02x03 - Capitol Theater Haunting

[bunniefuu]

There's something about the building.

[Eerie whispering]

Working at the Capitol Theatre, it did leave you with an eerie feeling.

I'm not easily scared, but it's a feeling of evil.

It's mine to make sure it's secure, but I don't feel secure.

Wham.

There is something definitely messing with me.

[Demonic roar]

I know what I saw.

It sure as heck wasn't in the job description.

There's something behind you.

[Haunting music]

I've always to, you know, work in law enforcement.

It's kind of a cliche thing, but I wanted to do it ever since I was a child.

My job as a protective service officer is to watch over numerous County facilities, and my first assignment was the Capitol Theatre.

It's been around for a long time, the Capitol Theatre.

It's a part of Salt Lake's history.

Thanks for the ride.

Come on in.

I met officer Mathews.

He was assigned to me about a week, two weeks, depending how long it took an individual to get accustomed to the building.

He flipped the lights on.

Then you truly get to see the theater, and it's just absolutely gorgeous.

It's amazing.

When officer Murphy first arrived, he was nervous.

He was apprehensive, because it was a new job for him, but he was eager to learn, so we jumped right into it.

There are surveillance cameras throughout the facility.

You can pull up anything you want, all right?

So you got your center stage.

Next one.. Catacomb.

Front door, important.

Okay.

So you literally could sit in the control room and monitor just about anywhere in the building.

Ready for a tour?

Let's do it.

I felt officer Mathews didn't want to say a whole lot to me except for my duties. and so you want to make sure that you check them out to make sure that there's nobody in there.

Bet you can't wait to be on your own.

I took him down into the basement, which is what we call the catacombs.

The basement is massive.

Security lights. See these lights here?

There's a lot of rooms..

Dressing rooms, locker rooms.

There's maintenance, the wood shop.

These are important.

So you would just go through, and you would test every doorknob to make sure that they were locked.

And then you would work your way up into the different levels.

That's about it.

That's everything?

He was quiet. He was very quiet.

That's it.

I just felt that he was holding something back.

Finally I decided.. I came to work one night.

I thought, "I can do this on my own". It's..

It's not hard".

I had the building down. I knew what had to be done.

I've got it down pat.

So as I come up the west stairwell, now I'm on the third floor.

And the building's all but locked down.

[Eerie crackling]

[Indistinct whispering]

[Walkie-talkie clicks off]

[Indistinct whispering]

I make my way down, and this is where the rehearsal rooms are.

I stick my head in quickly just to make sure there's nobody there.

Everything was good.

[Door slams]

Door slams behind me.

I mean, with incredible force, it just..

[Claps]

I'm looking to see if somebody ran down the hall, if they ran and hit the exit.

Officer Murphy called me, and he says, "somebody just slammed a door up here".

Can you check the cameras? Over.

Copy that, checking now.

I don't see anything.

Okay.

I'm coming now.

I'm thinking logically..

"You can't slam the door.

There's a hydraulic hinge on the top".

So I start to remove my g*n, and I got it in the ready position.

[Clicking]

I get this strong impression somebody's waiting for me.

There is an individual in there.

My adrenaline kicks in.

It's my duty. I'm an officer.

I'm gonna make sure.

I remember running as fast as I could through the theater to get to where he was.

And you got to understand, when somebody says, "there's somebody in here," you believe them 110%.

I walk in.

[Water dripping]

I just get.. This sickening feeling comes over me.

And as soon as I come around the corner..

I've got goose bumps.

And this.. This cold goes right through me.

I'm freezing to death.

[Water dripping]

Sheriff's Department. Come out now.

It's a feeling of evil.

[Water dripping]

I can see the sink, I see the men's urinal, and I see the stalls.

And I look underneath the stalls, and there's no feet there.

There's.. So I'm thinking maybe they're on..

Standing on the toilets, trying to hide.

Nobody's there.

And that's when I turn, and I look at officer Murphy, and he's got this look of, like, "oh, boy, I messed this one up big-time".

Nothing here, dude.

I'm not easily intimidated, but the feeling I had in the restroom was..

I was.. I was scared.

All right, better do a full sweep, see if anyone's hiding out.

All right?

Okay.

We decide, "okay, if there's somebody in this building, we need to find 'em".

We go to the second floor.

I'm standing there in amazement, and I'm shocked.

I mean, I had just turned those lights off.

I mean, I'd just locked those doors. I secured that floor.

Every light is on, and doors are open.

I just locked this door.

Did you come up here earlier?

No.

I turned the lights off, I locked the door, and I went down the stairs.

I know I secured it.

It was kind of cold between, I felt, Mathews and I the remainder of that evening.

I don't want to say I was holding something back, but there had been some unusual things that had happened to me while working in the theater, and I just couldn't come out and tell him.

I needed to keep my credibility as his training officer.

[Whispering] Help me. Help me.

I was sitting at my desk in the Security room when I start to hear voices.

[Voices whispering indistinctly]

And when I'm talking voices, I'm not talking about how I'm talking right now, but these are conversations that are going on behind me..

[Voices whispering indistinctly]

[Imitates whispering]

Like somebody's having a conversation and they want to keep it private.

[Voices whispering indistinctly]

When I turn around..

There's nobody there.

[Voices whispering indistinctly]

At this point, the hairs on the back of my neck are starting to prick up.

[Whispering] Now get.. Get out.

[Coughing]

My heart's going.

[Whispering] Help.

And I'm thinking, "something really is messing with me"..

I can't breathe.

"Something or someone".

I know I'm not crazy.

[Voices whispering indistinctly]

Get out. Get out of here.

Get out of here. Get out.

Get out of here.

I went into the basement, where all the dressing rooms are..

No voices.

It's almost cave-like.

There was no windows. There was no street access.

You're trapped.

And I smell something.

And I recognize what that smell is.

I smell smoke.

That smoke smell is so constant, the theater would've had to burn down multiple times.

But I'm 100% positive..

There is nothing going on.

Something that's messing with you, that's playing mind tricks on you, you really begin to question your own self.

I had come on duty one night.

It was.. It was later in the afternoon, so maybe 4:00, 5:00-ish, thereabouts, and I do my routine.

And there's a man..

That's interesting.

Standing at the end of the hall talking to two women.

So I'm in the corridor, and I'm listening to the women tell this gentleman a story.

Well, these ghost stories and hauntings, they've been going on for many, many years.

And I hear the word "ghost".

That's got my attention now.

Excuse me, Sir?

You know, I introduce myself to him.

Dave Murphy. I'm the new deputy here at the theater.

He says, "I'm Blair Fuller. I'm the senior accountant".

Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?

Sure. Why don't you step into my office?

That'd be great. Thank you.

He was very curious after having heard that I'd had some experiences there.

Have a seat right here.

So I began to share with him the story that happened to me as I was there working late at night.

I tend to get a lot more things done when I work late.

So I'm working at about 9:00 or 10:00 in the evening.

Just outside of our main office is an elevator.

When the motor kicks on for that, it's a very loud noise.

[Motor whirring, elevator dings]

[Elevator dings]

I'm there in the building alone, so I was very surprised to hear the elevator moving at night.

[Elevator dings]

The elevator reached our floor.

[Elevator dings]

[Elevator dings]

[Loud buzzing]

It takes 30 to 40 seconds for an alarm to go off if the door stays open that long.

I walked out to the elevator to see what was going on.

[Elevator alarm buzzing]

I thought, "that's really odd".

There's nothing blocking the door I thought that it was most likely a malfunction.

So I got on the elevator, and just as I'm about to leave the elevator..

[Elevator dings]

The basement button has lit.

We're going down now three floors from where my office is to the basement.

[Elevator dings]

And this whole time, my mind is running.

"What is going on with this elevator?

Why is it moving?"

[Elevator dings]

[Elevator dings]

[Elevator dings]

We get to the basement.

The doors open.

There's nobody in the hallway.

Hello!

[Indistinct whispering]

Hello!

Is anyone there?

There was nobody that I could see, and I was very alone and very nervous at that point in time.

[Motor whirring]

[Whispering] Help.

[Coughing]

I went back and sat down at my desk, and then it even gets stranger.

[Metallic scraping]

[Metallic clanging]

Clang, clang, clang.

Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang.

I was very, very scared.

I tried to find every way I could to disprove what was going on..

What my eyes and my senses were telling me..

And I couldn't do it.

If there's anything else you want to ask..

From what I'm hearing from Blair, I felt that somebody else has similar experiences to me.

I'm not going crazy. Because that's one of the things I felt..

I was going crazy.

We're getting towards the end of my training period, and we're on the second tier of the auditorium, the seating area.

Morgan?

What's up?

I said, "do you ever get the feeling you're being watched in this place?"

What do you mean?

Since I've started here, I've heard weird noises.

Doors have slammed on me.

Lights are on in places where you know there's nobody.

I just have this.. Just a feeling of dread.

That's kind of when he starts to open up to me.

And the voices..

And we just started having conversations about my experiences there.

What he's been hearing..

How long has this been happening to you?

Since day one.

What he's been feeling..

And I think I'm right there..

Gone.

Once he opened up to me and we started exchanging stories, um..

My good friend Greg came to mind.

And he's got a gift.

An ability to..

See things.

Officer Murphy wanted to bring him in and see what he could find.

Greg.

Dave.

Nice to see you.

And I was like, "let's do it. I'm all for it".

This is my boss, Morgan.

Morgan, how are you?

Good to meet you.

I had known officer Murphy for probably 15 years.

Uh, shortly after he began working at the Capitol Theatre, I received a call from him.

Give you the grand tour?

Let's go.

And he invited me to come over.

I didn't tell him anything.

I didn't tell him about our experiences, nothing.

He came in cold.

Looking around, I noted that there are many people standing there.

So I'm playing stupid. I'm like, "what do you mean, Greg?"

The officers were oblivious.

He said, "you didn't tell me this place was haunted, and they're not good".

And from that point on, I was watching and listening to see if the things that I was going through could be validated through him.

There are stairs that lead down underneath the stage into the dressing area, into the actors' dressing rooms.

So we went down.

So we're looking down the hallway..

And we notice one of the doors is open.

And it's open, you know, a good foot.

[Door slams]

Wham, that door shut so hard and so fast.

Mathews turns to me, and he's got that "holy crap" look on his face.

Both officer Murphy and I reach for our weapons.

Cover?

Gotcha.

[Door handle rattling]

The door handle started rattling.

[Door handle rattling]

Three of us are seeing, hearing something physical happen.

Doors slams, and then all of a sudden, this door is shaking like crazy.

You check the room out. There's nothing there.

I mean, how do you explain it?

It's.. It's weird.

They were both very, very rattled at that point.

Both officers were very, very rattled.

You see now? Do you see? Do you see?

It's been happening every night.

How can you talk about your feelings other than just like.. [Exhales]

"Whoa, you know, this is really happening right now"?

We started down the hall.

And as we proceeded forward, it got warmer.

Greg is hitting a hot spot where I know that there's something there, because I can always smell the smoke.

I said to Dave and officer Mathews, "has there been a fire in this building?"

And they said, "why do you ask?"

And I said, "I can smell smoke".

Greg, you all right?

Shine the light in this corner for me.

I saw a young man.

I don't see anything.

It's right there.

I don't see anything.

It's dark.

We're the only three people in the basement at that time.

There is nobody else in the theater.

Both officer Murphy and I just kind of looked at each other.

[Exhales]

It was unbelievable.

I mean, everything that he had told us, everything that had happened to us previously and had happened to us that night.. You know, it was validation.

But it sure as heck wasn't in the job description.

You know, after Greg had left, things just kind of got more and more crazy.

The thing that really pushed it over the edge for me was that the County had just installed a brand-new camera.. Security Camera.

It was an infrared camera, so when the lights were off, you could actually see what was going on in the dark.

As I'm sitting there, I notice that there is something sitting in one of the rows.

I maximize that screen so it's full screen on the computer monitor, and there's a figure.

It looks like he's enjoying a show.

And then all of a sudden..

[Demonic roar]

He just sh**t across the sky.

He's going.. [Roars]

As he's going across.

And that.. That scared me.

And from that point on, I would not work in the theater, because if there's something that is that demonic, I don't want to be around it.

Well, you always feel comfortable if you have a partner, if you have a backup.

There's nobody now to back me up.

I'm alone now.

On the night I would come in..

Lock, turn the lights off.

Come back two hours later.

Lights are on..

Doors are open, and nobody's in the building.

Now I've got to search the basement.

It's mine to make sure it's safe. It's secure.

But I don't feel secure.

It was a quiet evening, and I'm in the control room.

Yeah, I'm still at work.

And I hear music, like, ragtime music.

[Ragtime piano music]

Hold on. I'll call you right back.

Everything's locked. I'd gone through the building.

I checked. There was nobody in the building.

[Ragtime piano music]

The music wasn't coming from the auditorium.

[Music loudens]

I made my way down the east-side stairwell, and the music's getting louder.

If I could come around the corner and see a prankster on the piano..

I'd breathe a sigh of relief.

[Loud slam, music stops]

Where's the individual?

[Piano cover slams]

I witnessed enough. I didn't have to see any more.

Who am I gonna call, dispatch?

The piano's playing and nobody's in the building?

I don't want to be in the building.

I just want to get out.

The next day I went and saw my Sergeant, and I said, "if you ever put me in that theater again, I'll quit".

I've been a police officer for about five and a half years.

Um, at this time, I was in protective services division.

First time I worked at Capitol Theatre, I'm walking downstairs to the basement area.

I had already cleared the building, made sure no one was inside, doors were locked.

I was in the patrol car that night, making sure the other officers were safe, everything was okay.

How's it going over there?

Just doing the rounds.

I just thought I'd check up on you.

First night and all.

[Motor whirring]

[Elevator dings]

Murphy, the elevator's moving.

I know it's impossible, but it's moving.

I'm on my way.

[Siren wailing]

I race over to the theater.

[Elevator dings]

[Elevator dings]

[Siren wailing]

[Elevator dings]

[Door clattering]

There's no one there.

And that kind of just freaked me out.

[Siren wailing]

I got there as quickly as I could, but that night, I had no desire to be in the building.

He meets me at the door.

I mean, his eyes were huge. I mean, his expression was..

As soon as he arrived, I let him know that I haven't seen anyone leave.

Uh, let's go ahead and clear the building.

So we got our g*ns drawn, and we're going through.

[Eerie whispering]

Did you see that?

I look in the mirror, and all of a sudden, I see something run by.

I look at Murphy. "Did you just see that?"

I don't see nothing.

You take the right. I'll take the left.

I go towards the stage door.

That's quite a distance away.

[Light bulb crackles]

[Indistinct whispering]

What'd you say?

All of a sudden, I hear a whisper.

Didn't say anything.

And I noticed he's clear on the other side of the stage.

Quit messing with me, man.

I said, "what?"

He says, "you just whispered in my ear".

I get it. It's creepy.

And he's got his back turned towards the back of the stage, and I'm looking at the auditorium where all the seats are at.

Murphy, there's something behind you.

Murphy, there's something behind you.

I turn around slow.

[Demonic roar]

Holy cow, this.. What is this?

I didn't want to see it.

I pulled out my flashlight, and I point it at it, and it disappears.

There's nothing there.

And I know I'm not just seeing this.

The eyes were deep-socketed, and it was just looking right at me, and that kind of just freaked me out.

Now, I wanted to find out who these beings were or the stories that were circulating, so I went back, and I talked to staff.

I mean, I talked to a lot of people, but they weren't saying a whole lot.

So as I was leaving, this man came out.

Officer Murphy.

He handed me a piece of paper.

He said, "contact this man if he's still alive".

Doug Morgan is a stagehand who had worked there.

He'd probably been around the Capitol Theatre a good 40 years.

I remember having Dave come to the house.

He had stories that he wanted to fill up little holes in the stories he had heard.

Doug, thanks again for having me.

And I said, "Doug, you know, "this is what's been happening to me over there, and people think I'm crazy.

I said, "can you shed some light?"

Haven't opened this case in a lot of years.

I first started working at the theater..

In 1948.

I was an Usher at that time.

Well, one day, I was running some errands.

And when I returned..

I found the Capitol Theatre surrounded with fire trucks.

This is a photo.

I'm like, "fire?"

Fire, yes.

I got back. That's the scene I saw.

The fire itself started in the basement.

That afternoon, there was a movie being shown.

And at least 600 people, had to be evacuated from the theater.

Well, Dougie had told me that he knew another boy by the name of Richard Duffin.

Richard Duffin was a new Usher.

He went back in to help the..

The folks that were still lost.

Well, Richard was trapped in that basement.

And very possibly lost his way.

And was overcome by this smoke.

While he was trying to help these people get out.

There it was in black and white..

Back in the '40s, the fire in the Capitol Theatre..

And the boy.. The young boy, Duffin.. The Usher that d*ed in the fire.

I think that Duffin was a very brave man.

Doug Morgan verified everything I saw and everything I witnessed.

Well, Doug, thanks very much for seeing me.

Well, thanks for coming over, Dave.

This man almost brought me to tears, because I knew..

I knew before, I wasn't crazy.

To this day, I know I'm not crazy.

It just made sense with everything, you know, everything that I'd gone through.

A shaking door..

Someone's trapped, and they're trying to get out.

[Door handle rattling]

Here's this fire that k*lled somebody.

And yet I can still smell smoke.

I had been told by other officers, "you need to learn to shut your mouth".

Mm-mm, I can't.

They were thinking I was making this up.

I wanted to prove them wrong.

I know what I saw.

I know what I felt.

These things.. That's a part of my life now.