Haunted house exploration

Once the Olivia Apartments welcomed Joplin's wealthiest citizens. Now it hosts paranormal investigators and tour groups eager to hunt down spooks.

The Paranormal Science Lab has been conducting weekend tours of the Olivia during October, and one such tour was held Friday.

The tour began with the setting up of lights in selected areas and various types of cameras.

“We have four cameras running,” said Lisa Livingston-Martin, PSL co-team leader, explained to those gathered for the tour. “The full-spectrum cameras pick up everything from infrared to ultraviolet. Low-light cameras can capture an image with one lumen. We have film that goes 33 times faster than real-time.”

Also in use during their investigations are electromagnetic frequency detectors, which will indicate a spike if energy is detected.
Bill Martin, co-team leader, an electrician by trade, works to develop more devices for detecting paranormal activity.

“I've invented a machine that shoots electronic volts into the atmosphere, and we got some EVPs (electronic voice phenomena) after that,” Martin said.“It's just my opinion, but I believe the paranormal  travel by electricity and sound waves. We pick up a lot of stuff when a long train goes by. We experience a lot of battery drainage and cell phone drainage here.”
A few tour goers brought equipment of their own, including ghost hunting apps on their phones. Dacy Crockett, Lamar, Mo., showed her  Ghost Radar Classic, which was doing radar sweeps of the Olivia lobby.
“I used this at my dad's house, and we  think my grandmother and aunt are haunting it,” she said.

Martin and Livingston-Martin gave a brief history of the Olivia Apartments, explaining that it was built in 1906 by Arthur Bendelari, a partner in the State Lead and Zinc Company and the Southwestern Machinery Company, and later president of the Eagle-Picher Lead Company. He named the building,  which cost $150,000 to build, after his mother, Olivia.

“This was built for the ultra wealthy, the richest of the rich,” Martin said. “This was the place you lived while you were waiting for your mansion to be built.”

He and Livingston-Martin warned that the tour would not be like the paranormal hunt shows on TV.

“It has to be dramatic on TV, so they take hours and hours of film footage and edit it to get one hour on TV,” she said.

Some dramatic things have occurred, including the sounds of voices so loud that the investigation team feared live people had broken into the building.

“We called 911 and the Joplin Police Department did a full sweep of the building with two K-9 units,” Martin said. “They found nothing.”
He warned tour goers that they might see something that would freak them out.

“Don't bolt, please,” he said.

That was for the benefit of team member Misty Cole, who bolted over Martin as they rushed downstairs.

“I was the last one in line and the footsteps were coming right behind me,” Cole said.

First stop on the tour was the Olivia basement, scene of a tragic accident on Jan. 12, 1908. Marvin Reynolds, 19, a desk clerk, went to the basement to feed the building cat.

“The lighting throughout the Olivia was provided by natural gas, which is odorless,” Livingston-Martin said. “Now they add a sulfur smell to it  so we know when there's a gas leak, but they didn't do that back then. Apparently Marvin flipped on a light switch in the basement, but the light didn't go on. Then he struck a match, which caused a massive gas explosion. Marvin was thrown through a brick wall and horribly burned.”
Dr. W.E. Craig, an Olivia resident, went to the basement and carried the young man to the lobby, where he soon died.

After the basement was a session with flashlights in one of the luxury apartments on the main floor. Livingston-Martin explained that the flashlights are used to question possible entities, and seem to turn themselves on and off.

“Skeptics say that temperature changes make the lights go on and off,” she said. “These lights are made of airplane-grade aluminum and the amount of heat needed to make them go on and off would be about 2,500 degrees. I think we would notice that change.”

The experiment was repeated when the group went up to the fifth floor, once the location of a fine restaurant with a French chef.

Responses to Livingston-Martin's questions, via the flashlights, seemed to indicate that the ghostly presence of a woman was there, possibly someone who had worked in the restaurant or in the adjacent private dining room/gentleman's smoking room.

The PSL team considers the third floor of the Olivia to be the most “active” area.

“Al Capone's aunt had an apartment on the third floor,” Martin said. “An EVP we recorded has a woman's voice saying, 'Not through here with your guns.' Maybe Capone's aunt was saying she didn't want any of their hooligan shenanigans in her apartment.”

Audible sounds were picked up,, some attributed to people talking outside the building. Others, such as the sound of furniture moving and glass breaking, heard by Martin and several others, were harder to explain.

“I checked and there's no broken glass anywhere,” he said.
Then Martin discovered an open door that wasn't supposed to be, with a wire wrapped around the door knob.

“We shut that door hard last Saturday before we left,” Martin said. “Mark, have you had anybody in here doing anything?”

“No, I haven't,” said Mark Williams, Joplin entrepreneur who hopes to restore and re-open the Olivia.

Most dramatic was the discovery of bare human footprints in a dusty third-floor room, appearing to step out from a wall and heading for a closet.

That was the final discovery of the evening, but more may or may not come when the PSL team examines the recordings taken of the investigation.

“I think dust orbs are dust orbs, and when you watch them float around it becomes obvious they are dust orbs,” Livingston-Martin said.“We are a  scientific team and we look at things scientifically,” Martin said.

Footage of the tour will be posted on the Paranormal Science Lab web site.