Buford House Investigation

Location: Safford Street, Tombstone, Arizona

Date: Friday, October 3, 2003 through Monday, October 6, 2003

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous

Solar Weather: Unknown

Investigators present: Hillary M., Robert H., Paul M., guest investigator Jonathan H.

Equipment: Olympus C-3000 digital camera, RCA digital voice recorder, Sony digital video camera with Nightshot, Cannon SureShot Owl 35mm camera, Extech EMF meter, Olympus 2000 Digital Voice Recorder, Extech IR thermometer, Sony Hi-8 Cam, Olympus C-4000 Digital Camera, Trifield EMF meter, Olympus D370 digital camera

History: The Buford House is an Adobe style home that was built in 1880 by George Buford during the time of the great silver rush in Tombstone, Arizona. George was a wealthy mine owner and engineer. Ruth and Richard Allen bought the house in early 1999 and now run it as a Bed & Breakfast.
  The most famous haunting surrounding this building concerns a case of unrequited love. George Dawes was 21 and had known 17 year-old Cleopatra (Patra) Edmonds since childhood. The couple had plans to marry, but George did not have enough money to support a wife. To raise cash, George left town to work in the silver mines for nine months until he made enough money to marry. When he returned, George went out on a group date with his friends, however at the end of the night, Patra took the arm of another man, signaling that she had rejected George. George returned home and was distraught all night long, until the morning when his distress turned to anger. George grabbed a gun and went across the street where he shot Patra four times, and then with the final bullet, shot himself in the head. Ironically, George died that day, but Patra was saved and would live for 50 years after the incident.
  During the 1999 Holiday season, Richard Allen was in the living room decorating a Christmas tree while Ruth was in the kitchen. When Ruth returned from the kitchen, she saw a fleeting figure peer in from the hallway. This scene repeated itself several times throughout the day and the Allen's believe that the figure was that of George Dawes. Various other pranks have been reported which the Allen's attribute to George, such as knocking on windows, doorbells ringing at 3 a.m. and lights mysteriously going on and off.
  In the Wicker Room on the second floor, guests have reported seeing strange lights, and one guest was awakened in the middle of the night by a woman sitting in a chair in her room. The guest asked the woman to leave, but the woman replied, "This is my room, YOU need to get out", and promptly vanished.

Investigation: We arrived at the Buford House early on Friday afternoon and checked into our rooms. We noticed a rosary on the front staircase, and upon inquiring about it, were assured it was "just in case".
  We conducted several investigations during our stay, but we also wanted to spend additional time in the environment to see if we could have any unusual experiences outside of specific investigations. During our stay at the Buford House, we also conducted investigations at other sites in Tombstone and Southern Arizona. Due to the distance between our destinations, we spent a fair amount of time on the road, limiting our time for investigations.
  On Sunday night, October 5th, we began our investigation at 7:15 p.m. We took baseline EMF and temperature readings, with no abnormal EMF readings detected and a temperature of between 79 and 82 degrees. The tri-field EMF readings were almost zero in every room. The four of us spread out among the four guest rooms on the second floor. A video camera was pointed down the hallway from the bathroom toward the Wicker and Victorian rooms; digital recorders were in the Wicker and Nellie Cashman rooms. During the session, Robert saw some lights in the Wicker room that appeared to be coming from the doorway; the group dismissed the lights as headlight reflections, even though the lights appeared three times in total. At 7:25, we moved downstairs to the Garden Room, where we tracked an orb moving around the room on three different cameras. At 7:45, we moved out to the living room, dining room, and foyer. During this session, Robert, who was sitting on the steps to the second floor, asked if whoever was there could whisper their name into his ear. He got no response.
  At 8:05, we moved back up to the second floor guest rooms. During this session, Robert got a picture of an orb moving through the Wicker room from the stairway. At 8:15, we left for our investigation of the Nellie Cashman Restaurant.
  At 9:50 p.m., we returned to the Buford House and began in the Garden room on the first floor. The video camera was in the doorway leading to the bathroom. The session lasted 10 minutes and did not yield any results.
  We moved to the foyer and living room at 10 p.m., and set up the video camera at the top of the steps pointing downward. Robert was sitting at the base of the stairs and Hillary and Paul were in the adjacent living room. Robert was recording at the base of the stairs using a uni-directional microphone and the microphone was in his right hand and pointed toward the door. Almost four minutes into the recording session, Robert heard a whisper in his left ear (farthest from the microphone) that said "Danny". The whisper did not appear on the audio recording or the video recorder at the top of the stairs. The session lasted 11 minutes, and then we moved back to the second floor. We left the video camera at the top of the stairs and placed recorders in the Wicker and the Nellie Cashman rooms. The session lasted for approximately 30 minutes, at which time we retired for the evening. The digital audio recorder was left running unattended in the Wicker room for three additional hours. Nothing remarkable was found on the recording.

Conclusions: We obtained several moving orb pictures during our investigation of the Buford House, but we did not obtain any EVPs or anomalies on infrared video. Robert did clearly hear the name "Danny" whispered into his ear, which could have been a response to his earlier question, asked in the same spot. We did obtain a picture of a large orb, which may have been dissipating into ecto at the bottom on the steps, in the foyer. Due to the picture, and the whisper on the steps, in addition to sightings in the foyer, we may conclude that the area of the steps and foyer are the most active areas of the house. However, our results are largely inconclusive. We do find it curious that although we stayed at this B&B for three nights, none of us experienced anything even slightly unusual during our stay. But then again, after reviewing our other investigation results from our trip to Tombstone, we concluded that the entire town was disappointingly inactive at that time.
  We would like to add that we enjoyed staying at the Buford House Bed & Breakfast very much. As the owners told us, if you're used to five-star hotels, you probably won't appreciate the Buford House. However, if you're looking for a cozy place to stay with friendly people, and an atmosphere that is more like your own home, then the Buford House is for you. Ruth and Richard were very open and helpful, and Richard served us the best, and biggest breakfasts that we have ever had at a B&B to date. We hope to return to the Buford House some day.

We would like to thank the owners Ruth and Richard Allen for their incredible hospitality!

Submitted by Robert Hall