this is from scevahouse.com
The Sceva House THE STORY The following account is compiled to form the best representation of the event based upon newspaper articles, police reports, and the tape recording found at the scene of the crime most likely to be made by the suspect. As of June 2007, the Sceva case is still listed as inactive by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case was abandoned sometime in 1976 for reasons unknown. The Sceva Family On the evening on January 8th, 1972 all four members of the Sceva family were believed to be at their residence in Silo, OK. Mother, Margot Sceva age 36, answered the ringing telephone at approximately 8:11 PM. The suspect’s tape recording reveals the following conversation: Margot: Hello? Suspect: Yes, hello? Margot: Margot speaking. –HANGUP– The second call is believed to have been made 20 seconds later. Margot: Hello? (pause) Hello? Suspect: Who am I speaking with? Margot: This is Margot. Who is this? –HANGUP– Sceva House (Rear Window) The third call is believed to have been made 20 to 60 seconds later. Father, Marshall Sceva age 37, answered the telephone. Marshall: This is Marshall speaking. Who is this? Suspect: Marshall? Marshall: Yea, buddy. Do I know you? Suspect: I don’t believe we’ve actually met. Marshall: Listen buddy, you either have business with me or you have the wrong number. Suspect: What makes you think that? Marshall: Well, I don’t reckon I know you’re voice. Suspect: I have the right number. I can see you talking to me through your kitchen window. Marshall: Excuse me? –HANGUP– At 8:14 PM a call was made by Marshall Sceva to the Sheriff’s Department. Analysis of the recording of the call made at the Bryan County Police Dispatch Center reveals that the emergency call was made 12 seconds before the suspect entered the home. The only information the Sceva was able to relay to the operator was that they were the victims of a prowler and they needed immediate assistance from the police at their address. The suspects entrance is marked by the vocal cue of Margot Sceva and then accompanied sounds by children Darby age 8 and Kenneth age 7. The operator was unsuccessful in receiving any further assistance from Marshall Sceva who left to phone to aid his family upon the suspect’s entrance. The Sheriff was dispatched at 8:15 PM from the neighboring town of Durant. Upon his arrival at 8:26 PM he found the front door of the home to be open and the scene to be void of victims and suspects. Signs of a struggle were evident from a broken lamp and vase and a general disheveling of the main sitting room. The sheriff also noted that dinner was left cooking on the stove. To this day, the whereabouts of all four members of the Sceva family are unknown. Also the identity and whereabouts of the suspect are unknown. Investigators collecting the Blue Box used to hack the phone line. The investigation uncovered a device at the scene of the crime that commonly referred to as a blue box. This device is used in an illegal practice called “phreaking” where the offender connects a blue box to an outdoor residential telephone circuit housing in order to make telephone calls. Phreakers primarily do this to make long-distance phone calls for free. Such a device was found connected to the outdoor phone box of the neighboring house to make the calls to the Sceva residence. There investigators also found a recoding device that was used to record all three calls made from the blue box. The FBI’s investigation into the Sceva case lead it to down a long trail of new technology crimes and aided in the arrests of many individuals not connected with the Sceva case. Since the blue box technology was not widespread by any means and the invention of the blue box was believed to have been made between 1971 and 1972, investigators believed the suspect to be closely related to the small network of phreakers. Although this was the most promising lead in the investigation, the network proved to be uncooperative and largely uninformed. PHREAKING A great Wikipedia article on phreaking, the method that was used to call the Sceva house from the neighboring house’s outdoor phone box: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking ***Note: We do not condone nor recommend the practice of phreaking. It is a federal crime. We are providing this information only as related reference for further reading. Sceva House Photo 1981 THE LEGEND According to several eyewitness accounts, strange activity continues at the Sceva house. Over the past 30+ years, the forrest has grown up around the house making it hard to see from the road. Trees have uprooted the foundation and have crawled into the windows. Teenagers and college students make a night out of sneaking into the house, conjuring spirits with a Ouija Board, and daring each other to sleep in one of the beds. Some last the night, some don’t. Although the home is generally regarded as a place of urban legend or myth, there are many stories that point to the supernatural. People claim to have heard the phone ring inside the house at night. Others claim to have seen the ghosts of the Sceva family lurking around the small town. You can take these stories with as many grains of salt as you like, but we have at least 10 documented reasons based upon our own research why we believe something is afoot at the Sceva house. 10 Reasons Why We Think The Legend is Real or Something Super Fishy is Going On: 1. The Town of Silo Just try and ask anyone in Silo about the innocent. We did. It will get you nowhere. Either people act like they don’t know what you’re talking about or they will politely invite you to leave town. They know something’s up. We know something’s up. 2. The Phone Box The phone box is missing from the Sceva house. We know this because we went to the property and the box was ripped from the exterior wall. If this is the case, then why do neighbors hear the phone ring inside the house at night? Newspaper clipping 3. FBI’s Attempt to Censor the Press According to a 1972 article in the Durant Daily Democracy, a regional FBI director called the newspaper’s management and requested the paper to quit publishing stories about anonymous tips they were receiving about the family. Why would the FBI not want tips to be published? Afraid a reader would get a memory sparked and discover who the killer was? So, what did the Daily Democracy do? They wrote a story about the FBI trying to censor them! Anybody smell cover up? 4. The Tape The police department recorded the call made to them by Marshall Sceva. The recording is nothing but pure creepiness. If the hairs on the back of your neck don’t rise while listening to it, then something is terribly wrong with you and you should seek counseling immediately. Anyway, the recording was made public in 1976. It’s pretty much the standard rundown of an emergency call. Lots of frantic conversation. Lots of noises in the background. After about 46 seconds, not much is known and a lot is left up to imagination and inference. Listen to it and make your own conclusion. 5. The FBI Investigation FBI investigator, Mark Trammel A little snooping in the microfilms at the public library in Durant, OK will uncover more than you’d ever want to know. 1, The search parties were called off after only 48 hours. Since when have you ever heard of a land-based search party lasting only 48 hours? 2, The lead investigator, Mark Trammel, was re-assigned to another case only hours after he made a big break in the case. The details of the “big break” are classified to this day. 3, Jeffery Lumbrow took over the FBI case after Trammel’s reassignment. Lumbrow requested a transfer 12 days later. To this day, the FBI lists this case as “inactive.” Not closed, not open, not solved… inactive. 6. Norman Normandy The only man in Silo who will talk about it. Why? He lives next door to the Sceva house! According to Norman, every once in a while he hears the phone ring inside the house. 7. Paul and Margot Forrester One Fall evening in 1979, Paul and Margot Forrester drove through Silo, OK on the way to visit a relative in the next town. They drove down through Main Street around 10 PM and were forced to stop their car in order to avoid hitting a small girl who was standing in the middle of the road. They asked her what she was doing out so late. The girl told them she ran away from home. They told her that her parents would be very worried and offered to give her a ride home. The girl directed them to drive to what appeared to be an abandoned house. The Forresters were obviously puzzled by this. When they asked her if she was certain that she lived in this house the girl reacted violently and told them to let her out of the car. She ran from the car into the house. When the couple pulled back onto Main Street they passed a parked police car. They pulled over and told the officer what had just happened. When the couple told the officer the description of the girl he turned pale. The three of them went back to the house to search for the girl. She was nowhere to be found. When the police officer had given up searching he told the couple “Welcome to our ghost story.” The description the Forresters gave the police officer matched perfectly that of Darby Sceva–everything from her ruby red hair right down to her cleft palate. 8. How We Found Out About It A close friend of mine, Rob Lovelin, is a producer at A&E. He worked on a show called Cold Case Files that features a notorious unsolved crime in each episode. It’s a great show. I highly recommend it. Anyway, they had heard about the Sceva case and began doing research on the story and trying to setup interviews. They were 4 days away from flying out to Silo to begin doing some preliminary on-location shoots when Rob got the call that the Sceva show was being dropped and they were going to do a show on the Zodiac killer instead. Rob was very discouraged by this because he believed this to be the most intriguing story of the entire season. So Rob began asking questions to a couple of the managing producers and executives–they were all real hush-hush about it. After a couple of weeks of probing he finally got one of them to talk. To quote Rob, the executive said, “All I can tell you is that we came across some information that led us to make this decision. We are not going to make a show that puts any of our people in danger.” Rob immediately questioned him about this supposed danger, and the executive told him that the conversation was over. 9. The Legend of the Sceva House Documentary A couple of goofball Christian comedians decided to make a video of themselves staying in the house overnight. The results were rather interesting. Check it out: 10. The Ruth Osborne Story To make a long story short, in 1988 a group of students at Southeastern Oklahoma State University attempted the infamous Sceva house all-nighter. By 3 AM they had all left because they got spooked. When they arrived back home, they realized that their friend Ruth was not with them. They had left her at the Sceva house. When they found her, she was tucked away in a closet. To this day Ruth Osborne resides at the Charmuth Psychiatric Center. She has been a selective mute ever since. The unfortunate thing about this is that no one will ever know what really happened that night.
