Haunted Places | Maltby Cemetery in Woodinville, Washington
On September 1st, Ghostly Activities went to Maltby Cemetery (aka Paradise Lake Cemetery) to check out reports of apparitions. Get the scoop after the jump.
Maltby Cemetery Haunted Background
The cemetery has many urban legends associated with it. The video (above) does a good job of listing them. The Satanic cult rituals, random murders and 13 steps to Hell are the most popular urban legends. A forest surrounds Maltby cemetery, so it’s going to be dark and spooky at night. That will add to the creepy factor. Also, the steps got removed more than 5 years ago, so you probably won’t have the vision of Hell.
But, some bodies have been found in the woods. That means there’s potential for them to generate a haunting. They weren’t dumped in the cemetery, so you’d have to hike into the woods to run an investigation.
Back to the cemetery: Most of the graves are family plots that go back to the first settlers in the area. The grounds are well maintained and most of the old headstones have been replaced with new ones. Locals have reported apparitions of women and children wearing ragged clothes from the 1890s-1930s era. No one has posted these pictures online. We checked the dates on the graves. Many of children’s headstones match this period. These apparitions may be the only credible hauntings here.
Maltby Cemetery Photo Gallery
Sorry, the image database became corrupt, and I lost the images.
Ghost Hunting Tips
The cemetery is still used for burials. We found headstones as recent as 2015. The groundskeeper lives right in front of it (see Getting to Maltby Cemetery below). If you want to take some pics or investigate, get permission from him first.
The cemetery is an uncontrolled environment with homes on either side of it. You’ll record voices from neighbors and hikers. Also, it’s next to the busy Paradise Lake Road. There’s a lot of noise pollution in the area. If you can, go at night when it’s quiet.
Maltby Cemetery is known for its apparitions. You want to use image and video gadgets for your investigation. We have an infrared camera, full-spectrum video camera and thermal imaging camera. The graves run in straight lines along 3 levels, so you could point each camera down the rows to get a clear shot. Again, most activity happens at night. To get any apparitions, you need infrared, full spectrum and thermal imaging devices. Day time investigations will lead to zero evidence. Believe me: We tried!
Getting to Maltby Cemetery
When you try to find the cemetery, it’s easy to get lost. Don’t count on the geolocation tags on HauntedPlaces.org: It will put you a couple of blocks away from the site. Also, don’t search for ‘maltby cemetery’ on Bing or Google. The results will point you to Bear Creek Cemetery, which is a few miles away from Maltby Cemetery. If you search for ‘paradise lake cemetery,’ you’ll get a better destination point.
To go to the cemetery:
- Go south on Paradise Lake Road
- Turn west on NE 202nd Place
- Turn north on 194th Place NE
- Turn east on NE 203rd Place
- Go to the end of the road
- The cemetery’s entrance has a chain across it and signs that say ‘No Trespassing’
- The groundskeeper doesn’t let anyone back to check out the cemetery. You’d have to prove you have family buried there. Washington doesn’t allow access to graveyards on privately-owned land. If you have family members interned, then you can send a request in writing to the owner with a date and time of visit. If it’s declined, you can petition the state to have your family member’s grave moved to a spot you can pay your respects.
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Jacob Rice has documented ghostly activities and ghastly monstrosities on this blog since 2013. His first paranormal (make that monster) encounter happened on a cold winter’s day in Wisconsin. While living in Chicago, Ghostly Activities was born, and now he calls the mysterious Pacific Northwest his home.
15 thoughts on “Haunted Places | Maltby Cemetery in Woodinville, Washington”
wow interesting! and thx 4 the tips
Hello,
I was wondering if you have the contact info for the groundskeeper? I’m researching for a passion project and I was curious about the 13 steps to hell. I want to know to whose crypt did it lead, or maybe whose headstone was at the top of the stairs. Any information concerning this might be helpful.
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Rachel, thanks for asking. I don’t have any contact info. You just walk up to his house (starred on map) and ask if you can go in the back to take pictures. Sometimes, he doesn’t answer the door. I went back anyway to take pictures and run an EVP session without a problem. The 13 Steps are now gone. They were removed about 10+ years ago. You can tell where they were, though. It’s a well-defined trail. Also, there’s no mausoleum or crypt at the bottom of the hill. I’m not sure if it was torn down, or if it’s just an urban legend. Hope that helps!
The stairs were there in 2000. They were just stairs to get from one level to another, since the cemetery is built on sloped land, so there are 3 terraced levels. The stairs just took you from one level down to the next. Nothing very mysterious about it.
Been there both day and night will never go back. Go at night. You’ll see things ya wish ya hadnt
how do people get in if permission is mostly likely to be denied ?
planning on visiting soon
Hi Anna, you’d have to get the ok from the property owner. I’ll drop some links below to Washington laws on the subject. Washington is a bit odd because it leaves the approval to the property owner. It’s one of only a handful of states that leaves the sole approval to the landowner, not the relatives. Still, if you have relatives, you can petition the county to have your relatives bodies moved to a different cemetery.
Thank you Jacob 🙂
i walked down those steps in 1992 they were not steps to go from one level to another, they were steps and at the bottom a dirt wall there was no apparent reason at that time for their existence, perhaps we are talking about two different sets of stairs M?
A friend of mine and I got our in-person 30-minute investigation request rejected there back in the fall of 2019. The groundskeeper was hostile to our very presence at 8 pm on a Monday. He went on a tirade about “the 13 steps to hell” legend being “bullshit” among other things. My friend and I left the area soon afterwards.
I went there a few times as a teenager, it was 1989-90. The first time we went was during the day to find where the stairs were, we counted 12. The next couple of times was at night, and there was 13 stairs. We never would walk to the bottom of the stairs, especially after witnessing the difference in the stairs between day and night.
Maltby cemetery is right at Turner’s corner it’s a very small cemetery right of hwy 9 before u come into clearview and paradise lake cemetery is its own 2 separate cemeteries in 2 different locations
Hi Randy, thanks for commenting, but I’ll have to disagree with you. King County has cross-listed Maltby Cemetery as Paradise Lake (or Paradise Valley) Cemetery. It maps to the directions I posted. The cemetery located at Turner’s Corner and Hwy 9 is Bear Creek Cemetery (or Turner Cemetery).
I actually grew up right next to this cemetery from 1993-2004. I lived at 19443 NE 203rd place Woodinville, WA, it’s the house to the right with the downward sloping driveway as you’re looking at the driveway into the cemetery. When we would let the dog out at night, she’d run to the cemetery barking at people who had snuck it after dark. They had to deal with a surprisingly aggressive springer spaniel, and we had to walk to the cemetery in the dark and usually the rain to retrieve her. The neighbor kids and I would play there all the time, and years later, my brother and I would booby trap the trails coming up from Paradise Lake Road sometimes. I never saw anything, day or night, the 11 years I lived there, and nothing ever happened with the steps.
My friends and I visited the ground back in October 13th of 2000. Friday the 13th. Scariest night of my life. We didn’t see anything specific near the gravestones but as we ventured into the terrace level, we immediately heard branches snapping, moaning, voices calling to one another and I saw something I can only describe as a demon-like figure crawling on all fours. My mind went to a chaotic place and I felt like time stopped and that I would never be able to leave. Someone in our group thought they heard dogs and we felt like we were being chased out of the woods but we didn’t see them. When we made it back to our car, a van drove by swiftly with music blaring. We decided to leave and never went back. I remember some of the graves were broken open. My friend had some pictures of one of his previous visits and the photos he took were evidence of some recent horrific animal sacrifice ritual involving a deer.