Sam and Geoff travel to Sulphur, Oklahoma where they meet Linda and Emily to talk about Flower Bluff Manor as well as other tales of the town. During a tour of the bed and breakfast, Sam captured an EVP from one of the residents.
After touring the manor, Sam and Geoff meet with Detective Valerie James in regards to a fourth murder victim.
Subscribe to new episodes of Tales Unveiled via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or anywhere you enjoy podcasts. New episodes on Fridays!
Tales Unveiled is a production of The Show Starts Now Studios and is produced by Dennis Spielman. The voice of Sam Saxton is Dennis Spielman, with Jeff Provine as Professor Geoff DeRoot, and Kristy Boone as Detective Valerie James. If you love what we’re doing, want us to keep being artist-owned and patron supported, join us on Patreon. In return, you can get bonus content, including early access to other shows from The Show Starts Now Studios!
With little time and money, I re-used some Halloween decorations and combined them with icicle lights to create this Frozen Pirate Cove for this year’s porch design!
The hardest part about this porch design was keeping the icicle lights from falling on me as I hung them up. I put my iPad on the roof playing a Pirate’s Life from Pirates of the Caribbean on loop for an extra effect. Overall, I only spent a few hours setting and cleaning everything. The trick-or-treaters thought my simple porch design was fun.
I hope this video inspires some decorating designs for you!
During a walking ghost tour, a photo taken of a barbershop has consequences for a young couple.
I zipped up my hoodie to shield myself from the chilly October night breeze. The tour group moved along the downtown sidewalk and stopped in front of a barbershop. My Tinder date, who I will refer to as Rebecca, recommended the ghost tour walk. After reading one of the host’s many books about ghost stories and urban legends in Oklahoma, she learned about his guided tours. I have to admit, I was enjoying the tales from Jeff Provine about Norman.
Jeff told us that sometimes when people take a photo of the barbershop, a man in a brown overcoat and hat would appear starring back at them. Just about everyone-my date included-proceeded to pull out their phones and snap their cameras. The group inspected their photos only to have captured nothing.
The group moved forward while my date pulled me back for a moment.
“You should try with your camera with no one around,” she suggested.
When we met up for our date, Rebecca thought bringing my Polaroid camera was a fun idea. She also mentioned that she hadn’t been out with anyone with such a hobby. I was about to tell her that nothing would happen, but she put on an irresistible smirk that I could not deny. I smiled at her and pulled up my camera. I enjoyed the thoughtful, selective nature of the limited printed photos in a world of unlimited takes. While the tour host talked about the restaurant next door, I snapped a picture of the barbershop.
We rejoined the group, letting the photograph develop in my hoodie’s pocket. After a few stops, Rebecca asked to see if the barbershop photo had finished developing. I pulled out the picture, and she inspected the image like a person searching for treasure.
“I think you got something here,” Rebecca whispered with excitement as she showed me the photo.
“That looks like a brown smudge to me,” I told her with honesty.
“Well, maybe it needs to develop more,” she said.
I didn’t say anything back. She was too cute, and I was enjoying the night. The tour was more informative than scary. We didn’t actually go hunting for ghosts, and no one jumped out to scare us. I think the best way to describe the experience was like a walking history tour involving ghosts and murders. I don’t want to spoil the tour for anyone, but I wanted to give some backstory on my cursed barbershop photo.
After the tour, Rebecca and I went our separate ways. When I got back to my apartment, my roommate was still gone. He was out of town for the weekend visiting family. He was a relatively chill roommate who kept to himself. He let me decorate the dining area, which I did by hanging my Polaroid prints with clothespins and strings all over the room. He thought they added much life to the bland beige walls of the apartment.
As I dumped out my belongings on the dining table, I got a text from my date asking me to send her a photo of all of the Polaroid pictures from the night. I laid them all out on the rustic white table my parents handed down to me when they bought a new one for themselves. Using my phone, I took a picture of the dozen prints. In the process, I took a closer look at the one in front of the barbershop. Where I thought I saw a blemish at first resembled more of the person Jeff described. I sent Rebecca a closeup and a copy to the tour guide too. Rebecca immediately FaceTimed me.
“I told you!” was the first thing she blurted out to me. “I told you so!”
“Okay, okay,” I admitted. Then I thought of a line. “Maybe you should come over and make sure this man in brown doesn’t try to kill me.”
Rebecca laughed. “Maybe I should. You know, to make sure you don’t die. Text me your address.”
I texted her my address, and she said she would be there in about 15 minutes. I proceeded to tidy up the apartment. I cleaned the place before leaving, but I didn’t expect her to come here as this was our third date. I started with the kitchen since I was already there. After emptying the dishwasher, I rounded up the prints on the table. As I was picking them up, I noticed the man in brown was in all of the photos. He stood in the exact same position compared to the one in the barbershop.
I assured myself, “This was to be some exposure glitch.”
I stacked the photos face down on the coffee table. I decided to worry about them later. I scrambled around the apartment, throwing out trash and cleaning dirty surfaces. I was straightening my bedsheets when I heard the doorbell rang.
I rushed to the door. However, when I answered, no one was there. I called out hello, but no one but the wind answered. I questioned my hearing. Did the doorbell ring? I closed the door and checked my phone. There were no new messages from Rebecca, and only 10 minutes had passed since her last text. As I was about to put away my phone, I received a text from Jeff.
“Thank you, but I should warn you that those who were able to capture a photo of the man in brown said they were haunted by him until they got rid of the picture,” Jeff’s message read with a winky face emoji at the end.
I chuckled. He was clearly joking around, or at least that’s what I thought at the time. On my way back, I realized all of tonight’s prints had been scattered all over the living room. I proceeded to pick them up, which I figured got blown around from the wind when I opened the door. As I collected the final one, the doorbell rang. There was no mistaking the ring was mine.
I put the prints in my back jean pocket and answered the door. The man in brown stood before me with an old straight razor to Rebecca’s throat and a hand covering her mouth. Dirt covered his three-piece suit like someone dragged his outfit out of the ground.
“I want the photos,” the man demanded in a low grumble. His voice sounded rough like he hadn’t spoken in ages.
Without hesitation, I handed them over, and he pushed Rebecca onto me during the exchange, causing us to fall backward. As we stood up to shut the door, the man was gone.
Rebecca and I ended up staying up all night – not in the way I had hoped.
After the love for my previous short story, I’ll Never Walk Sutton Wilderness in the Dark Again, I was inspired to write another semi-realistic horror piece. This one was inspired by a story by Jeff Provine where people on his ghost tour would capture a photo of a man in a brown suit at the barbershop in downtown Norman, Oklahoma. So, yes, that part is true! I thought having the man come to life to reclaim the pictures would be a spooky tale for the season.
Thanks to Janine De Guzman for bringing the photographic moment to life.
Sam and Geoff meet up with Ryan Fogle of Ride OKC at a new coffee shop called NEON in Oklahoma City’s Plaza District. From there, Ryan leads the group a few blocks north to the corner of NW 18st Street and Carey Place where they discuss the murder at the Hatchet House. Sam and Geoff get a call from Detective Valerie James and they began to notice a pattern in the murders.
Subscribe to new episodes of Tales Unveiled via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or anywhere you enjoy podcasts. New episodes on Fridays!
Tales Unveiled is a production of The Show Starts Now Studios and is produced by me, Dennis Spielman. The voice of Sam Saxton is Dennis Spielman, with Jeff Provine as Professor Geoff DeRoot, and Kristy Boone as Detective Valerie James. If you love what we’re doing, want us to keep being artist-owned and patron supported, join us on Patreon. In return, you can get bonus content, including early access to other productions of mine!
A profile on Devon Laney written for the Oklahoma Venture Forum on the subject of The Third Way for Economic Development.
Coming from Birmingham, Alabama as the co-founder of Innovation Depot, one of the largest entrepreneurial support organizations in America, Devon Laney now resides in Tulsa as President and CEO of 36 Degrees North with a plan to grow entrepreneurs in the Tulsa region. Known as Tulsa’s base camp for entrepreneurs, innovators, and startups, 36 Degrees North is an entrepreneurial support organization focused on providing the resources, the community, and the programs needed to support entrepreneurs as they build, grow and scale businesses.
“When I got in Tulsa, we had two locations,” said Devon Laney. “We had about a 12,000 square foot co-working space, and then we had about an 8,000 square foot hybrid of co-working and small office space. I got here, and we put together a five-year plan and began to think about what we were going to be down the road.”
The first piece of that plan involved building and launching a large technology incubator focused on supporting early-stage technology startup companies and companies making a technology product or service that they can scale and grow and raise capital. In September 2021, 36 Degrees North opened its 50,000 square foot high-tech incubator.
While co-working spaces are an essential piece of the ecosystem, Laney said it’s not the only thing one should have in an ecosystem. While co-working is excellent for individuals, co-working spaces aren’t conducive to people trying to grow a business.
“An incubator is built for growing businesses, to support growing businesses,” said Laney. “It’s not just about one individual membership, and I’m going to charge you every time you have a new member. It’s about, this company applied, we accepted them into the program, and this company is going to pay for an office, and the office is $1,000 a month, as an example. And I don’t care how many people you put in that office. I don’t care if you put two people or seven people. It’s the same price. It’s $1,000, and that $1,000 covers utilities, internet, janitorial, security, conference rooms, phone booths, Zoom rooms, all our programming, all our workshops, all our mentors, all the different things. And the company then, as an entrepreneur, the company doesn’t have to worry about, ‘Well, if I hire two more people, my monthly bill’s going to be higher.’ They don’t have to worry about that. They can focus on growing their business and know that it’s all-inclusive, all the spaces are furnished, and it’s built to support them as they’re growing their businesses.”
On the subject of economic development, Laney said that historically everybody thinks of economic development as two things: recruitment and retention. Laney cited the example of Oklahoma trying to get Tesla to come to the state. The second way most communities have done economic development is through retention. Groups work to retain the businesses that are already in Oklahoma and keep them from going somewhere else.
“I think there’s a third,” said Laney. “I’m a big believer in the third, which is let’s grow new businesses. Let’s make sure we’re supporting the growth of new industries and new businesses here. We don’t just have to recruit them here; let’s grow them here. But it requires the same kind of investment in terms of infrastructure, resources, workforce, capital, tax incentives, all those same things.”
Laney clarified that we should continue the other two ways and add the third piece to support the growth of new businesses.
Devon Laney will be speaking at the Oklahoma Venture Forum Power Lunch on Wednesday, November 10, 2021. The event will be open to guests both in-person and virtually via ZOOM. Laney is excited for the opportunity to be able to share a success story from a community perspective.
“36 Degrees North is a non-profit, 501C3, and it would not exist without the public and the private partnership together,” said Laney. “In 2017, when 36 Degrees North launched, you had philanthropic community, public, private, chamber. They all came together to create this thing, and it’s a success story. It’s a win, and that’s what has enabled us to even evolve and to think about what we’re going to be in five years from now. If they hadn’t been successful at doing that, we wouldn’t be in a position to think about how to evolve it and be better and bigger going forward. So I love the opportunity to share about a success from a public-private partnership.”
