Most of the photos of Little Nina are of her at age 4 and 7 but I found a not often seen BABY photo of Nina Craigmiles from an 1800s newspaper!

Uncovering the Tragic Death of Nina Craigmiles: My Personal Experiences and Strange Encounters with Her Story

Update: For every question I answered about the Nina Craigmiles death, it seemed like another would take its place. I wanted to give you a concise article but I have SO MUCH much information to share, a lot of it I haven’t even read before on the internet so I am excited to share it with you all here. This is a work in progress. I will be adding more information, photos, and newspaper articles as I have time!! Thanks for coming by! Also, I would love to share information that you have as well so send them to me at [email protected] and I’ll put them here as a resource for anyone wanting to learn more about Nina Craigmiles and the infamous bleeding mausoleum.

When I first began my job as a Digital Marketing Manager for Cleveland Chattanooga Homes, I was wanting to put local information and history on our website. I stumbled upon the local and tragic story of little Nina Craigmiles. Cleveland, Tennessee is home to a haunting yet beautiful story, centered around a small marble mausoleum behind St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in the heart of downtown. The story of Nina Craigmiles, a seven-year-old girl whose life ended tragically, still captures the hearts of locals and visitors from around the world. The two structures, St. Lukes Church and the “bleeding” mausoleum, built by her brokenhearted father keeps the story alive 153 years later – exactly the way John Craigmiles intended. A mausoleum that “bleeds” was something I had to see for myself! I had no clue about the strange coincidences that would happen to me while filming and writing this story about the tragedies of the Craigmiles family.

On a gorgeous, crystal blue day with a dozen white fluffy clouds in the sky, I went out to shoot video and take drone footage of various places in downtown Cleveland, TN for our new website. I wanted to get footage of several places important to downtown Cleveland so I parked my car on Ocoee Street and proceeded to walk around to Five Points Museum, the Greenway, and Craigmiles Hall. I decided to go ahead and shoot footage of the Nina Craigmiles Mausoleum since I was walking by it and the day was too beautiful not to get video and photos.

I had done some preliminary research on the mausoleum, but I had no clue where the actual red “bleeding” spots were located. I walked around the property filming, concentrating on the carvings, the different sculptures and of course, looking for the spots themselves. Normally, I don’t have to be aware of my time when I am out shooting but I had a meeting back at the office at 2:00 pm. I had just checked my phone, to see if I could get back for the meeting or not and noted that the time was 12:37pm. Right then I saw the red spots on the blindingly bright white marble! There they were!

I don’t know why I was surprised to find them, but I was. I was deeply focused on the spots, contemplating what they looked like – did they really look like blood, why were they only at the door of the crypt – mesmerized by the story and being able to see them in person. I was zooming in slowly with my camera to get a closer shot of the strange red stains when it happened.

Over the top of my head, the bell tower gonged out, just once, its toll breaking up the quiet solemness of the tiny graveyard. I felt it in my bones. Like the ocean’s current, the deep sound washed over my head like the crest of a wave, then back again as it bounced off the surrounding city buildings and the small walled-in garden. I jumped out of my skin. My heart thumped in my chest. I jumped so badly that I shook the camera while I was filming. My adrenaline shot through the roof, as I tried to slowly zoom back out of the shot, instead of dropping the camera and running. Here is that video:

After I stopped filming, I took several deep breaths to try and get my racing heart back under control. I looked around to see if anyone had seen my spastic reaction and again checked the time on my phone. The gong had rung at 12:42pm, NOT 1:00pm. I was so confused. Was the St. Luke clock wrong? Did someone see me out on the property and thought it would be funny to let one peal out? (I’m sure my reaction was hilarious if anyone was watching.) Did it always gong 18 minutes early? Did I get all that on film?!

The deep breathing helped. I began to slow down long enough to think more clearly. What had just happened? I looked again at the time on my phone and it had just turned 1:00pm. I began to hear several other church bells ring out further down the street. St. Luke’s timing had definitely been wrong!

To burn off more adrenaline, I walked to my favorite coffee shop downtown, Ruddles Bread and Books, and proceeded to tell owner, Kailey Brown, what had just happened. She smiled and said, “I think that was Little Nina’s way of saying hi and playing a little trick.” Whatever it was, left an indelible impression on me. So much so that I have spent countless hours research the story, reading dozens of blog posts and articles, taking photos and reading articles from the newspapers that covered the event in 1871.

For weeks, I had been researching Nina Craigmiles’ story, combing through old newspaper clippings and editing grainy photos of her mausoleum. I spent hours improving video footage from my visit to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, syncing it to the sound of the bell tower and the quiet rustle of the garden. Despite all the effort, I had yet to pull everything together. The blog post I planned to write remained unfinished, a task I kept putting off.

Finally, one gorgeous Fall day, I sat down at my computer and began typing. The details of Nina’s life and the mysteries surrounding her mausoleum poured onto the page. I was deep into the writing process when I glanced at the corner of my screen and noticed the date: October 18th. At first, it didn’t register. But as I typed the words “She died on October 18th on St. Luke’s Day,” I realized it was the anniversary of Nina’s death—153 years to the day.

The coincidence stopped me for a moment. Of all the days I could have chosen to write this article, it happened to be today. It felt strange, like the timing wasn’t entirely up to me. My second thought was I’ve got to go and make a video about this!