Less than a mile west of the Susquehanna River in Luzerne County lies Pittston Township—one of the five original Connecticut-settled townships in Pennsylvania’s contested Wyoming Valley. Once known as Pittstown, named for the influential British statesman William Pitt, the area is steeped in frontier history, coal mining lore, and shadowy backroad legends. Among them, none are more chilling—or more persistent—than the tale of the Suscon Screamer.
The story takes its name from Suscon Road. A twisting byway that grows steadily quieter as it leaves Pittson and cuts through thick woods and forgotten hills as it heads toward State Game Lands 91. For generations, locals have whispered warnings about what happens if you stop your car on that road after dark, particularly at the site of a vanished railroad underpass once located in the 1000 block of Suscon Road. The bridge is gone now, its timbers rotted and rails pulled up long ago. But the stories remain.
According to the legend, if you drive beneath where the bridge once stood and honk your horn three times, you might see a pale woman appear in your rearview mirror. Just a glimpse—enough to freeze your breath—before she lets out a bloodcurdling scream and vanishes into the darkness.
Who is she? That depends on who you ask.
Some say she was a young bride, pregnant and full of hope, abandoned at the altar and driven to despair. Others claim she was a runaway from a nearby mental institution who ended her life at the bridge. A more modern variation suggests she was a teenage girl killed in a car crash on prom night.
Whatever the version, one detail never changes: she died screaming. While many dismiss the story as an urban legend, the line between fiction and fact grows thin when you examine what happened in 1969.
On the night of September 30, 15-year-old Patricia Emlaw was hitchhiking along Suscon Road when she accepted a ride from 26-year-old David Ash. What followed was horrifying. Ash slashed the girl’s throat and left her body 300 feet into the woods off a lonely stretch of Suscon Road. Mushroom pickers discovered her remains four days later. Ash was quickly arrested, confessed to the murder, and was sentenced to life in prison. He later died behind bars.
It was around this time that reports of a screaming woman intensified. In the decades since, travelers have reported chilling encounters: an icy presence in the backseat, phantom footsteps along the gravel, a woman in white drifting through the trees, and, of course, that scream.
By car, it isn’t easy to pinpoint the exact location where the railroad once crossed above Suscon Road, but modern tools like LiDAR suggest the former underpass was near 1020 Suscon Road.
If you’re tempted to find it, take caution. The woods are thick, the road winding, and the veil between past and present seems unusually thin out there. Roll down your window. Listen. And if you find yourself alone beneath the phantom bridge, whatever you do—don’t honk three times.
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Resources
- Suscon Screamer
- Penn Proud Suscon Screamer
- Tap a Talk: The Suscon Screamer
- Suscon Screamer: Spirit or Beast?
- The 9 most haunted places in NEPA