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The Mysterious Stranger, II

Album: 18: A Time of Discovery

Episode: 245

Lesson/Theme: Greed.

Bible Verse: Exodus 20:17

Characters: Lucy, Connie, Whit

Writer: Paul McCusker

Sound Designer: Bob Luttrell

Original Air Date: September 25, 1993

Last Air Date: January 2, 2009

Description:
Whit and Connie are sorting through the mail one afternoon when they come across a request to be able to stay Whit’s End. Whit is just about write the magazine and tell them that Whit’s End isn’t a hotel when suddenly a strange young man, Kent Wakefield, walks through the front door. He is visibly stunned as he stands in the center of the room and looks around, telling Whit that he knows the place because Whit’s End was his home! Whit explains to Kent that it is impossible. Kent is insistent that it was his home and gives Whit the strong impression that he is mentally unbalanced. After Kent leaves, Whit begins to investigate Kent’s claims. Soon, certain pieces to the puzzle fall into place, and someone keeps making anonymous threatening phone calls telling Whit to “beware.” Whit also meets Kent’s uncle, James Wakefield, who begs Whit not to indulge his nephew’s fantasies. He tells Whit that Kent is seriously ill because of what had happened to his parents. Whit is ready to give up his sleuthing when he learns that Kent’s parents were the heirs to the Wakefield family fortune. They really did live in Odyssey once, in a mansion outside of town called the Tate House. Whit talks to the original architect of the mansion and finds out that the basic design was copied and used in the early part of the twentieth century for the mayor’s house, which is now Whit’s End. Whit and Lucy, who is writing an article for the Odyssey Times, visit the burned-out shell of the Tate House. It looks exactly like Whit’s End! Inside, they hear a creepy howling sound. Suddenly, debris is dropped onto Whit. He narrowly escapes unharmed. Whit and Lucy then meet a woman who lives in a cottage behind the old mansion. She is cautious and unfriendly and refuses to talk to Whit about the house. Whit persists with his investigation, even though James Wakefield insists that he stop. Whit refuses. With all Whit’s found out, he believes Kent’s not as crazy as he seems. Whit takes Kent to the Tate House, where Kent sees and recognizes the caretaker. She’s Mrs. Ullman, a woman who’d been the housekeeper there when Kent was a child. She screams and runs. Whit learns that Kent’s father did, in fact, survive the fire. But he was seriously burned and disfigured. He was first institutionalized, then released into the care of James Wakefield and moved to Tate Lodge, the house behind the burned-out mansion. In a climactic confrontation at the lodge, we learn that Kent’s father was mentally incapacitated by the fire. He lived as a servant with Mrs. Ullman. Ullman has been working for James Wakefield all these years. Wakefield is not Kent’s adopted uncle, but his real uncle on his mother’s side. Wakefield has been manipulating the lives of Kent and his father for years so that he would inherit the family fortune. The entire tragic scheme was merely a ploy to get money, and a living lesson that “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10).

Questions:
Why was it so easy for James Wakefield to manipulate Kent? Why was Kent’s uncle so bent on keeping Kent locked away? What are some of the consequences of greed? How can you avoid becoming greedy?