The Carmen Home
The Carmen Home (IOOF Home for Children) was opened in 1907 and was empty for 10 to 12 years when it became the private residence of Jim and Naomi Davis from 1940 to late 1940s. After that the Pentecostal Holiness Church purchased it around 1944 and made it into the Carmen Home for Elderly in 1954. The top two floors were lost in tornadoes that often sweep through Oklahoma. It is rumored to be haunted.
On November 12, 2004, with a record number of team members, Eerie Oklahoma and Tonya and Russell from GHOULI set out to investigate the old orphanage. We were met by several anxious locals that told us no one went in there much and some even waited outside until we were done that evening. One woman recounted to us her grandmother's days in the nursing home there.
This investigation was part of a cognitive research theory Eerie and GHOULI were working on. No one knew the history before we went. When we got there, we split up into teams and each team was assigned a zone in the building. The teams were sent through with notebooks and were asked to write down any impressions or feelings they had during the walk through and they were asked to not share them with other team members. After that, each team went through with their equipment and wrote down any occurrences with the equipment. Both sets of numbers were given to Russell of GHOULI to correlate to see if any of the impressions would match up with equipment occurrences and to see if different people were getting the same impressions and occurrences.
At one point, the team had gathered in a common room where there were several chairs set in a circle. There weren't enough regular chairs, so Tonya of GHOULI sat in a wheelchair. We were sitting in the circle talking and conducting an EVP session when Tonya's chair moved on it's own. She said something to the effect of, "Oh my god this chair just moved!" and I snapped the following picture. Her feet were not touching the ground and Susie saw it move completely on its own. It moved backward as if someone had pulled it.
Tonya, Russell, Will and I decided later to do a walk through in the basement. It was big, maze-like, and very dark. We spent some time in what was once the beauty shop. It was eerie because it looked as if everyone had just walked out one day and left everything - there were still hair clippings all over.
As we wandered down the dark hallways, we all got the feeling that we were being followed and Tonya began talking out loud to whomever was there and felt like we should go find the piano. So we wandered some more and came to an old piano way back in a corner of a dead end. While we were all standing there wondering why we were standing there, there was a bright flash of light at the end of the hall - we all witnessed it, then it was gone. We went upstairs to meet up with the others and I felt I needed to tell Russell what I thought the person looked like that was following us. So I took him aside and gave him my description. Later he got a description from Tonya and they were almost exactly the same - we both felt it was an older woman that walked hunched over, wearing a housecoat type garment, with short curly hair shuffling along behind us. Now, you may think that seems pretty generic because that could be anyone in a nursing home, but the details down to the hair matched and it was a very strong impression. Normally I don't put a lot of stock into impressions and whatnot, but this was a pretty interesting coincidence.
While on the main floor, Tonya at one time literally ran down the hall trying to get pictures of something she said she saw. She said she saw a bare leg from the knee down with a bit of a nightgown go around the corner. But it was gone when she got there.
We were able to collect some good EVP at this location, which I am trying to recover after being hacked and I will post them if I can get them. We did not get any unremarkable photos and the best evidence at this location were definitely the EVPs and the eye-witness accounts.
Because of the type of place the Carmen Home was, there were certainly deaths there, but none of the history tells of any mistreatment or unhappiness. There is a cemetery down the road that was made just for the orphanage and there are about 12 young people buried there.
I will update this report when I find the EVP and get the other team members' reports.