In her nearly two decades researching family history for people around the world, Leanne Diessel has found more than a few connections to her own family.
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But none have been quite so eerie as the story of the boys who died in an explosion back in 1944.
While building the family tree for a family in Wagga, Ms Diessel, who works as the research officer at the Wagga and District Family History Society, came across articles from The Daily Advertiser dated August 25, 1944.
Under the heading 'Shocking Tragedy: Two Boys Blown Up At Rear of Wagga Building', Ms Diessell read of the death of two 14-year-old boys named Frederick Arthur Bailey and Colin Moiler, who both attended the old Gurwood Street School.
"A little boy was killed instantly ... and his little companion dreadfully injured when a gelignite plug exploded and blew them up," the article states.
Colin Moiler "received the full blast of the explosion and was literally blown to pieces", the report continues, when discharged behind a Forsyth Street business.
An ambulance was called and Frederick Bailey was transported to Wagga Base Hospital where he later died as a result of his "extensive injuries", according to the story.
"This little chap preserved consciousness and spoke to Mr Loth [the attending paramedic] as he was laid in the bed," the article states.
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The boys had apparently happened upon some live explosive plugs and electric detonators while out in fields south-west of the town.
They had distributed the explosives "more or less equally" among themselves and a larger group of boys, prompting a citywide search for what remained undetonated.
Police detective-sergeant Cloke urged "parents of boys and householders to institute inquiries into the possibility of others of these dangerous plugs being about".
The DA article stated that the devices "constitute a serious menace to life and limb should any be found".
The following day, "numbers of explosives had been recovered from boys in Wagga and The Rock" and no further incident was recorded.
Tragic as it was, Ms Diessel thought little of the stories, passing them onto the families she was working with.
It was not until she went to find the grave of Frederick Bailey in the Monumental Cemetery that she began to question the familiarity.
"I found the grave of the boy who died in hospital, it was right across, basically a direct line from my own sister's grave," Ms Diessel said.
"She died in 1968, I've been visiting that grave for years. I was shocked when I went to find it, I couldn't believe how close it's been this whole time."
It is not the first time the story of Frederick Bailey has caused eyebrows to rise in recent years.
In 2018, then-four-year-old Nicholas Slinn claims he befriended the ghost of "Bailey" while visiting his father at Wagga Base Hospital.
Bailey, as Nicholas then described it, had been a "boy who was naughty and got hurt and had died in the hospital".
Whether the poltergeist still roams the hallways of Wagga Base Hospital, Ms Diessel says she wouldn't want to say.
But in her years researching and reading about Wagga's history, Ms Diessel has learnt not to discount the paranormal.
"Even as a child, I've spent a lot of time in cemeteries. I always knew where my family were buried, I've visited them," she said.
"I talked to them as if they're alive. I might be crazy, but I always want to give the dead respect. I've never had a haunting, but I've never cancelled it out and said it could never happen."
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