News4StoneLionInnReport

Guthrie's ghostly guests
Oct 31, 2005, 06:12 PM CST

The Stone Lion Inn, Guthrie. (Photo: Travis Schutten, KFOR-TV-DT)
HEATHER HOLEMAN REPORTING

GUTHRIE, Okla -- 'Twas the night before Halloween and the spirits are stirring. Paranormal investigators have set their sites on the small town of Guthrie.

A century-old bed and breakfast plays host to murder mysteries each weekend, but some say visitors aren't the only ones walking the haunted halls. At the time of statehood, a couple and their dozen children occupied a Guthrie mansion. It was then the largest, most luxurious home in town.

“And in it's time this was the most expensive house in Guthrie, it was $11,900.00," says owner, Becky Luker.

Becky Luker is the third owner of the century-old home, but she says at least one member of the original family has never left; a little girl, Augusta Houghton, who once lived there.

"When she was 8-years-old, she contracted whooping cough and, what is believed to have happened is that, the maid overmedicated her with cough syrup and she died," explains Becky Luker.

Luker says Augusta, on several occasions, has visited the Luker family.

"My younger son's toy closet would be played in and his toys would be scattered around," Luker says.

She has also visited guests of the home, now called the Stone Lion Inn, Oklahoma's first bed and breakfast.

Luker says, "Many guests report that they're awakened in the night between 2:00 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. They're awakened when a small child comes into the room and pats them on the cheek, but when they come to full wakefulness, there's no one there."

Augusta isn't the only apparition, some say, to walk these halls. Luker says the Houghton family eventually leased the home to a mortuary company, which used the basement for embalming.

"This would be, probably, where they brought the bodies through," says Jim Hilton, a paranormal investigator.

The Oklahoma Paranormal and Research Investigations team believes a slew of spirits may now haunt the Inn.

A meter activation, they believe, means a lost soul could be in their midst. "If there is somebody here with us, can you set off our meter please or make a noise?" says paranormal investigator, Christy Selfridge.

They have plenty of noises they've captured on tape; more than just the creepy sound of creaking floors.

"As I entered this room, just as I came through this threshold, to my right hand side I heard, 'out!'" says Kevin McBee.

OKPRI investigators tried to open a lock on trunk and they heard voices.

"Right when I was trying to unlock it, after meter activation, I could hear a voice saying, 'it's locked,'” says paranormal investigator, Christy Selfridge.

Those sounds are just some of the eerie phenomena OKPRI has captured across Oklahoma. They should NewsChannel 4 some of the photos they had collected.

"Here is one at the historical Harn homestead, it's actually a silhouette of an individual from the neck down a little bit past the knees and you can see them slightly bent over with their arms folded. The picture from underneath the stairs is from an abandoned school in Claremore and you can actually see the man's face, make out all the details, the hair, the eyes, the nose and so forth. Then we have some cemetery photos, where there are huge light anomalies that there is no explanation for, they're not just your typical orbs."

Then again, there's nothing typical about the paranormal and the activity it's said to bring to the Stone Lion Inn, where someone always seems to be watching.

"We hear a woman's laughter sometimes around 4:00 a.m. upstairs," says Becky Luker. "On a number of occasions we've had guests who have heard something or were frightened by something and have gotten up and left. Something has remained of someone who has not moved on."

For more information on the murder mystery parties at the Stone Lion Inn in Guthrie and on the OKPRI paranormal investigations, visit the related websites to the right this story.