This odd story centers around twenty-four year old singe mother Christine Skubish, and her three year old son Nick (pictured above), who went missing off of Highway 50 outside of Placerville, Ca. On Sunday, June 5th, 1994, she and Nick were moving from their home in Sacramento to start a new life in the Sierra Nevada Mountains about fifteen miles outside of Placerville. Christine had just earned her paralegal certification and was getting ready to start a new carrier. Not only that, but she also had plans of marrying Nick's father, who lived around that area.
On June 8th, Christine's stepfather, Dave Stautzenbach, received a telephone call from one of her friends saying that she had expected Christine to arrive in town on Monday, but it was now Wednesday morning. Deeply concerned, Stautzebach called the police to file a missing persons report. He then started checking with hospitals along highway 50- the route Christine was traveling- to see if she and Nick were there. Unfortunately, no one had seen her or heard from her. At first, the police didn't expect much from this report, and thought it would just be another routine "missing persons" that turns out not to be a "missing person". But man, would they ever be wrong.
In his interview with Karen Nichols (Christine's aunt), Cris Putnam relays more of her story. Karen wanted to set the record straight, because some of her story is not presented with accuracy. On the show, Karen calls Dave and relays to him a dream that she had. The show does not present the details of the dream accurately, so Karen relays to Cris the real details in the interview.
Karen Nichols has had several premonitions before, but the one she relays here is astounding. To let you know that Karen is not crazy, she once had a premonition that one of her relatives was going to get cancer. She relayed this information to the relative weeks before the actual diagnoses. The close family member eventually died from the cancer. Karen relayed to Cris in the interview that these premonitions are not something she tries to do; they just come to her. Such is the case with Christine and Nick Skubish.
Here is Karen's account of the first dream she had on the night of the accident:
"Monday morning about 3 a.m., June 6, 1994, I had a dream of riding in the backseat of a car at night. I could see the silhouette of a child in the passenger seat and a girl driving, I could see the reflection of the headlights and the hood of the car. I could tell we were on a dark road because there were no streetlights, and outside it seemed to be mountainous. That morning, I spoke to my mother and my sister and asked if they had heard from Chrissy. They said 'No,' but I knew she was going to stop by a friends house in Carson City, Nevada. So, even though I felt a bit uneasy, I continued to push it out of my mind and told myself everything was OK."
After still not hearing from Christine the next day, the following night, and into Tuesday morning, Karen had another dream:
"That night when I went to sleep, I had the same dream, exactly as the night before, and I repeated the same activities as the day before, calling to check on Christine, with the same disappointing results. It was now Tuesday, June 7, and my concern grew stronger, and I felt very anxious. My hear felt heavy, and I had a sick feeling in my stomach. I knew something was very wrong."
The third dream, however, is the most disturbing, and it definitely seems as though the ghost of Christine was contacting her in her dreams in order to save Nick, who was still in the woods at this time.
Karen calls Christine her "sister" because they were so close, but she is really Christine's aunt:
"That night I had another dream that was different than the other two. This dream was more of a catastrophic nature. I was in my sister's house and there was a horrible wind. This wind had so much force that the trees were completely bent in half. I was standing in front of the window and looking out into the yard. It was a big yard, as my sister lived on sixteen acres with many tall pine trees. It was nighttime, and all of a sudden, the winds increased to hurricane-like winds. I could hear the sound of glass breaking and popping and metal scraping. I could even see sparks.
I looked over in the yard and I could see Nicky standing in the middle of the yard. I also saw my sister trying to get to him. There was so much debris blowing around and glass shattering and metal that looked like it was curled up. I was trying to help my sister, but I couldn't find my shoes. I was barefooted, and I knew I wouldn't be able to make it to her because of all the glass that was on the ground. I finally found them, and when I opened the door, the wind stopped. I ran to her and she was just standing there with Nicky.
Nervously, I was laughing, and I turned her towards me and asked if she was all right. When I looked into her eyes, they were blank and there was no life in them. Her face was inexpressive. She looked like she was in a trance, because she didn't look at me but through me.
I asked if she was okay, and she said, 'No.' I said, 'Are you going to be okay?' She looked at me with very haunting eyes and with a melancholy expression and again said, 'No.'"
This dream occurred Wednesday morning, June 8th. That evening Deputy Strasser got the missing persons report. When Thursday rolled around, and there were no new developments, Karen rallied the family to search the road side for Christine and Nick. Karen was intense in her efforts to convince the family that Christine had been in a wreck, and that Nick survived. "I could feel him." She stated in her interview with Cris Putnam, "I could feel that he was alive. I didn't feel Chrssy, but I did feel Nick."
Karen convinced her family, and they printed up fliers and began distributing them along Highway 50. Karen, who lived 500 miles away, rented a car and set out to find Nick. While traveling with her husband, about two hours into the trip, Karen states,
"...I just couldn't find the words to pray. Then there was a groaning in my spirit, and I began to hear an utterance that I couldn't understand. I believe it was the Holy Spirit. I began to hear a man's voice; it was dynamic and forceful, and he was praying. He was demanding and he was rebuking, Even though it was strange, I understood every word.
He was covering Chrissy and Nicky with the blood of Jesus. He was sending God's angels to surround them. It sounded like heaven was being called down with all the glory and love and protection. I do not believe I ever experienced such power before. I felt like I was enveloped in peace and warmth. I heard this for what seemed the entire trip, but then, at one point, I couldn't feel Nicky any longer. I told my husband he could slow down...it was over. Nicky was gone. I could no longer feel him."
Karen believed that Nick had died. As Cris will point out in his interview with Nick, there seems to be confirmation of this. As you might have guessed, Nick did survive. In the investigation, the police came to the conclusion that Christine fell asleep at the wheel. She ran off the road, and the car plummeted forty feet down an embankment, which made it impossible to see the car from the road.
In his interview with Cris, Nick relays that he remembers much of the accident, as well as those nights in the woods. He remembers the roof being ripped off the car, the slide down the embankment, seeing his mom, and getting out of the car. He had no food or water for five or six days. He had a concussion, and went through severe malnutrition and dehydration. It was a miracle that he survived.
But how was he found? If the car couldn't been seen from the highway, and Nick was lost in the woods, how was he located? There is a reason this story is called "Haunted Highway." On the show, Paranormal Witness, Deborah Hoyt, an unrelated person, describes awakening in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 11th. She felt an overwhelming urgency to go home. Based on this premonition, she convinced her husband to get up and drive down Highway 50. On the way home to Lake Tahoe, she saw what seemed to be a dead, naked young woman on the side of the road. The way she described this woman matched exactly those of Christine Skubish. Deborah and her husband pulled over to a gas station and called 911 and reported it. When the police arrived, Deborah led the officer to Bullion Bend, but there was no sign of the white, nude woman. The officer searched and searched, but told Deborah that they had found nothing, and that she should just go home.
As Cris relates in his book, The Supernatural World View, during this time, Nick was in the car next to his dead mother's broken body. After talking to the officer who responded to Deborah Hoyt, Deputy Strasser became convinced that the apparition and the Skubish disappearance were related.
While Nick was in the car, he relates that angels took care of him:
"...Take the silhouette of a person, just the form, if you will. And make that form an essence of light, just light radiating from the form, but no physical features, no hands, no clothes...just light." Nick goes on to relay that he got out of the car and went to the road, but after no cars came by, he returned to the car and his dead mother. Nick also believes that the apparition was his dead mother, and that she was desperately reaching beyond the grave to save his life.
Debrah Hoyt was not the only person to reported seeing Christine's apparition. The police received several other calls from travelers reporting the same thing- a naked, dead woman- and they all gave the same description of her features, which matched Christine. Such reports lead to Deputy Strasser to come out to the scene again. When he did, he found Nick's shoe on the side of the road. Minutes later, Karen and her husband showed up, because they saw the shoe as well. This lead Strasser to find both the car and the boy.
Remember how Karen said she could no longer feel Nick's life force? There is some truth to this. While in the hospital, Nick had a NDE (Near Death Expereince) while in the hospital. Karen states:
"When I walked in the hospital room, Nicky sat straight up and looked at me, his little eyes as big as saucers, and said, 'Aunt Kiki, Aunt Kiki; my mommy died!' I said, 'Yes, Nicky she did.' Then he said, 'I died too, but I wasn't afraid because I was with Jesus and His angels, but I couldn't stay. I had to come back here.' He also said that Jesus' angels were there with him in the car. I asked where they were, and he said, 'There were three- there was two by the car and one on the road.' I didn't say anything. I couldn't speak. I just held him and thought back to the time when I couldn't feel him anymore, and said, 'Well there it is.'"
So let's recap the supernatural and paranormal things that happened in this story:
1) Karen had ESP dreams about the accident
2) Christine and Karen had after-death communication with each other.
3) At least three witnesses reported seeing an apparition of Christine that pointed to the scene of the accident.
4) Angels that were near the car and by the road at night.
5) Nick's NDE
6) Nick was able to survive without food and water for 5 days in temperatures over 100 degrees.
Another interesting thing is the the coroners report notes how well preserved Christine's body was. Just another interesting fact about this case.
According to the family, though she had some challenges, Christine was a Christian, and she was seeking the Lord and trying live in obedience to Him. Also, this entire experience led to the conversion of Nick Skubish. So, how do Evangelicals respond to this? As I have mentioned before, such "ghost" experience and psychic phenomenon like ESP get dismissed as Satanic deception or demonic activity. Yet that paradigm does not fit this experience. Why would Satan try to save a little boys life? Why would he send his messengers to preserve the boy? In fact, look at the fruit of this entire experience. It lead to the conversion of Nick Skubish. Surely Satan is not an evangelist.
Rather, what it seems like is that God allowed the departed spirit of a loving mother to intercede with passing travelers to get their attention. He also allowed her to communicate in dreams to her aunt. Why is this so hard for us, as Christians, to accept? Without the ghost of Christine communicating to people, Nick would have died. Instead, he lived, and through this experience, became a Christian. As we will see in later posts, the biblical world view does allow for these types of experiences. If you want to read this story in all its detail, you can get Cris Putnam's book, The Supernatural Worldview on Amazon for around $10.
If you are still not convinced by this post, in the next one, I will give several more ghost stories from credible witnesses.