He suddenly found himself engulfed in a bad snow storm. Benjamin decided to stay in town, and wait for the weather to subside. According to the story, when he didn't return right away, Elisabeth went out to search for him. After getting lost in the fury of the storm, she drowned in one of the nearby swamps. What happened next has some variation. In one version of the story, Benjamin returned home to find his wife missing. Frantic, he looked for her, and after an exhaustive search, he found her frozen body in a swamp, and she was wearing a pretty green dress. In other versions of the story, Benjamin was either unwilling to save Elisabeth, or murdered her himself, and threw her body into the swamp. Since this is a local legend, no one is absolutely certain what actually occurred. Regardless, many people walking near the cemetery at night have claimed to have seen a female apparition surrounded in a green mist. According to most accounts, she merely appears without provocation or pattern, smiles and then dissipates. Some people have also claimed to see mysterious lights, looking like a flashlight or lantern carried by an unseen person. Some believe it could be the ghost of Benjamin Palmiter, perpetually searching for Elisabeth in the swamp. During the early 1990s there were reports of satanic rituals being performed in the woods directly across the street from the cemetery. In 1996, two CCSU students stumbled across a giant stone altar in the woods, that was approximately 4' tall and solid stone and approximately 2 1/2' X 4' across the top. In front of the altar were four rows of round decaying wooden benches, that were rounded and built into the hill, facing the altar. One of the students was injured tripping over the top bench as they went down the hill. After visiting the stone altar, the students reported hearing a cacophony of voices telling them to "GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!" They ran out of the woods and fled from the cemetery, vowing never to return. More recently, a Paranormal researcher reported being tapped on the shoulder in December 2015 while searching for the altar in the woods, and also reported hearing shrieking noises. In 2016, tourists reported that they heard a loud hum coming from the woods. Today, there are no full standing headstones, due to vandalism that took place in the 1970s and again in 2010, and also as a result of weathering. The only standing headstone was that of Elisabeth Palmiter, and that stone remained in the cemetery until 2010.