the dark man seemed to be seen by only him.
While Backpackerverse has been known to exaggerate stories and publish untrue accounts (in fact, there is no football field on campus; the school is dominated by its baseball team), this student’s story has been echoed by several others. The most compelling story might be Ted’s. He claims he and his friends decided to decorate the statue with a Saint Leo’s baseball cap and take some pictures for homecoming a few years back. The next few nights, he woke up to find a smaller version of the statue, minus the hat, standing at the foot of his bed. He was not asleep and could move freely. “I just lay there as that thing pointed a finger at me. It was real. I could hear my roommate snoring and the television on. The second night, there was even a little rain on my floor. It had been raining that night.” On the third night, slightly over his fear and just wanting to get a good night’s sleep, he apologized for having taken the pictures. The figure never appeared to him again, but all the photos they had taken that day were mysteriously erased from their phones and social media accounts.
There may be holes in Ted’s story, but he tells it as if it really happened. He does not know why he was the only one of his friends to get the visits. “It wasn’t even my idea. It wasn’t my hat. I’m going to be honest with you: I think those other guys saw it and were too embarrassed or scared to say it. I saw the look when I told them.”
Another ghost appears in students’ dorm rooms but causes much less of a stir. Students living in Edward Hall report that a woman walks through walls and sits on beds. Descriptions of the woman, who is known as Ms. Genevieve, vary dramatically. Some see her as an older woman dressed in older clothes, like ones from the 1950s. Other see a younger woman. This is the ghost people who attended the school talk the most about. They are told about her, and usually they’ve either seen her or know someone who has.
Gemma Rose is a librarian in the Flagler County public library system and graduated from Saint Leo in 2018. She is a history buff who has also researched the paranormal in her area. She claims most students know about Ms. Genevieve and even offers the backstory people spread. ”The legend is: Ms. Genevieve was a housekeeper on campus. One day, she was walking the laundry up the stairs and lost her footing. She fell down the stairs and died instantly. A few weeks later, she was replaced by a new housekeeper. One night, on the third floor, the housekeeper was cleaning the bathroom and saw the face of an old woman appear. She got scared and immediately quit her job.”
Gemma also says that people who report sightings of her say they have even heard her humming. While Miss Genevieve seems to not be unhappy with her work in the afterlife, Gemma believes her presence adds to an overall feeling students report in that building. “For me, Edward Hall had the most ‘sad’ energy walking in. Like when you go to a funeral; it is just a heavy feeling. Edward Hall always felt like that to me.” Others say the same.
Meghan Kennedy, who writes for the school’s student newspaper, Lions’ Pride, has mentioned the story as well. In one article, she throws the story out as if anyone reading about it does not need the backstory. They already know it and think that it is true.
Neither Miss Genevieve’s existence nor her death at Edward Hall can be confirmed. Some have said the school cover it up to please the other families at the school, an excuse often given in urban legends. The school does acknowledge that the story persists, and while no one is willing to go on the record to confirm any sightings, at least one published report sets it all down. Jane Govoni, Mary Spoto and Valerie Wright, authors of the book Lions, Leos, and Learners: A History of St. Leo University, clearly felt that the tale needed to be included, even if it was placed in the same section as a legendary alligator nearby and other silly stories students spread. In a section titled “What’s the Buzz,” they write:
Over the years several students walking the campus in the quiet of the late night have reported seeing a lone figure crossing by a window on the third floor of Saint Edward Hall, once a boys’ residence hall. When they have entered the building or reported the sighting, no one was ever found. It’s hearsay. Over the years, this same mysterious figure has been spotted crossing the same windows on the third floor of the building. Each time someone has investigated, no one has ever been found in the building.
In other words, people have reported the ghost, but it acts too much like a ghost for them to be proven right. Ms. Genevieve has also been said to be the woman who sits outside Edward Hall in what is known as the Peaceful Reflections Garden, a Native American medicine wheel formed by stones. Students are encouraged to walk and meditate in it. It also has several benches. An older woman is seen sitting on those benches with her head down and her hands together in prayer. She disappears when approached.
There is another monk who is known to walk the campus, but he never gets past the front lawn. He might be on his way to the abbey from his resting place across the road in a spot called the Grotto. People driving down State Road 52 at sunset speak of seeing a man who is usually assumed to be one of the brothers from the Holy Name Monastery on campus. He comes from the woods quickly, almost as if he is running, but his movements are not hurried. The monk steps onto the road. He is wearing dark robes, and his face is covered by the hood over his head. The driver assumes he will stop, giving them the right of way, but he walks across the street as if the car does not exist. The living swerves to avoid the dead, who just continues to walk as if the whole thing has not happened and evaporates as he reaches the front lawn. This has happened often enough that locals drive slowly around dusk when approaching the college.
If those same drivers followed the path the ghost came from, they might encounter a few more just like him, but people of Pasco County and the students at the school do not make a habit of going to the Grotto when the sun is going down—whether out of fear or respect. They know whatever walks there is best left undisturbed at that time. They are even reluctant to share the stories. The spirits, after all, just seem to be on their way to evening prayers, known in the Catholic Church as vespers. These are generally conducted around sunset; bells from the abbey signal when they are beginning. It is a tradition deeply rooted in ritual, and it may be that sense of ritual that forces those buried at the Grotto to continue the ceremony.
Once you cross the street, you will see a path that seems to lead into the woods. Climb some stone stairs and take a short walk through the trees, and you’ll find a monument celebrating the graduates of the college who gave their lives during World War II. Some say that farther into the woods, there is a small, respectful cemetery, but people generally stop at the mausoleum and the open stone chapel. Corolus Herricus Mohr, the monastery’s first abbot and president of the university, is buried there. On his grave are the words “O Domine, quia ego servus tuus; ego servus tuus, et filius ancillæ tuæ,” which means, “O Lord, I am your servant and the son of your handmaid,” a reference to Psalm 116. The quote is generally accepted as meaning that the buried person dedicated his life to God. In this case, that may even mean after death.
Around the time the bells should ring and vespers begin, people say you can hear singing at the Grotto. It is almost more of a chant than a hymn or song. The most frequently reported sighting is of one man, thought to be Abbott Mohr, but on occasion, he is joined by several others. Men in black robes, some with hoods and others with their faces clearly visible, come from the burial ground as well as the woods. They walk slowly, in step with each other, their feet hitting the ground but making no sound. They start up the path, joining each other as they travel. If undisturbed, they continue across the street but are never seen crossing the campus or appearing in the church itself.
It is hard to say whether any of the stories from Saint Leo are true or if they’re just a combination of religious ideas mixed with urban legends. No one has ever been able record the monks on their way to prayers or the dark man who hates practical jokers. No one can say whether the housekeeper existed; no one has spoken to the woman walking in a circle. College campuses are breeding grounds for ghost stories. These stories help build community and establish traditions and give those on campus the feeling that there is something that unites them.