Phone Pauses Itself at Profanity in Cheyenne School Said to Be Haunted by Janitor

CHEYENNE, WYO. — Olivia Hamilton, who cleaned Deming Elementary in Cheyenne from 2020 to 2025, told Cowboy State Daily that whatever she played on her phone while working would stop by itself at cussing, sex, drugs or alcohol. According to her account, it happened nowhere else and worsened after she replaced the phone. "We joked that he took it very seriously," she said.

"He" is the school's legendary janitor. Ms. Hamilton says she found online stories of a man, possibly the janitor, dying in the boiler room within a few years of the building opening in 1945. She could not find his name or cause of death. Local lore, she says, held that tapping on a window at night might bring a tap in reply.

Her list of experiences is extensive. She describes water pooling on the boiler room floor in the shape of a man's head and shoulders, which she photographed. She also reports heavy footsteps on the hollow stage, where she glimpsed a man in flannel and jeans who vanished when she turned. In a hallway, she says, she felt a rush of wind as though someone had passed. A kindergarten teacher, she adds, reported a bathroom sink switching itself on.

Teacher Madori Presley told the outlet she has sensed an older man in the building, and says he "definitely watches over the building." The two women also describe a girl with pigtails at nearby Miller School, with which Deming shared staff.

The report itself notes the caveats: the janitor's death is traced only to online stories, no record of a death in the boiler room turned up, and Ms. Hamilton attributes a bouncing-basketball sound to the boilers. Deming Elementary closed at the end of the 2025-26 school year, and the school board voted in June to sell the building or hand it to another public agency. What becomes of its resident, if any, is not reported.