Adventure at the Stone Lion Inn

Friday November 3rd, 2006 Jennifer and I attended a murder mystery in Guthrie, Ok at the Stone Lion Inn. The Stone Lion Inn is also a bed and breakfast.

"Foul play is afoot. Guests walk the halls, their inquisitive minds trained of finding a murderer. Of course, it's all a game, right? They signed up for a murder mystery weekend in and old historic inn. Tensions are high, but the stakes aren't real. But then, who was the little girl, lurking on the third floor, one moment there and the next gone? Or the older gentleman in period dress in the basement? Surely they are nothing more than hired actors. No, say the employees. They are residents of the inn since long before it started taking boarders. One steeped in tragedy, the other in pain, they remain within, startling guests while making their presence known.
If there is one thing that paranormal investigators can agree on, it is this: The past is never truly past. If it were, there would be nothing to investigate. Within the walls of a stately inn, history is remembered not just by the staff, but by those who played a part. Certain buildings retain their memories in the form of memorabilia, relics of the past that present day owners find quaint or fascinating. Others by taking pride in that past. Still others find a different way to remember, as the souls of those who walked before dwell within, a reminder of days gone by."

History

The Stone Lion Inn was built in 1907 by F.E. Houghton. A home for himself and his large family. He built the house right next door to the one they'd already outgrown. When he and his wife moved in, they had twelve children, including one daughter named Augusta. She was a very playful child, whose games and toys were mostly confined to the third floor. Tragedy struck the Haughton family, however, when the little girl was just eight years old. She contracted whooping cough that left her bed ridden. Because medicines of the day were often laced with opium and codeine, the child died of an accidental overdose. Houghton was devastated by the loss of his little girl.
The Houghton's lived in the home for many more years before moving on some time in the 1920's, when it was leased out as a funeral home. The house actually stayed in the same family until 1986, when it was purchased by Becky Luker. With the help of her sons, she was determined to fix the place up and turn it into Guthrie's first bed and breakfast. However, things took a strange turn when they began renovations.
During the night, they could hear the sounds of someone walking around upstairs and up and down the back staircase. On several occasions, Ms. Luker called the police, but no intruders were ever found. The large third-floor closet, where her son stored his toys, was routinely ransacked by an unseen presence. There were other events, which the Luker's found strange, until a visit from F.E. Houghton's children cleared up some of the mystery. They told her of their sister, Augusta, and identified the chest in the third-floor closet as one they'd used in their youth to store toys. They also related that, after their parents had fallen asleep, they would often creep along the back staircase for some late-night playing.

Source.

The Check In

We checked into the Stone Lion Inn at 5:00 pm. We lugged our bags and costumes to our room. Our room was the Lucille Mulhall Suite. It is the smallest room on the second floor and we didn’t mind because it has its own bathroom. The Stone Lion Inn has 6 rooms for guests. There is one room downstairs and 5 rooms on the second floor. The third floor is for storage and there is a basement. They do not allow you to visit the third floor and basement.

The Murder Mystery

(Click on photos to enlarge)

We dressed in our costumes,The murder mystery started at 7:00pm on the first floor in the library. This room is rather large and can hold up to 40 murder mystery guests.
grabbed our bottle of wine and proceeded to the library at 7:00. As we descended down the stairs the crowd on people below gave us the look over. Our costumes were vampire attire and we really looked different from the other people. Now, when you show up in costume you’re supposed to assume your character. So we strolled around the room meeting all the mystery guests. That was fun and a little awkward. My character was Derek Von Neuheisal from Transylvania and I lived in the family castle. Jennifer was my sister Countess Morticia Von Neuheisal. Jen and I just walked around the room meeting all the different people and their characters. Your supposed to know whom everyone is and their back-story but unless you have a photographic memory there is no way to remember all the details of the characters. We also wore nametags so that helped. They allow you to bring alcohol so pretty much everyone had some wine and some had beer. We roamed around and made small talk until 7:30.

(Click on photos to enlarge)

Our Murder Mystery back story and Characters are here
http://hometown.aol.com/stonelion1/myhomepage/news.html
The hostess (employee) of the night came in and started the murder mystery in the library. She spoke in an accent and was pretty convincing. The story starts and everyone gets to act a little by playing his or her part, which is given to you when you arrive. I had a little speech I made and I was quite good. Oscar worthy if you ask me. After about 45 minutes of that they had us sit down for a 4-course meal. We are asked to stay in character for the whole evening until the end of the murder mystery. As we sat down to dinner you could tell the alcohol was working through the group. People where more expressive and where really getting into their characters. I was feeling pretty groovy myself and had a ball telling my dinner mates the in and outs of the cold dark damp castle I lived in Transylvania.

After the meal one the characters went to the bathroom near the dinner room and screamed, grabbed her throat, and died. She did a great job. She was also very drunk. Since her character died off she become another character named Pipka Von Neuheisal.

Well since we were done with dinner and someone had died it was time to go figure it out. So, we went back to the library again to continue the murder mystery. Now let me tell you. The alcohol was in full effect and we had some drunken folks. The character known as Pipka Von Neuheisal was extremely drunk and pretty annoying. She kept interrupting the hostess. However the hostess did a good job of settling her down. When we arrived at the murder mystery we where given clues that no was supposed to know about and after the dinner we where supposed to read those clues to the group. After we did that they separated us to two groups. Men went to one group in another room and women stayed in the library.

With all the story and clues we where supposed to find out who killed the person. After about 30 minutes of arguing we made our choice and returned to the library and then someone from the group revealed whom we thought killed the person.

No group got it right and the hostess told us who did the killing and why. That ended the murder mystery. After that we went through the room introducing our real selves. There was a large medical group of nurses and doctors from Tulsa and a smaller group from Tinker Air Force base. The hostess then invited the group to go to a local bar for a nightcap and then she’d go home. There is no one that stays at the Stone Lion Inn except for the guests. It was around 12 midnight and Jen and I were tired so we didn’t go. We went back to our room.

Bumps in the Night

When we first arrived at the Stone Lion Inn we meet an older couple named Jim and Mary. They were pretty cool and they were staying in the only room downstairs. Our room was upstairs. We did not know who was staying in the other rooms upstairs because we stayed in our room getting ready before the murder mystery. Now when we arrived in our room after the mystery Jennifer noticed her purse had been thrown across the room. When we left our room earlier it was on the bed. Now it was on the floor away from the bed. Jen was upset and thought that someone came in our room and looked through her purse and dumped it on the floor away from the bed. She went through it and looked to see if anything was missing. There was nothing missing. Tired we took off our costumes and went to bed.

As we lye in bed I heard moaning and some thumping. Jen and I giggled and sighed thinking that somebody was making whoopee. Then it just kept going on and on and I got up and went to my door. I heard Jim downstairs ask someone if they where okay. I got dressed and went downstairs to see what the commotion was about. When I reached the bottom of the stairs I noticed that one of the murder mystery guests was at the bottom. She was breathing hard and moaning in pain. I asked Jim what was going on. He said he heard her and came out of his room. I asked her if she was ok and she wouldn’t really answer me. I asked her if she had a room upstairs and she nodded yes. Then she moaned again. I asked her again what was wrong and she said she has really bad knees and couldn’t get back up the stairs to her room. She started moaning and crying and apologizing profusely about not being able to get back upstairs. I asked her if she was with anyone. She nodded her head. I asked her who it was. She said Cindy. I asked her what room Cindy was in and she wouldn’t answer me. She was acting very strange during all of this. She wouldn’t answer me very well for some reason. Thinking maybe she was drunk I asked her if she was drinking and she said no. Well, since she was not really helping herself and us I went upstairs and started knocking on doors. The first door I knocked on a young women answered. I asked if a Cindy was in the room. She said yes and another young women came to the door. I remembered them from the murder mystery, they where nurses from the Tulsa group. I said are you Cindy and she said yes. I told her that her friend was down stairs and needed assistance. She said that she didn’t have any friends staying here and they followed me out to see the lady. The lady was stilling moaning and whining. I knocked on the two other doors and got no response. Then I knocked on a door and the real Cindy answered. I told her the story about her friend. She cursed and said that she told her not to go downstairs and that she was drunk. (Great.) She came downstairs and asked her to come back to the room. Mona (that’s the name I will give her) started whining and moaning about how her knees hurt and that she couldn’t do it. Cindy got angry with her and told her to get her ass upstairs and quite causing a spectacle. When I was upstairs looking for Cindy I had noticed a room not being used and I asked Jim if he and his wife would move up and let Mona go sleep in their room, which was the only room on that floor. They agreed and went to get their luggage. Everyone agreed this would be a great course of action since Mona couldn’t get up the stairs.
As Jim and his wife got his bags I went upstairs just to make sure that room didn’t have any guests. Well low n behold I did notice this time that the room was occupied. There was a bag in the corner I didn’t see. I guess these guests went out for a nightcap with the hostess. So back downstairs I went to give the bad news. When it was obvious that Mona was not going to make it back upstairs Cindy threw up her arms in disgust and said “Well I guess we’ll just go home Mona”. We all thought that was a great idea. Cindy marched back up to the room and started packing. Meanwhile we asked Mona if she like to site down in the Library. She nodded yes and kept on apologizing. Now, she was very overweight and Jim and I put our arms under hers and helped her to the library where she could sit down. She was very unhelpful and just kind of slumped over and we had to move her by ourselves. It took forever to move her 15 feet and she was heavy. We finally got there and plopped her into the chair. Whew!! Done. I told the girls to keep an eye on her and I went upstairs to see if Cindy needed any help with luggage. I helped her take her luggage to her car and came back inside. When I reached the library I noticed that the nurses where talking to each other in a huddle. I looked at Mona and immediately noticed her demeanor had changed. I asked her if she was ok and she then got all-evil on me. Apparently after I left she changed personalities and the evil Mona came out to play. She started talking crazy with us and acting weird. The nurses said it was textbook personally disorder brought on my alcohol and that they have seen this behavior in the hospital all the time. (Once more. Great.) Cindy pulled her SUV up to the porch. The side porch has a three-foot drop off and steep stairs to the ground. Man I was dreading going back to get Mona and get down those stairs. So Jim and I once again tried to haul ol Mona to the waiting car and our salvation. Since she was now evil Mona she resisted and argued with us. Finally Cindy came in and convinced her to get up and go to the car. All this time we kept threatening to call the ambulance to take her to the hospital and she’d moan no and move a little. Slowly she got up and slowly she walked outside. Jim and I from time to time helped her when she’d stop. Man, she was heavy. Finally we got her outside and to the steps. Well she then decided to totally shut down when she got to the steps refusing to budge. Again we threatened to call the ambulance and Cindy snapped. She started yelling at Mona to get her butt in the car and let us all go back to bed. Evil Mona wasn’t having any of that and started yelling obscenities at Cindy. So back and forth they screamed at each other. Finally I had enough and told Jennifer to call the ambulance, she just was about to make to the call when Mona sat on her butt and moved down the stairs. Jim and I helped her to the car, got her in and slammed the door shut! Holy Mother of God help me for not wishing evil on someone but damn that lady had rung us all through the ringer. After they left we shook our heads and went back to our rooms.

Haunted House

When we got back to our room we went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Jennifer was brushing her teeth when I wondered into the bathroom. I noticed when I walked in that I could hear two people talking. It was really strange. I couldn’t understand what was being said and couldn’t really locate where the sound was coming from. The voices sounded like two men talking. I ask Jennifer if she could her them she came to where I was standing and said yes. I left the bathroom and went into the hall that connected the bathroom and bedroom we where staying in. I couldn’t hear the voices. I walked up and put my ear against the door to the outside hallway where all the other rooms where located and didn’t hear any voices. I went back into the bathroom and could hear the voices. Jen and I looked at each other like is this something supernatural? I then remembered that the guests whose room was empty was probably returning from the bar and that they where downstairs talking and the voices were just moving up through the air vents. Feeling relieved we got into bed. Let me tell you as tired as we were from the long evening it was hard to go to sleep in a supposedly haunted house. Every creak or shadow moving would startle us. Its fun really, when you think about it. You do want to see something but you don’t cause you know it’d scare the hell out of you. Finally after awhile we feel asleep. During the night I did noticed an abnormal amount of tugging on the bedspread. I just thought that Jennifer was just restless.

Morning

We woke up at about 8:00 in the morning. We showered and got dressed and went downstairs for our breakfast. We had a great breakfast and some the other guests from the other bed and breakfasts came to the Stone Lion Inn for breakfast. As we were drinking our wonderful coffee we told the other guests about the crazy night we had with Mona. Obviously entertained, they shared with us that a couple who was incredibly drunk at the murder mystery was pulled over and arrested for DUI after leaving the bar. This was the couple’s room I almost gave to Jim and his wife to sleep in for trading theirs for Mona. Crazy huh, and what was even more crazy was that if they got arrested and didn’t come to house that night who’s men’s voices did we hear? The only men in the house were Jim and I. Oooo. How’s that for creepy. The housekeeper who does the cooking and cleaning of the house heard our conversation and joined us. When she heard about Mona she asked us if we think Mona saw something that set her off. She told us that many a morning when she comes to cook breakfast that guests where gone. Something happened in the night and they just left. She also told us her stories of what the ghosts in the house usually do. She said that the little girl ghost would touch women’s faces and pull on covers. Oooooo. I remember the covers being pulled a lot and thought that Jennifer was doing it. So after a long conversation with the guests and cook we went home. On the way home we concluded that possibly three weird things happened.

1. Jens purse being thrown to the floor
2. Two men talking when the only men in the house was Jim and I.
3. The pulling on the covers.

I’m sure there are reasonably good answers for the strange things that happened but I like to believe in a good mystery and will let things lie as they may. We had a fantastic evening and would do it again anytime and highly recommend it to anyone.

Videos and Information Links

The Scifi Channels Ghosts Hunters goes to the Stone Lion Inn.

Stone Lion Inn Part 1


Stone Lion Inn Part 2


http://www.stonelioninn.com/
http://www.hauntedhouses.com/states/ok/stone_lion_inn.cfm
http://www.researchwebcam.com/OKCGC/investigations/stone.html