OLD MURDOCK CABIN
Location: Situated at the conflux of a number of high-intensity electrical tower, the Old Murdock Cabin is placed off the beaten path and difficult to find unless you are aware of the lay-out of Richardson, Texas, ten miles outside of Dallas on Interstate 75. (There is a second, smaller town named Richardson in Presidio County thirty-three miles from Marfa, Texas.) The cabin is amidst the scattering of cabins northeast of town off the old dirt roads around Lavon Lake.
Description of Place: The Murdock Cabin was a ramshackle two room cabin with a pitched roof and root cellar amongst a number of deserted cabins dotting the Texas hills. Surrounded by rolling woodlands and neglected crops, the structure has been condemned several times, and even nearly entirely burned down, leaving behind a burned shell over a collapsed cellar, hardly a deterrent for the kind of attention it sustains.
Ghostly Manifestations: A favorite for amateur ghost-hunters and bored teenagers dabbling in devil worship, the Murdock Cabin seems to be an innocuous location at first barely interesting enough for exploring up until one listens to the supposed stories about the place. The truth of the matter is that the alleged paranormal activity reported here has been based on years of misinformation and inaccurate research by horror-motif writers passing themselves off as paranormal researchers. However, up until March 30, 2006, there was not much to suggest the location was remotely haunted, and local police converged on the site to find the bodies of Corrine Russell, an alleged suicide, and Jill Tisdale, a reported accident. Afterward, the old cabin suddenly had a lot of local attention....
"The ghost is real; I've seen it." So claims Harry Spengler, one of the creators of Hell Hounds Lair, a supposed website for paranormal research largely biased to the more sensationalistic aspects of the field. "Ed and I have been out there several times and have taken several photographs. We've seen shadows, heard things and even filmed objects being moved on time-lapse camera."
Ed is actually Edward Zedmore, Harry's co-creator to the website. Since its creation, they have both hosted and elaborated on the history of the cabin and their findings about the hauntings there for their fans. It is possibly undeniably among one of their favorite locations for proximity and presence, but their so-called "proof" and "research" has to be taken with a grain of salt. Their ghostly photographs look like dust, their apparition an odd play of light and their poltergeist activity evidence of a sinking foundation. When Corrine Russell and Jill Tisdale were found dead in the cellar, Spengler and Zedmore were suspects in the murders or at least guilty on duplicity in perpetuating the location for the real killers.
Nevertheless, when paranormal investigators Sam and Dean Winchester came upon the location to confirm or debunk the supposed Hell Hounds Lair accusations to the contrary, they had very little of anything to begin their research. The brothers are continuing the work and research of their father, a noted parapsychologist, and on arrival, Dean looks up and notes on the trajectory of the three power lines in the area converging at a point over the location.
"We do know from paranormal research that there is a relationship between electromagnetic energy and paranormal phenomenon." Dean reveals. "EMR can affect the higher brain functions, making people perceive sensations of being watched or hallucinating things that aren't there. This could be what people are experiencing.
"Some researchers even believe psychic energy is just another wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum."
During their visit, the cabin was still intact, but littered with the evidence of hundreds of vandals, vagrants, would-be ghost-hunters and even the odd eccentric. Debris ranged from beer bottles, used condoms, junk food wrappers and even graffiti in the form of demonic worship. With a visit mired and shadowed by the murder investigation, they arrived armed with an electromagnetic meter which immediately went off the scale in the cabin. Among stories they wanted to debunk or at least explore were reports of the shadow of a figure lurking around the cabin carrying a rifle and even attacking teenagers who invaded the cabin. During the Sixties, a group of hippies camping out in the deserted freaked when a huge figure of a man came up out of the cellar and attacked them. Sam wonders if that could have been a real person since there's no paranormal aspects to the tale. However, a story from the same area tells the tale of a perplexed motorist who chanced on the cabin while it was filled with light, only to discover it dark and abandoned when he knocked on the door. Sam debates that tale could have happened anywhere since it repeats all all over the United States. There is nothing to link that story particularly to the Murdock Cabin.
The Eighties were really the time that began the basis for the supposed hauntings at the cabin and its later notoriety. On December 18, 1984, a group of deer-hunters surprised by a torrential outpour stormed the cabin to escape the weather and stake a claim on it. Upon discovering preserves and goods left on the site, they settled in with a fire in the fireplace and their sleeping bags stretched out on the wood floor. As the three buddies slowly acclimated to their new surrounds and engaged in bravado into the night, they slowly became aware of someone moving around in the cellar beneath them. Such a thing was impossible, they had searched the location earlier for signs of life, but as they started exchanging looks and turning their deer rifles out to defend themselves, the presence started mounting up the cellar steps, shaking and stomping its way up the stairs. Rather than facing what was terrifying them, the three men raced from the cabin. If one of them had not been a Dallas police officer who had returned in uniform with his partner to retrieve their belongings, the whole account might never been revealed.
Following that case, state police hearing about the old Murdock cabin from that encounter decided to check it out when they were searching for a gang member who had escaped into the area after shooting a police officer. On approach, they called in to their superiors about a figure they saw dashing into the cabin on arrival. State police were called in to corner the suspect, orders were called out for the figure to give himself up and a K-9 unit was summoned to storm the cabin. When reports came in of their fugitive being caught five miles away in the cab of a tractor trailer, officers stormed the cabin and found it devoid of life. It's probably the only ghost story in the files of the Texas state police.
Afterward, the rest of the Eighties were full of stories with obvious parallels; teenagers going out there on a dare to see the ghosts and getting scared of sounds and shadows. It wasn't long before the site was being exploited in initiation rituals taking advantage of the tales. On January 11, 2006, Corrine Russell and three of her peers traveled out to the Murdock Cabin after discovering and reading about it on the Hell Hounds Lair website. As they tried to call up the ghost, Corrine wandered into the cellar and without a sound somehow ended up hanging from a rope in the rafters. Two months later, three girls with too much time on their hands traveled out to the cabin and tempted fate. The next morning, police found Jill Tisdale strung up from the rafters almost exactly like Russell months before. Their murders are still as yet unsolved.
With those stories in mind, the Winchester brothers made several daily visits to the cabin trying to bust the legends and find the truth. Whether they had police cooperation at the crime scene is vague, but after checking EMR levels, taking several photos and even staying one night challenging the ghosts, they departed with the feeling the case was a bust. Two months later when they finally got around to developing their photos and examining their film, Sam nearly turned over a developing tray in the dark room as an image he hadn't expected turned up in one of the photos....
It was the huddled body and face of Jill Tisdale staring out in abject terror from the back of a empty closet!
History: According to local census records, the cabin was built by Martin Murdoch raising two sons sometime in the 1930s. However, by time legend, rumor and misinformation takes over, the story of Martin turns into that of Mordecai Murdoch raising six daughters. Having lost their farm and unable to feed themselves, Mordecai slew his six daughters rather than see them suffer and then turned his rifle on himself. According to urban legend, his spirit only killed guys he suspected came to the cabin looking for his daughters, but then the legend tends to change and vary a lot. None of this urban legend has any basis in truth.
Identity of Ghosts: Possibly Martin (aka Mordecai) Murdock.... Jill Tisdale?
Source/Comments: Supernatural (Episode: Hell House), Phenomenon very loosely based on Greylock House in Adams, Massachusetts and on varied assorted legends
The characters of Harry Spengler and Ed Zeddmore were an homage to Egon Spangler and Winston Zedmore from "Ghostbusters" (1984/1989).