When a ghost-busting crew spent the night in the Homestead police station two years ago, the news conference afterward was about unexplained footsteps, drifting shadows, slamming doors and spooked employees.

But yesterday it was the spirit of Suze, the late dog of Homestead Mayor Betty Esper, who stole the show during a presentation by Hauntings Research, a local group of paranormal investigators who spent the night of May 29 at the building on the corner of East Ninth Avenue and Amity Street.

Suze was a tiny white Maltese the mayor took everywhere with her during the two and half years she owned the dog. Even minutes from council meetings indicate Suze's presence.

But the dog was born with a heart defect, and she died April 18.

Members of the Hauntings Research group yesterday played a video in which they claimed to have spoken with the spirit of the dog in the mayor's office at the former police station. In recent months the police and municipal workers moved into a new building on Seventh Avenue.

Although the process the group used to demonstrate that Suze's soul is still with her mistress was a bit bizarre, the result nonetheless brought tears to the eyes of Ms. Esper, who dabbed a tissue to her face while watching the video.

It was a stark contrast to the skepticism the mayor expressed in 2008, when members of the Greater Pittsburgh Paranormal Society presented what it said was evidence that spirits inhabited the building. That group came to the now-empty building after employees complained of strange noises and occurrences there, which had been a post office.

Yesterday the Hauntings Research group, which had been invited in by Councilwoman Lynette Mariner, showed a video of its members using small metal dowsing rods, designed to find water sources, to communicate with what they said were spirits in the building.

They attempted to engage spirits in conversations by asking them to make the rod spin in order to indicate their presence and to answer questions.

Mary Lou Sheets, a group member who is a clerk for the Brentwood police department, said she learned the technique when she participated in the Haunted Vegas Tour, a ghost tour in Las Vegas.

The video shows the group in the mayor's office attempting to talk with former mayors, whose names they got from portraits that used to line the walls.

Then the group members asked Suze, who had died just a month before, if she was in the room. The video shows the rod, held by one of the group members, spin quickly in response to the question. That's when the mayor teared up.

"I know Suze is always with me," Ms. Esper said, inviting visitors to her new office where a stone memorial sits in tribute to Suze, along with a photo of the mayor and the maltese, both with fluffy white hairdos.

The group tried to talk with ghosts or spirits in other parts of the building, sometimes prompting the rod to spin. Among those they said they communicated with were a former mayor from the 1800s, a woman who said she died as part of a murder-suicide pact and assorted others who didn't give specific details about themselves.

Group members, who included Ed Ozosky of Pleasant Hills and Jan Margo Brennan of Whitaker, also pointed to moving white flashes and circles on their video as proof of spirits in the building and claimed that a shadow found in a jail cell at the former police station appeared to be that of a body.

After the presentation, Ms. Sheets wanted to see if any of the spirits followed the municipal work force to the new building. She held dowsing rods in each hand and attempted to converse with one of the mayors the group said it had communicated with at the previous building.

When Ms. Sheets asked the mayor if he was present, one of the rods spun. But when a reporter took the rod and tried to question the former mayor, the rod remained still.

Ms. Sheets blamed the lack of motion on the reporter's skepticism and took the rod back. When the reporter commented that perhaps the mayor didn't like reporters, the rod spun around several times in Ms. Sheets' fingers.

Homestead police Chief Jeff DeSimone said so far there has been no indication that spirits have followed the Homestead staff to their new headquarters.

"Let me put it to you this way: I've not been touched or reached out to," the chief said.

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