Ghost Hunter Dies in Fall From Roof at U. of Toronto

The ghost hunter fell from the roof of 1 Spadina Crescent, a wicked-looking building. (Photo by M. Janicki)

Colleges have their share of tragic stories, but this is one of the more unusual ones. The Toronto Star and several other Canadian news outlets are reporting the death of Leah Kubik, 29, who fell from the roof of a Gothic building at the University of Toronto.

The reports say Ms. Kubik, who was from Indiana, had been looking for ghosts at 2 a.m. and had fallen after she tried to follow a male friend from one roof to another. The Star says the incident was a “drunken” misadventure.

The building that the pair had been searching, 1 Spadina Crescent, certainly gives off a ghostly aura. The Star notes that a lecturer had been stabbed to death there in 2001; the crime went unsolved. The 1874 building had also been a military hospital, where a young Amelia Earhart nursed wounded veterans with influenza during World War I.

But 1 Spadina is not known for hauntings. “If the couple was looking for ghosts,” the Star says, “they probably should have gone to University College, where a stonemason from 150 years ago purportedly regales passersby with gruesome stories of a love triangle gone violent, before dissipating. Or Massey College, which [the novelist] Robertson Davies said he wanted to haunt.”