Case 025: The Haunting

Celest St. Claire's Notes

Hey,

As I mentioned in my note, I’m sure that my conclusions will match Sullivan’s. That being the case, if you’ve already asked him about these clues, you probably won’t learn anything new here.

If you do choose to use this site, you’ll still need to email Sullivan about the ghost’s Identity. You’ll also need to email him the case’s Solution once you’ve figured out where the haunted object is. 

If you haven’t emailed Sullivan yet, you can visit SleuthKings.com/Case-025 to send him your first email. When you want to address either of the issues above, just include the appropriate underlined word from above in the body of your email.

If you want to see my thoughts on any of the clues in your case file, just click the corresponding button below.

I think Sullivan was right about there being a bunch of extra letters in each of the words. “Sh” and “boo” appear way too often to be a coincidence. From what I can tell, “sh” comes after each instance of a single consonant, and “boo” is used when more than one consonant is beside each other in the message.

I’m going to try removing all of the extra instances of “sh” and “boo.” You might want to give that a shot, too – I think the message will start making more sense once you do.

Once I removed all of the extra instances of “sh” and “boo,” the message says:

“I ma rappedt ni hist ouseh. Leasep elph em. I annotc estr ntilu ouy od. I od otn antw ot urth ouy. I ememberr own. Ettersl ni kulls rea rossesc.”

As I’m sure you noticed, that still doesn’t make much sense. If you move the last letter of each word to the front, however, the message becomes much more coherent:

“I am trapped in this house. Please help me. I cannot rest until you do. I do not want to hurt you. I remember now. Letters in skull are crosses.”

Well, that’s nothing short of terrifying! Unlike Sullivan, I really do believe in ghosts. I have no idea how he’s able to set foot in that haunted house! I don’t think I could.

Wait, I just realized something. There are crosses scratched onto the wedding photo that Sullivan found, aren’t there? There’s also a skull on the 5K form, too. I bet we’re supposed to fill in the cross symbols with the letters from the skull, somehow.

Once all of the symbols are filled in, it will probably help us figure out who the ghost is. Maybe the other clues can help us with the remaining symbols.

Remember, when you’ve figured out the ghost’s name, you’ll want to let Sullivan know. If you haven’t already, you can email him from www.SleuthKings.com/Case-025. When you want to tell him the ghost’s name, just be sure to include the word Identity in the body of your email so he knows what you’re talking about.

So far, I’ve been able to find the differences between each picture. Here’s what they are:

I’m sure you’ve noticed, but the letters from each picture’s differences are:

First picture: CLIREDC

Second picture: TERSETL

Third picture: ERSPSDI

Now that we’ve got the letters from each picture, we need to figure out what word each picture’s letters spell.

I think the first word starts with “C,” the second word likely starts with “L,” and the third word probably starts with “S.”

I think I’ve got it.

“CLIREDC” spells “circled,” “TERSETL” spells “letters,” and “ERSPSDI” spells “spider.” That means the message is “Circled letters spiders.”

Huh? I don’t really get it.

Hold on – yes, I do! Three letters are circled on the front and back of the magazine page, and there are three spider symbols on the wedding photo. This must be telling us which letters to use for the spider symbols.

Once all of the symbols are filled in, it will probably help us figure out who the ghost is. Maybe the other clues can help us with the remaining symbols.

Remember, when you’ve figured out the ghost’s name, you’ll want to let Sullivan know. If you haven’t already, you can email him from www.SleuthKings.com/Case-025. When you want to tell him the ghost’s name, just be sure to include the word Identity in the body of your email so he knows what you’re talking about.

I’m not sure what the ghost is trying to tell us here. Each number below the sentences is giving us a specific letter, but I don’t think they’re pointing us to anything in the sentences they’re associated with. My best guess is that maybe we’re supposed to look at the alphabet or something, instead.

Good news – I was right: the numbers are telling us to look at specific places in the alphabet, not the sentences they’re associated with.

The first thing you have to do is to look at the last letter of the sentence above the number you want to decode. You’ll start with that number in the alphabet, and then count forward or backward, as indicated by the number.

For example:

“We ran from the monster we called K” tells us to start with the letter “K” in the alphabet. The first number beneath that sentence is “8,” which means we need the 8th letter after “K,” which is “S.” The next number is “-6,” so we need to use whatever letter is 6 letters before “K,” which is “E.”

When I followed that pattern for the rest of the numbers and sentences, I got this message:

“Set me free. Crossed out letters are faces.”

Wow! I don’t know about you, but I’m going to have nightmares for weeks now! It’s like I mentioned before – I really do believe in ghosts. I just can’t understand how Sullivan can set foot in someplace so haunted!

Sorry – I’ll try to keep my commentary to myself. Getting back to the message, I think this is telling us to use the crossed-out letters in the invitation to fill in the creepy face symbols on the wedding photo.

Once all of the symbols are filled in, it will probably help us figure out who the ghost is. Maybe the other clues can help us with the remaining symbols.

Remember, when you’ve figured out the ghost’s name, you’ll want to let Sullivan know. If you haven’t already, you can email him from www.SleuthKings.com/Case-025. When you want to tell him the ghost’s name, just be sure to include the word Identity in the body of your email so he knows what you’re talking about.

At first, I thought finding the message here would be simple, but I was wrong! I haven’t been able to make much progress with this at all.

The one thing that I’ve noticed is that one of the pictures – a ghost behind an “H” – is different from all of the others. I wonder if that’s where the message is supposed to start.

I’m going to give it a try, but we’ll still have to figure out what letters it connects to in order to form a message without breaking the “line” or crossing a candle picture.

Don’t worry – I just finished putting the message together myself. Here’s what it looks like:

“Hands show eye letters” – that must be talking about the creepy-looking hands on the front of the haunted house ad. I wonder if they’re using sign language or something. Didn’t Renea give Sullivan her sign language study card because she found a weird message on it? Try taking a look at it to see if you can figure out which letters each hand is giving us.

Once you’ve figured out the hands’ letters, I’m pretty sure that you’ll want to replace the eye symbols on the wedding photo with them.

Once all of the symbols are filled in, it will probably help us figure out who the ghost is. Maybe the other clues can help us with the remaining symbols.

Remember, when you’ve figured out the ghost’s name, you’ll want to let Sullivan know. If you haven’t already, you can email him from www.SleuthKings.com/Case-025. When you want to tell him the ghost’s name, just be sure to include the word Identity in the body of your email so he knows what you’re talking about.

I hate to bow out early, but this case is really starting to freak me out. I just can’t handle ghosts or things like that! I’m sure you and Sullivan will be able to finish things, though.

If you need any help trying to figure out the ghost’s name once you’ve solved Clues 1-4, Sullivan should be able to help. Just email him and let him know that you’re working on trying to figure out the ghost’s Identity. If you ask him for help once he gets back to you, he should be able to shed some more light on the wedding photo.

Good luck!