The Story Behind The Ghost In The Downtown Radio Studios

There’s supposedly a ghost in our studios. Home of Z94, KLAW 101, and 1073PopCrush... But, I don't believe in ghosts.

That seems like an important thing to get out of the way before we go any further, because I've heard the story about the Gray Lady in our building more times than I can count. Mostly from kids, although there are a few adults who swear they've all seen the same thing. A quiet and ghostly woman wandering around after hours.

Every time the conversation comes up, it eventually turns into the same debate. They saw her. Somebody else believes them. Others don't. Trust becomes the central part of the argument, and eventually somebody is trying to convince me that ghosts are real.

I'm not buying it.

The Gray Lady Story At The Z94 Studios

I've spent plenty of time alone in this building after hours over the last twenty years. I've walked around these old rooms when the place is completely empty, and the only thing making the strange noises is an old building doing what old buildings do.

And yes, I will admit, there was one time I thought I saw something. I'm not sure what it was, it was out of the corner of my eye, but this was back when management treated DJs lower than dogs... Long hours, zero days off for months on end... I could have just been tired that evening. And besides, ghosts aren't real.

At least that's what I keep telling myself.

I actually come from a family that believes in ghosts, so I've been around these conversations my whole life. My mother has seen more dead people than anyone I know, and it's not a scary story thing either. She just sees dead people on occasion.

That's probably not the best trait to inherit with my wildly active imagination, either. I've already got enough things living rent-free in my head without adding a ghost to the list.

Still, there's something about an empty radio station at night.

The building makes noises. The wind gets into things. Pipes and walls and doors have their own little personalities. And when Fort Sill really gets to banging on the range, you can hear and feel things downtown that make you stop for a second and wonder what that was.

Then there's the Gray Lady.

The story has been around for years, but there's one other part of it that always comes up. Eventually, somebody brings up a murder that happened downtown in 1994.

The 1994 Lawton Murder Behind The Legend

A perfume salesman was a little upset after being dismissed by a woman who was just trying to do her work, and he followed her into a bathroom and murdered her.

The full story is brutal. You can read about that yourself... But here's the thing about that part of the story...

The murder did happen downtown, but it didn't happen in our building. It happened a few doors away, which raises a pretty important question for anybody who believes in ghosts.

If the spirit world works the way Hollywood has spent the last century telling us it works, why would a ghost leave the place where something terrible happened and move into somebody else's building?

That's not how any of this works, right? And yet, somehow, the Gray Lady apparently found her way to the Z94 studios, and the old salesturd bullpen in the back.

Either way, if you ever hear someone say a Gray Lady is wandering around the Downtown Studios at night, there's the backstory.

Ghosts still aren't real.

Right?