The Woman at the Top of the Stairs

Over the years we have gotten a few EVPs that matched word of mouth accounts of occurrences and known history through direct questions. Others still were of a residual nature that seemed to be an echo of the past replaying events that actually occurred.

In the case of the MacArthur Museum we received EVPs from direct questions that could actually be matched with historical documentation.

As attested to in signed documentation, a female apparition had been seen at the top of the stairs going back to the 1980s . During this decade on separate occasions a long term employee, a psychic conducting a seance and a local psychic, Carol Pate had seen the apparition. One referred to her as a woman in white with blonde hair and the other as a woman in black with dark hair.

In November 2009, our group conducted it first initial investigation of the MacArthur Museum. We had asked the name of the woman seen on the staircase several times. Upon review we heard @Lua Sheperd "Lua or Luann Sheperd " . Another faint EVP seemed to indicate she was a servant.

In June 2010, our group conducted a follow-up investigation of the MacArthur Museum. This time we were armed with a list of prepared questions that would hopefully narrow down personal information and historical time frame as the site was approximately 171 years old. The other issue was the fact we were investigating other multiple activities and historical events that occurred there during different eras,

We asked questions regarding her name again, the year she worked there, the year she died and who she worked for at the Arsenal. Some of the EVPs came from the tower area which may have served as servants quarters during the time it was the Little Rock Barracks. Because of this incorrect assumptions were initially made in thinking she was a servant.

The first EVP that put us back on track was the year of death which was @1939 A look thru the Arkansas Death Index showed a Lua G Sheperd that died in that year.

Having a time frame to work with, I made a trip to the History Commission and found that individual on a US Census, several City Directories and a copy of the obituary. There was a slight difference in the name Lua vs. Luann and there was no indication in the census of her being a servant. Convinced now that we were dealing with a documentable case I started reviewing the other fainter EVPs in the hopes of finding the actual connection to the Museum.

While they were not Class A EVPs, they were what I like to refer to as an Informational Class. I believed I could hear them clear enough in the context of the question to discern the answer after some noise removal. In one EVP I heard a long answer so I started working with it a section at a time. In the first section it sounded like @I did not work for the Little Rock Arsenal which suggested another affiliation. Since this individual had been born in 1861 I went back online and pulled what I could about the history of the location. It started as the Little Rock Arsenal, became the Little Rock Barracks (Officers and families) and in 1892 was given to the City for a Park in exchange for some land in North Little Rock for another military facility. In the 1930s it would undergo renovations and become the Museum of Natural History and Antiquities in 1942. It became the MacArthur Museum in 2001. Before the 1930 renovations I found references to one floor being used as library in the 1920s and also as a meeting place for a couple of womans organizations starting back in the 1890s shortly after the swap for the site was made. I went back to the long evp and listened to the section after her employment correction and heard faintly at first what sounded like @I was a member of the Little Rock Aesthetic Club The EVP was very faint but I heard what sounded like Aesthetic Club. Another part of an EVP seemed to suggest I found the right individual. I ran across a section that said @he was a reverend The census I found had indicated that her husband had been with the Clergy. The obituary also listed the fact that her husband had been a pastor of a local Church.