I Witnessed a Murder

Doncha love those titles that grab you?

I really did see a murder…

Well, sort of.

Last Friday a group of friends went to the Stone Lion Inn in Guthrie to a murder mystery night.  When you sign up for a murder mystery night, a week or so ahead of time, you’ll receive an email with what time period your mystery is in, a list of character descriptions and a little background of the time you’re in.  You are encouraged to “dress the part” and visit thrift stores, etc. to find costume attire appropriate for your character and that time period.   Once you arrive at the Inn, you are to stay in character. It is the time to actually NOT be yourself and it’s better to not be!

 I can’t tell you too much about my mystery experience, because I’d be giving away one of the plots, and if you want to go, I would spoil it. 

But I can tell you Mr. Wonderful was a boxer with a temper.

And I played a WWII war correspondent reporter, which worked out very nicely due to the fact that I was right in character with my camera hanging around my neck.

We arrived at the Stonelion Inn an hour or so before hand.

The Inn is old and ominous looking, dating back to 1907 and there are rumors that it is haunted, ya know, if you believe stuff like that.

Our little group continued to arrive, dressed in their parts…

And pretty soon, we were all falling into role play and having a good laugh at each other.

**Sidenote…Mr. Wonderful was hysterically out of character for himself all night…hollering at everyone and speaking in an incredibly “Rocky Balboa” voice.  Irreverant, mean and grumpy, which the man never is.

Unless he’s cleaning up after me in the kitchen that is.

Pretty soon we were handed our clues for the evening, one to keep secret and one we would read aloud later that evening.

It wasn’t just our group that participated.  There were probably around 30 or so folks so we weren’t in a group by ourselves.  I met these really fun gals..

So after reading our clues we headed into the Inn to the drawing room for an introduction by “Uta” our hostess.  Uta told us a few introductory clues and then directed us in to eat some appetizers in the kitchen area.

Then we came back into the drawing room and got acquainted with the other characters a bit..then we headed into two separate dining rooms for dinner, which was actually pretty good…I begged for the recipe for the Cream of Green Chili soup. 

Our entire group sat at two tables in one dining room while other groups sat in another dining room.

I just had to edit that picture to look like old times.

Somewhere during dinner…someone died.

And then we had to head back into the drawing room to all read our clues, directed by Uta.

After a lot of clue reading…we split into two rooms by gals and guys to discuss motive and murder suspects. 

And then, my friends, we had cheesecake and French press coffee.

Then we reconvened with Uta to give our predictions.

The gals were wrong.

The guys were wrong.

We missed the obvious.

After the mystery was over, some of us left, while others chose to spend the night.  I happened to leave my camera there and had to drive back out the next day to pick it up.  The overnight group had used my camera to take pictures during the evening at the Inn.

And I ended up with a few more pictures than I had counted on.

Everyone should really try this place once.  It’s a different thing to do in the Oklahoma City area with a group of friends.  It gives you the opportunity to try out acting and playing a role other than yourself. It also turns you into an inquisitive sleuth for a night.

Try it sometime!