When Psychic Ability Surprised Us

The Night Owl Podcast launched its first episode on October 30th, 2017 with the first investigative case revolving around paranormal reports at Royal Legion Tattoo in Austin, Texas. This case unknowingly would shape what the podcast would look like from here on out.

It wasn't my intention to make my friend Sara a permanent part of the show, but I brought her on because curiosity got the best of me. In researching the claims at Royal Legion Tattoo and the history of the property, I'd hit a dead end as far as knowing what, or who exactly was haunting this little tattoo parlour.

I had believed my friend to have some level of sensitivity to the paranormal. I wasn't sure if I trusted that she was telling me the truth when she spoke of incidents in her life, but if she was, then that meant she had a level of psychic ability that was way up on the charts.

So not satisfied with leaving this case without some closure, I told her about my beginnings of a paranormal podcast and that I was on a case that I'd like her opinion on. I didn't tell her where exactly, but asked her to meet me at a coffee shop on the same grounds as the tattoo parlour. Unbeknownst to me, that day we met at Spider House Cafe would change me and this show, forever.

Sara immediately picked up on a female spirit in the tattoo shop. Then proceeded to name out activity experienced by the artists there. She had no previous knowledge of any of this. She also described seeing the female spirit in the exact window countless of the eyewitnesses saw her in after closing hours.

The night was incredible with numerous validations, but the biggest of all was the name Sara eventually got for the entity she said haunted Royal Legion Tattoo. She got the name Christina. I had previously done a ton of research on the history of this property and found that a family by the last name Fruth had moved the Austin in the late 1800's and settled on this property. The Fruth's had many children, and one of their daughters appeared to inherit the property from her parents upon their passing and she remained there for most of her life. Her name was Christine Fruth. She later married, remained on the property, but took her husband's last name, Ing. But one other interesting discovery I made, in my research, I had noted that her name seemed to either be mistaken in a couple places in the records, or that she might have gone by both Christine and Christina.

Sara's drawing of "Christina" the night we were there

My notes from the Austin City Directories

Her name mostly appeared as Christine but in a couple cases I had noted it was "Christina"

The team at Royal Legion Tattoo got so many other validations this night, they all felt a weight lift off their shoulders. They were once angry and afraid at the entity messing with them in the shop. But now, after hearing why she did the things she did and her history on this property, the guys at Royal Legion Tattoo quickly felt a weight lift from their shoulders. And without hesitation they put into action a memorial sign to be painted on their shop's door.

Royal Legion Tattoo co-owner Ray Wallace the night Christine's memorial was painted on the front door to the shop

This first case was very special for us, but it was only the beginning of an incredible journey we'd all be taking on the first season of our show.

At every single case thus far, Sara has made shocking validations like she did at Royal Legion Tattoo.

At The Tavern she helped us lift the veil behind a dark unsolved murder of a young child. At The Clay Pit, we had yet another shocking name validation.

Sara picked up on an entity that didn't match any of the sightings and claims at The Clay Pit. She got a clear name, "Dowdy" Miller. She said it looked like a nickname or something. I scoured the Austin census records dating as far back as I could. I could not find "Dowdy" anywhere. But when I altered the name to be spelled how I thought it could be, I came back with one hit. Doughty L. Miller. This was the only record in all of the census of Austin, Texas. And the last name matched what Sara had gotten.

To take this further, she described "Dowdy" to be very well dressed with a button up shirt and sometimes in a suit. And she said he would have been about 27 years old around 1940.

Photo of Doughty L. Miller from University of Texas yearbook at Austin History Center

Further research showed that Doughty L. Miller was in fact 27 years old in 1940.

As if this wasn't odd enough, we then got informed that a patron at the restaurant had snapped a unique photograph that had the staff going crazy. The photograph was at the upstairs bar mirrors, where Sara had discovered "Dowdy" and said his domain was.

Patron photograph of upstairs bar in Clay Pit. The pesron taking the pic can be seen in the far left mirror. But look closely at the middle mirror. Below is a zoomed in version.

There were no other men resembling what is seen in this photo in the building at this time. In fact only one other woman was in the room when this photo was taken. This is exactly the spot where Sara saw him on her visits and to reiterate, this male presence was not part of the claims surrounding the building when we began investigating. Sara pointed him out, named him, described what he looked like, then out of the blue we got this photograph after we had wrapped up this case. We had not yet revealed our findings or released any episodes when this photograph came to us. The other shocking thing is that this is exactly the spot where Sara saw the spirit of "Dowdy", he appears to be dressed in a dark suit, with dark hair combed over in a neat fashion like she also described. Compare this photo with the photo of Doughty Miller above and make your own call.

At The Tavern case, we captured something on the attic stairway, to the left of Sara. We did numerous tests to debunk what this dark mass in the stairwell was, but couldn't come up with any logical explanations.

This is a photo we took from a similar angle trying to replicate the dark shadow figure. We couldn't successfully replicate it.

At the Clay Pit, Sara had told me numerous times that there was a fire in the building. She kept saying this when we were on the 2nd floor. I couldn't find anything in the history records and no one in our interviews had mentioned a fire.

The above photo was the aftermath of our discovery. I was told by Bali, the Clay Pit Owner, that he did not know much about the fire, but there was evidence of a fire in the attic. He informed me know one knew of this but him and few select staff members.

This is what we found when we climbed into the attic. I called a local firefighter to get his opinion and he confirmed this is definitely evidence of a fire. My hands got the lid to the attic dirty. There was no soot on it prior to this so Sara could not have seen or guessed this.

Up until now, we've investigated seven establishments and one private residence in our first season and halfway through season two. If you've been listening, you know these validations mentioned in this blog are just the tip of the iceberg.

Thanks for listening and stay restless out there,

Stephen Belyeu