August 17, 2022 • 46 mins
Missouri State Penitentiary was decommissioned in 2004, after nearly 170 years of brutal incarceration. But the stories of harsh punishments and austere living conditions still live on in the buildings today — in the people who come to visit the prison, and in the spirits who have stayed behind, replaying their years at what is sometimes called the “bloodiest 47 acres in America,” over and over into infinity. Special Guest: Diane Kitchell
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky Listener. Discretion is advised.
From the outside, this penitentiary looked like the model of
capital punishment. Its inmates powered factories that made the prison
(00:24):
a center of industry, manufacturing goods that were shipped across
the country in a system that penal experts hailed as
a master class in efficiency and an example for other
prisons to follow. But on the inside, inmates told a
different story, one of severe punishments for infractions as minimal
as playing cards in their cells, or, in some instances,
(00:44):
for just speaking at all. Prisoners were immersed in ice
baths to which nausea inducing chemicals had been added when
they were suspected of faking illness. The beatings continued long
after the prison claimed to have phased out corporal punishment,
but when it eventually did, the alternatives were no better.
Guards shifted their disciplinary methods to psychological ones, leaning on
(01:06):
tactics like degradation, humiliation, and isolation to enforce penalties on inmates.
Many were confined to the whole the medieval style dungeon
that served as the prisons solitary confinement. Some were kept
alone in the dark for ages. In one case, a
man was kept alone in the hole for twelve long years.
It's no wonder that stories of ghosts and hauntings abound here,
(01:29):
a place that you can even visit yourself. So let's
head to Jefferson City, Missouri and visit the Bloodiest forty
seven acres in America, otherwise known as Missouri State Penitentiary.
I'm Amy Brunei and welcome to Haunted Road. Missouri State
(02:03):
Penitentiary was decommissioned in two thousand four after nearly one
hundred seventy years of brutal incarceration, but the stories of
harsh punishments and austere living conditions still live on in
the buildings today, in the people who come to visit
the prison, and in the spirits who have stayed behind,
replaying their years at what is sometimes called the Bloodiest
(02:24):
forty seven acres in America, over and over into infinity.
The first state penal institution west of the Mississippi, Missouri
State Penitentiary, opened in eighteen thirty six. It's located in
Jefferson City, today, a city of about forty thousand midway
between Kansas City and St. Louis on the Missouri River.
Jeff City, as it's known to locals, was originally intended
(02:47):
to be Missouri's capital as early back as eighteen twenty one.
According to the City of Jefferson's historical records. The town
was incorporated in eighteen twenty five, and the General Assembly
moved there in eighteen twenty six. At that time, the
town had thirty one families, a general store, a hotel,
and a few other buildings. Other cities resented Jefferson's status
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and attempted to have the capital moved, Aiming to cement
its status as Missouri's capital. Governor John Miller proposed the
city as the site for a new state penitentiary in
eighteen thirty two. This would become the Missouri State Penitentiary.
Its first inmate, Wilson Eisen, was sentenced to over two
years for stealing a watch valued at thirty nine dollars
(03:30):
about eight hundred thirty dollars today. Initially, the prison only
housed male inmates, but began incarcerating women in eighteen forty two.
Even outside the prison walls, the city has seen its
share of strife over the years. In eighteen forty nine,
a ship carrying a mixture of Mormon migrants and gold
rush hopefuls landed in Jefferson City. Some of the passengers
(03:50):
were infected with cholera, and the resulting outbreak in the
city lasted two long years. In eighteen fifty five, residents
waited to welcome the first train on the new cific
railroad line from St. Louis into Jefferson City, but it
never arrived. A bridge collapse had caused a wreck over
the Gasconade River that killed around thirty people and injured
dozens more. During the Civil War, the state Assembly voted
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to remain in the Union, but Governor Jackson refused to
recognize federal authority and also refused to send troops to
fight for the Union Army, instead raising a militia to
join the Confederate Army. In response, Union troops took over
the city After the war ended, Missouri State Penitentiary built
housing unit for commonly known as a hall, for post
Civil War criminals who spent their days quarrying stone. The
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prison eventually expanded its industrial work, manufacturing products with prison labor.
By eighty five, according to sources, it housed six shoe factories,
clothing broom and twine factories, and the largest saddletree factory
in the world. Located on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River,
Missouri State Penitentiary is a collection of buildings ringed with
(04:57):
a limestone wall two and a half feet thick in
parts as high as thirty feets hall, dotted with eleven
guard towers. The wall itself is one of the oldest
architectural structures in the city, with sections still standing today
that were built between eighteen thirty three and eighteen thirty
five before the prison opened. Although some of the buildings
were torn down when the prison was decommissioned in two
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thousand four, including the chapel and warehouses, many remain, including
multiple housing units and factories, as well as the gas chamber.
Six of the prison cells date back to the eighteen forties.
The oldest remaining building, a hall, was built in eighteen
sixty eight in the high Victorian Gothic style. The castle
like four story building has cells that overlook a central hall,
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the isolation cells where prisoners were kept in solitary confinement
or in the basement of that building. Housing Unit one,
built in nineteen o five, was the female department of
the prison. Above one of the arches leading inside was
the biblical quote, he who converteth a center from the
error of his way, shall save a soul from death.
Additional housing units were built about a decade later, and
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the prison added a gas chamber in nineteen thirty seven.
Until that point, all of the executions, and there were many,
were public hangings, with countless citizens of Jefferson City watching
the building housing The gas chamber has two viewing rooms
and two cells. Inside the white walled gas chambers, steel
execution chairs are still in place to this day. Also
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still on the property the J. S. Sullivan Saddletree Factory Building,
constructed in eighteen ninety two, Primeers Boot and Shoe Factory
originally built around eighteen eighty nine, which was burned in
the nineteen fifty four prison riots and rebuilt in the
nineteen sixties, and the hobby Craft building, completed in nineteen
sixty eight. Though the prisoners were employed in those factories,
they were still subject to harsh treatment from guards, both
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in the factories and in the prison buildings themselves. Corporal
punishment was rampant in the prisons earlier days. Inmates were
routinely flogged for offenses such as playing cards in their
cells and talking in the prisons op according to meticulous
logs from the eighteen eighties. According to an article in
the St. Louis Post Dispatch, four prisoners who had tools
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in their cells and tried to escape got the following punishment.
One half of head shaved and leg irons. Conditions were
bad even for those who weren't cop breaking the rules.
By the late eighteen hundreds, according to the Penitentiaries Historical Timeline,
it was considered one of the most efficient prisons in
the country, housing and feeding inmates for eleven cents per day.
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That's about three dollars and fifty cents in today's dollars.
By contrast, today the cost of incarceration in America is
about one eight dollars per prisoner per day. However, efficiency
in the Missouri State Penitentiary did not equal safety. Violence
persisted within the walls, both from inmates and from guards.
In one nineteen o five incident, an inmate, a guard,
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and a gatekeeper were killed and three more men were
wounded during an escape attempt in which four prisoners attempted
to use nitroglycerin to destroy the prisons iron Gates. Mistreatment
from the guards wasn't just common, it was encouraged by
prison officials. In a nineteen oh six opinion piece in
the Kentucky Post and Time, star warden Matt W. Hall
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called for hanging anyone who had committed a wilful and
deliberate murder and declared, I would amend the Constitution of
the United States and unsexed every man or woman as
soon as the fact was established that he or she
was a habitual criminal, I would let the second offense
of larceny established the fact. The prison claimed to have
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ended floggings and other corporal punishments around the turn of
the twentieth century, instead choosing to punish inmates by placing
them in the hole. The dungeon like basement isolation cells
where the worst offenders were kept, including inmates on death row.
These six foot by five foot cells were tiny and
dark and could house prisoners for a very long time.
Some inmates spent more than a decade in the whole.
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One man JB. Firebug Johnson spent twelve of his eighteen
years in the penitent jury in solitary. Convicted of robbery,
he attacked several guards and set the prisons harness shop
ablaze in eighteen eighty three, a fire which destroyed three
buildings and left four convicts severely burned. Newspapers of the
time reported that he spent his days training the cockroaches
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in his cell, as well as learning to read and
to write. Eventually, he authored a book called Buried Alive
or Eighteen Years in the Missouri Penitentiary. However, in nineteen thirteen,
prisoners told The Washington Post that not only did flogging
persist as a punishment in the institution, but that they
were subjected to being held underwater in ice bats with
a Nazia causing chemical added if they were thought to
(09:39):
be faking illness to avoid prison labor. By nineteen thirty two,
Missouri State Penitentiary held fifty two hundred inmates, the largest
inmate population in the United States. According to Atlas Obscura,
it was considered one of the most successful prisons in
the country. However, that is a far larger number of
inmates than the prison was designed to hold, another act
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that speaks to the quality of the living conditions inside
those walls. Once the gas chamber was installed in nineteen
thirty seven, it was the site of forty executions. The
first men executed in the gas chamber on March third,
nineteen thirty eight, where John Brown thirty five and William
Wright thirty two. Brown had been convicted of killing a
police officer while holding up a bar, and Wright had
(10:21):
killed an employee in a drug store robbery. At least
one prisoner executed in the gas chamber, twenty four year
old Robert West, had helped to corey the stone that
built it. One man, Claude McGee, was executed in nineteen
fifty one for a crime committed within the prison. He
had beaten a fellow inmate, John Masson, to death with
a hammer in the prison yard in nineteen forty eight.
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Only one woman was ever executed at the Missouri State Penitentiary,
Bonnie B. Hetty, who, along with Carl Austin Hall, kidnapped
and murdered a young boy. They were both executed on
December eighteenth, nineteen fifty three. Hetty would be the last
woman executed by the federal government until twenty twenty one.
The last execution at the prison of George tiny Mercer
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was done by lethal injection in nineteen eighty nine. In
nineteen fifty four, a deadly riot shook the prison. At
the time, the penitentiary held two thousand, five hundred seventy
five inmates, almost four hundred more than in nineteen thirty two,
when the prison was already considered to be deeply overcrowded.
At the time of the riot, many prisoners had grievances,
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according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, over bad food,
dirty conditions, and an unforgiving parole board. An inmate later
said that the cause of the riot was brutality, cruel
and unusual punishment by the guards, and that the clothes
they wore were raggedy clothes that didn't fit them, the
shoes they wore didn't fit them, and you were short
changed on medication. There too, inmates and EHL Lord guards
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to their cell. The overpowered them and stole their keys,
proceeding to free other inmates from their cells. According to
a history from the Missouri State Penitentiary, soon a large
group of inmates was running loose race around the compound
and emptying other cell blocks along their path. One group
of inmates entered the dining hall, smashing windows and chairs.
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In the prison shops, anything flammable was set a fire
freed inmates didn't just enact revenge on the guards and
the prison itself, but on fellow incarceories. As violence ran rampant,
one inmate in solitary confinement, thirty year old Walter Lee Donald,
was tortured and eventually killed with a sledgehammer by fellow prisoners.
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Donald was incarcerated for first degree robbery and had testified
against others. Called a stool pigeon, he had been stabbed
while in the general population and was in solitary for
his own protection. In an attempt to control the riot,
state troopers responded and opened fire on the prison from
the administration building with machine guns, killing three more inmates
and injuring nineteen others. Police forces eventually called the riot,
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during which no prisoners escaped. The damage, though was extensive.
Fire set by inmates destroyed a number of structures and
foting the prisons recreation building, vocational building, tobacco shop, license
plate factory, and dining hall, which housed the chapel and
the prison school. As Mike Lear described in his history
of the riot, the Truman Commission that studied the prison
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after the September nineteen fifty four riot used the word
deplorable repeatedly in its report on the conditions and state
of the facility. Despite the riot and the public scrutiny,
that prison then received nothing inside changed. Seven inmates were
convicted on murder charges, but all of them gave what
were believed to be coerced confessions a month later. Another
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shorter riot occurred in October of that year, during which
one inmate, year old Joseph our Coffee, was killed by
corrections officers. A new warden, E. V. Nash, was brought
in after the riot, but violence and poor conditions continued
inside the walls. Another wave of violence in nineteen sixty
four finally prompted an overhaul of the prison when an
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administrative review condemned conditions inside. A day after review, on
December eighteenth, nineteen sixty four, Nash shot himself in the
head in a house across the street from the penitentiary
after returning home from a Department of Corrections Christmas party.
A new warden and a new state Director of Corrections
were hired, who saw to it that rehabilitation programs were improved.
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Fresh food was provided, more shower rooms were constructed, and
recreation facilities including a handball cart and miniature golf course
were built for the inmates. While conditions did improve over
the years, one year in the nineteen seventies, the penitentiary
had thirteen inmate homicides. It said that overall, more than
two thousand people died inside the walls during the prisons operation.
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After operating continuously for over one hundred sixty years, the
penitentiary closed in two thousand four and inmates were moved
to the nearby Jefferson City Correctional Center. Famous inmates over
the years include political activists Emma Goldman and Kate O'Hare,
boxer Sunny Liston Bank, Robbert, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Lee Shelton,
the inspiration for the folk song stagger. Lee list And
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learned to box while incarcerated there, and his skills led
to him being granted early parole in nineteen fifty two.
Another prisoner, James Earl Ray, successfully escaped the penitentiary in
a bread truck in nineteen sixty seven. Just under a
year later, he would go on to assassinate Martin Luther
King Jr. An activist for the Socialist Party. O'Hara became
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a prison reformer after her release. She also reported that
many of the women incarcerated with her in nineteen nineteen
to nineteen twenty turned to spiritualism. In letters home, O'Hara wrote,
these poor victims of society feel that God takes no
concern for them, and they are not strong enough to
stand alone. So they find comfort for their six souls
in the belief that they're dead. Comrades and misery come
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back to care for and protect them. In the weary
hours after the lights are out. The cell house is
peopled by many ghosts, but they are all kindly, comfortable,
amiable ghosts who flit about all night on air of
mercy and love. She wasn't the only one talking about
ghosts inside the penitentiary. Even before the prison closed, guards
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and inmates alike reported paranormal activity. Jamie Rasmussen wrote about
the hauntings in her book on the Missouri State Penitentiary.
When the prison still operated, She wrote, some guards reported
hearing footsteps after all the prisoners were in their cells.
When the guard would turn to look, he would see
a shadowy figure that looked like it was wrapped in
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a blanket to keep warm. Others said Firebug Johnson still
walked the halls. One former guard who began working there
in nineteen nine, told the News Tribune about an experience
he had while working in the penitentiary. During a routine
head count, the guard said he saw an inmate with
long blonde hair and a white T shirt walk out
a door. Thinking this inmate was trying to escape, the
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guard frantically searched the grounds and a parked supply van,
but there was no sign of the man he had seen.
Then he noticed another inmate watching him. I shut the
doors and I'm like what, and he goes, you ain't
going to find that guy. I said, what are you
talking about? He said, I saw him. I said what
did he look like? And he said he had long
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blonde hair and a white T shirt. He says, wells,
we ain't got nobody in this building that looks like that.
And I was just like, whoa, You're right. It felt
like somebody had just punched me in the chest. According
to a paranormal history of the prison by Kathy Wiser Alexander,
throughout the old facilities, people have heard cell doors slamming,
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ghostly footsteps, loud banging, shadowy figures, the smell of cigarette smoke,
objects being mysteriously moved around and fast moving entities. They
also report having felt dread, a sense of sorrow, and
a feeling of being watched. According to another book about
hauntings in Missouri, one visitor saw the bloodied face of
a prisoner looking out from the third tier of cells
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and asked to leave the tour. Apparitions of prisoners and
old fashioned dress, both male and female, have been reported,
as well as sightings of orbs and even of UFOs.
There have been many accounts of a woman wearing a
long gray skirt and gray, high collared blouse in the
women's prison area. Some have claimed to have sensed the
spirits of children and dogs. At least one child was
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present at the prison for a time. According to the St.
Louis Post Dispatch, in a woman named Maddie Scott begged
a judge at her sentencing not to keep her away
from her four month old daughter. The judge allowed her
to take her child to the prison. A hall, the
oldest building on the site, is also said to be
the most haunted. Reports of activity here include visitors being
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touched or scratched by unseen hands, the feeling of someone
breathing down your neck, disembodied voices, strong smells, shadow figures
walking between cells, apparitions and electronics acting up. In the
isolation cell where Walter Lee Donald was bludgeoned to death,
Number forty eight, visitors claim to have captured an apparition
of a man, as well as having strange feelings. A
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spirit nicknamed fast Jack or occasionally Fast Harry, is said
to show up in the housing units and control room,
as well as the tunnels connecting the buildings. Though he
appears to be solid, even wearing a white lab coat
and carrying a clipboard, he's sometimes seen moving through walls.
Some believe that he once worked in the prisons medical facility,
possibly as an inmate whose job was to escort fellow
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prisoners to and from the clinic. According to tour guide
Mary Lacy, he has been seen by many people, and
the description is always that he is walking quickly down
a hallway with his back to the person. According to
Kathy Wiser Alexander's Haunted History of the Prison, at one
point a tour guide passed through the control center to
secure the outer doors, only to return just a few
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minutes later to find all the lockers had been opened.
This antic was attributed to fast Jack. It probably won't
surprise you to learn that the gas chamber is one
of the most haunted places on the grounds. Visitors report
hearing groans and cries in the spaces, as well as
women's whispers. Some claim that the ghost of Bonnie B. Hetty,
executed in nineteen fifty three, still lingers in the gas chamber.
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Hetty was notoriously talkative until the end, telling the guards
who were tightening the straps on the gas chamber chair
what was variously reported as it's all right or it
is tight and I'm not going anywhere. She also said
goodbye to the prison guards and asked, hall, are you
all right, honey. Reporters noted that the two kept on
talking to each other even after the door to the
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lethal chamber had been sealed. Paranormal investigator Dan Terry claims
to have made contact with the spirit of George tiny Mercer,
the last person to be executed in the gas chamber,
inside the space. To talk more about the hauntings at
Missouri State Pen, I have Diane Kitchell coming up next.
She has been a ghost tour guide there for years
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and it's built up quite the rapport with the spirits there.
She has some downright terrifying experiences to share, so we'll
get to those after the break. I am now joined
by Diane Kitchel, who is a ghost tour guide at
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Missouri State Penitentiary, and I have no doubt she has
no shortage of stories to tell us. So thanks for
joining us, Diane, thank you for having me. I appreciate
the APA, of course, you know so I am. I
have investigated Missouri State Penitentiary probably half a dozen times
over the years, and I have never been in there
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and not had some sort of experience. I have experienced shadows,
I have experienced banging sounds, I have experienced the sounds
of doors sliding shut off in the distance. I mean,
it's just never ending. And so you must have the
most fun job ever, the best job on the planet. Indeed,
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what would you say, is probably the paranormal report that
comes out of there more than anything else. Oh, a
lot of people get their hair touched or pulled, especially
the pretty young blondes. That happens quite a lot. Um,
we do get scratches on some people saying things out
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of the corner of their eye, good old peripheral vision.
There's not many places that I go into and I
feel scared or you know, but and I don't feel
scared at Missouri State, but I definitely do get sometimes
kind of like an anxious feeling or like always looking
over my shoulder. But also sometimes I just feel sad,
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like I just feel like sadness. And so it must
be kind of interesting. I know that during the day
you guys have historical tours and then at night you
have the ghost tours. And so when people do the
ghost tours, what kind of experiences do they have? Well,
that runs the gamut you've had, you know, everything from
thinking they herod whispering or maybe got in touch to
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seeing a full blown shadow figure. Are speakers as we
like to call them, Sometimes they sometimes they like to
lean out of the cells and just kind of check
you out and go agreet them again. You know, they
about back in that what would you say is maybe
the most compelling experience that you've had in Missouri State.
(23:29):
Somebody explained doppel gangers to me because they freaked me out.
Two years ago was the year of the doppel Ganger.
At MSP. I mean, we've we've gotten them once in
a while. We would hear something mimicking one of us,
or we would, you know, maybe once a year, once
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every year and a half, we would see a double
of someone. But two years ago it was just bananas.
One guide saw me standing at the back of her
tour texting on my cell phone, and her daughter happened
to be working the tour as well, so she texted
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her mother, who was working the gift shop, and said, wise,
Diane on this one's tour, and they go, She's not.
She's in the lobby starting her tour. That's bizarre. I
have seen them of our police officers. I think they
mimicked our police officers are security at night more often,
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and my personal theory on it was that they were
mimicking them more so because unlike a guide who is
with one tour the entire night, the security kind of
pardon the term, floats between tours and they don't have
to be at a certain place at a certain time,
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and they just freaked me out. You don't know you've
seen one until you see the real person somewhere where.
It's absolutely impossible for them to a band when you
just saw them, you know, over there. That's very strange,
because I mean, I've heard of doppelgangers and I've experienced
spirits mimicking like us, like our voices or our equipment,
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but I've not heard of it being so prevalent in
one location. It makes me wonder, like, what's happening with
the energy there or what did they discover that they
could do that made them want to do that. I mean,
that's at such an interesting and really odd report. And
not to mention that how many times did you interact
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with a doppelganger and not realize it and think you
were interacting with that person? Like those are only the
times you notice, like how long has that been going on?
There is no interaction with a doppel ganger. We have
seen enough of them to know they've always got a
very blank, flat effect. There's no facial expression. Their face
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is totally there. It's not weird looking or anything. It
looks exactly like that person. But they just you know,
show no no emotion, no anything. And they do seem
to kind of move a little bit differently. They don't walk,
you know, with that kind of up and down bob
like human beings do when they really walk. Well that
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is super creepy. Yes, So you're saying that that was
a couple of years ago was happening all the time,
but now it seems like it's not happening as often. Right,
it's died back. But you know, I do like to
tell the stories on my tours. And when you've got,
you know, well over twenty people, if not over thirty
people in your tour group, who's to say there isn't
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one sitting there listening to the tour because we don't
all know each other. We never saw each other until
them you walk through the doors. So that's really wild. Well,
I think I was there. Actually, I feel like I'm
trying to remember when we were shooting with Ghost Hunters there.
I want to I feel like it was a year ago.
I don't think it was two years ago, but I
(27:14):
don't feel like I remember hearing that. It would be funny, though,
if any of the Ghost Hunters team appeared to me
as a doppleganger, I just didn't know. Trying to imagine
I would know instantly because I know them all very well.
Doppelgangers check. That is really interesting. Now I had a
very nonpair. This is just a story. It's not paranormal,
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but it did happen to me at Missouri State and
it's a story that Adam and I tell quite often.
We were filming there, it was like, oh gosh, it
was a summer years ago, and they were doing one
kind of one of those back of the van scenes,
and Adam and I were not partaking in that conversation,
so we were just kind of standing off to the
side and we hear this huge bang in the building
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behind us, and so we're like, let's go. Like the
camera crew was busy, so we just grabbed a camera
and we went in by ourselves with the camera and
we go up the stairs and we're following this sound
and we keep getting closer and closer, and we're hearing
this like movement and I'm like, gosh, there's someone in here,
like and we get up to the top. You know.
It's like that first set of stairs that you go
in and they use that office area a lot now
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for like crafty areas and um snacks and stuff. We
go past that and there's a garbage can at the
end of the hallway. We hear this and we we
get up to it. I'm like, it sounds like it's
coming from the garbage can. And so we get to
this can and I shine my flashlight in there, and
this raccoon that was like easily as big as a
(28:41):
large dog, was not like running away. It literally jumped
out at us like it was coming for us, like
it wanted to eat our We wanted to eat our
faces off. And so Adam and I we sprinted down
that hallway, we jumped, we cleared those stairs like and
that thing followed us and then it went up into
(29:02):
the ceiling. So all night when we would go in
to get crafty in the office there there's those like tiles.
It was just staring at everyone. So whenever people ask me, like,
what's one of the scariest things that ever happened to
me on an investigation, I tell them about the raccoon
that wanted to murder us at Missouri State Penitentiary. So
(29:22):
I'm sure you've encountered those many times. But the other
thing I encountered, though, that was less murderous but scary,
was the shadow figures. And they're tall shadow figures. How
often do you see those? Well, I would thank Missouri
State Penitentiary is maybe like other haunted places, it's not
you know, like on a timeline or anything. Sometimes you're
(29:45):
in there and it's just quiet as a church and
then sometimes the activities just off the rails, but shadow figure.
I know we see them weekly for sure. Yeah, And
like you were saying, you called them peakers, and they
do that thing where they kind of like looking to
see who's on patrol or something. I mean, I'm generalizing,
I'm basing that on what I feel might be happening,
(30:06):
But like you said, you'll see them kind of look
down at you down the hallway, and um, I just
it does seem like they're kind of trying to see
who's on duty at that moment. And now, what would
you say is probably the most haunted area where people
would experience the most activity if they go visit. Oh, well,
(30:27):
like I said, it can shift anywhere, but in general,
I would say the most reports either come from the
dungeon and Housing Unit four or the three D section,
which is administrative segregation below Death Row and Housing Unit three.
(30:47):
Last time we had been there, I do feel like
they had unearthed some very old cells. Have you had
any activity around those or did anything pick up when
they have dug those out? I think it might have
picked up just a little bit when we first opened
them to the public got them all finished, But then
(31:09):
it's kinda died back down again. Maybe so, I don't know,
maybe they welcomed the new guys in and yeah, I
mean it is really strange because they're just they were
just there that whole time, and it just kind of
goes to show how far back the history goes there.
Now another area that I have a real problem with,
and I don't even think I went in there last time,
(31:31):
because the first time I went in there, I couldn't
stand it is the gas chamber, and I've distinctly heard
whispers in there, but I don't know if it's just
the energy of what went on there or what. But
do you include that in your tour? Do people get
to go in there? Oh? Yes, Oh yes, that's the
usually the last half hour of the two hour tour
(31:52):
would be going down to the gas chamber. Have you
had experiences there? I'm myself really they have not. That's
always been a very quiet place for me. Now. Wait,
I did have one, uh, not very long ago. It
was a private group and they were there were three guys,
(32:15):
two gals, and they were live casting to Facebook and
we were in the gas chamber and one man was
sitting in Carl's chair, the other man was sitting in
Bonnie's chair. Bonnie Brown Hetty and Carl Austin Hall but
were executed together, and you know, they were kind of
(32:36):
asking Carl and Bonnie related questions and I was just
standing there watching and listening. And of course these guys
were both in the chairs doing the Stes method. I
might have forgot to mention that, but they both both
had on blindfolds and the noise canceling headphones and d
S B seven's and the guy that was sitting in
(32:58):
Carl's chair just kept kind of making these faces and
he wasn't, you know, spitting out any words. And finally
he just said, well, this is me, and he said,
I'm not hearing a single syllable, but I am just
getting these waves of emotions. And so the guy next
to him that was sitting in Bonnie's chair, he'd spit
(33:19):
out a word, you know, random words, and some of
the more relevance some weren't. But I'm not that fond
of Bonnie for many reasons, and she probably knows it.
But um, he said something that was very pertinent, something
that I had just mentioned in a story to them
as I was taking them down the hill and I
(33:43):
looked at him. It just came out. I said, oh,
you bitch, because I knew who was speaking, and his
face turned towards mine. He couldn't see me. His face
turned towards me, and he says, I know you. That's
one of my favorite methods of communicating is doing that
(34:06):
the SS method, the spirit box experiment that we do
on Kindred a lot, and that's actually really fascinating to
do it in the gas chamber and have them both
go under like that. Adam and I've done that a
few times. It's always very interesting. But that's just concerting.
It's bizarre that she knows you that. Well, oh well,
we call the guys are co workers because we're in
(34:27):
there all the time, you know. We we do treat
them with respect that that people probably think I'm nuts,
But you know, when I go in there and unlock,
and I'm the first one on the property and I'm
unlocking buildings, I'll open the door and say, hey, fellas,
good evening. You know we're going to have so many
tours through or tonight and be out of your hair
(34:48):
at this time of day. And I mean that's smart
because you want to set the expectation, so they know,
because they could get more volatile if you don't, you know,
give them those expectations as you begin. And you know,
speaking of that, you said that sometimes people get scratched.
What leads to that? Why do you think certain people
get scratched there? I really don't know, because it's a mix.
(35:10):
It's it's males and female. I can't say it's one
age group or another, but it's nine percent of the
time it happens in that dungeon. Now, remind me where
the dungeons. I think I know where it is. I
think it's it's downstairs and housing at four in the
oldest building. Yes, yes, all right, I think Adam and
(35:32):
I went down there last time we were there. You
have to walk through the shower room and there's a doorway. Yeah,
that opens up into that section. Yeah, that's a real
wild area. We saw some lights down with light anomalies.
So is that something that people see often? Because I
don't think they even told us about it. I just
happened to see it. Yep. They look like little twinkly
(35:54):
Christmas lights. Yes, I've seen that one other time on
the USS Salem. But these ones, the ones I saw
down there. It was almost like a green kind of glowing.
I mean, it wasn't a firefly, clearly. It was like
this kind of like green glowing little orb or something.
And I was like, am I'm seeing things right now?
Another of the guides. Once in a while, when we
(36:15):
go down there, it's a dernist thing. And I've even
talked to eye doctors trying to, you know, figure out
the physiology of the eyeball or something. But we will
go down there and and shut out the light, you know,
pitch black, but we will start seeing this red glow
and we can't figure out where it's coming from or
what's causing it. That's bizarre. I haven't experienced that either.
(36:38):
I feel like the energy at Missouri State is just
so different, like than what you would experience at most places,
and you can feel that when you're there. Now, wasn't
it recently struck by a tornado? Yes? May, it was
actually the eighth anniversary of the Joplin, Missouri tornado, which
was horrible and devastating. But yeah, took off the back
(37:00):
third of the roof of housing unit for which we
now finally, thankfully have gotten replaced. And she's undercover again
and everybody's happy. I remember that area being really wild too,
because you can stand up on the top and just
kind of look down over the entire space, and it's
a really great vantage point as an investigator if you're
(37:21):
looking for movement or a great spot to put up camera.
So have you been able to reopen it now for
tours because it wasn't open when we were there filming
last We're open on the flag walk, which is the
main walk, and then down to the shower room and
the dungeon cells, but the upper, second, third, and fourth
tears we do not have open yet. We've got to
(37:44):
do quite a lot of clean up up there yet.
We'll we'll get it done. But it's it's the process.
It's a testament to you guys, because I know people
work so hard that you have so many wonderful volunteers,
and I love that so many of the people involved
are former employees of the building or or former former
correctional officers, and it really just kind of goes to
(38:07):
show like the level of love and that everyone has
for the history there, which I think is very important
that people know about when the tornado happened. Did you
think that that kind of did anything activity or energy
wise to the buildings. We kind of wondered. We went, oh,
it was within two or three days I know, of
the tornado happening. It was of course lockdown. Nobody was
(38:30):
going in and we were just, of course devastated. You
just fold our rug out from underneath us, and so
a couple of us went to the front steps we
could access those and took a SB seven and we
were asking that, are you guys okay, everybody's still here.
(38:52):
We're sorry, we can't get in there. We're going to
get you know, get in there as soon as we can.
Is everybody okay? And one thing that came with so
it's very clear it said windy. With that in mind,
like the way that you talk to them, in your experience,
in your opinion, why do you think these spirits are
remaining there? Of all places? I get asked that on
(39:16):
the tours, and it's like people don't think about it.
When you think of a penitentiary, you think, oh, bad place,
don't want to go there. But one of our famous inmates,
Sunny Liston, used to chastise other inmates when he would
hear them, you know, complaining about the situation or their
conditions or all this stuff, And he said, you guys
(39:37):
have absolutely nothing to complain about. You have clothes, you
have shoes, you have a bed to sleep in, you
get meals, you have a job, you have a roof
over your head. No, and I think this place was
just the best home some of these men ever had.
That makes me sad. Yeah, I have her still worries
(40:00):
of you know, when people leave or released that there's
just such this kind of routine and semblance of normalcies.
What happens when eventually, as they're in there for years,
and like you said, some of them just come from
very broken situations and then they're just released into the world,
and you know, there is not that routine to guide
(40:23):
them anymore. There are repeat offenders that that get out
and do something just to get back in because they
cannot hand a little the outside. Yeah, I mean I
never thought of it that way. I've also I've always
wondered too if there were some people that just kind
of had this self imposed sentence, like they just felt
as though they hadn't completed their time. And I think
(40:46):
that's true because you know, we're using the voice box
or whatever apparatus to get them to speak to us sometimes. Uh,
that really makes me sad to when you get into
one of those little conversations with them and it's like, no,
you know, I can't, I did this, or I hurt
somebody or something like. You know. Well, I tell people
(41:06):
all the time when they investigate prisons, in particular, I
tell them to cast their judgment aside, because you don't
know who you're talking to. You don't know how they
got there, why they are there, some of the reasons
people were incarcerated, you know, especially way back when we're
not things you would be incarcerated for now. You know,
we're talking about like, you know, owing two or three
(41:27):
dollars in taxes or something, you know, and so you
don't know who you're talking to, how they ended up there,
why they're there. So I always tell them to start
their investigations in prisons from a place of compassion and kindness.
I'm telling about you know, what do they like to eat?
How do they like their steak? Cook, do they like broccoli? Whatever?
Other stuff like that. Do not go into a penitentiary
(41:50):
to investigate and say what do you do to get
in here? That's none of your business, and you'd have
been punched in the face at the very least, if
you were in a reopened a tentury and walked up
to somebody and asked that you don't do that. No,
that's very true, you know, and that's great insight for
people who do who do want to investigate those places.
(42:11):
I mean, now, if something comes at me and pushes
me or something, now that's a different story. And you know,
my mom amy voice is going to come out. I
had to come out Friday night. Oh what happened? Well,
it was really interesting. We had about a dozen people.
It was a private tour, and myself and another guide.
(42:31):
He suggested we take them down the creepy down three D.
So we go down there and just get to the
bottom of the steps and we're sitting in the window sills,
and he had everybody turn out all their lights, you know,
just any bare minimum of ambient light that came through.
It's pretty dark. Yeah, but in that darkness I could
see in my peripheral vision, I could see three or
(42:54):
four figures, shadow figures moving between me and the door.
And then I said, you know, one got a little close,
and I said, okay, And then a man that was
standing not far from me. He said, are you saying
shadows over there? I said yes, thank you, okay, validation.
It was like I could see their feet and it
was like at my two o'clock position, and I was like,
(43:16):
that is so close enough. I said, you stop right there.
You do not have permission to mess with me. I
will not tolerate it. You need to back up. Well,
you got to talk to them like there's someone in
front of you invading your personal space, you know, like
a live person. Do you have to create those boundaries?
So well, I think you've given some great advice to
investigators today. Now, if people want to visit Missouri State
(43:40):
investigate support it. What do they need to do? They
need to go to the website Missouri pen tours dot
com all spelled out and click on the tours. We
have history tours during the day, we have the ghost
tours in the evenings, and uh, we'd love to have you.
We've had people worldwide and we love meeting new people
(44:03):
and introducing them to our favorite place. Well, I really
appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. And
as I've said to everyone, please go support this wonderful place.
It's a really important piece of history, and it just
happens to be amazingly haunted as well. So thank you
so much, Diane. I appreciate it. Thank you, am I
(44:24):
appreciate it. Of course, I've probably investigated Missouri State Penitentiary
half a dozen times at this point. It never disappoints
when it comes to activity, but I've definitely moved from
(44:45):
viewing it as a place to get scared and more
of a place to interact with the spirits with a
goal in mind. That goal to find out who they are, specifically,
why they're there, and what, if anything, we can do
for them. It's an important place historically and paranormal wise,
and something tells me that in the spirit world those
seemingly quiet cellblocks are just as busy and bustling as
(45:08):
they were when it was an operation. I highly recommend
seeing it for yourself, and I won't even judge you
if you choose to do a daytime tour instead of
visiting after the sun goes down. I'm Amy Bruney and
this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is a production of
(45:43):
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mank.
Haunted Road is hosted and written by me Amy Bruney,
additional research by Taylor Haggerdorn. The show is edited and
produced by rema El Kali and supervising producer Josh Thing,
and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
(46:05):
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. H
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky Listener. Discretion is advised.
From the outside, this penitentiary looked like the model of
capital punishment. Its inmates powered factories that made the prison
(00:24):
a center of industry, manufacturing goods that were shipped across
the country in a system that penal experts hailed as
a master class in efficiency and an example for other
prisons to follow. But on the inside, inmates told a
different story, one of severe punishments for infractions as minimal
as playing cards in their cells, or, in some instances,
(00:44):
for just speaking at all. Prisoners were immersed in ice
baths to which nausea inducing chemicals had been added when
they were suspected of faking illness. The beatings continued long
after the prison claimed to have phased out corporal punishment,
but when it eventually did, the alternatives were no better.
Guards shifted their disciplinary methods to psychological ones, leaning on
(01:06):
tactics like degradation, humiliation, and isolation to enforce penalties on inmates.
Many were confined to the whole the medieval style dungeon
that served as the prisons solitary confinement. Some were kept
alone in the dark for ages. In one case, a
man was kept alone in the hole for twelve long years.
It's no wonder that stories of ghosts and hauntings abound here,
(01:29):
a place that you can even visit yourself. So let's
head to Jefferson City, Missouri and visit the Bloodiest forty
seven acres in America, otherwise known as Missouri State Penitentiary.
I'm Amy Brunei and welcome to Haunted Road. Missouri State
(02:03):
Penitentiary was decommissioned in two thousand four after nearly one
hundred seventy years of brutal incarceration, but the stories of
harsh punishments and austere living conditions still live on in
the buildings today, in the people who come to visit
the prison, and in the spirits who have stayed behind,
replaying their years at what is sometimes called the Bloodiest
(02:24):
forty seven acres in America, over and over into infinity.
The first state penal institution west of the Mississippi, Missouri
State Penitentiary, opened in eighteen thirty six. It's located in
Jefferson City, today, a city of about forty thousand midway
between Kansas City and St. Louis on the Missouri River.
Jeff City, as it's known to locals, was originally intended
(02:47):
to be Missouri's capital as early back as eighteen twenty one.
According to the City of Jefferson's historical records. The town
was incorporated in eighteen twenty five, and the General Assembly
moved there in eighteen twenty six. At that time, the
town had thirty one families, a general store, a hotel,
and a few other buildings. Other cities resented Jefferson's status
(03:08):
and attempted to have the capital moved, Aiming to cement
its status as Missouri's capital. Governor John Miller proposed the
city as the site for a new state penitentiary in
eighteen thirty two. This would become the Missouri State Penitentiary.
Its first inmate, Wilson Eisen, was sentenced to over two
years for stealing a watch valued at thirty nine dollars
(03:30):
about eight hundred thirty dollars today. Initially, the prison only
housed male inmates, but began incarcerating women in eighteen forty two.
Even outside the prison walls, the city has seen its
share of strife over the years. In eighteen forty nine,
a ship carrying a mixture of Mormon migrants and gold
rush hopefuls landed in Jefferson City. Some of the passengers
(03:50):
were infected with cholera, and the resulting outbreak in the
city lasted two long years. In eighteen fifty five, residents
waited to welcome the first train on the new cific
railroad line from St. Louis into Jefferson City, but it
never arrived. A bridge collapse had caused a wreck over
the Gasconade River that killed around thirty people and injured
dozens more. During the Civil War, the state Assembly voted
(04:13):
to remain in the Union, but Governor Jackson refused to
recognize federal authority and also refused to send troops to
fight for the Union Army, instead raising a militia to
join the Confederate Army. In response, Union troops took over
the city After the war ended, Missouri State Penitentiary built
housing unit for commonly known as a hall, for post
Civil War criminals who spent their days quarrying stone. The
(04:36):
prison eventually expanded its industrial work, manufacturing products with prison labor.
By eighty five, according to sources, it housed six shoe factories,
clothing broom and twine factories, and the largest saddletree factory
in the world. Located on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River,
Missouri State Penitentiary is a collection of buildings ringed with
(04:57):
a limestone wall two and a half feet thick in
parts as high as thirty feets hall, dotted with eleven
guard towers. The wall itself is one of the oldest
architectural structures in the city, with sections still standing today
that were built between eighteen thirty three and eighteen thirty
five before the prison opened. Although some of the buildings
were torn down when the prison was decommissioned in two
(05:19):
thousand four, including the chapel and warehouses, many remain, including
multiple housing units and factories, as well as the gas chamber.
Six of the prison cells date back to the eighteen forties.
The oldest remaining building, a hall, was built in eighteen
sixty eight in the high Victorian Gothic style. The castle
like four story building has cells that overlook a central hall,
(05:41):
the isolation cells where prisoners were kept in solitary confinement
or in the basement of that building. Housing Unit one,
built in nineteen o five, was the female department of
the prison. Above one of the arches leading inside was
the biblical quote, he who converteth a center from the
error of his way, shall save a soul from death.
Additional housing units were built about a decade later, and
(06:03):
the prison added a gas chamber in nineteen thirty seven.
Until that point, all of the executions, and there were many,
were public hangings, with countless citizens of Jefferson City watching
the building housing The gas chamber has two viewing rooms
and two cells. Inside the white walled gas chambers, steel
execution chairs are still in place to this day. Also
(06:24):
still on the property the J. S. Sullivan Saddletree Factory Building,
constructed in eighteen ninety two, Primeers Boot and Shoe Factory
originally built around eighteen eighty nine, which was burned in
the nineteen fifty four prison riots and rebuilt in the
nineteen sixties, and the hobby Craft building, completed in nineteen
sixty eight. Though the prisoners were employed in those factories,
they were still subject to harsh treatment from guards, both
(06:47):
in the factories and in the prison buildings themselves. Corporal
punishment was rampant in the prisons earlier days. Inmates were
routinely flogged for offenses such as playing cards in their
cells and talking in the prisons op according to meticulous
logs from the eighteen eighties. According to an article in
the St. Louis Post Dispatch, four prisoners who had tools
(07:08):
in their cells and tried to escape got the following punishment.
One half of head shaved and leg irons. Conditions were
bad even for those who weren't cop breaking the rules.
By the late eighteen hundreds, according to the Penitentiaries Historical Timeline,
it was considered one of the most efficient prisons in
the country, housing and feeding inmates for eleven cents per day.
(07:29):
That's about three dollars and fifty cents in today's dollars.
By contrast, today the cost of incarceration in America is
about one eight dollars per prisoner per day. However, efficiency
in the Missouri State Penitentiary did not equal safety. Violence
persisted within the walls, both from inmates and from guards.
In one nineteen o five incident, an inmate, a guard,
(07:50):
and a gatekeeper were killed and three more men were
wounded during an escape attempt in which four prisoners attempted
to use nitroglycerin to destroy the prisons iron Gates. Mistreatment
from the guards wasn't just common, it was encouraged by
prison officials. In a nineteen oh six opinion piece in
the Kentucky Post and Time, star warden Matt W. Hall
(08:11):
called for hanging anyone who had committed a wilful and
deliberate murder and declared, I would amend the Constitution of
the United States and unsexed every man or woman as
soon as the fact was established that he or she
was a habitual criminal, I would let the second offense
of larceny established the fact. The prison claimed to have
(08:32):
ended floggings and other corporal punishments around the turn of
the twentieth century, instead choosing to punish inmates by placing
them in the hole. The dungeon like basement isolation cells
where the worst offenders were kept, including inmates on death row.
These six foot by five foot cells were tiny and
dark and could house prisoners for a very long time.
Some inmates spent more than a decade in the whole.
(08:55):
One man JB. Firebug Johnson spent twelve of his eighteen
years in the penitent jury in solitary. Convicted of robbery,
he attacked several guards and set the prisons harness shop
ablaze in eighteen eighty three, a fire which destroyed three
buildings and left four convicts severely burned. Newspapers of the
time reported that he spent his days training the cockroaches
(09:16):
in his cell, as well as learning to read and
to write. Eventually, he authored a book called Buried Alive
or Eighteen Years in the Missouri Penitentiary. However, in nineteen thirteen,
prisoners told The Washington Post that not only did flogging
persist as a punishment in the institution, but that they
were subjected to being held underwater in ice bats with
a Nazia causing chemical added if they were thought to
(09:39):
be faking illness to avoid prison labor. By nineteen thirty two,
Missouri State Penitentiary held fifty two hundred inmates, the largest
inmate population in the United States. According to Atlas Obscura,
it was considered one of the most successful prisons in
the country. However, that is a far larger number of
inmates than the prison was designed to hold, another act
(10:00):
that speaks to the quality of the living conditions inside
those walls. Once the gas chamber was installed in nineteen
thirty seven, it was the site of forty executions. The
first men executed in the gas chamber on March third,
nineteen thirty eight, where John Brown thirty five and William
Wright thirty two. Brown had been convicted of killing a
police officer while holding up a bar, and Wright had
(10:21):
killed an employee in a drug store robbery. At least
one prisoner executed in the gas chamber, twenty four year
old Robert West, had helped to corey the stone that
built it. One man, Claude McGee, was executed in nineteen
fifty one for a crime committed within the prison. He
had beaten a fellow inmate, John Masson, to death with
a hammer in the prison yard in nineteen forty eight.
(10:42):
Only one woman was ever executed at the Missouri State Penitentiary,
Bonnie B. Hetty, who, along with Carl Austin Hall, kidnapped
and murdered a young boy. They were both executed on
December eighteenth, nineteen fifty three. Hetty would be the last
woman executed by the federal government until twenty twenty one.
The last execution at the prison of George tiny Mercer
(11:04):
was done by lethal injection in nineteen eighty nine. In
nineteen fifty four, a deadly riot shook the prison. At
the time, the penitentiary held two thousand, five hundred seventy
five inmates, almost four hundred more than in nineteen thirty two,
when the prison was already considered to be deeply overcrowded.
At the time of the riot, many prisoners had grievances,
(11:25):
according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, over bad food,
dirty conditions, and an unforgiving parole board. An inmate later
said that the cause of the riot was brutality, cruel
and unusual punishment by the guards, and that the clothes
they wore were raggedy clothes that didn't fit them, the
shoes they wore didn't fit them, and you were short
changed on medication. There too, inmates and EHL Lord guards
(11:47):
to their cell. The overpowered them and stole their keys,
proceeding to free other inmates from their cells. According to
a history from the Missouri State Penitentiary, soon a large
group of inmates was running loose race around the compound
and emptying other cell blocks along their path. One group
of inmates entered the dining hall, smashing windows and chairs.
(12:08):
In the prison shops, anything flammable was set a fire
freed inmates didn't just enact revenge on the guards and
the prison itself, but on fellow incarceories. As violence ran rampant,
one inmate in solitary confinement, thirty year old Walter Lee Donald,
was tortured and eventually killed with a sledgehammer by fellow prisoners.
(12:28):
Donald was incarcerated for first degree robbery and had testified
against others. Called a stool pigeon, he had been stabbed
while in the general population and was in solitary for
his own protection. In an attempt to control the riot,
state troopers responded and opened fire on the prison from
the administration building with machine guns, killing three more inmates
and injuring nineteen others. Police forces eventually called the riot,
(12:52):
during which no prisoners escaped. The damage, though was extensive.
Fire set by inmates destroyed a number of structures and
foting the prisons recreation building, vocational building, tobacco shop, license
plate factory, and dining hall, which housed the chapel and
the prison school. As Mike Lear described in his history
of the riot, the Truman Commission that studied the prison
(13:13):
after the September nineteen fifty four riot used the word
deplorable repeatedly in its report on the conditions and state
of the facility. Despite the riot and the public scrutiny,
that prison then received nothing inside changed. Seven inmates were
convicted on murder charges, but all of them gave what
were believed to be coerced confessions a month later. Another
(13:35):
shorter riot occurred in October of that year, during which
one inmate, year old Joseph our Coffee, was killed by
corrections officers. A new warden, E. V. Nash, was brought
in after the riot, but violence and poor conditions continued
inside the walls. Another wave of violence in nineteen sixty
four finally prompted an overhaul of the prison when an
(13:55):
administrative review condemned conditions inside. A day after review, on
December eighteenth, nineteen sixty four, Nash shot himself in the
head in a house across the street from the penitentiary
after returning home from a Department of Corrections Christmas party.
A new warden and a new state Director of Corrections
were hired, who saw to it that rehabilitation programs were improved.
(14:17):
Fresh food was provided, more shower rooms were constructed, and
recreation facilities including a handball cart and miniature golf course
were built for the inmates. While conditions did improve over
the years, one year in the nineteen seventies, the penitentiary
had thirteen inmate homicides. It said that overall, more than
two thousand people died inside the walls during the prisons operation.
(14:40):
After operating continuously for over one hundred sixty years, the
penitentiary closed in two thousand four and inmates were moved
to the nearby Jefferson City Correctional Center. Famous inmates over
the years include political activists Emma Goldman and Kate O'Hare,
boxer Sunny Liston Bank, Robbert, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Lee Shelton,
the inspiration for the folk song stagger. Lee list And
(15:02):
learned to box while incarcerated there, and his skills led
to him being granted early parole in nineteen fifty two.
Another prisoner, James Earl Ray, successfully escaped the penitentiary in
a bread truck in nineteen sixty seven. Just under a
year later, he would go on to assassinate Martin Luther
King Jr. An activist for the Socialist Party. O'Hara became
(15:24):
a prison reformer after her release. She also reported that
many of the women incarcerated with her in nineteen nineteen
to nineteen twenty turned to spiritualism. In letters home, O'Hara wrote,
these poor victims of society feel that God takes no
concern for them, and they are not strong enough to
stand alone. So they find comfort for their six souls
in the belief that they're dead. Comrades and misery come
(15:47):
back to care for and protect them. In the weary
hours after the lights are out. The cell house is
peopled by many ghosts, but they are all kindly, comfortable,
amiable ghosts who flit about all night on air of
mercy and love. She wasn't the only one talking about
ghosts inside the penitentiary. Even before the prison closed, guards
(16:10):
and inmates alike reported paranormal activity. Jamie Rasmussen wrote about
the hauntings in her book on the Missouri State Penitentiary.
When the prison still operated, She wrote, some guards reported
hearing footsteps after all the prisoners were in their cells.
When the guard would turn to look, he would see
a shadowy figure that looked like it was wrapped in
(16:30):
a blanket to keep warm. Others said Firebug Johnson still
walked the halls. One former guard who began working there
in nineteen nine, told the News Tribune about an experience
he had while working in the penitentiary. During a routine
head count, the guard said he saw an inmate with
long blonde hair and a white T shirt walk out
a door. Thinking this inmate was trying to escape, the
(16:51):
guard frantically searched the grounds and a parked supply van,
but there was no sign of the man he had seen.
Then he noticed another inmate watching him. I shut the
doors and I'm like what, and he goes, you ain't
going to find that guy. I said, what are you
talking about? He said, I saw him. I said what
did he look like? And he said he had long
(17:12):
blonde hair and a white T shirt. He says, wells,
we ain't got nobody in this building that looks like that.
And I was just like, whoa, You're right. It felt
like somebody had just punched me in the chest. According
to a paranormal history of the prison by Kathy Wiser Alexander,
throughout the old facilities, people have heard cell doors slamming,
(17:33):
ghostly footsteps, loud banging, shadowy figures, the smell of cigarette smoke,
objects being mysteriously moved around and fast moving entities. They
also report having felt dread, a sense of sorrow, and
a feeling of being watched. According to another book about
hauntings in Missouri, one visitor saw the bloodied face of
a prisoner looking out from the third tier of cells
(17:55):
and asked to leave the tour. Apparitions of prisoners and
old fashioned dress, both male and female, have been reported,
as well as sightings of orbs and even of UFOs.
There have been many accounts of a woman wearing a
long gray skirt and gray, high collared blouse in the
women's prison area. Some have claimed to have sensed the
spirits of children and dogs. At least one child was
(18:17):
present at the prison for a time. According to the St.
Louis Post Dispatch, in a woman named Maddie Scott begged
a judge at her sentencing not to keep her away
from her four month old daughter. The judge allowed her
to take her child to the prison. A hall, the
oldest building on the site, is also said to be
the most haunted. Reports of activity here include visitors being
(18:39):
touched or scratched by unseen hands, the feeling of someone
breathing down your neck, disembodied voices, strong smells, shadow figures
walking between cells, apparitions and electronics acting up. In the
isolation cell where Walter Lee Donald was bludgeoned to death,
Number forty eight, visitors claim to have captured an apparition
of a man, as well as having strange feelings. A
(19:02):
spirit nicknamed fast Jack or occasionally Fast Harry, is said
to show up in the housing units and control room,
as well as the tunnels connecting the buildings. Though he
appears to be solid, even wearing a white lab coat
and carrying a clipboard, he's sometimes seen moving through walls.
Some believe that he once worked in the prisons medical facility,
possibly as an inmate whose job was to escort fellow
(19:25):
prisoners to and from the clinic. According to tour guide
Mary Lacy, he has been seen by many people, and
the description is always that he is walking quickly down
a hallway with his back to the person. According to
Kathy Wiser Alexander's Haunted History of the Prison, at one
point a tour guide passed through the control center to
secure the outer doors, only to return just a few
(19:46):
minutes later to find all the lockers had been opened.
This antic was attributed to fast Jack. It probably won't
surprise you to learn that the gas chamber is one
of the most haunted places on the grounds. Visitors report
hearing groans and cries in the spaces, as well as
women's whispers. Some claim that the ghost of Bonnie B. Hetty,
executed in nineteen fifty three, still lingers in the gas chamber.
(20:09):
Hetty was notoriously talkative until the end, telling the guards
who were tightening the straps on the gas chamber chair
what was variously reported as it's all right or it
is tight and I'm not going anywhere. She also said
goodbye to the prison guards and asked, hall, are you
all right, honey. Reporters noted that the two kept on
talking to each other even after the door to the
(20:31):
lethal chamber had been sealed. Paranormal investigator Dan Terry claims
to have made contact with the spirit of George tiny Mercer,
the last person to be executed in the gas chamber,
inside the space. To talk more about the hauntings at
Missouri State Pen, I have Diane Kitchell coming up next.
She has been a ghost tour guide there for years
(20:52):
and it's built up quite the rapport with the spirits there.
She has some downright terrifying experiences to share, so we'll
get to those after the break. I am now joined
by Diane Kitchel, who is a ghost tour guide at
(21:16):
Missouri State Penitentiary, and I have no doubt she has
no shortage of stories to tell us. So thanks for
joining us, Diane, thank you for having me. I appreciate
the APA, of course, you know so I am. I
have investigated Missouri State Penitentiary probably half a dozen times
over the years, and I have never been in there
(21:40):
and not had some sort of experience. I have experienced shadows,
I have experienced banging sounds, I have experienced the sounds
of doors sliding shut off in the distance. I mean,
it's just never ending. And so you must have the
most fun job ever, the best job on the planet. Indeed,
(22:02):
what would you say, is probably the paranormal report that
comes out of there more than anything else. Oh, a
lot of people get their hair touched or pulled, especially
the pretty young blondes. That happens quite a lot. Um,
we do get scratches on some people saying things out
(22:24):
of the corner of their eye, good old peripheral vision.
There's not many places that I go into and I
feel scared or you know, but and I don't feel
scared at Missouri State, but I definitely do get sometimes
kind of like an anxious feeling or like always looking
over my shoulder. But also sometimes I just feel sad,
(22:44):
like I just feel like sadness. And so it must
be kind of interesting. I know that during the day
you guys have historical tours and then at night you
have the ghost tours. And so when people do the
ghost tours, what kind of experiences do they have? Well,
that runs the gamut you've had, you know, everything from
thinking they herod whispering or maybe got in touch to
(23:06):
seeing a full blown shadow figure. Are speakers as we
like to call them, Sometimes they sometimes they like to
lean out of the cells and just kind of check
you out and go agreet them again. You know, they
about back in that what would you say is maybe
the most compelling experience that you've had in Missouri State.
(23:29):
Somebody explained doppel gangers to me because they freaked me out.
Two years ago was the year of the doppel Ganger.
At MSP. I mean, we've we've gotten them once in
a while. We would hear something mimicking one of us,
or we would, you know, maybe once a year, once
(23:51):
every year and a half, we would see a double
of someone. But two years ago it was just bananas.
One guide saw me standing at the back of her
tour texting on my cell phone, and her daughter happened
to be working the tour as well, so she texted
(24:13):
her mother, who was working the gift shop, and said, wise,
Diane on this one's tour, and they go, She's not.
She's in the lobby starting her tour. That's bizarre. I
have seen them of our police officers. I think they
mimicked our police officers are security at night more often,
(24:34):
and my personal theory on it was that they were
mimicking them more so because unlike a guide who is
with one tour the entire night, the security kind of
pardon the term, floats between tours and they don't have
to be at a certain place at a certain time,
(24:56):
and they just freaked me out. You don't know you've
seen one until you see the real person somewhere where.
It's absolutely impossible for them to a band when you
just saw them, you know, over there. That's very strange,
because I mean, I've heard of doppelgangers and I've experienced
spirits mimicking like us, like our voices or our equipment,
(25:20):
but I've not heard of it being so prevalent in
one location. It makes me wonder, like, what's happening with
the energy there or what did they discover that they
could do that made them want to do that. I mean,
that's at such an interesting and really odd report. And
not to mention that how many times did you interact
(25:45):
with a doppelganger and not realize it and think you
were interacting with that person? Like those are only the
times you notice, like how long has that been going on?
There is no interaction with a doppel ganger. We have
seen enough of them to know they've always got a
very blank, flat effect. There's no facial expression. Their face
(26:09):
is totally there. It's not weird looking or anything. It
looks exactly like that person. But they just you know,
show no no emotion, no anything. And they do seem
to kind of move a little bit differently. They don't walk,
you know, with that kind of up and down bob
like human beings do when they really walk. Well that
(26:30):
is super creepy. Yes, So you're saying that that was
a couple of years ago was happening all the time,
but now it seems like it's not happening as often. Right,
it's died back. But you know, I do like to
tell the stories on my tours. And when you've got,
you know, well over twenty people, if not over thirty
people in your tour group, who's to say there isn't
(26:53):
one sitting there listening to the tour because we don't
all know each other. We never saw each other until
them you walk through the doors. So that's really wild. Well,
I think I was there. Actually, I feel like I'm
trying to remember when we were shooting with Ghost Hunters there.
I want to I feel like it was a year ago.
I don't think it was two years ago, but I
(27:14):
don't feel like I remember hearing that. It would be funny, though,
if any of the Ghost Hunters team appeared to me
as a doppleganger, I just didn't know. Trying to imagine
I would know instantly because I know them all very well.
Doppelgangers check. That is really interesting. Now I had a
very nonpair. This is just a story. It's not paranormal,
(27:34):
but it did happen to me at Missouri State and
it's a story that Adam and I tell quite often.
We were filming there, it was like, oh gosh, it
was a summer years ago, and they were doing one
kind of one of those back of the van scenes,
and Adam and I were not partaking in that conversation,
so we were just kind of standing off to the
side and we hear this huge bang in the building
(27:57):
behind us, and so we're like, let's go. Like the
camera crew was busy, so we just grabbed a camera
and we went in by ourselves with the camera and
we go up the stairs and we're following this sound
and we keep getting closer and closer, and we're hearing
this like movement and I'm like, gosh, there's someone in here,
like and we get up to the top. You know.
It's like that first set of stairs that you go
in and they use that office area a lot now
(28:19):
for like crafty areas and um snacks and stuff. We
go past that and there's a garbage can at the
end of the hallway. We hear this and we we
get up to it. I'm like, it sounds like it's
coming from the garbage can. And so we get to
this can and I shine my flashlight in there, and
this raccoon that was like easily as big as a
(28:41):
large dog, was not like running away. It literally jumped
out at us like it was coming for us, like
it wanted to eat our We wanted to eat our
faces off. And so Adam and I we sprinted down
that hallway, we jumped, we cleared those stairs like and
that thing followed us and then it went up into
(29:02):
the ceiling. So all night when we would go in
to get crafty in the office there there's those like tiles.
It was just staring at everyone. So whenever people ask me, like,
what's one of the scariest things that ever happened to
me on an investigation, I tell them about the raccoon
that wanted to murder us at Missouri State Penitentiary. So
(29:22):
I'm sure you've encountered those many times. But the other
thing I encountered, though, that was less murderous but scary,
was the shadow figures. And they're tall shadow figures. How
often do you see those? Well, I would thank Missouri
State Penitentiary is maybe like other haunted places, it's not
you know, like on a timeline or anything. Sometimes you're
(29:45):
in there and it's just quiet as a church and
then sometimes the activities just off the rails, but shadow figure.
I know we see them weekly for sure. Yeah, And
like you were saying, you called them peakers, and they
do that thing where they kind of like looking to
see who's on patrol or something. I mean, I'm generalizing,
I'm basing that on what I feel might be happening,
(30:06):
But like you said, you'll see them kind of look
down at you down the hallway, and um, I just
it does seem like they're kind of trying to see
who's on duty at that moment. And now, what would
you say is probably the most haunted area where people
would experience the most activity if they go visit. Oh, well,
(30:27):
like I said, it can shift anywhere, but in general,
I would say the most reports either come from the
dungeon and Housing Unit four or the three D section,
which is administrative segregation below Death Row and Housing Unit three.
(30:47):
Last time we had been there, I do feel like
they had unearthed some very old cells. Have you had
any activity around those or did anything pick up when
they have dug those out? I think it might have
picked up just a little bit when we first opened
them to the public got them all finished, But then
(31:09):
it's kinda died back down again. Maybe so, I don't know,
maybe they welcomed the new guys in and yeah, I
mean it is really strange because they're just they were
just there that whole time, and it just kind of
goes to show how far back the history goes there.
Now another area that I have a real problem with,
and I don't even think I went in there last time,
(31:31):
because the first time I went in there, I couldn't
stand it is the gas chamber, and I've distinctly heard
whispers in there, but I don't know if it's just
the energy of what went on there or what. But
do you include that in your tour? Do people get
to go in there? Oh? Yes, Oh yes, that's the
usually the last half hour of the two hour tour
(31:52):
would be going down to the gas chamber. Have you
had experiences there? I'm myself really they have not. That's
always been a very quiet place for me. Now. Wait,
I did have one, uh, not very long ago. It
was a private group and they were there were three guys,
(32:15):
two gals, and they were live casting to Facebook and
we were in the gas chamber and one man was
sitting in Carl's chair, the other man was sitting in
Bonnie's chair. Bonnie Brown Hetty and Carl Austin Hall but
were executed together, and you know, they were kind of
(32:36):
asking Carl and Bonnie related questions and I was just
standing there watching and listening. And of course these guys
were both in the chairs doing the Stes method. I
might have forgot to mention that, but they both both
had on blindfolds and the noise canceling headphones and d
S B seven's and the guy that was sitting in
(32:58):
Carl's chair just kept kind of making these faces and
he wasn't, you know, spitting out any words. And finally
he just said, well, this is me, and he said,
I'm not hearing a single syllable, but I am just
getting these waves of emotions. And so the guy next
to him that was sitting in Bonnie's chair, he'd spit
(33:19):
out a word, you know, random words, and some of
the more relevance some weren't. But I'm not that fond
of Bonnie for many reasons, and she probably knows it.
But um, he said something that was very pertinent, something
that I had just mentioned in a story to them
as I was taking them down the hill and I
(33:43):
looked at him. It just came out. I said, oh,
you bitch, because I knew who was speaking, and his
face turned towards mine. He couldn't see me. His face
turned towards me, and he says, I know you. That's
one of my favorite methods of communicating is doing that
(34:06):
the SS method, the spirit box experiment that we do
on Kindred a lot, and that's actually really fascinating to
do it in the gas chamber and have them both
go under like that. Adam and I've done that a
few times. It's always very interesting. But that's just concerting.
It's bizarre that she knows you that. Well, oh well,
we call the guys are co workers because we're in
(34:27):
there all the time, you know. We we do treat
them with respect that that people probably think I'm nuts,
But you know, when I go in there and unlock,
and I'm the first one on the property and I'm
unlocking buildings, I'll open the door and say, hey, fellas,
good evening. You know we're going to have so many
tours through or tonight and be out of your hair
(34:48):
at this time of day. And I mean that's smart
because you want to set the expectation, so they know,
because they could get more volatile if you don't, you know,
give them those expectations as you begin. And you know,
speaking of that, you said that sometimes people get scratched.
What leads to that? Why do you think certain people
get scratched there? I really don't know, because it's a mix.
(35:10):
It's it's males and female. I can't say it's one
age group or another, but it's nine percent of the
time it happens in that dungeon. Now, remind me where
the dungeons. I think I know where it is. I
think it's it's downstairs and housing at four in the
oldest building. Yes, yes, all right, I think Adam and
(35:32):
I went down there last time we were there. You
have to walk through the shower room and there's a doorway. Yeah,
that opens up into that section. Yeah, that's a real
wild area. We saw some lights down with light anomalies.
So is that something that people see often? Because I
don't think they even told us about it. I just
happened to see it. Yep. They look like little twinkly
(35:54):
Christmas lights. Yes, I've seen that one other time on
the USS Salem. But these ones, the ones I saw
down there. It was almost like a green kind of glowing.
I mean, it wasn't a firefly, clearly. It was like
this kind of like green glowing little orb or something.
And I was like, am I'm seeing things right now?
Another of the guides. Once in a while, when we
(36:15):
go down there, it's a dernist thing. And I've even
talked to eye doctors trying to, you know, figure out
the physiology of the eyeball or something. But we will
go down there and and shut out the light, you know,
pitch black, but we will start seeing this red glow
and we can't figure out where it's coming from or
what's causing it. That's bizarre. I haven't experienced that either.
(36:38):
I feel like the energy at Missouri State is just
so different, like than what you would experience at most places,
and you can feel that when you're there. Now, wasn't
it recently struck by a tornado? Yes? May, it was
actually the eighth anniversary of the Joplin, Missouri tornado, which
was horrible and devastating. But yeah, took off the back
(37:00):
third of the roof of housing unit for which we
now finally, thankfully have gotten replaced. And she's undercover again
and everybody's happy. I remember that area being really wild too,
because you can stand up on the top and just
kind of look down over the entire space, and it's
a really great vantage point as an investigator if you're
(37:21):
looking for movement or a great spot to put up camera.
So have you been able to reopen it now for
tours because it wasn't open when we were there filming
last We're open on the flag walk, which is the
main walk, and then down to the shower room and
the dungeon cells, but the upper, second, third, and fourth
tears we do not have open yet. We've got to
(37:44):
do quite a lot of clean up up there yet.
We'll we'll get it done. But it's it's the process.
It's a testament to you guys, because I know people
work so hard that you have so many wonderful volunteers,
and I love that so many of the people involved
are former employees of the building or or former former
correctional officers, and it really just kind of goes to
(38:07):
show like the level of love and that everyone has
for the history there, which I think is very important
that people know about when the tornado happened. Did you
think that that kind of did anything activity or energy
wise to the buildings. We kind of wondered. We went, oh,
it was within two or three days I know, of
the tornado happening. It was of course lockdown. Nobody was
(38:30):
going in and we were just, of course devastated. You
just fold our rug out from underneath us, and so
a couple of us went to the front steps we
could access those and took a SB seven and we
were asking that, are you guys okay, everybody's still here.
(38:52):
We're sorry, we can't get in there. We're going to
get you know, get in there as soon as we can.
Is everybody okay? And one thing that came with so
it's very clear it said windy. With that in mind,
like the way that you talk to them, in your experience,
in your opinion, why do you think these spirits are
remaining there? Of all places? I get asked that on
(39:16):
the tours, and it's like people don't think about it.
When you think of a penitentiary, you think, oh, bad place,
don't want to go there. But one of our famous inmates,
Sunny Liston, used to chastise other inmates when he would
hear them, you know, complaining about the situation or their
conditions or all this stuff, And he said, you guys
(39:37):
have absolutely nothing to complain about. You have clothes, you
have shoes, you have a bed to sleep in, you
get meals, you have a job, you have a roof
over your head. No, and I think this place was
just the best home some of these men ever had.
That makes me sad. Yeah, I have her still worries
(40:00):
of you know, when people leave or released that there's
just such this kind of routine and semblance of normalcies.
What happens when eventually, as they're in there for years,
and like you said, some of them just come from
very broken situations and then they're just released into the world,
and you know, there is not that routine to guide
(40:23):
them anymore. There are repeat offenders that that get out
and do something just to get back in because they
cannot hand a little the outside. Yeah, I mean I
never thought of it that way. I've also I've always
wondered too if there were some people that just kind
of had this self imposed sentence, like they just felt
as though they hadn't completed their time. And I think
(40:46):
that's true because you know, we're using the voice box
or whatever apparatus to get them to speak to us sometimes. Uh,
that really makes me sad to when you get into
one of those little conversations with them and it's like, no,
you know, I can't, I did this, or I hurt
somebody or something like. You know. Well, I tell people
(41:06):
all the time when they investigate prisons, in particular, I
tell them to cast their judgment aside, because you don't
know who you're talking to. You don't know how they
got there, why they are there, some of the reasons
people were incarcerated, you know, especially way back when we're
not things you would be incarcerated for now. You know,
we're talking about like, you know, owing two or three
(41:27):
dollars in taxes or something, you know, and so you
don't know who you're talking to, how they ended up there,
why they're there. So I always tell them to start
their investigations in prisons from a place of compassion and kindness.
I'm telling about you know, what do they like to eat?
How do they like their steak? Cook, do they like broccoli? Whatever?
Other stuff like that. Do not go into a penitentiary
(41:50):
to investigate and say what do you do to get
in here? That's none of your business, and you'd have
been punched in the face at the very least, if
you were in a reopened a tentury and walked up
to somebody and asked that you don't do that. No,
that's very true, you know, and that's great insight for
people who do who do want to investigate those places.
(42:11):
I mean, now, if something comes at me and pushes
me or something, now that's a different story. And you know,
my mom amy voice is going to come out. I
had to come out Friday night. Oh what happened? Well,
it was really interesting. We had about a dozen people.
It was a private tour, and myself and another guide.
(42:31):
He suggested we take them down the creepy down three D.
So we go down there and just get to the
bottom of the steps and we're sitting in the window sills,
and he had everybody turn out all their lights, you know,
just any bare minimum of ambient light that came through.
It's pretty dark. Yeah, but in that darkness I could
see in my peripheral vision, I could see three or
(42:54):
four figures, shadow figures moving between me and the door.
And then I said, you know, one got a little close,
and I said, okay, And then a man that was
standing not far from me. He said, are you saying
shadows over there? I said yes, thank you, okay, validation.
It was like I could see their feet and it
was like at my two o'clock position, and I was like,
(43:16):
that is so close enough. I said, you stop right there.
You do not have permission to mess with me. I
will not tolerate it. You need to back up. Well,
you got to talk to them like there's someone in
front of you invading your personal space, you know, like
a live person. Do you have to create those boundaries?
So well, I think you've given some great advice to
investigators today. Now, if people want to visit Missouri State
(43:40):
investigate support it. What do they need to do? They
need to go to the website Missouri pen tours dot
com all spelled out and click on the tours. We
have history tours during the day, we have the ghost
tours in the evenings, and uh, we'd love to have you.
We've had people worldwide and we love meeting new people
(44:03):
and introducing them to our favorite place. Well, I really
appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. And
as I've said to everyone, please go support this wonderful place.
It's a really important piece of history, and it just
happens to be amazingly haunted as well. So thank you
so much, Diane. I appreciate it. Thank you, am I
(44:24):
appreciate it. Of course, I've probably investigated Missouri State Penitentiary
half a dozen times at this point. It never disappoints
when it comes to activity, but I've definitely moved from
(44:45):
viewing it as a place to get scared and more
of a place to interact with the spirits with a
goal in mind. That goal to find out who they are, specifically,
why they're there, and what, if anything, we can do
for them. It's an important place historically and paranormal wise,
and something tells me that in the spirit world those
seemingly quiet cellblocks are just as busy and bustling as
(45:08):
they were when it was an operation. I highly recommend
seeing it for yourself, and I won't even judge you
if you choose to do a daytime tour instead of
visiting after the sun goes down. I'm Amy Bruney and
this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is a production of
(45:43):
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mank.
Haunted Road is hosted and written by me Amy Bruney,
additional research by Taylor Haggerdorn. The show is edited and
produced by rema El Kali and supervising producer Josh Thing,
and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
(46:05):
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. H
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Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.