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The stone mansion stands grim and dominant above the prosperous
community of Beverly Hills, California. The
castle-like pile has stood since it’s
construction in the late 1920s by the wealthy
and powerful Doheiney Family, oil magnates
of their day. The house is now used as a stately
park where wedding parties and movie companies
use this mansion as a backdrop. But the lavish
house isn’t at peace. Dark memories
linger here in the deserted rooms and marble
lined halls. Here the beauty of the carved
woods and worked marble can not dispel the
checkered past and evil deeds committed within
the structure. These shadowed events live
on through her ghosts. The Greystone Mansion
is haunted, very haunted.
Psychic visitors shiver
as they enter the place. The oppressive supernatural
weight grips them in a dark vise. Murders
happened here and the emotional traces of
such psychic scars echo long. February 16,
1929 gunshots shattered the night. In there
wake, a persistent mystery. Ned Doheiney was
dead, a 45 caliber slug took his life, not
far away, the body of his personal secretary
Huge Plunkett also dead, the result of a gun
shot wound to the head. The revolver was still
in his hand. Murder/suicide over wages was
the official finding of the police, but rumors
persist that much more happened here. Was
Ned’s wife, Lucy, involved in some way?
Were the bodies moved before the police called?
Then, there is the problem of the scandal.
The patriarch of the family was involved in
the infamous “Tea Pot Dome” case
that unmasked massive corruption in the Republican
Presidential Administration. Bribes were given
to high government officials to drill in the
oil rich “tea pot dome” section
of Wyoming. Men would go to prison over this,
others would have their lives ruined. It is
said that Hugh was set to testify before the
US Congress until given the ultimate reprieve
by death. Many gained by his untimely death.
Some speculate that he didn’t take his
own life!
What happened that night
within the thick walls of the Greystone? Rumors
swirl about the case even unto this very day.
The Doheinys were powerful enough to have
financed a massive cover-up. Evidence seems
to imply that some facts were sanitized before
the police came. What was covered up? One
story whispers that Hugh and Ned were homosexual
lovers and that Lucy, discovering them in
a passionate embrace, shot them both in a
murderous rage. Both men were married and
Ned had children, this seemingly rules out
a gay scenario. Still, it is possible. Other
tales say that Lucy had an affair with Hugh.
They knew each other before she married into
the Doheiny fortune. Can we ever know the
truth? Perhaps psychic means can un-bury what
gold entombed?
Psychic Debbie Christenson
Senate came to the Mansion. She heard stories
of the ghosts that haunt this structure and
came to learn if these internet accounts were
fact or fancy. The moment she crossed over
the threshold something cold gripped her.
As she wandered the massive place as a member
of her party saw a ghost appear on the stairway.
It was a man dressed in black with a distinct
hat. A pork pie hat popular when silent films
were made in near-by Hollywood and made famous
by comic genius “Buster” Keaton.
Reports tell of seeing phantom servants in
the house: butlers in formal attire, and cooks
in wide-striped smocks. It was in the chambers
of Ned Douheiney that Debbie felt death. Then,
when she crossed into the rooms where Lucy
dwelled, the haunting presence grew oppressive
and grim. Others have seen a ghost woman here
and this spirit seems to dominate the place.
Debbie smelled a perfume, a rich lilac smell,
she linked to ghost lady. Slowly images of
the past materialized before the psychic inner
eye.
Her mind went back to that
evening so long ago. She saw how Lucy’s
husband’s inept handling of the bribes
enmeshed the family in the scandal. His actions
would bring down public wrath and topple them
into poverty. She knew what had to be done
to save the family and her children. What
grown men were hesitant to do, she had the
will to act. The pressures of the investigation
were breaking Hugh down, she knew his weakness
and saw in it a way to break the scandal and
rid herself of both men. She took the 45 caliber
pistol, walked into Ned’s room and shot
him as he slept. She called Hugh and told
him to come to the mansion. He foolishly asked
permission to enter at the gate house but,
when told Ned was unable to confirm his appointment,
he went in, using the servants entrance. He
helped Lucy move the body so it would look
like an intruder had killed him. She, accounting
to Debbie, told Hugh her husband had shot
himself upon learning that they were having
an affair! It was after the body was moved,
and Hugh touched the gun, the truth dawned
upon the man. He would be blamed for the crime!
He couldn’t run and with the gun in
his hand, he would be blamed, to face the
hangman’s noose.
Seeing his life ruined,
and to protect the woman he foolishly loved,
he shot himself. Lucy had orchestrated the
whole scenario. Her act saved the family fortune
but doomed her spirit to walk the earth. Now
the ghostly woman pays her eternal penance
in the mansion. She had sacrificed herself
to save the family fortune. Implausible? Perhaps,
but such things have happened before. She
did marry again, but it seemed more a marriage
of connivance than anything else, and the
roving eye of her new husband satisfied his
lust with trips down the hall to the servant’s
quarters.
Today the mansion is cold
and dim, more mausoleum than a home, but to
psychic Debbie Senate each room unfolded its
mysteries. Here children, there a silent butler
or hard-working servant. In the basement Debbie
felt another presence. A woman who worked
at the home and fell ill with sharp chest
pains. She died of a sudden massive heart
attack. As Debbie toured the rooms her psychic
gifts saw the unfurnished rooms, becoming
filled with the overstuffed chairs and overly
ornate trappings of a wealthy home of the
1920s. Once again, the female presence made
itself known. Control and power were her drugs
of choice. She had to keep her eye on things.
She was compelled to dominate her little world.
Debbie’s impressions of Lucy Dohieney
was confirmed by research.
As the sun drew low on the
horizon an attempt was made to contact, Lucy,
the phantom woman. The efforts provided little
success, but another presence did come forth,
a servant girl who took her own life did communicate
with the team. She was pregnant in an age
that shunned unwed mothers and in her dispare
hung herself in the servant’s quarter’s.
The spirit named Lucy’s second husband
as the father of her unborn child. When he
refused to help her, the young woman became
despondent ending her life. She hinted at
greater scandals within the mansion, but didn‘t
elaborate.
Can a psychic vision revel
the truth? Perhaps more investigations at
this place can open the possibility that the
deaths were not strictly a murder/suicide
but something more sinister. It is worthy
of review if nothing else. If other psychics
come to test their skills here, they will
not include Debbie. She vowed to never set
foot in the place again! Dreams of the mansion,
and its ghosts, plagued her nights for three
days after the visit. “Never again,”
she remarked. “Lucy can have the place
until she deems it ready to finally leave.”
Also
Read 20 Questions with Richard Senate
Here!
RICHARD SENATE
California-based author
and lecturer. 59 years of age--old enough
to know better.
I
have a web site at www.ghost-stalker.com
I have e-mail at HaintHunter@aol.com.
Author of Ghost Stalker's Guide To Haunted
California (Mass Market Paperback) by Richard
Senate (Author), Jane E. Gilbert (Editor,
Photographer), John Whyman (Author)
On May 11, 12 and 13, I will be part of a
ghost Hunting Conference in my hometown of
Ventura California, I will be speaking on
my 26 years of investigation as well as leading
a real ghost hunt at an active haunted house.
August 25 and 26 I will be talking part in
the Ghost Hunters conference in Las Vegas,
Nevada. Its going to be a great time. I have
three new articles coming out in FATE Magazine
in the next few months. I will continue to
do tours here in Ventura, California. I am
also researching for a new book on the subject
of ghosts in Mexico at this time and hope
to lead a group to Baja to investigate the
notorious Hotel California in Todos Santos.
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