Episode 1 Episode 2

(MikePitt)

TheUnitySociety investigates a haunted house...

A personal account of the events may be found in HayesJournal

Episode 1: The Butcher of Butcher Road

Friday 12/01/23

New member Mrs RebeccaSwarovski is intoduced to TheUnitySociety by Lisa. AlsoudHassam and HayesWebster are reading an article in TheUnityReporter

• Cutting from TheUnityReporter Friday January 12 1923
  
  Ghost Stops Builders
  
  A ghastly and ghostly apparition has stopped work on redeveloping the infamous
  Sanderson house.  This paper can reveal exclusively that the developer, Aaron
  Cohen, has been forced to abandon work on renovating the building following a 
  sequence of accidents and increasingly bizarre happenings. The house, the site 
  of the horrendous 1881 massacre, has been unoccupied during the bitter 
  inheritance battle that concluded last year.  
  
  Our source said to us �We are scared to go back! The ghosts or ghouls or 
  whatever have made life impossible.  Several of us have ended up in hospital.�  
  
  Situated near the recent New Unity developments the river front house, first 
  built in 1798 has recently become a desirable property, especially as the 
  memories of the Sanderson tragedy fade.

Lisa uses the society library to check back issues of TheUnityTimesChronicle for confirmation. Luckily the library has a volume of papers that cover the time of the murder, April-May 1881. The owners at the time, the Sanderson family, were all killed. George Boucher, a distant relative of the previous owners (who dies in the fire in 1824 it says in the article) was arrested and then executed on 29 May 1881. She shows this information to the others and after discussion it is agreed that investigation is called for, and so Lisa phones Mr Cohen, who kindly agrees to allow the characters to visit the house first thing the next day.

Saturday 13/01/23

The characters (less EricColigny, who has to work that day) visit the SandersonHouse where they are met by AaronCohen. He explains the background: various incidents have occurred:

• Cats
• Falling scaffolding
• Figure vanishing from cellar despite no obvious escape route.

The characters examined the cellar and noticed the possible escape routes, deciding that the perpetrator must have escaped down a drain cover. (As the coal cellar exit was locked). They also notice that for an old damp cellar the crates are (i) in good condition and (ii) seem to have been recently moved.

Further investigation of the crates revealed stolen goods: the characters decide that some petty (?) criminal has been using the cellar of the empty house to hide hot property and used the "ghost" to try and scare off the builders.

The characters resolve to call the police, and Lisa Da Vinci was about to go in search of a phone.

Episode 2: So where did all the cats go?

This consisted of the police interviewing the characters in a futile attempt to embarass them into admitting they owned the stolen goods...

By the end of the week it is revealed that Ben Cohen, the soon of AaronCohen, has been arrested over the matter. And he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those pesky kids.

Next in the story line CohenUnderground