CLOUDCROFT LIGHT OPERA COMPANY



PRESENTS

Irrational fears abound and mystery surround the death of a famous psychiatrist named Dr. Hans Zonn who was killed at The Lodge in Cloudcroft, New  Mexico.

Dr. Philo Dendrum is a well regarded psychiatrist in the Southwest and has established a limited practice clinic in El Paso, Texas.  His clinic Life Challenges Inc. specializes in treating patients who suffer from a variety of phobias.  He will only accept patients who lives are severely impacted by their phobia.

Most of his patients have been in Dr. Dendrum's care for over five years.  While he has been making progress with each of his patents, he felt that something else needed to be done to move them along towards leading a more productive life in society.

Therefore, Dr Dendrum contacted Dr. Hans Zonn, a world renowned psychiatrist with a international consummating and therapy practice, to come to a retreat at The Lodge in Cloudcroft, NM.  At the retreat Dr. Zonn would conduct one of his radical group encounter sessions.

Dr. Zonn was a specialist in treating patients that suffered from phobias and he quickly accepted the invitation by Dr. Dendrum to come to Cloudcroft.  Dr. Zonn was the leading practitioner of group therapy and internationally acclaimed and highly respected in the psychiatric community.  As part of Dr. Dendrum's group treatment approach to therapy, he had decided to assemble some of his more unique cases at The Lodge and offer intense therapy sessions, chaired by Dr. Hans Zonn to his patents.  There they could work together to try and help each other.  Dr. Dendrum had decided to bring his patents to Cloudcroft and have them attend these meetings with Dr. Hans Zonn.  There they would go through intensive and extensive therapy sessions both singularly and in group encounters sessions.  Because of the fragile mental condition of the patients, Dr. Dendrum had decided not to tell his patents about his special guest therapist.  He waited until Thursday night at dinner to tell all his patients that beginning Friday morning a new and innovative group encounter therapy session would start under the direction of Dr. Hans Zonn.
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This radical therapeutic approach had all the ear markings of disaster.

Due to the rather reserved demeanor of the assembled patients, it was hard to tell how well received this news was.  Most of the patients said nothing and after dinner, drinks and conversation all returned to their respective rooms.  

Unbeknownst to Dr. Dendrum and Dr. Zonn one or more of the patients had a real "fear" of the good doctor's intentions which would ultimately result in murder.

THE MURDER

At 11:30 p.m. on Thursday night, January 27, 2005, a call came in to the front desk of The Lodge.  The caller complained that there was a loud party going on in the next room and that sleep was impossible and he wanted something done about it.

The desk clerk dispatched Willie Seezall, a Lodge Security guard to Room 413 to investigate.  When he got to the room at ll:45 p.m. everything was quiet and nobody answered his knock at the door.

As he was knocking on the door, Willie noticed that there was what looked like blood smeared on the door jamb and the door knob.  He continued to knock and receiving no answer he used his pass key to enter the room.  The room showed signs of a struggle and confusion.  Not seeing anybody in the room he called the desk and told them to call the local police department because something was not right.

Details of the murder scene are not generally known to the case of characters.  They will get their information about the murder scene from the autopsy report and crime scene photos.