I love a good unsolved mystery.
There is something so fun about trying to solve a murder mystery. Throw in a rich family, a cover up, an enormous mansion, and a ghost or two? That is exactly what hooked me about this shocking unsolved mystery, the murder at Greystone Mansion.
I had never heard about Greystone before, but now I just can't stop thinking about it. As the story goes, Greystone Mansion was a lavish and elaborate residence built in the late 1920s by one of the riches families in Beverly Hills, the Doheny Family. At the time, it was said to be the most expensive home ever constructed in the state of California.
Ned Doheny Jr. moved into Greystone late in 1928 with his wife Lucy and two children. But Ned Doheny would not live at Greystone very long. What followed was a murder that has remained a true mystery for nearly 90 years. With conflicting evidence and testimony, two bodies, and reports of ghosts haunting the halls, Greystone Mansion's history is at once shocking and thrilling.
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h/t: Atlas Obscura
When Ned Doheny and Lucy moved into Greystone Mansion in 1928, they had no idea that their stay would come to such a tragic end.
One night in February of 1929, Ned's childhood friend and assistant Theodore "Hugh" Plunkett used his key to let himself into Greystone Mansion.
Hugh made his way to one of Greystone's many spare bedrooms where he met with Ned behind a locked door. Ned's wife Lucy didn't think Hugh's visit was out of the ordinary as he was a trusted friend of the family.
But when she heard a single gunshot from the spare bedroom where Hugh and Ned were meeting, everything changed.
For some strange reason, Lucy didn't call the police. She called the family doctor. When the doctor arrived, he and Lucy made their way to the spare bedroom, where Hugh answered the door with a gun in his hand, appearing extremely agitated.
Hugh quickly went back into the room, slamming and barring the door. Suddenly, there was another gunshot.
Once they were able to get into the room, Lucy and the doctor found both men laying dead. Though this story sounds simple, it was far from over.
The media was very quick to label the tragedy as a murder-suicide. While this is certainly the picture that Lucy and the doctor painted for police, the evidence seemed to point to a much more complex explanation.
One large complicating factor is that Hugh appeared to have been shot from behind. If his death were a suicide, how could this be possible?
Lucy claims that she and the doctor had found the bodies around midnight. But for some reason, the police weren't called until 2:00 in the morning. What's more, when the police arrived, they found that both bodies had been moved and that the statements of the witnesses seemed rehearsed.
Lucy claimed that the bodies were moved because the doctor had tried to revive the men. Though the police had their suspicions, after two days, the coroner ruled the case a murder-suicide and blamed Hugh Plunkett for going temporarily insane.
Several alternate theories have popped up over the years. One theory claims that Ned was the one who called the doctor (not Lucy) to come calm Hugh down. Another theory is that Ned and Hugh were romantically involved and that perhaps either Ned killed himself, or that Lucy killed both of the men.
While the case was closed, mystery continued to shroud the Greystone deaths and Greystone Mansion. In fact, stories of ghosts haunting the halls have been reported throughout the mansion's history.
Some report seeing a man in a black suit, while others claim to see the ghost of Lucy Doheny.
Whether the tales of ghosts are true or not, this Beverly Hills mansion remains home to one of the most shocking and truly unexplained murder mysteries of the last one hundred years.
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