by Chris Moon
She started asking questions and answering herself in a very strange way and then before telling us a story about how her aunt had been abducted and murdered just blocks from the Lumber Baron Inn. She said something about the killer taking her aunt to a nearby elementary school and murdering her. She said her mother could no longer go back to that school due to the bloodstains that couldn’t be removed from the property. The woman suddenly came out of her excited trance and then stood quietly for the Ghost Box session.
I wondered if her aunt was a victim of the same killer as the two spirit girls in the Valentine Suite. When I ended the gallery reading that night, I told everyone to be safe and I hoped they had a great time. (In retrospect, we should have done a cleansing and blessing of the participants before dispersing.) We packed up our equipment, thanked Joel and Elaine for an amazing weekend, and made our way to my home in Louisville.
I was awakened the next morning by my iPhone buzzing incessantly. As I reached over, blurry-eyed, to see who had messaged me, I was surprised at the number of attendees who’d been contacting me regarding experiences they’d had immediately following the event. Many people complained of extreme nightmares while others had even more intense experiences. I can’t say I was surprised that the three women who stayed overnight in the Valentine Suite were adamant about me contacting them regarding their experiences following the event. They told me they spent the night doing their own ghost hunt of the Lumber Baron Inn, mainly focusing on the Valentine Suite. They said they had been doing crude EVP sessions throughout the night and were surprised, during one of the sessions, to hear a sound in the room they couldn’t explain. As they asked questions, they heard what sounded like a pig being slaughtered somewhere just outside the room. At first they looked for natural explanations as to what it might be. You could hear on the recording them asking if the others heard it and even checked their cell phones to make sure it wasn’t a false positive. They also discussed other rational explanations such as raccoons or cats fighting outside, but when they looked through their window, they didn’t see anything. Obviously, a bit shaken, they decided to go next door to another guest’s room to see if anyone else had heard the sounds they had. They hadn’t.
The people in the room next door said that at one point, a woman sleeping in the room sat up out of a dead sleep screaming at the top of her lungs, “Let me go!” It rattled everyone in the room—but the sound on the recorder was definitely not the sound that she made. After leaving the room next door, the women decided to attempt an EVP session in the front parlor of the house. They said that during the session, they didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, but upon review were shocked to hear what sounded like an ethereal goat bleating over the top of the women’s voices as they asked questions. A bit later that night, the women decided to explore outside the mansion and were stunned to find a large cast-iron pig sculpture just outside the window of the Valentine Suite. They definitely had an interesting night.
They sent the files of the recordings to me for review and I have to admit that I’d never heard anything quite like what they recorded. As I listened to both recordings, first of the pig slaughter squeal as well as the goat bleating, my psychic senses kicked in. I was definitely sensing a truly evil presence in and around the Lumber Baron Inn.
For several days I received messages from other attendees of the event, all relaying nightmares or other strange occurrences taking place. I was deeply troubled by the power of this dark energy. One of the last messages I received was from the woman who awoke screaming that night at the Lumber Baron Inn. She told me the morning after the event, while she was getting up, she noticed a bruise on her arm and couldn’t figure out where it had come from. Did she bump something? Had she slept on her arm? She couldn’t remember anything and it didn’t make sense to her. She said when she got home and was able to examine the bruise more closely, it looked as if someone with a large hand had grabbed her forcefully. She sent me a picture of it and it shocked me—you could see the outline of the hand and fingers on her arm. I asked her to make a video account of what had taken place and to also show the bruise from several different angles. She was kind enough to make the video and to this day I still can’t explain what happened. I’ve been burned, scratched, and even choked by negative spirits in the past, but this bruise was very deep and more intense than anything I’d ever seen.
I hoped to take a few days off after this event to clear my head before going back through the video, photographic, EVP, and Ghost Box EVP evidence in an attempt to pull out any information I wasn’t able to decipher that night. I was also adamant about following up on the claims of the spirit through the Ghost Box of the alleged killer being dead. It was obvious to me the universe had no intention of letting me rest with matters so pressing.
I began work with one of the attendees of the Ghost Hunter University event in an attempt to track down any information on the alleged killer having died. It came back very quickly that our person of interest had, in fact, died in March of this past year, just one month prior to the event—just as the spirit had claimed.
I knew the accuracy of the Ghost Box and the amazing messages and revelations that it provides, but once again, I was completely taken aback with this validation. I thought back to when the man attended my event and it made my skin crawl. I knew how important it was for us to immediately go back to the Lumber Baron to attempt communication with the two murdered girls in hopes they could tell us if it truly was their killer—as well as demonic forces, including Satan himself—that were holding their spirits at the Inn. I contacted my team who worked the event with us. This included my mom, my wife Dina, my daughter Sarah, and Kristin, Jerrica, and Stevie from the Ghost Box Paranormal Society, as well as our tech guy. I explained to them the importance of us returning for an investigation. Stevie was unable to attend and Sarah was frightened by the intense evidence we collected that night. Surprisingly, my mother was extremely hesitant about attending the investigation and I couldn’t figure out why. I called Joel and Elaine and, as always, they were very welcoming and told us we could come in and do the investigation the following night. I passed on the details of the investigation to my team that morning and that’s when the strange things began to happen.
Jerrica came over to our house that morning complaining of traumatic nightmares. She said they were some of the darkest she’d ever had and I could tell she was truly frightened. After we discussed this, I rushed to squeeze in some much-needed exercise by walking my 100-pound chocolate lab Buddha. While Buddha is huge and tends to pull, I’ve rarely had any trouble controlling him on our walks in the past. We had walked about two miles when we turned the corner to start up the street toward my house. Buddha suddenly startled and, with all of his weight and power, lurched forward. I was caught completely off-guard and I stumbled, landing face first and palms out onto the sidewalk. Buddha stopped immediately and regained his gentle disposition, looking back at me to make sure I was all right. As I lay there, I felt blood begin to pour from my palms and knees. I didn’t want to look at how bad the damage was. Eventually, I pulled myself off the ground to find skin hanging from one of my palms. I limped and had a severe pain on the right side of my ribs. I knew I had broken a rib, pulled a muscle in my ribs, or torn a muscle.
Once I got home and cleaned up, we received a call from Kristin informing us that her car refused to start. She never had a problem with the car before and couldn’t figure out what was going on. She towed the car to her mechanic to see if they could figure out what the problem was. I was focused on other things and didn’t realize how many things were going wrong prior to our investigation that evening. We eventually got everyone to the Lumber Baron Inn one way or another, but things definitely didn’t seem right.
While standing on the porch of the Lumber Baron Inn, our skeptical tech guy said he too had experienced some very strange things. He said the night after the event he awoke in his room. He said it was so dark he couldn’t see h
is hand in front of his face, but he also felt some sort of powerful presence staring at him. He said something along the lines of, “You’re not welcome here. You need to go away.” At that point, he felt a little better, but when he got up in the morning his family complained of terrible nightmares as well. I believe the threat to his family is really what bothered him and I could understand why.
My daughter Sarah drove my mother to the investigation and just before they arrived, the skies opened up and a heavy rain began to pour. I ran down to assist my mother out of the car as my daughter drove away, wanting no part of the energy at the house. When we finally reached the porch, I could tell my mom’s energy wasn’t what it normally was. It seemed she was susceptible to the potential darkness that waited for us inside the Valentine Suite. We had a short discussion, but decided to go ahead with the plan as we felt it was important to try to help the two spirit girls. After going over some ground rules with the team and Joel and Elaine, we decided to make our way up to the room and set up all of our equipment.
From the moment I stepped inside the door, I knew the evil energy that had harassed us was waiting and watching. It felt like all of the ions in the room were fully charged, as if something had turned on a huge battery. The air was dense and suffocating. We made our way up the staircase and into the Valentine Suite. I made a conscious effort to center and ground myself so I wasn’t influenced by anything in the room. We set up our surveillance system as well as GoPro cameras and a handheld night vision video camera. While the set up was taking place, I snapped several pictures with my digital camera and saw there was already activity in the room through the spirit orbs and mists.
Once we had everything in place, I pulled out my Frank’s Box as well as my digital recorder and found a seat on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub. We lowered the blinds to block the last of the daylight peeking through, in hopes we might be able to capture visual confirmation as well as Ghost Box EVP. Our team, along with Joel and Elaine, found places to either sit or stand throughout the room before starting our Ghost Box session. I rubbed my fingers together to ground myself and then flipped the silver switch of the machine. I asked for a Spirit Technician to come through and was surprised when two Technicians made their presence known. This told me we needed extra protection and the universe knew it.
I made the announcement to Cara Lee and Marianne that we were there to help them and were hoping to get all the information we could to finally solve this crime and bring peace and justice to them and to their families, whether it was on this side or the next. As we went around the room asking questions, the girls came through effortlessly, but were constantly interrupted by a male entity and by many bizarre growling and screeching sounds that came through the speakers of Frank’s Box. While everyone asked questions, I snapped picture after picture and was amazed and disturbed at the amount of energy in the room.
I feel I’ve seen some incredible visual evidence in the past, but this night was different. Most of the visual activity focused around my mother and through progressively snapping pictures, I watched my mom’s face contort and change into someone I didn’t know. When it was her turn to ask a question, she brought up something she had mentioned to me quite a while ago that I had all but forgotten. When we first started working on the Lumber Baron Inn case, my mother told me about the murder of a good friend of hers back in 1968. The girl’s name was Allison Parkins and they were in high school together. I don’t remember all the details, but apparently Allison was found in her home dead, nude, and sexually assaulted with a telephone cord wrapped around her neck. I believe strangulation was the cause of death. My mom saw many similarities in what happened to her friend and Cara Lee and wondered if the same killer might be responsible for both crimes. I saw the determination in her eyes when she decided to ask Cara Lee and Marianne’s killer directly through the Ghost Box. She called out the man’s name and asked, “Did you kill Allison Parkins?”
Less than five seconds went by when the reply came through the speakers of the machine clear as day. Proudly, the spirit said, “Yes, I did!”
I saw the anger and disgust on my mother’s face and I’m sure everyone in the room felt the same way. He seemed pleased with his crimes. I got the impression he felt nothing could touch him in death.
I believe it was Joel who asked, “What kind of car did you drive?”
Without hesitation the spirit stated, “Blue Honda. Black leather seats.” The alleged killer’s spirit was brazen and he seemed egged on by the demonic forces surrounding him. Everyone in the room heard the strange growling and screeching sounds coming through throughout the session. Joel had several dreams while staying at the Lumber Baron Inn. One of these dreams may have actually shown him the face of the alleged killer. Joel asked the Ghost Box if this was the face of the killer and was given verbal confirmation through the speakers.
We wrapped up the Ghost Box session and made our way down to the porch to regroup. My mom was in some sort of daze or trance for the first few minutes we were outside, but eventually seemed to snap out of it. We decided to go back into the room with just the team and ask more direct questions of the alleged killer’s spirit. We had to be quick as there was a magic show event taking place that night and people were already starting to arrive.
We raced back up to the Valentine Suite and asked some very pointed questions directly to the alleged killer and his demonic posse. The answers came through the Ghost Box quickly, almost making it hard for me to decipher what was coming through the speakers. I knew I would have to rely on my recorder to understand the sessions completely. Kristin had turned off her phone during the investigation, and when she turned it back on as we packed up, she realized she had a voicemail from her mechanic. She listened with a disbelieving look on her face. She said the mechanic could find nothing wrong with her car and that it started over and over with no issues whatsoever. It seemed something or someone was trying to stop us from returning to the Lumber Baron Inn to help these girls and solve this crime. Between Jerrica’s nightmares, Kristin’s car not starting, and my dog inexplicably pulling me down that day, it seemed to be more than a coincidence.
We left the Lumber Baron Inn that night a bit shaken and everyone except my mother came back to our house to have a sit-down to discuss our impressions of what took place. We all agreed it wasn’t just the alleged killer’s spirit that was there, but also something darker. I knew it was vital that we immediately go through the Ghost Box EVP we collected that night.
The next day Kristin and Jerrica came over to go through the recordings. I downloaded what I recorded myself and Kristin went through what was recorded on the cameras. It took us two full days to get through all of the recordings. Some of the more interesting Ghost Box EVP clips I pulled out were the voices of Cara Lee and Marianne arguing with the alleged killer. I could also clearly hear the pride he took in all of the evil he committed on earth before he died.
The demonic voices came through in many different ways. Sometimes they sounded like gibberish and I wasn’t able to decipher what they were attempting to say. It wasn’t until I reversed one of the clips and listened to it backwards that I started to hear clear, threatening messages. The alleged killer was happy to give details of the crime he committed at the Lumber Baron Inn and it seemed they were baiting us to come back for one last confrontation. All in all, I collected 400+ Ghost Box EVP clips from the recordings that night. In viewing the pictures we captured, I focused in on some very intriguing results. When I opened the original picture in my photo editing software, I magnified some of the spirit orbs. Inside the orbs, some of the anomalies revealed clear faces, both human and inhuman.
One of the most intense pictures I took that night was when my mother asked about the murder of her friend. Again, her face had contorted into someone else and it was obvious she had taken on another being’s or entity’s energy. I can’t speculate whose energy it may have been; it could have been my mom’s friend, C
ara Lee, the killer, or something demonic. Her expression was extremely angry. Next to her face in the same picture was an extremely bright spirit orb around the size of her head. In the original picture, it appeared to be a very bright and powerful orb, but when I used a basic filter and lightened and darkened the image, it was what was inside the orb that shocked me. It appeared to be some sort of serpent coiling around what looked like a young girl’s face and head. I don’t know if it was a psychic impression or the clarity of the image itself, but I immediately thought of the phone cord wrapped around my mom’s friend’s neck and the imagery of the serpent doing the same. I was frightened.
An entity appears as an orb while Paulette is communicating
with spirits at the Lumber Baron Inn.
I contacted Joel and Elaine and informed them of some of the results. I told them I felt it was important we come in for one final investigation using the Ghost Box to get the last bits of information to finally solve this case. I also told Elaine I thought it was very important that, once we completed the investigation, we do a full clearing of the property. She agreed wholeheartedly.
The morning of the investigation, I went with Stevie, Jerrica, and Kristin to a metaphysical shop in Boulder to stock up on white sage for the clearing. While there, I walked the aisles of the store and came across a beautiful Christian cross that had all of the Saints metals within it. It was more of a sculpture. Most people who know me know I am not Christian. But this cross spoke to me. I realized we were battling true demonic entities inside the Lumber Baron Inn and what better way to purify the room than a cross? We went back to the Lumber Baron Inn the next afternoon. My mom decided with what happened during the last visit, she would leave the final investigation and clearing to me, Dina, Kristin, and Jerrica.
Elaine met us when we arrived at the house. We explained to her that we wanted to do the investigation portion alone as we didn’t want to subject her energy to what we felt might be in the room. Elaine was gracious as always and told us she understood. The house was busy with workers remodeling and we knew we would have to work around it. Fortunately, there was no work being done in the Valentine Suite. I hadn’t told the team about the crazy plan I came up with the night before for fear they might try to talk me out of it.