On this month's Morbidly Fascinating Page:

Multiple suicides in the mansion...or were some of them murders?

In the Morbidly Fascinating Archives

Radium Poisoning in the 1920s
The Suicide Forest
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Titanic Photos Before and After it Sank
Utrecht Hospital

Above: The Lemp Mansion in 1892 and at the start of prohibition

The Lemp Mansion today

History of suicides in the Lemp Mansion (were some really murders?)

Built in the 1860’s, The Lemp Mansion was home to the Lemp family and located next to their family business, The Lemp Brewery. By 1870, Lemp Brewery was the largest brewing company in St. Louis, dominating the beer trade until prohibition closed the plant in 1919.  By that time, the family had already endured one heart failure death (Frederick Lemp at the mysterious age of 28) and one suicide (William Lemp Sr), both inside the Lemp Mansion. 

From 1919-1949, five more deaths/suicides occurred. In 1920 just days after her marriage and with her husband in the next room, Elsa Lemp supposedly took her own life with a gunshot to the chest, but left behind no suicide note. The Lemps called their doctor, an attorney and the coroner without ever notifying the police.  The police weren’t involved until at least 2 hours after her death. In 1922 after selling off the Lemp Brewery complex at auction, William Lemp Jr. ended his own life inside the mansion office with a shot to his heart. Again, no note was left behind. Then in 1943, William Lemp III died of heart failure at the age of 42. William’s mysterious illegitimate child died inside the mansion somewhere around mid to late 1940s.  In 1949, Charles Lemp committed suicide in his mansion bedroom after shooting his dog in the basement. Knowing several other Lemp suicides remained suspect, Charles left a note with only the words, “In case I am found dead, blame it on no one but me.”

Who are the "ghosts" in the Lemp Mansion?

Said to be haunted by several members of the Lemp family, there are three areas of the old mansion that have the most activity — the stairway, the attic, and what the staff refers to as, the “Gates of Hell” in the basement. It is this area of the basement that used to be the entrance to the caves running below the mansion and the brewery.

The attic is said to be haunted by William, Jr’s illegitimate son, referred to only as the “Monkey Face Boy.” This poor soul, born with Down’s Syndrome, spent his entire life locked in the attic of the Lemp Mansion. Strange occurrences are often witnessed on this third floor level of the mansion. The face of the boy has regularly been seen from the street peeking from the small windows of the mansion. Ghost investigators have often left toys in the middle of his room, drawing a circle around them to see if the objects have been moved. Consistently, when they return the next day, the toys are found in another location.

In the downstairs women’s bathroom, which was once William, Jr’s personal domain and held the first free-standing shower in St. Louis, many women have reported a man peeking over the stall. On one such occasion, a woman emerged from the bathroom, returning to the bar and stated to the two men she was there with: “I hope you got an eyeful!”  However, the two men quickly denied ever having left the bar, for which the bartender verified. This ghost is said to be that of the womanizing William Jr.

In William Lemp, Sr’s room, guests have often reported hearing someone running up the stairs and kicking at the door. When William killed himself, William Jr was known to have run up the stairs to his father’s room and finding it locked began to kick the door in to get to his father.

Several years ago a part-time tour guide reported hearing the sounds of horses outside the room where William Lemp, Sr had kept his office. However, when the tour guide looked through the window, nothing was there. This area, north of the mansion and now used as a parking lot, was once utilized as a tethering lot for horses.

See more HERE

Below are photos that claim to capture images of ghosts in the Lemp Mansion (I cannot verify)

But wait...there's more!

You can tour the Lemp Mansion:

And there are more strange things about this mansion:

Underneath the Lemp Mansion are massive underground tunnels