Portmore Toll Road ghost still looking for her shoe

They say if you pass the Portmore Causeway Bridge, now the Portmore Toll Road, after midnight, you might see her - a woman dressed in full white, standing still by the roadside.

But after passing, if you dare to look back moments later, she's no longer there. Instead, she's sitting in your passenger seat! For decades, this chilling legend has haunted those who traverse the road, leaving many to wonder who is this mystery woman, and why does she remain there?

Candy Samuels-McKoy has lived in the area for years and remembers hearing stories about the mysterious woman since childhood. Now 49, she recalled an eerie experience when she was just eight.

"From mi a likkle girl, mi hear everybody a talk 'bout her. One night, mi deh inna mi house and mi mother did have a window weh yuh just push up. Mi hear the 'scoop', and the scoop deh right inna mi eye, and mi cyaan see nothing," she said. The scoop she described is the distinct sound of someone dragging their heel along the ground like a limping figure slowly making its way past.

The legend, according to those who have lived near the bridge for decades, is of a nurse who died in an accident on the roadway. Her foot was reportedly severed in the crash, and to this day, her spirit is believed to roam the area searching for her missing shoe.

"Mi hear it one night, and all mi push up mi window so mi can look outside, but mi nuh see nobody. A years, enuh, many years," Samuels-McKoy shivered as she recalled the encounter. "Mi blood run cold just thinking about it. Why she nuh stop and behave herself?" She reflected on the countless stories she has heard over the years.

"Yuh hear her walking at night along the road," she said, shaking her head as if still trying to make sense of it. "Like she walk go up and walk come back down... as if she a search fi something."

Then, with a knowing look, she told THE WEEKEND STAR, "She a search fi her shoes."

Another resident, fisherman Erol Moodie, who has been fishing near the bridge since 1980, had similar eerie tales.

"Sometimes yuh see her pon the beach a walk an' a bawl. The fisherman dem weh a come in, she a try draw them in," Moodie explained. "She a look fi her shoes a nighttime and she always a cry, cause when she a walk pass, she always a cry."

But the ghostly nurse isn't the only chilling sight at the roadway. Fishermen who frequent the area say they have seen several strange things, from lifeless bodies drifting in the water to desperate souls standing at the edge, contemplating their final moments. Long-time vendor Ms Melva has been selling shrimp for 49 years, and remembers the crash vividly. She pointed out that a now-deceased fisherman had once taken a piece of the nurse's shoe after the crash.

"Him take piece and cut off piece a the leather fi make one washer. And she nearly kill him," she said with a laugh. "If him never dead and gone, him woulda tell yuh." Samuels-McKoy, who had been listening intently, suddenly realised something.

"Ohhh, that's why she need her shoes. No man, she love dah shoes yah," she said. "Dem need fi go buy back one shoes and put it deh. She nah rest."

The Portmore Toll Road has a storied history beyond its ghostly lore. Originally called Cross Harbour Causeway, it was part of a land development project in 1967, constructed to connect Kingston and Portmore. It rose out of the waters of the Kingston Harbour, linking Newport West to the Port Henderson strip in St Catherine. Officially opened on January 21, 1970, it was considered a great infrastructural achievement. However, over time, its legacy became intertwined with the legend of the nurse's ghost.