Notice to all investigators:
I received an email yesterday from Eric Glatzer of Natchez TV, and he informed me that the owners of Glenburnie have decided to cancel to the upcoming Anniversary Investigation of the Goat Castle Murder (Jennie Merrill).
He stated that the owners may be deciding to put the home on the market soon and do not want a "haunted" stigma attached to the site. That's fair, and they certainly have the right to have an investigation or not, so I am not upset at all. We go where folks want us to come and help.
However, it is disappointing for the loss of a rare opportunity, in the fact that not too many 80th anniversary investigations come down the pike on something that occurred here in Natchez that was published even overseas at the time.
I personally don't think much "paranormally" is happening at Glenburnie any more that is related to the murder, but it would have been interesting to know for sure. I have enjoyed my research into the murder, and learned a lot about the historic case. Just one quick statement about that: There is a contemporary trend "out there" today among some locals that George Pearls did not commit the murder, that it was a frame job and cover-up, and that Dick Dana and Octavia Dockery did indeed have something to do with her murder, or perhaps even Duncan Minor (Jennie's lover and the fourth of the strange quadra-pair of eccentric debutantes). I find the arguments for that line of thinking less than compelling. I think people are bored and LOVE conspiracy theories, and are ignoring Ockham's razor - the principle of the Franciscan monk whose idea is "The simplest and most obvious explanation is usually the correct one." Pearls' story may not be "sexy" or interesting, but the evidence that he did indeed kill Jennie Merrill is pretty straightforward.
I had hoped to actually write down the competing theories of "who dun it" but I guess it'll never be, unless the current owners change their mind or new owners are open to a full investigation.
FUTURE OF N.A.P.S.:
With that, the future of NAPS will probably be changing. I am pondering shutting down the team in favor of becoming more of a research an educational foundation on the paranormal and related aspects (mainly demonology); and being available to be a consultant and outside expert that other teams can call in to help when needed or phone for advice on cases. Another thing I would like to do is be available for teach and train sessions for other teams that might invite me to come and have a session with them. In either case, I will continue the blog site and the others sites as well, as it would fit the goal of offering education to those in the field both in this State and around the world who tune into our sites on a regular basis. We have not been very active as a Team for awhile, except for my summer Library series around the State that has kept me pretty busy. In the instance of a need to go and help another team on a case, I would call select people who I know to be competent investigators as to their availability at that time to go on the trip, as I'm sure most of them would involve travel.
In the meantime, any of you who would be interested in SERIOUS research and writing, and who would be seriously interested in committing the time to be a part of a research and educational effort and would make regular contributions, send me an email. Specifically, it would be something along the lines of what the research papers were meant to accomplish - a LOT of research and writing and then a well-done, professional paper going into the topic, and reaching conclusions and practical guidelines based upon that research. I frankly don't anticipate much response, because we didn't have much response before. I do understand that people prefer exciting "events" and investigations to "boring" research and educational theory based contributions. However, I feel that is hugely needed in the field. I haven't totally made up my mind yet, but that's what I'm leaning toward.
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