June 21, 2023 • 39 mins
Recorded Live at Strange Escapes, Waverly Hills Event
Pennhurst Asylum may have opened with the best of intentions, but it didn’t end up that way. In its 79 years of operation, the asylum was characterized by the harshest of patient mistreatment. Its more than 10,000 residents were subjected to what the Philadelphia Inquirer described as “medical experimentation, cruel punishments, and constant threats to physical and psychological well-being.” Residents were trapped, forced into labor against their will, unable to leave, out of control of the most basic elements of their own lives. And that was the adults. Children under five years old were kept in cages, lying in their own filth for days on end. As one newspaper put it in 1972, Pennhurst Asylum was “the shame of Pennsylvania.” Many inmates stayed there as long as 35 years. And some never left.
Special Guests: Adam Berry and Aaron Sagers
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Minky.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Without further ado, really bring the house down, make some
noise for the Haunted Road podcast host Amy Brunie.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Holy moly, thank you, guys. I appreciate. I'm just making
sure everything's working. So, as I stated before, I don't
know that all of you are in here when I
said this, but there is definitely a content warning today.
This is a really heavy episode of Haunted Road. I
have Kleenex in my pocket. It will be a miracle
if I make it through this without crying, So just
(00:47):
be ready. Okay, So, if you haven't heard Haunted Road before,
the first half, we delve deep into the history of
a haunted location, and then the second half I interview
someone who has knowledge of the hauntings there and so
we talk about the paranormal experiences. So, without further ADO,
(01:08):
let's get started, Okay. In some ways, Penhurst Asylum was
a paragon of progressive thinking about how to treat people
with cognitive disabilities, giving them social support and a safe
place to live where they could be protected from the
dangers of a judgmental society presented to their health and safety.
(01:29):
To many who had nowhere else to go, it promised
to be a dream scenario, but the dream was well
a dream. Penhurst may have opened with the best of intentions,
but it didn't end up that way. And it's seventy
nine years of operation, the asylum was characterized by the
harshest of patient mistreatment. It's more than ten thousand residents
(01:53):
were subjected to what the Philadelphia Inquirer described as medical experimentation, punishments,
and constant threats to physical and psychological well being. Residents
were trapped, forced into labor against their will, unable to leave,
out of control of the most basic elements of their
own lives, and that was the adults. Children under five
(02:18):
years old were kept in cages, lying in their own
filth for days on end. As one newspaper put it
in nineteen seventy two, Penhurst Asylum was the shame of Pennsylvania.
Many inmates stayed there as long as thirty five years,
and some never left. I'm Amy Bruney, and this is
(02:41):
haunted road. Penhurst Asylum originally opened in nineteen oh eight
as the Eastern Pennsylvania Institution for the feeble minded and epileptic.
According to the Penhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance, it was
once seen as a model institution. At the time the
asylum opened, people with mental illness and cognitive disabilities were
(03:05):
called defectives and were dealt with in horrific ways like
forced segregation from society and even sterilization. As the Alliance
described in the eighteen hundreds, defectives and other dependent deviant
groups such as aged paupers and the sick poor were
grouped together and sold to the lowest bidder. Built in
(03:27):
Spring City, Pennsylvania, Penhurst promised to be the antidote to
that kind of treatment. Before the asylum opened, the state
legislature organized a commission in nineteen o three to get
a sense of the needs of that underserved population. They
found nearly four thousand residents who were either incarcerated or
were in poorhouses or hospitals for the insane, who were
(03:49):
all in desperate need of actual care for their conditions.
Penhurst was designed to hold five hundred people, with room
for expansion, but the need far outweighed the space. The
asylum was overcrowded almost from the day it opened. Within
five years of admitting its first patients. Penhurst was under
(04:10):
pressure from the legislature to admit immigrants, orphans, and criminals
the state did not know how to handle. Pennsylvania created
a Commission for the Care of the Feeble Minded, who
pushed those with cognitive impairments into Penhurst to prevent them
from cro creating and passing down their genes, calling them
a menace to the peace. Immigrants designated as feeble minded
(04:34):
immigrants were deemed unfit for American citizenship, and the state
demanded they be to admit it into custody. In report
to the state, Penhurst's chief physician quoted Henry H. Goddard,
a leading eugenicist, by saying, every feeble minded person is
a potential criminal. The general public, although more convinced today
(04:55):
than ever before that it is a good thing to
segregate the idiot or the distinct imbecile, they have not
as yet been convinced as to proper treatment of the
defective delinquent, which is the brighter and more dangerous individual.
As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, by nineteen fifty seven, the
institution had more than thirty five hundred residents with just
(05:16):
six hundred staff from grounds keepers to aids. That number
rose to forty one hundred patients by the early nineteen sixties.
The newspaper further reported that by the nineteen sixties, the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was appropriating more than two million dollars
a year for Penhurst operations, and the facility's residents were
(05:37):
impressed into a forced labor system the Supreme Court would
rebuke as peonage or involuntary servile labor. Residents had lost
their fundamental freedoms, including the right to leave or to
exercise the most basic of life choices. A local news
station aired a documentary in nineteen sixty eight called Suffer
(05:57):
the Little Children that laid bare the horrible mistreatment at Penhurst.
Among the many horrifying revelations in the documentary was reporter
Bill Baldini's discovery that large American zoos were spending more
per day to feed their animals than the States spent
on the people in the asylum. As the Philadelphia Inquirer
(06:20):
described it, the documentary shattered Philadelphians and other Americans' easy
complacency and blind indifference to what had been occurring for
decades behind institutional walls. Far removed from public scrutiny. Baldini
later said that he had trouble keeping his camera crew
on the documentary shoot because they were literally getting sick
(06:41):
from what they saw. Matt Lake, Rusty Tagliarini, and Mark
Moran wrote about Penhurst for Weird New Jerseys, saying on
the flickering monochrome televisions of the time came images of
full grown hands and feet bound by straps to adult
sized crib beds. Inmates of the institution were shown rocking, pacing,
(07:01):
and twitching. Many were severely disabled, either mentally or physically,
but others were quite lucid and coherent, but withdrawn into
themselves because of overstimulation of the senses in the loud
and sometimes frightening place. When one patient was asked by
the interviewer what he would like most in the world
if he could have anything he wanted, the sad and
(07:24):
withdrawn reply was simply to get out of Penhurst. The
documentary caused public outcry and spurred widespread calls for changes
to the treatment of and constitutional rights for the mentally disabled.
Baldini later told NPR about the horrors he saw in
the asylum. Think of a ward of infants and children
(07:47):
from the ages of six months to five years old.
He said, there are eighty of them in metal cages.
These people were literally lying in their own feces for days.
According to Weird New Jersey, probably the most chilling scene
showed one of the hospital's physicians describing how he dealt
with a particularly vicious bully who had brutalized one of
(08:10):
his other inmates. He described how he had asked one
of his colleagues which injection he could use to cause
the most discomfort to a patient without permanently injuring him.
Then he proceeded to administer that injection to the bully.
That was a common punishment in Penhurst. Doctors would use
(08:30):
what they called harmless but painful injections as recourse for
bad behavior, even on children. In nineteen seventy, medical sociologist
Jim Conroy arrived at Penhurst to research the developmental disabilities.
As he told NPR, I saw a place with thirty
seven hundred people in it that was built for far
(08:52):
far fewer, and I saw things that I will never forget.
In nineteen seventy two, local newspaper The Mercury called Penhurst
the shame of Pennsylvania, describing seventeen hundred human beings stored
away in crumbling warehouses. The urine's stench of decades soaked
so deeply into the walls and floors that it can
(09:13):
never be washed out. About half of the more than
ten thousand inmates housed in Penhurst died there, largely due
to patient mistreatment and neglect. In nineteen seventy four, patient
Terry Lee Halderman filed a complaint with the state on
behalf of all other Penhurst residents about their treatment. The
complaint alleged that the residents live in inhumane and dangerous conditions,
(09:36):
are subjected to unnecessary physical restraints, are given unnecessary and
dangerous medication, are consigned to lives of idleness and because
of lack of habilitative programs, and are subject to numerous
physical injuries resulted from a lack of adequate supervision. The
complaint further alleged that this treatment caused Halderman and her
(09:58):
class to deteriorate and regret emotionally, intellectually, and physically, and
that they were being denied due process and equal protection
of the law and inflicted on them cruel and unusual
punishment unimaginably bad treatment came to light as a result
of this case. Patients who were in crisis could go
(10:19):
days without seeing a psychologist for treatment. When they were
in a crisis situation, they would most likely be restrained
through either physical or chemical measures. People could be bound
to a bed or a chair, or sedated with unusually
high doses of psychoactive drugs. According to the Penhurst Memorial
and Preservation Alliance, psychotropic drugs at Penhurst are often used
(10:41):
for control and not for treatment, and the rate of
drug use on some of the units is extraordinarily high.
In nineteen seventy eight, the court ordered that Penhurst be
closed and that its remaining twelve hundred residents be provided
living arrangements and support services. To accomplish this, special Master
was appointed to supervise the arrangements. The asylum was to
(11:04):
stay open until that work was finished. In nineteen eighty one,
Time described the place as having a history of being understaffed, dirty,
and violent. The hospital was on its way to closing,
but for the patients it must have seemed like the
hell was never coming to an end. By nineteen eighty three,
Penhurst had six hundred forty patients, who had been there
(11:24):
an average of thirty five years at that time. The
Department of Justice indicted nine present and former aids for
assaulting and abusing patients, including beating patients, some of whom
were confined to wheelchairs, and forcing patients to assault each other.
A study following patients released from Penhurst was ordered by
(11:45):
the court as part of the hospital's closure. Its results
were released in nineteen eighty five. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer,
the researchers followed one thy one hundred and fifty four
people who lived at Penhurst and found that none became
became homeless or incarcerated. They tended to live at least
six years longer, and fourteen percent became more independent. Almost
(12:08):
all said that they were better off outside of Penhurst.
Despite a reported nineteen percent increase in services, the cost
of taxpayers went down by fifteen percent compared to funding Penhurst.
In nineteen eighty seven, the last patient left Penhurst, and
the asylum was finally closed in the nineteen nineties. Part
(12:31):
of the building briefly served as a veteran's home, but
was sold to a private developer in the early two thousands.
Under the Penhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance. It was added
to the international Coalition of Sites of Conscience, a worldwide
network of historic sites specifically dedicated to remembering struggles for justice.
In twenty ten, part of the campus was reopened as
(12:54):
a seasonal Haunted attraction, which immediately started pulling in as
much just two million dollars annually from people eager to
experience the place. But given the Asylum's dark history, many
locals in those previously affiliated with Penhurst objected to that use,
especially since the attraction misrepresented much of what happened there
(13:17):
in the past. Reporter Bill Baldini, whose documentary brought the
asylum's atrocities to light, and Jim Conroy, the medical sociologist
who spoke publicly about his experiences there, said they believed
the site shouldn't be trivialized as a haunted house, but
rather be a memorial to the past. As Diana M.
(13:39):
Kadovich wrote for the National Council on Public History, the
first version of the Haunted Asylum was as bad as anticipated.
A fictional doctor and his minions were shown experimenting on
asylum inmates in a minor nod to the history of
Penhurst's patrons. Were able to view artifacts retrieved from the property,
notably a dentist's chair an electroshock therapy machine. Yet historical
(14:03):
fact and shock fiction were poorly separated, and visitors were
left to wonder which was which. The council quoted disability
studies historian Sarah Hanley Cousins is saying, I like a
ghost story as much as anyone, but the patients who
lived at Penhurst weren't spooky spirits. They were human beings
with complex lives. In twenty seventeen, ownership changed and the
(14:27):
new owner and general manager created an environment intended to
be more respectful to the disabled community, As Diana Kadovich wrote,
aware of the unintended consequences of a conflated story, they
changed features of the attraction and empowered a group of
disabled performers with creative control. More than half of the performers,
(14:47):
called the Haunters, identify as disabled, a few even half
personal histories of institutionalization. This new Haunted Asylum turns the
original plot on its head. The Haunters each assume a
fictional identity, and the inmates conspire to take over the
asylum from the professionals. The fictional doctors nurses and the
(15:08):
visitors become the new inmates. Today, Penhurst offers daytime history
tours and overnight paranormal investigations. While many buildings on the
campus were deemed unsafe and have been torn down, others
are maintained through proceeds of those tours. Jim Ansbach, founder
of the Shore Paranormal Research Society, which regularly investigates Penhurst,
(15:31):
says the asylum is rife with paranormal activity. Weird New
Jersey wrote that the group has conducted several large scale
investigations of the old asylums many buildings, and documented a
variety of evidence of paranormal activity, including photos, videos, recordings
of voice phenomena, and personal encounters with spirits. Among the
(15:52):
recordings are the sounds of disembodied voices uttering things like
go away, I'll kill you, were upset, and why did
you come here? An unknown male states I'm scared, while
an invisible female asks why won't you leave? In the
Administration building, investigators have said they've picked up disembodied voices
(16:16):
and the sounds of toilets flushing though there's no running
water or the building. And other buildings, people claim to
hear children's voices and EVPs of distressed adults. According to Shore,
a firefighter police officer Anna Marine All saw a woman
in an old style nurse's uniform in the Limerick Building.
Investigators claim to have been touched in the Mayflower Building
(16:39):
and the Tinycum Building, and to have seen shadow figures
manifest and dissipate in the Quaker Building. These shadows include
what appeared to be a girl with long black hair,
a hunched over presence with long dangling arms, and figures
poking out from behind obstacles. Doors and a rocking chair
have moves on their own, and objects like pride bars
(17:00):
and brass pixtures have been observed being thrown by unseen forces.
And investigators have also been physically harmed. According to Shore,
one was shoved from behind hard enough on a stairway
to leave a deep red mark, and another was scratched
on the arm. Now I have investigated Penhurst a number
(17:30):
of times, including once on live television where I proceeded
to drop an F bomb while millions of people were watching.
So here to talk more about that experience, as well
as many others, are two of my dear friends who
have also both spent quite some time investigating the asylum.
Mister Aaron Sagers and mister Adam Berry. Welcome my friends.
(18:01):
Oh no, I didn't turn your microphones on it and
want them to actually hear you.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Thanks for having us. This is Haunted Row. I'm Amy Brune.
May the fourth be with you?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Okay, So real talk. We have investigated Penhurst quite a
few times. Strangely, we're actually going back there next weekend
or ericon. I'm just gonna be cool. It is one
of those places I feel like you have to be
very cognizant of the history, and I think that we've
gotten so much better at that in recent years. I'm
(18:39):
sure the first time I investigated there, I was completely
guilty of just kind of being like, oh, terrible things
happen here. It's super haunted. How cool. And then I
actually took the time to watch that documentary it's on
YouTube and you see what happened there and it is appalling.
So but so, just talk a little bit more, like Arin,
(19:00):
you've investigated there many times over the years. What first
brought you to Penhurst?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I think it was actually for an event the very
first time I went there, but actually many years ago,
I was working as a reporter at some newspapers in
the Philadelphia area. So maybe I went there first for
one of their Haunted House attractions, and even then, honestly,
it didn't sit right with me because this is one
(19:28):
of those locations that, look, it just has it's a
city of shame. It really is a city, and it
has such a dark legacy that it makes you angry
when you go there and you're aware of what took
place there, and the fact that it also was taking
place in my lifetime. I was ten years old when
(19:50):
it closed, so it's this recent history and it's disgusting.
But yeah, the very first time I think I went
there was for the Haunted House, and the first time
I invested get it was part of an event.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Okay, mister Barry, I went with someone named Amy Bruney.
I wasn't sure if it was one of your Ghost
Hunters Academy locations.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I never know, No, Waverley, Actually we're going to Oh yeah,
it was the very first place I ever investigated on television.
I mean, you and I investigated that on Ghost Hunters,
and and I remember, you're right, we were in a
different mindset in a way. We were excited to get
to this incredibly historic haunted location. We were It was
(20:31):
multiple nights, which is a big deal for when we
investigated something like that. But I think for us, we
were we didn't know what to expect, right, and you
and I we had we were in Philadelphia, so we
had just started investigation. This is probably a month into
us working together, that's true, So we were still sort
of getting our feet wet on you know, how we
interact with each other and what experiences we will have.
(20:54):
But I know that the activity that we had there
flipped our brains in side out because it was it
was really incredible activity. But at that point, I think
we didn't know what to do with that information.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I guess, right, I mean I think that I actually
I think I wrote about one of the experiences we
had there in the book, which was and this happened
not on the lot. Was this on the live show?
When we heard that thing in the closet?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I don't know that was it? Yeah? That was, yeah,
on the live show.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So we'll talk about that experience.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yes, So Amy and I were in the I guess
it would be the children's section wherever they said the
heart of hearing would be. And I think when we
started hearing those kind of thoughts where oh the kids were,
you know, just they had a physical disability where they
couldn't hear or they couldn't see, they were put in
here to us. I mean that was already like what
(21:47):
are you talking about? Like there are schools for the
blind and death, Like what are you doing? But we
were in that section, and I remember being on the
third or fourth floor and she and I you know,
were slowly walking through to get our bearings, and we
started asking questions and then to the left of us,
down the hallway, you could hear what sounded like a
(22:12):
footstep and a drag, so it was like step step,
like step dry and she and I looked at each
other like what the actual is that? And we were
looking down this hallway nothing was there. And then almost
instantaneously after that, we heard what sounded like clawing, like
(22:33):
scratching and clawing on wood. And at this point, I
think they it's on television, but you can go back
and watch. But she and I are like on top
of each other, were and like back to back, and
we're sort of trying to like figure out where the
sound's coming from, what's happening, And we knew that the scratching.
It was like a scratch, clawing, scratching, like trying something,
(22:54):
trying to get out of something.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
It was so incredibly loud, terrifying. It was so loud.
I can't over state howbut it was.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And also your mind starts playing tricks on you because
you hear this step dragon. I picture horror movie. I
picture like the you know, some person walking down the
thing trying to get us. So we had to make
our way toward the sound, like any good horror movie,
and we pinpointed to this room. We walk into the room.
The scratching is still going on. It's louder. We know
(23:25):
it's coming from in front of us, where a closet
door is closed.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And we we thought animal. We were like, there's an
animal there. We were about to have our faces torn
off by whatever this is.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
But and she was like, you open it.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
That's true. You were new.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I was new.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
You were new.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
And so she is standing maybe five feet away from
the door, and I'm like creeping up on the handle
like it's gonna pop out, And I take the handle
and I went and I opened it really quick and
jump back because I was a know something rabbit is
coming out of there, and that did not happen. There
was nothing in the closet. There was no signs of rodents,
(24:10):
there was no animal droppings. There did not smell of urine.
It was just a normal closet. There were no holes
in the ceiling. And I think we even used the
thermal imaging.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
I was just gonna say we double checked. We brought
the thermal. The one time I enjoyed the thermal, I
was like, oh, we can see there's an animal in here.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
There was no animal, no traces of animal, no signs
and animals trying to claw out in any section. And
we never heard it again ever and anywhere else in
that building. I mean, yes, of course it was stabited.
It could have been an animal, but we we checked
our boxes for that and it was wild.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, No, that was That was terrifying. And what's so
funny is that we were like, oh, a few, it's
a ghost.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, We're like, oh right, oh great. I mean, you know,
thinking about that experience now, I sort of wonder what
that was though. Like you talk about, you know, the
young children in cages and people being trapped and tied up.
It's like, now, when I think about that a sound.
It's no longer spooky, it's sad.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
It's heartbreaking. Yeah, someone was confined and that was their reality,
So what would they do?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
It would well, that's just it. It's like if that
I imagine at some point someone was probably locked in
that closet, like I almost think it had to have happened,
and so is I pray that that is not like
their actual consciousness still there trying to leave and instead
(25:35):
is just kind of like that imprint there, you know
what I mean. I would prefer it's just the actual
turmoil or emotion left behind, because I would hate to
think there's someone just perpetually stuck in this closet. You know.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I don't like to think as I don't like to
think in terms of children or people being stuck in places.
And yet I do wonder in facilities like that where
people were so physically and emotionally broken, like where they
were broken by other people, if there's something about that
where they are just lingering there in some form or fashion.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Well, the sad thing to think about is that, you know,
they were probably told their entire lives that they weren't
meant for anywhere else, you know, and so there, it's
so ingrained in them that they were not meant to
be in society. This is where you are because of
how you are. And so when given the choice and death, like,
(26:35):
does that mean they carry that like I'm not meant
to go anywhere but here. It's kind of like sometimes
when we investigate jails, I feel like sometimes the inmates
are like, it's this kind of you know, self imposed sentence,
like I'm supposed to be here and I can't leave,
And I would not be surprised if that's what's happening there.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
And it's some extent it was official policy too, like
as early when it opened in nineteen oh was it
by nineteen thirteen? There was already official policy about eugenics
on the books in Pinnhurst, and that not only are
you not worth anything, you're not even worth like getting
out and having a family. You need to be separated.
(27:16):
You are dehumanized, oh completely, And when it reaches that
point where you're no longer considered human, it makes it
all the easier to abuse and hurt and break these people.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Down when you watch that documentary, and so this is
what I think of when I investigate there. I see
these spaces and I mean, I haven't watched it in years,
but is permanently ingrained in my brain. I see the
faces of these people and I think of them as
I investigate there. You know, are these the people? Are
people like this who are talking to me? But it's
(27:51):
they were so coherent. They were not they were like
talking to anyone in here. They weren't like it wasn't
like they couldn't speak. It wasn't like they were emotionless,
like they were completely able to have a conversation. They
were calm. It's the weirdest thing. And you're like, why
are you there? Like it just didn't make a lot
of sense.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
No, And I think the first time I saw the
documentary was when we went back, maybe even the following
It was the following year for the live show, and
we knew we were going back there, and you know,
we had talked about the documentary and I watched it,
and I think that changed the way we investigated that
space on live television. Yeah, for sure, because we were
(28:31):
thinking about it. And if you notice we went back
to that same spot if you watched that live show,
and we were using the flashlights for communication, and we
had set three flashlights on the mantle, which was in
the room just past where we heard the scratching down
the hall from where we heard the foot dragging, and
we would set them up right like straight up, and
(28:52):
you know, live television, anything can happen, and we like
to do the hardest techniques on live televis because we're like,
you know, we don't We're going to use it. We
believe in it. We're going to see what happens and
if it works great on live television. We started having
a conversation with someone in the space who knew we
(29:13):
were there, who was answering our questions yes, no, I
don't know, on command, on live television in front of
millions of people watching. And it was because we had
humanized what was there and we genuinely wanted to have
a conversation. I actually forgot the cameras in that moment.
I forgot that we were on live television because we
(29:33):
were making such a connection, right.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And it's bizarre investigating on live television because first of all,
you're investigating the entire time, so you're just kind of
going about your business and then suddenly the camera operators
like they're coming to you, and there's this twinge where
you're like, oh, okay, now that'd be great, yeah, but
in that moment like I don't know. So the for
(29:57):
people who are not familiar, we to quite often use
this technique with flashlights, where we would line up three
flashlights in a row. The only reason we've stopped using
this technique is since Maglight introduced their new like led lights,
it just doesn't work the same anymore, and slowly but surely,
every single one of our old maglights has burned out.
(30:20):
If you want to help us with that maglight if
you're listening.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
But this episode is sponsored by Backlight bag Light.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
But so what we did is we used this flashlight
technique where we would set the flashlights to where they were.
It was very easy to turn them on and off
because you twist it so uh and people would use
one flashlight a lot, but we didn't really feel like
that was a very controlled situation. So we would use
three flashlights and we would first establish they actually wanted
to interact using the flashlights, and then when we were
(30:52):
it was clear that they could answer us, we would
have them pick which flashlight wanted to be yes, which
wanted to be no, which was like I don't know,
and this is happening on live television, and it was
like clockwork, like we were having this entire conversation through
these lights. I think we were on screen for like
a solid twenty to thirty minutes doing this, which is
(31:13):
like unheard of in these live shows. But it just
wouldn't stop. And whoever was there was able to talk
through the lights, recognize the lights. Who like, that's a
universal signal, right, everybody can speak through lights, and they
wanted to talk. They were eager to talk.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah. I remember when it was done. I think the
camera operator was not only was his shoulder killing him
at that point, but he also did not understand what
was happening. He was like, what was that? Because I
think the crew for the live show wasn't our normal crew.
It was because they were all Union.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, they were all like they were used to shooting
like football games I have TV, and they did not
know what they had signed up for.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
This guy's the eyes were big than in his head
and he was just like, what was that? How did
you guys do that? And we were like, we didn't
do anything. All we did was ask questions. Yeah, girl,
we did some crazy stuff on that day, Yeah, we did.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Like I said earlier, that was my first F bomb
on live television. Can you say an F bomb on
live TV? You hear the IFBs of every camera operator,
So we screaming in the control booths and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
There was another time. I can't remember if we were
investigating in a different section, but we had walked through
and they kept saying that the windows had giant like
screens on them, heavy screens, and so sometimes they would
you'd hear them like knock or bang, and we were
just walking through, investigating and calling out just to see
if it was there, and it was like show, like
(32:46):
the loudest sound I had ever heard, and we tried
to figure out what it was, couldn't figure it out.
Not an animal. It was like somebody had taken it
and slammed it, and we knew we weren't welcome in
that moment. We were like, we're not welcome.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
It's a location that I think every time I've been there,
it's again a sad and terrible location, but it from
a paranormal activity perspective, it seems like it always delivers
in different ways. There was one time actually I was
there with a paranormal event, and it was a group
of people in one area. I forget all of the
(33:17):
building names. I think they call it dietary. It's like
in the back of the grounds and the session was
coming to a close and people are doing an investigation
and somebody walked by me, and then standing next to
me was two of the volunteers that assist with the investigation.
Someone walks by me and they walk into another room,
(33:38):
and this is sort of the free time of the investigation.
Time winds down, It's like, okay, time to wrap it up,
move everybody to the next location. And I'm like, oh,
let me go grab the person that moved into that
next room over there, and the volunteers like, yes, someone
walked in there. Walk into this room, no one's in there,
walk into this adjacent room and there is no other exit,
(34:01):
and myself and the volunteer, like I know, we both
physically saw someone walk in here. And instead against this
pack wall was a very like distinct shadow, kind of
like hunched against the wall, and it reminded me in
that moment of the final scene of the Blair Witch Projects,
which I want to tell you all that I'm mister
(34:25):
Brave at every moment but that was a moment where
I was Nope, the f out of there.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I was like, no, yep, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Isn't that? Isn't that where when we were doing somebody
was doing the walkthrough before wherever we got there for
the live show, and they saw a gentleman that looked
like a worker.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Oh that's right, was it Chris Williams? Did she see it?
It might be because she.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Was like, I saw there's a man standing there, like
getting ready. It was like a worker. And they were like,
nobody else is back there, And she came over talking
about like, oh, yeah, there's a guy back there or
something and there, and the guy was like, no, there's
nobody back there.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, no, it does not surprise me.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
There was another time I was actually filming. It was
right before all the COVID lockdown and I was filming this.
It was a about haunted houses, but it wasn't a
paranormal show. It was about haunted house attractions. And after
a very long night of filming, everybody is very tired,
winding down, waiting to get cut for the night. Because
(35:24):
it's removed from any nearby hotels, it's definitely.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Like a cab ride.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
And I'm standing outside facing the admin building. No one
is in this building, and I'm standing next to the
like a sound guy or whatever, and we're just chatting like, yeah,
long night, like where you're gonna go. You're gonna grab
some dinner at the local pub or whatever afterwards. And
we're facing the admin building and you see this lone
(35:50):
wheelchair just cross past the threshold. Nope, And I'm like,
like you you you saw this, right, Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Should we go in?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
No?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah, And for that reason, I'm out. So that is
a wild, well, something that a lot of people just
don't know. So you and I got to explore Penhurst
during the day.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
That's right. Oh, that's right. We did a photo shoot there.
We dressed in really fancy clothes and took pictures in Penhurst. Yeah,
so as one does. Yes, you know, were a magazine.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, yeah, Actually it's on the back of one of
our magazines. It's the double duo image where it looks
like we're kind of floating. That's Penhurst. And I remember
being there during the day and of course things in
the daytime when light, when sunlight hits it, you know,
you see it in a different way. And I remember
we got to actually take the time and really stand
(36:47):
in a spot without cameras and like look, and at
times it felt really creepy and intense, and then at
times there was this weird, like destroyed, destructed beauty about it.
But then you could see what kind of life it had,
Like the beds were there, all lined up still, like
people had been in these little sections and cobby holes,
(37:08):
and you just knew what kind of like you know,
little town or life this place had exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
And I think that's important, and that's kind of I
think one of the greatest byproducts of what we do
and what you all do, is that we are kind
of realizing that history. You know, we're not pushing it aside,
we're not forgetting it existed. I love the new kind
of outlook as we investigate these places that were uber
(37:36):
respectful of what happened there. You know, we're not going in,
you know, antagonizing. We go in with deep respect and sympathy.
And I think that really not only helps us as
far as kind of gaining interaction, but I think it
helps them. They You know, you walk in as a
living person and you're showing them respect they might not
(37:57):
have ever had in life to begin with. So I
think it's important that these places are explored. I think
it's important that we learned the history that happened there
before we ever got there. And I think that you know,
regardless of how anyone feels about the paranormal field, there
are places like this that are being remembered because of us,
(38:21):
and so we have great responsibility. And that includes where
we're going tonight as well, since we're going to Waverly Hills.
So I want to thank my friends here for joining
me today, and I want to thank all of you
for this, and I hope you enjoyed it very much.
I'm Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road
(38:53):
is hosted and written by me Amy brune with additional
research by Taylor Hagerdorn and Cassandra day All. This show
is edited and produced by Rima El Kali, with supervising
producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Menke, Alex Williams,
and Matt Frederick. Haunted Road is a production of iHeartRadio
(39:13):
and Grim and Mild from Aaronmanke. Learn more about this
show over at grimanmild dot com, and for more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Minky.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Without further ado, really bring the house down, make some
noise for the Haunted Road podcast host Amy Brunie.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Holy moly, thank you, guys. I appreciate. I'm just making
sure everything's working. So, as I stated before, I don't
know that all of you are in here when I
said this, but there is definitely a content warning today.
This is a really heavy episode of Haunted Road. I
have Kleenex in my pocket. It will be a miracle
if I make it through this without crying, So just
(00:47):
be ready. Okay, So, if you haven't heard Haunted Road before,
the first half, we delve deep into the history of
a haunted location, and then the second half I interview
someone who has knowledge of the hauntings there and so
we talk about the paranormal experiences. So, without further ADO,
(01:08):
let's get started, Okay. In some ways, Penhurst Asylum was
a paragon of progressive thinking about how to treat people
with cognitive disabilities, giving them social support and a safe
place to live where they could be protected from the
dangers of a judgmental society presented to their health and safety.
(01:29):
To many who had nowhere else to go, it promised
to be a dream scenario, but the dream was well
a dream. Penhurst may have opened with the best of intentions,
but it didn't end up that way. And it's seventy
nine years of operation, the asylum was characterized by the
harshest of patient mistreatment. It's more than ten thousand residents
(01:53):
were subjected to what the Philadelphia Inquirer described as medical experimentation, punishments,
and constant threats to physical and psychological well being. Residents
were trapped, forced into labor against their will, unable to leave,
out of control of the most basic elements of their
own lives, and that was the adults. Children under five
(02:18):
years old were kept in cages, lying in their own
filth for days on end. As one newspaper put it
in nineteen seventy two, Penhurst Asylum was the shame of Pennsylvania.
Many inmates stayed there as long as thirty five years,
and some never left. I'm Amy Bruney, and this is
(02:41):
haunted road. Penhurst Asylum originally opened in nineteen oh eight
as the Eastern Pennsylvania Institution for the feeble minded and epileptic.
According to the Penhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance, it was
once seen as a model institution. At the time the
asylum opened, people with mental illness and cognitive disabilities were
(03:05):
called defectives and were dealt with in horrific ways like
forced segregation from society and even sterilization. As the Alliance
described in the eighteen hundreds, defectives and other dependent deviant
groups such as aged paupers and the sick poor were
grouped together and sold to the lowest bidder. Built in
(03:27):
Spring City, Pennsylvania, Penhurst promised to be the antidote to
that kind of treatment. Before the asylum opened, the state
legislature organized a commission in nineteen o three to get
a sense of the needs of that underserved population. They
found nearly four thousand residents who were either incarcerated or
were in poorhouses or hospitals for the insane, who were
(03:49):
all in desperate need of actual care for their conditions.
Penhurst was designed to hold five hundred people, with room
for expansion, but the need far outweighed the space. The
asylum was overcrowded almost from the day it opened. Within
five years of admitting its first patients. Penhurst was under
(04:10):
pressure from the legislature to admit immigrants, orphans, and criminals
the state did not know how to handle. Pennsylvania created
a Commission for the Care of the Feeble Minded, who
pushed those with cognitive impairments into Penhurst to prevent them
from cro creating and passing down their genes, calling them
a menace to the peace. Immigrants designated as feeble minded
(04:34):
immigrants were deemed unfit for American citizenship, and the state
demanded they be to admit it into custody. In report
to the state, Penhurst's chief physician quoted Henry H. Goddard,
a leading eugenicist, by saying, every feeble minded person is
a potential criminal. The general public, although more convinced today
(04:55):
than ever before that it is a good thing to
segregate the idiot or the distinct imbecile, they have not
as yet been convinced as to proper treatment of the
defective delinquent, which is the brighter and more dangerous individual.
As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, by nineteen fifty seven, the
institution had more than thirty five hundred residents with just
(05:16):
six hundred staff from grounds keepers to aids. That number
rose to forty one hundred patients by the early nineteen sixties.
The newspaper further reported that by the nineteen sixties, the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was appropriating more than two million dollars
a year for Penhurst operations, and the facility's residents were
(05:37):
impressed into a forced labor system the Supreme Court would
rebuke as peonage or involuntary servile labor. Residents had lost
their fundamental freedoms, including the right to leave or to
exercise the most basic of life choices. A local news
station aired a documentary in nineteen sixty eight called Suffer
(05:57):
the Little Children that laid bare the horrible mistreatment at Penhurst.
Among the many horrifying revelations in the documentary was reporter
Bill Baldini's discovery that large American zoos were spending more
per day to feed their animals than the States spent
on the people in the asylum. As the Philadelphia Inquirer
(06:20):
described it, the documentary shattered Philadelphians and other Americans' easy
complacency and blind indifference to what had been occurring for
decades behind institutional walls. Far removed from public scrutiny. Baldini
later said that he had trouble keeping his camera crew
on the documentary shoot because they were literally getting sick
(06:41):
from what they saw. Matt Lake, Rusty Tagliarini, and Mark
Moran wrote about Penhurst for Weird New Jerseys, saying on
the flickering monochrome televisions of the time came images of
full grown hands and feet bound by straps to adult
sized crib beds. Inmates of the institution were shown rocking, pacing,
(07:01):
and twitching. Many were severely disabled, either mentally or physically,
but others were quite lucid and coherent, but withdrawn into
themselves because of overstimulation of the senses in the loud
and sometimes frightening place. When one patient was asked by
the interviewer what he would like most in the world
if he could have anything he wanted, the sad and
(07:24):
withdrawn reply was simply to get out of Penhurst. The
documentary caused public outcry and spurred widespread calls for changes
to the treatment of and constitutional rights for the mentally disabled.
Baldini later told NPR about the horrors he saw in
the asylum. Think of a ward of infants and children
(07:47):
from the ages of six months to five years old.
He said, there are eighty of them in metal cages.
These people were literally lying in their own feces for days.
According to Weird New Jersey, probably the most chilling scene
showed one of the hospital's physicians describing how he dealt
with a particularly vicious bully who had brutalized one of
(08:10):
his other inmates. He described how he had asked one
of his colleagues which injection he could use to cause
the most discomfort to a patient without permanently injuring him.
Then he proceeded to administer that injection to the bully.
That was a common punishment in Penhurst. Doctors would use
(08:30):
what they called harmless but painful injections as recourse for
bad behavior, even on children. In nineteen seventy, medical sociologist
Jim Conroy arrived at Penhurst to research the developmental disabilities.
As he told NPR, I saw a place with thirty
seven hundred people in it that was built for far
(08:52):
far fewer, and I saw things that I will never forget.
In nineteen seventy two, local newspaper The Mercury called Penhurst
the shame of Pennsylvania, describing seventeen hundred human beings stored
away in crumbling warehouses. The urine's stench of decades soaked
so deeply into the walls and floors that it can
(09:13):
never be washed out. About half of the more than
ten thousand inmates housed in Penhurst died there, largely due
to patient mistreatment and neglect. In nineteen seventy four, patient
Terry Lee Halderman filed a complaint with the state on
behalf of all other Penhurst residents about their treatment. The
complaint alleged that the residents live in inhumane and dangerous conditions,
(09:36):
are subjected to unnecessary physical restraints, are given unnecessary and
dangerous medication, are consigned to lives of idleness and because
of lack of habilitative programs, and are subject to numerous
physical injuries resulted from a lack of adequate supervision. The
complaint further alleged that this treatment caused Halderman and her
(09:58):
class to deteriorate and regret emotionally, intellectually, and physically, and
that they were being denied due process and equal protection
of the law and inflicted on them cruel and unusual
punishment unimaginably bad treatment came to light as a result
of this case. Patients who were in crisis could go
(10:19):
days without seeing a psychologist for treatment. When they were
in a crisis situation, they would most likely be restrained
through either physical or chemical measures. People could be bound
to a bed or a chair, or sedated with unusually
high doses of psychoactive drugs. According to the Penhurst Memorial
and Preservation Alliance, psychotropic drugs at Penhurst are often used
(10:41):
for control and not for treatment, and the rate of
drug use on some of the units is extraordinarily high.
In nineteen seventy eight, the court ordered that Penhurst be
closed and that its remaining twelve hundred residents be provided
living arrangements and support services. To accomplish this, special Master
was appointed to supervise the arrangements. The asylum was to
(11:04):
stay open until that work was finished. In nineteen eighty one,
Time described the place as having a history of being understaffed, dirty,
and violent. The hospital was on its way to closing,
but for the patients it must have seemed like the
hell was never coming to an end. By nineteen eighty three,
Penhurst had six hundred forty patients, who had been there
(11:24):
an average of thirty five years at that time. The
Department of Justice indicted nine present and former aids for
assaulting and abusing patients, including beating patients, some of whom
were confined to wheelchairs, and forcing patients to assault each other.
A study following patients released from Penhurst was ordered by
(11:45):
the court as part of the hospital's closure. Its results
were released in nineteen eighty five. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer,
the researchers followed one thy one hundred and fifty four
people who lived at Penhurst and found that none became
became homeless or incarcerated. They tended to live at least
six years longer, and fourteen percent became more independent. Almost
(12:08):
all said that they were better off outside of Penhurst.
Despite a reported nineteen percent increase in services, the cost
of taxpayers went down by fifteen percent compared to funding Penhurst.
In nineteen eighty seven, the last patient left Penhurst, and
the asylum was finally closed in the nineteen nineties. Part
(12:31):
of the building briefly served as a veteran's home, but
was sold to a private developer in the early two thousands.
Under the Penhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance. It was added
to the international Coalition of Sites of Conscience, a worldwide
network of historic sites specifically dedicated to remembering struggles for justice.
In twenty ten, part of the campus was reopened as
(12:54):
a seasonal Haunted attraction, which immediately started pulling in as
much just two million dollars annually from people eager to
experience the place. But given the Asylum's dark history, many
locals in those previously affiliated with Penhurst objected to that use,
especially since the attraction misrepresented much of what happened there
(13:17):
in the past. Reporter Bill Baldini, whose documentary brought the
asylum's atrocities to light, and Jim Conroy, the medical sociologist
who spoke publicly about his experiences there, said they believed
the site shouldn't be trivialized as a haunted house, but
rather be a memorial to the past. As Diana M.
(13:39):
Kadovich wrote for the National Council on Public History, the
first version of the Haunted Asylum was as bad as anticipated.
A fictional doctor and his minions were shown experimenting on
asylum inmates in a minor nod to the history of
Penhurst's patrons. Were able to view artifacts retrieved from the property,
notably a dentist's chair an electroshock therapy machine. Yet historical
(14:03):
fact and shock fiction were poorly separated, and visitors were
left to wonder which was which. The council quoted disability
studies historian Sarah Hanley Cousins is saying, I like a
ghost story as much as anyone, but the patients who
lived at Penhurst weren't spooky spirits. They were human beings
with complex lives. In twenty seventeen, ownership changed and the
(14:27):
new owner and general manager created an environment intended to
be more respectful to the disabled community, As Diana Kadovich wrote,
aware of the unintended consequences of a conflated story, they
changed features of the attraction and empowered a group of
disabled performers with creative control. More than half of the performers,
(14:47):
called the Haunters, identify as disabled, a few even half
personal histories of institutionalization. This new Haunted Asylum turns the
original plot on its head. The Haunters each assume a
fictional identity, and the inmates conspire to take over the
asylum from the professionals. The fictional doctors nurses and the
(15:08):
visitors become the new inmates. Today, Penhurst offers daytime history
tours and overnight paranormal investigations. While many buildings on the
campus were deemed unsafe and have been torn down, others
are maintained through proceeds of those tours. Jim Ansbach, founder
of the Shore Paranormal Research Society, which regularly investigates Penhurst,
(15:31):
says the asylum is rife with paranormal activity. Weird New
Jersey wrote that the group has conducted several large scale
investigations of the old asylums many buildings, and documented a
variety of evidence of paranormal activity, including photos, videos, recordings
of voice phenomena, and personal encounters with spirits. Among the
(15:52):
recordings are the sounds of disembodied voices uttering things like
go away, I'll kill you, were upset, and why did
you come here? An unknown male states I'm scared, while
an invisible female asks why won't you leave? In the
Administration building, investigators have said they've picked up disembodied voices
(16:16):
and the sounds of toilets flushing though there's no running
water or the building. And other buildings, people claim to
hear children's voices and EVPs of distressed adults. According to Shore,
a firefighter police officer Anna Marine All saw a woman
in an old style nurse's uniform in the Limerick Building.
Investigators claim to have been touched in the Mayflower Building
(16:39):
and the Tinycum Building, and to have seen shadow figures
manifest and dissipate in the Quaker Building. These shadows include
what appeared to be a girl with long black hair,
a hunched over presence with long dangling arms, and figures
poking out from behind obstacles. Doors and a rocking chair
have moves on their own, and objects like pride bars
(17:00):
and brass pixtures have been observed being thrown by unseen forces.
And investigators have also been physically harmed. According to Shore,
one was shoved from behind hard enough on a stairway
to leave a deep red mark, and another was scratched
on the arm. Now I have investigated Penhurst a number
(17:30):
of times, including once on live television where I proceeded
to drop an F bomb while millions of people were watching.
So here to talk more about that experience, as well
as many others, are two of my dear friends who
have also both spent quite some time investigating the asylum.
Mister Aaron Sagers and mister Adam Berry. Welcome my friends.
(18:01):
Oh no, I didn't turn your microphones on it and
want them to actually hear you.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Thanks for having us. This is Haunted Row. I'm Amy Brune.
May the fourth be with you?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Okay, So real talk. We have investigated Penhurst quite a
few times. Strangely, we're actually going back there next weekend
or ericon. I'm just gonna be cool. It is one
of those places I feel like you have to be
very cognizant of the history, and I think that we've
gotten so much better at that in recent years. I'm
(18:39):
sure the first time I investigated there, I was completely
guilty of just kind of being like, oh, terrible things
happen here. It's super haunted. How cool. And then I
actually took the time to watch that documentary it's on
YouTube and you see what happened there and it is appalling.
So but so, just talk a little bit more, like Arin,
(19:00):
you've investigated there many times over the years. What first
brought you to Penhurst?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I think it was actually for an event the very
first time I went there, but actually many years ago,
I was working as a reporter at some newspapers in
the Philadelphia area. So maybe I went there first for
one of their Haunted House attractions, and even then, honestly,
it didn't sit right with me because this is one
(19:28):
of those locations that, look, it just has it's a
city of shame. It really is a city, and it
has such a dark legacy that it makes you angry
when you go there and you're aware of what took
place there, and the fact that it also was taking
place in my lifetime. I was ten years old when
(19:50):
it closed, so it's this recent history and it's disgusting.
But yeah, the very first time I think I went
there was for the Haunted House, and the first time
I invested get it was part of an event.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Okay, mister Barry, I went with someone named Amy Bruney.
I wasn't sure if it was one of your Ghost
Hunters Academy locations.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I never know, No, Waverley, Actually we're going to Oh yeah,
it was the very first place I ever investigated on television.
I mean, you and I investigated that on Ghost Hunters,
and and I remember, you're right, we were in a
different mindset in a way. We were excited to get
to this incredibly historic haunted location. We were It was
(20:31):
multiple nights, which is a big deal for when we
investigated something like that. But I think for us, we
were we didn't know what to expect, right, and you
and I we had we were in Philadelphia, so we
had just started investigation. This is probably a month into
us working together, that's true, So we were still sort
of getting our feet wet on you know, how we
interact with each other and what experiences we will have.
(20:54):
But I know that the activity that we had there
flipped our brains in side out because it was it
was really incredible activity. But at that point, I think
we didn't know what to do with that information.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I guess, right, I mean I think that I actually
I think I wrote about one of the experiences we
had there in the book, which was and this happened
not on the lot. Was this on the live show?
When we heard that thing in the closet?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I don't know that was it? Yeah? That was, yeah,
on the live show.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So we'll talk about that experience.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yes, So Amy and I were in the I guess
it would be the children's section wherever they said the
heart of hearing would be. And I think when we
started hearing those kind of thoughts where oh the kids were,
you know, just they had a physical disability where they
couldn't hear or they couldn't see, they were put in
here to us. I mean that was already like what
(21:47):
are you talking about? Like there are schools for the
blind and death, Like what are you doing? But we
were in that section, and I remember being on the
third or fourth floor and she and I you know,
were slowly walking through to get our bearings, and we
started asking questions and then to the left of us,
down the hallway, you could hear what sounded like a
(22:12):
footstep and a drag, so it was like step step,
like step dry and she and I looked at each
other like what the actual is that? And we were
looking down this hallway nothing was there. And then almost
instantaneously after that, we heard what sounded like clawing, like
(22:33):
scratching and clawing on wood. And at this point, I
think they it's on television, but you can go back
and watch. But she and I are like on top
of each other, were and like back to back, and
we're sort of trying to like figure out where the
sound's coming from, what's happening, And we knew that the scratching.
It was like a scratch, clawing, scratching, like trying something,
(22:54):
trying to get out of something.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
It was so incredibly loud, terrifying. It was so loud.
I can't over state howbut it was.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And also your mind starts playing tricks on you because
you hear this step dragon. I picture horror movie. I
picture like the you know, some person walking down the
thing trying to get us. So we had to make
our way toward the sound, like any good horror movie,
and we pinpointed to this room. We walk into the room.
The scratching is still going on. It's louder. We know
(23:25):
it's coming from in front of us, where a closet
door is closed.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And we we thought animal. We were like, there's an
animal there. We were about to have our faces torn
off by whatever this is.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
But and she was like, you open it.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
That's true. You were new.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I was new.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
You were new.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
And so she is standing maybe five feet away from
the door, and I'm like creeping up on the handle
like it's gonna pop out, And I take the handle
and I went and I opened it really quick and
jump back because I was a know something rabbit is
coming out of there, and that did not happen. There
was nothing in the closet. There was no signs of rodents,
(24:10):
there was no animal droppings. There did not smell of urine.
It was just a normal closet. There were no holes
in the ceiling. And I think we even used the
thermal imaging.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
I was just gonna say we double checked. We brought
the thermal. The one time I enjoyed the thermal, I
was like, oh, we can see there's an animal in here.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
There was no animal, no traces of animal, no signs
and animals trying to claw out in any section. And
we never heard it again ever and anywhere else in
that building. I mean, yes, of course it was stabited.
It could have been an animal, but we we checked
our boxes for that and it was wild.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, No, that was That was terrifying. And what's so
funny is that we were like, oh, a few, it's
a ghost.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, We're like, oh right, oh great. I mean, you know,
thinking about that experience now, I sort of wonder what
that was though. Like you talk about, you know, the
young children in cages and people being trapped and tied up.
It's like, now, when I think about that a sound.
It's no longer spooky, it's sad.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
It's heartbreaking. Yeah, someone was confined and that was their reality,
So what would they do?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
It would well, that's just it. It's like if that
I imagine at some point someone was probably locked in
that closet, like I almost think it had to have happened,
and so is I pray that that is not like
their actual consciousness still there trying to leave and instead
(25:35):
is just kind of like that imprint there, you know
what I mean. I would prefer it's just the actual
turmoil or emotion left behind, because I would hate to
think there's someone just perpetually stuck in this closet. You know.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I don't like to think as I don't like to
think in terms of children or people being stuck in places.
And yet I do wonder in facilities like that where
people were so physically and emotionally broken, like where they
were broken by other people, if there's something about that
where they are just lingering there in some form or fashion.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Well, the sad thing to think about is that, you know,
they were probably told their entire lives that they weren't
meant for anywhere else, you know, and so there, it's
so ingrained in them that they were not meant to
be in society. This is where you are because of
how you are. And so when given the choice and death, like,
(26:35):
does that mean they carry that like I'm not meant
to go anywhere but here. It's kind of like sometimes
when we investigate jails, I feel like sometimes the inmates
are like, it's this kind of you know, self imposed sentence,
like I'm supposed to be here and I can't leave,
And I would not be surprised if that's what's happening there.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
And it's some extent it was official policy too, like
as early when it opened in nineteen oh was it
by nineteen thirteen? There was already official policy about eugenics
on the books in Pinnhurst, and that not only are
you not worth anything, you're not even worth like getting
out and having a family. You need to be separated.
(27:16):
You are dehumanized, oh completely, And when it reaches that
point where you're no longer considered human, it makes it
all the easier to abuse and hurt and break these people.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Down when you watch that documentary, and so this is
what I think of when I investigate there. I see
these spaces and I mean, I haven't watched it in years,
but is permanently ingrained in my brain. I see the
faces of these people and I think of them as
I investigate there. You know, are these the people? Are
people like this who are talking to me? But it's
(27:51):
they were so coherent. They were not they were like
talking to anyone in here. They weren't like it wasn't
like they couldn't speak. It wasn't like they were emotionless,
like they were completely able to have a conversation. They
were calm. It's the weirdest thing. And you're like, why
are you there? Like it just didn't make a lot
of sense.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
No, And I think the first time I saw the
documentary was when we went back, maybe even the following
It was the following year for the live show, and
we knew we were going back there, and you know,
we had talked about the documentary and I watched it,
and I think that changed the way we investigated that
space on live television. Yeah, for sure, because we were
(28:31):
thinking about it. And if you notice we went back
to that same spot if you watched that live show,
and we were using the flashlights for communication, and we
had set three flashlights on the mantle, which was in
the room just past where we heard the scratching down
the hall from where we heard the foot dragging, and
we would set them up right like straight up, and
(28:52):
you know, live television, anything can happen, and we like
to do the hardest techniques on live televis because we're like,
you know, we don't We're going to use it. We
believe in it. We're going to see what happens and
if it works great on live television. We started having
a conversation with someone in the space who knew we
(29:13):
were there, who was answering our questions yes, no, I
don't know, on command, on live television in front of
millions of people watching. And it was because we had
humanized what was there and we genuinely wanted to have
a conversation. I actually forgot the cameras in that moment.
I forgot that we were on live television because we
(29:33):
were making such a connection, right.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And it's bizarre investigating on live television because first of all,
you're investigating the entire time, so you're just kind of
going about your business and then suddenly the camera operators
like they're coming to you, and there's this twinge where
you're like, oh, okay, now that'd be great, yeah, but
in that moment like I don't know. So the for
(29:57):
people who are not familiar, we to quite often use
this technique with flashlights, where we would line up three
flashlights in a row. The only reason we've stopped using
this technique is since Maglight introduced their new like led lights,
it just doesn't work the same anymore, and slowly but surely,
every single one of our old maglights has burned out.
(30:20):
If you want to help us with that maglight if
you're listening.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
But this episode is sponsored by Backlight bag Light.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
But so what we did is we used this flashlight
technique where we would set the flashlights to where they were.
It was very easy to turn them on and off
because you twist it so uh and people would use
one flashlight a lot, but we didn't really feel like
that was a very controlled situation. So we would use
three flashlights and we would first establish they actually wanted
to interact using the flashlights, and then when we were
(30:52):
it was clear that they could answer us, we would
have them pick which flashlight wanted to be yes, which
wanted to be no, which was like I don't know,
and this is happening on live television, and it was
like clockwork, like we were having this entire conversation through
these lights. I think we were on screen for like
a solid twenty to thirty minutes doing this, which is
(31:13):
like unheard of in these live shows. But it just
wouldn't stop. And whoever was there was able to talk
through the lights, recognize the lights. Who like, that's a
universal signal, right, everybody can speak through lights, and they
wanted to talk. They were eager to talk.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah. I remember when it was done. I think the
camera operator was not only was his shoulder killing him
at that point, but he also did not understand what
was happening. He was like, what was that? Because I
think the crew for the live show wasn't our normal crew.
It was because they were all Union.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, they were all like they were used to shooting
like football games I have TV, and they did not
know what they had signed up for.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
This guy's the eyes were big than in his head
and he was just like, what was that? How did
you guys do that? And we were like, we didn't
do anything. All we did was ask questions. Yeah, girl,
we did some crazy stuff on that day, Yeah, we did.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Like I said earlier, that was my first F bomb
on live television. Can you say an F bomb on
live TV? You hear the IFBs of every camera operator,
So we screaming in the control booths and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
There was another time. I can't remember if we were
investigating in a different section, but we had walked through
and they kept saying that the windows had giant like
screens on them, heavy screens, and so sometimes they would
you'd hear them like knock or bang, and we were
just walking through, investigating and calling out just to see
if it was there, and it was like show, like
(32:46):
the loudest sound I had ever heard, and we tried
to figure out what it was, couldn't figure it out.
Not an animal. It was like somebody had taken it
and slammed it, and we knew we weren't welcome in
that moment. We were like, we're not welcome.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
It's a location that I think every time I've been there,
it's again a sad and terrible location, but it from
a paranormal activity perspective, it seems like it always delivers
in different ways. There was one time actually I was
there with a paranormal event, and it was a group
of people in one area. I forget all of the
(33:17):
building names. I think they call it dietary. It's like
in the back of the grounds and the session was
coming to a close and people are doing an investigation
and somebody walked by me, and then standing next to
me was two of the volunteers that assist with the investigation.
Someone walks by me and they walk into another room,
(33:38):
and this is sort of the free time of the investigation.
Time winds down, It's like, okay, time to wrap it up,
move everybody to the next location. And I'm like, oh,
let me go grab the person that moved into that
next room over there, and the volunteers like, yes, someone
walked in there. Walk into this room, no one's in there,
walk into this adjacent room and there is no other exit,
(34:01):
and myself and the volunteer, like I know, we both
physically saw someone walk in here. And instead against this
pack wall was a very like distinct shadow, kind of
like hunched against the wall, and it reminded me in
that moment of the final scene of the Blair Witch Projects,
which I want to tell you all that I'm mister
(34:25):
Brave at every moment but that was a moment where
I was Nope, the f out of there.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I was like, no, yep, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Isn't that? Isn't that where when we were doing somebody
was doing the walkthrough before wherever we got there for
the live show, and they saw a gentleman that looked
like a worker.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Oh that's right, was it Chris Williams? Did she see it?
It might be because she.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Was like, I saw there's a man standing there, like
getting ready. It was like a worker. And they were like,
nobody else is back there, And she came over talking
about like, oh, yeah, there's a guy back there or
something and there, and the guy was like, no, there's
nobody back there.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, no, it does not surprise me.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
There was another time I was actually filming. It was
right before all the COVID lockdown and I was filming this.
It was a about haunted houses, but it wasn't a
paranormal show. It was about haunted house attractions. And after
a very long night of filming, everybody is very tired,
winding down, waiting to get cut for the night. Because
(35:24):
it's removed from any nearby hotels, it's definitely.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Like a cab ride.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
And I'm standing outside facing the admin building. No one
is in this building, and I'm standing next to the
like a sound guy or whatever, and we're just chatting like, yeah,
long night, like where you're gonna go. You're gonna grab
some dinner at the local pub or whatever afterwards. And
we're facing the admin building and you see this lone
(35:50):
wheelchair just cross past the threshold. Nope, And I'm like,
like you you you saw this, right, Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Should we go in?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
No?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah, And for that reason, I'm out. So that is
a wild, well, something that a lot of people just
don't know. So you and I got to explore Penhurst
during the day.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
That's right. Oh, that's right. We did a photo shoot there.
We dressed in really fancy clothes and took pictures in Penhurst. Yeah,
so as one does. Yes, you know, were a magazine.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, yeah, Actually it's on the back of one of
our magazines. It's the double duo image where it looks
like we're kind of floating. That's Penhurst. And I remember
being there during the day and of course things in
the daytime when light, when sunlight hits it, you know,
you see it in a different way. And I remember
we got to actually take the time and really stand
(36:47):
in a spot without cameras and like look, and at
times it felt really creepy and intense, and then at
times there was this weird, like destroyed, destructed beauty about it.
But then you could see what kind of life it had,
Like the beds were there, all lined up still, like
people had been in these little sections and cobby holes,
(37:08):
and you just knew what kind of like you know,
little town or life this place had exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
And I think that's important, and that's kind of I
think one of the greatest byproducts of what we do
and what you all do, is that we are kind
of realizing that history. You know, we're not pushing it aside,
we're not forgetting it existed. I love the new kind
of outlook as we investigate these places that were uber
(37:36):
respectful of what happened there. You know, we're not going in,
you know, antagonizing. We go in with deep respect and sympathy.
And I think that really not only helps us as
far as kind of gaining interaction, but I think it
helps them. They You know, you walk in as a
living person and you're showing them respect they might not
(37:57):
have ever had in life to begin with. So I
think it's important that these places are explored. I think
it's important that we learned the history that happened there
before we ever got there. And I think that you know,
regardless of how anyone feels about the paranormal field, there
are places like this that are being remembered because of us,
(38:21):
and so we have great responsibility. And that includes where
we're going tonight as well, since we're going to Waverly Hills.
So I want to thank my friends here for joining
me today, and I want to thank all of you
for this, and I hope you enjoyed it very much.
I'm Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road
(38:53):
is hosted and written by me Amy brune with additional
research by Taylor Hagerdorn and Cassandra day All. This show
is edited and produced by Rima El Kali, with supervising
producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Menke, Alex Williams,
and Matt Frederick. Haunted Road is a production of iHeartRadio
(39:13):
and Grim and Mild from Aaronmanke. Learn more about this
show over at grimanmild dot com, and for more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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