When a college athlete moves into a haunted dorm room and captures photographs of a skeletal apparition hovering over his bed, is it a genuine paranormal encounter or mass hysteria?
Netflix’s new horror series True Haunting, directed by Saw creator James Wan, brings this decades-old mystery back into the spotlight. But the dramatized Netflix version only scratches the surface of what student Chris Di Cesare claims he experienced at SUNY Geneseo’s Erie Hall in 1985.
The series weaves together documentary-style interviews with scripted horror sequences, following Di Cesare through months of escalating paranormal activity that included disembodied voices, full-body apparitions, moving objects, and ultimately, a violent physical attack that left visible marks on his body. Students at SUNY Geneseo still whisper about Erie Hall’s haunted reputation to this day, believing the spirit of a boy named Tommy continues to linger in the building.
A Scholarship Student’s Paranormal Nightmare
Chris Di Cesare arrived at SUNY Geneseo in 1985 with dreams of track and field glory, not ghost hunting. The freshman athlete had earned a scholarship and was assigned to room C2D1 in Erie Hall alongside his roommate, Paul. Nothing about the standard dorm room suggested the terror that would unfold over the coming months.
But something strange happened during Di Cesare’s first weeks on campus. He attended a lecture by famous paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, the real-life couple who investigated the Amityville Horror case and inspired The Conjuring films. During their meet and greet afterward, Lorraine Warren allegedly refused to shake Di Cesare’s hand. Her reason? “I don’t want to know my future.”
The cryptic warning would prove eerily prescient.
About 11 days later, Di Cesare began hearing a disembodied voice in his dorm room calling his name. At first, he assumed someone was playing a cruel prank on the new student. But when his roommate Paul also began witnessing objects moving on their own, the two concluded something impossible was happening. As Di Cesare told SUNY Geneseo’s student newspaper The Lamron, they realized “there was something dead in the room with them.”
The Ghost Reveals Itself
The disembodied voice was unsettling, but it was only the beginning. According to Di Cesare’s account, the presence eventually materialized into a full-body apparition of a teenage boy who appeared before him and pleaded, “Please help me, help me, please!”
The encounter was so disturbing that Paul, Di Cesare’s roommate, fled the room after the ghost allegedly said, “Leave Chris alone.” Paul never returned to stay in C2D1 again.
On February 14, 1985, Di Cesare and his next-door neighbor Jeff Ungar decided to attempt something bold: they would try to photograph the apparition. Ungar encouraged Di Cesare to “call out the ghost” and “invite the ghost in.” What happened next left Di Cesare temporarily paralyzed with fear.
The door allegedly opened to reveal a face. When Ungar tried to photograph it, nothing appeared. But Di Cesare told The Lamron that Ungar’s attempt “must have infuriated the ghost because afterward, he came right at me, and went right through me, making me fall to the ground.”
Di Cesare then directed Ungar to photograph the “dead thing hovering above my bed.” The photograph they captured showed what appeared to be a skeletal apparition on the side of Di Cesare’s bed. According to Di Cesare, Ungar was able to “label all of the bones” visible in the image.
The two began systematically documenting their experiences in journal entries, collecting what they believed was evidence of genuine paranormal activity.
The Shower Attack
Di Cesare’s most terrifying experience occurred on March 13, 1985. While showering in the dorm bathroom, the entity the students had nicknamed “Tommy” allegedly attacked him, leaving claw marks on his back.
Di Cesare says he called out to the being, challenging it: “Who are you? God? The Devil? Show yourself!” The apparition responded by slashing him. Ungar later found Di Cesare collapsed on the bathroom floor and helped him.
The physical evidence of scratches on Di Cesare’s back would become one of the most compelling aspects of his story, though skeptics have suggested alternative explanations ranging from self-inflicted wounds to a misidentified medical condition.
The Activity Stops
According to Di Cesare’s account, the paranormal encounters began to lessen in frequency and intensity after the March attack. By mid-April 1985, the activity had stopped entirely, shortly after a priest came to Erie Hall to bless the dorm and perform an exorcism to remove the spirit.
Despite the apparent success of the religious intervention, Di Cesare maintains that “Tommy” still lingers within Erie Hall’s walls. Current students at SUNY Geneseo continue to report strange occurrences in the building, keeping the legend alive decades later.
Examining the Evidence
Di Cesare’s story contains several elements that paranormal investigators find intriguing: multiple witnesses, photographic evidence, physical marks, and contemporaneous documentation through journal entries. The fact that his roommate and neighbor also witnessed phenomena adds credibility that’s often missing from single-witness accounts.
However, skeptical explanations exist for each element of the story. The disembodied voices could have been auditory hallucinations or pranks by other students. The photographs, captured on 1980s technology, are difficult to analyze conclusively. The scratches could have resulted from any number of mundane causes, from accidental self-injury during a nightmare to an undiagnosed skin condition.
The timing is also notable. Di Cesare’s experiences began just days after meeting Lorraine Warren, who was known for her dramatic flair and belief that demonic forces were widespread. Could the lecture have primed a suggestible young man to interpret ordinary experiences through a paranormal lens?
Mass hysteria in close quarters, such as college dormitories, is also a documented psychological phenomenon. Once one person believes they’re experiencing paranormal activity, others in proximity may begin perceiving ordinary events as supernatural.
The Ghost Boy’s Identity
The spirit was nicknamed “Tommy” by Di Cesare and his fellow students, and legend holds that he was a boy who hanged himself on the Geneseo campus. However, verification of this backstory proves difficult. No official records or newspaper reports from the period confirm a suicide at SUNY Geneseo matching this description.
This absence of documentation doesn’t necessarily disprove the haunting, but it does raise questions about how folklore and rumor shape paranormal narratives. Ghost stories often acquire details over time, with each retelling adding elements that make the tale more compelling.
From Haunted Dorm to Netflix Drama
For nearly 25 years after his 1985 experience, Di Cesare largely stayed out of the public eye. The traumatic nature of the events may have contributed to his silence, or perhaps he simply wanted to move on with his life without being known as “the ghost guy.”
That changed in 2009 when Di Cesare appeared in the film Please, Talk with Me…, which recreated the events surrounding the C2D1 ghost photograph. He embarked on a college speaking tour in 2011 and was featured in an episode of SyFy’s School Spirits titled “Dorm Room Nightmare.”
In September 2025, coinciding with the release of Netflix’s True Haunting, Di Cesare published his memoir The Ghost Boy of Erie Hall. According to the book’s description, it provides “a truly unique and fascinating look inside the events and the related trauma of an extreme haunting, directly from the participants themselves,” including journal entries, photographs, and eyewitness accounts from the period.
The Netflix series takes the story even further, with horror maestro James Wan directing a hybrid docuseries that combines interviews with Di Cesare and other real witnesses alongside dramatized horror sequences. The format allows viewers to hear directly from those who claim to have experienced the phenomena while also delivering the cinematic scares expected from Wan’s involvement.
The Enduring Mystery of Erie Hall
Four decades after Chris Di Cesare first heard a voice calling his name in room C2D1, the Erie Hall haunting remains one of college campuses’ most intriguing paranormal cases. The combination of multiple witnesses, photographic evidence, physical manifestations, and contemporary documentation sets it apart from many ghost stories that rely solely on folklore.
Yet for all the evidence Di Cesare and his associates collected, definitive proof of the paranormal remains elusive. The photographs are suggestive but inconclusive. The scratches were real but their origin uncertain. The witnesses were credible but human perception is notoriously unreliable, especially under stress.
What cannot be disputed is that something profoundly affected Chris Di Cesare during his freshman year at SUNY Geneseo. Whether that something was a genuine spirit, a psychological phenomenon, or an elaborate series of pranks may never be conclusively determined. The mystery is what keeps Erie Hall’s legend alive, drawing paranormal enthusiasts and Netflix viewers alike to wonder: what really happened in room C2D1?
Have you experienced a time a haunting of your own? We’d love to hear your story. Send your report to Reports@ParaRational.com
