The Killers

Dr. Ferdinand Smith moved his family to Lockesburg about a hundred years ago. It was a long journey from Missouri but they arrived before their house was ready. The owner of a general supply store told them about a double log house that they could stay at until their house was completed.

The house was well kept and the doctor went in first to check it out. In the corner of the living room he saw a bloodstain on the floor. He covered the spot and brought his family in. He made a bed in the living room for his daughter, who was ill, where he would stay with her through the night.

At about midnight she became delirious and said that four men were playing cards across the room from her. They were dark, ugly men. All of a sudden three of them stood up, dropped their cards and pulled out knives. She shouted that they were killing the man in the chair. She described the men with vivid details—red shirts open at the neck, brown shapeless pants tucked into dirt-caked boots, and hats pulled low on their foreheads.

She said that the man fell to the floor screaming and didn't move anymore. He was stabbed in the chest and twice in the back. The other three men just walked out the door. His daughter cried that there was blood all over the floor, even though the doctor saw nothing.

Dr. Smith went back to the store and asked the owner if anybody had stayed in the house recently. He replied that no one had been there for several weeks. It was at that time that four men came in from the rain and asked about lodgings. He told them about the log house and that is where they went for the night. The owner's depiction of the men was the same as the doctors daughters.

The storekeeper told of how the men started fighting and that one of them was stabbed to death. The cleaning ladies found the body on the floor the next morning in a pool of blood. Nobody knew the mans name but they still gave him a proper burial. The other men got away.

Dr. Smith later found out that the cabin was said to be haunted. There have been several reports from caretakers that stated they saw the same bloody scene, all of them refuse to go back. Some say they have heard the screams of the dying man.