April 9, 2025 • 37 mins
In Tooele, Utah, a shuttered medical facility sits right next to a graveyard. Now a well known haunted attraction, many feel the fear of its patrons are feeding activity that's truly paranormal in nature.
Special Guest: Richard Estep
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky listener Discretion is advised. What
happens when you turn a haunted building into a haunted attraction.
I've investigated many a building with a paranormal reputation that
(00:23):
was also used as a haunted house during the fall
season for a few hours every night. These locations, already
buzzing with spiritual energy, are filled with thrill seekers, their nervous,
terrified energy permeating every crack in the wall and every
dark corner they turn toward. Their screams echo non stop,
(00:48):
unending until the last guest walks out the exit door
at closing time. Then the animatronics are turned off, the
actors wipe off their garish makeup, hang up the blood
stained costumes, and head home. And then the space is
silent or is it? I'm Amy Brunei and this is
(01:10):
Haunted Road. In Tuwela, Utah, a single story brick medical
facility sits right next to a graveyard. The rounded entrance
is covered in glass windows and the words Asylum forty
nine are scratched over the double doors out front. The
interior beyond the foyer is largely dark and windowless, with
(01:33):
fluorescent lighting overhead. The structure has all of the rooms
that you'd expect to find in a hospital, a maternity ward,
an er, staff lounges, locker rooms, and a conference room
that says you might not recognize the conference room if
you were to visit it today. It's dressed to look
like a chapel, and I'll cover why later on. The
(01:55):
main hallway runs from one side of the building to
the other, but one off shoot corridor dubbed the Green Mile,
has sterile greenish blue flooring and a never ending string
of doorways. The building is known alternatively as either the
Tuela Valley Hospital or Asylum forty nine. I haven't found
(02:15):
a historical record to verify this, but the hospital might
have begun its existence as a single residence home. It
may have been built shortly after members of the Church
of Latter day Saints first established Tuela in the mid
eighteen hundreds. It was a small community about forty miles
southeast of Salt Lake City. It was also already settled
(02:37):
by the indigenous go Huote people. In the midst of
bloody clashes between the go Shoote community and the newcomers,
a Mormon man named Samuel f. Leeb decided to build
a house on Main Street. I'll note now that Main
Street is actually several blocks from where the hospital now stands,
but perhaps in eighteen seventy three, which is when he
(02:58):
built his house, the roads were named differently. Samuel was
a major fixture in Tuela's early history. He served as
the town's mayor, and according to his obituary, which ran
in the Transcript Bulletin, he helped build the very first
roads in the city. He did this by using a
hand plow to dig trenches in straight lines, only for
(03:20):
those trenches to eventually become the streets. It's said that
Samuel and his family lived in the house for over
forty years, with his relatives remaining after his death in
eighteen ninety four. When they vacated the home in nineteen thirteen,
they converted it from a single family residence to a
care home for the elderly, as reported by Tyson Romero
(03:43):
of ABC News four. By nineteen forty nine, construction began
on another nearby facility, the Tuela Valley Hospital. The medical
center cost six hundred thousand dollars to build the equivalent
of about seven million dollars. Today, it had thirty six beds,
a maternity ward, and an er. The timeline is a
(04:05):
bit fuzzy, but for some time the hospital and Samuel's
nursing home operated side by side. But somewhere along the way,
the old house had to be demolished and a forty
bed nursing home was added onto the hospital to take
in its former residence. So the new building served two needs.
It provided medical care to the residents of Tuela and
(04:27):
ensured that their elderly citizens had a place to spend
their golden years. Sadly, the facilities were underfunded and understaffed.
While the doctors delivered over two thousand babies before nineteen sixty,
many other patients lost their lives in medical emergencies. In
their book The Haunting of Asylum forty nine Chilling Tales
(04:50):
of Aggressive Spirits, Phantom Doctors, and the Secret of Rooms
six sixty six, authors Richard Estep and Cammy Anderson noted
that the hospital earned a nick name among Tuela locals,
the Hospital of Death. It's also said that some Tuella
residents chose to travel to other facilities, sometimes miles away
(05:11):
for better medical care. Not only was the hospital poorly
equipped to meet its patient's needs, they also couldn't reliably
store all of the bodies of the people who died
within its walls. Tyson Romero reported that there was no
morgue on the grounds, so when someone passed, the staff
would leave the body in an empty room until a
(05:32):
coroner could come to process the remains. Oddly, in those days,
there were often reports of screams and cries coming from
the delivery room, even when it wasn't in use and
was supposed to be empty. Rather than deal with the
strange noises, the nurses reportedly set up a television set
and turned up its volume to drown them out. That's
(05:54):
according to Jamie Davis and Samuel Queen, who wrote Haunted
Asylum's Prisons and Sonatoriums. By two thousand and two, a new,
better equipped hospital had opened roughly three miles away, so
the Tuela Valley Hospital closed its doors for good. The
attached nursing facility kept running for over a decade before
(06:15):
it too was shuttered. However, I do want to tell
one story from when the nursing home was still running.
One day after visiting hours had ended, a man dressed
all in black walked in. He ignored the staff, who
warned him that he wasn't allowed to see the patients. Instead,
he walked into one residence room and locked the door
(06:37):
behind him. The employees grew increasingly agitated as they were
unable to open the door. They knocked, tried to pry
it open, and ultimately called maintenance to force it ajar.
When they finally got into the room, there was no
sign of the man in black, but the resident who
lived there was dead. Perhaps rumors like these inspired the
(06:59):
buildings new owners. After the hospital and the nursing home closed,
they acquired the facility's old, abandoned medical equipment and numerous
unclaimed X rays. According to the Haunting of Asylum forty nine,
some of those pictures were still hanging on the walls,
while drawers were still stuffed with medical manuals and reference books.
(07:20):
They put it all to use in a creative way.
These days. One part of the former hospital hosts a
shopping plaza called tuwella market place. There people can visit
local shops and restaurants. The rest of the hospital, dubbed
Asylum forty nine, operates as a haunted attraction. People can
book tours there, during which costumed actors jump out to
(07:42):
scare them. Parts of the building are dressed to evoke
particular horror tropes, like that former conference room that now
looks like a chapel. The owners have also added fake
blood dolls, mannequins, and other props throughout. But one feature
makes Asylum forty nine different from other haunted house attractions.
In this one, the ghosts are real. In fact, the
(08:05):
authentic spirits seem to be more active when the scare
event is running, like they're drawn to it. But eerie
reports came from the space even before it opened. While
the Haunted House was still under construction, there were numerous
reports of tools and other objects moving on their own.
In some cases, items would fall without warning, sometimes striking
(08:26):
workers in the head. There were also reports of disembodied
voices and inexplicable banging noises, and of doors opening and
closing even when nobody was standing nearby. During paranormal investigations,
researchers at the hospital have picked up EVPs from a
spirit calling himself Peter. He's thought to be a former
(08:47):
X ray technician. There have also been sightings of an
apparent former patient named Bonnie. She's in her mid fifties
and can be spotted walking with an IV dressed in
a hospital gown. It's believed that Bonnie may have died
of cancer during her time in the facility. Another patient
is a man named Robert. He's thought to be friendly,
(09:10):
but he also likes playing practical jokes. Some reports say
that he intentionally jumps out at guests to scare them,
or army crawls down the main hallway to try and
get to the conference room. The book The Haunting of
Asylum forty nine describes Robert as a large man. He's
both tall and broad, and he walks with a cane.
(09:31):
He's said to be productive of children, and he enjoys
telling jokes in his EVPs. Jeremy is another former patient.
He's sometimes nicknamed the clown faced guy due to the
red streaks that run across his face, but he's not
wearing makeup. His skin is badly burned and scarred. When
Jeremy is present, visitors sometimes catch the distinct scent of
(09:54):
something burning. It's said that Jeremy is less friendly than Robert.
Richard as step In Cammy Anderson wrote that he's been
known to harass female visitors. He's also a notorious liar
with the history of impersonating other spirits. The maternity ward
is thought to be especially active. There are countless reports
(10:14):
of a shadow figure that's been sighted there, as well
as a woman who attempts to communicate via sign language,
a little girl, and a surgeon dressed in scrubs. The
nursery is also where people have frequently cited a ghost
known as Nicholas. He's thought to be a former doctor
who's still trying to care for his long gone patience.
(10:35):
At least once, he was caught on camera during a
scare event. While actors pretended to perform a surgery, Nicholas
stood behind them, observing the mock operation. A pair of
girls known as Sarah and Tabitha also frequent the nursery.
Sarah looks to be about six years old. She wears
a white dress and has long, dark hair, while Tabitha
(10:57):
has a yellow dress. On It that Sarah died of tuberculosis,
while Tabitha passed of some kind of head injury, possibly
a brain tumor. While Tabitha can be shy and elusive,
according to the Haunting of Asylum forty nine. It seems
that Sarah likes attention and wants to be part of
the Haunted House attraction. She apparently enjoys hiding just to
(11:20):
jump out at visitors and scare them, just like the
actors are paid to do. Another spirit, known as either Wesley,
Wesley or West, frequents the maternity ward, particularly patient room six.
He looks like a shadow figure when he spotted leaving
the room. Many believe that Wes was an Alzheimer's patient
(11:41):
who lived in the nursing home after his death in
the nineteen nineties. His ghost was just as confused and
frightened as he had been in life. Wes doesn't like visitors,
and Richard Estep and Cammy Anderson claim that when people
walk into his room they often feel an intense sensation,
as those if someone desperately wants them to leave. Others
(12:03):
receive scratches and shoves from Wes's unseen hands. There are
also reports of Samuel f Lee, the man who may
have initially built his house on the property. He's said
to appear with his seven year old son, Thomas, except
there's no record of Samuel having a son named Thomas
or of any of his children, dying at the age
(12:24):
of seven. While we can't verify the ghost's identities, it's
said that the man often speaks out loud so visitors
can hear him without EVP equipment, and the boy enjoys
moving objects around, including flashlights and bed sheets as a
practical joke. In general, visitors at Asylum forty nine see
many strange things doors that open and close on their own,
(12:47):
mists that appear out of nowhere, and strange anomalies that
are shaped like circles and lights. But there are a
few reports that set the hospital apart from other haunted locations. First,
there seems to be a dark entity in the er.
Visitors have dubbed him the Guardian. Jamie Davis and Samuel
Queen wrote about the Guardian. They claim that the Guardian
(13:09):
looks like a shadow figure, but rumor goes that he
once was a hospital employee. Even then, he was rude
and made life miserable for his coworkers. There are also
many reports of a portal somewhere in the hospital. Some
feel like it could be a gateway to the afterlife.
It's said that a ghost named Maria guards the portal
(13:30):
and sometimes encourages spirits to pass through it. According to
reporting from Tyson Romero of ABC four, when the retirement
facility was still operational, elderly residents sometimes saw visions of Maria.
They always died a few days after spotting her. That said,
there's no guarantee that heaven waits on the other side.
Some claim that Maria has also warned people not to
(13:53):
go through the doorway because, according to her, whatever waits
beyond it is dangerous. When it comes to the Tula
Valley Hospital, it can be difficult to separate fact from
fiction or reality from artifice. But today we're gonna have
some help from my dear friend Richard Estep, who, as
referenced before, wrote a book on the location and he's
(14:15):
been there many many times. So Richard is coming up
after the break. All right, my friends, I am now
joined by friend of the show, frequent guest, mister Richard Estep.
Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Sir, Always a pleasure, Amy, thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Of course, I feel like normally have we ever done
one this way or have you always been a live guest.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
We've always been live in front of one of those
great strange escapes crowds.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yes, yes, so this is this is all new. So
I really do appreciate this. Now I was talking to
you usually like so for listeners, Richard has written eight
books on the paranormal, I would say, well on locations,
and like even before we started, I brought up or
(15:09):
he brought up a location and I said you should
write a book about that, and he said, I did.
It came out six months ago, and so I felt
like a very bad friend for a hot second. But
then I realize you've written so many books. I can't
keep track anymore. Richard.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I'm at like forty four right now. So I get it.
I have a hard time.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Sometimes you're going to give Hans Holzer a run for
his money.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, Hans Holzer. And you know Brad Steiger and the
great Rosemary al and Guiley on My Role Model.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Oh yeah, Rosemary was a lovely woman. Well, that being said,
you did happen to write a book about this location
we're discussing today. Now, I know people call it asylum
forty nine. How do you pronounce the town? Is it?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
This is the great Most people say tool and that
will get you thrown out. It's tuilla, like there's a
will in it the tuilla.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
To willa, like it's three syllables, exactly. Okay, good to
know because I was like, is it touley? Is it tool?
But now you've okay, so Tuela. So this was previously
its previous incarnation, it was Tula Hospital, correct.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It was actually it was the local valley hospital, okay,
Willa Valley Hospital, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Okay, perfect, And then it became this Asylum forty nine,
which makes sense. And I love your relationship with this place,
which I did not know. When I reached out to you.
I asked if you knew anyone who knew who I
could talk to about it. And you're like, well, I did,
of course write a book on it, and then you
actually go there and you participate in the hunt right
(16:44):
every Halloween.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So I wrote a book years ago called the World's
Most Wanted Hospitals, and I'd heard so much about Asylum
forty nine, and I went, and I went early in
the year. I made the mistake of going in like March,
and it was just quiet, and the owner said, you
need to come back over Halloween because this place builds
and over the Halloween season amy they have literally thousands
of people coming through all of them trying to get scared.
(17:08):
That's why you go to a full contact horn right right,
And so the act you're very familiar with cyclical hauntings.
Of course, Well, this is dormant over the winter period,
and then it builds as they start building the main
haunt for the year. They do construction, and of course
construction leads to increased paranormal activity, and then Halloween week
it all comes to a peak and the hospitals and
(17:28):
it's most active.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Oh, I believe it. You know, it's funny because it's
kind of controversial in the paranormal field, like having haunted
attractions in haunted locations, but the reality is some of
these locations don't really have a future other than something
like that, and then us kind of ghost hunters coming
in as well. But like you said, I've investigated many
(17:52):
of these places that have these seasonal haunts, and it
is most active right after the haunt has closed down
for the season. And I have been in at least one,
the Scarehouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They were in an old
mason's hall for a long time, and so I went
in one or there. Rather I investigated there like the
(18:13):
night they had the haunt open that night, and then
once they closed. It is the creepiest feeling to be
in there. When it's closed for the night. It's almost
like it's got a buzz in it. Did you experience
that there at all?
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Every year consistently? And I think that you know, where
one finds strong emotion, I've always believed one finds are haunting.
The kind of fear you get in a haunt, though,
isn't the bad kind of fear. It's but it is intense.
I mean, they actually give cash prizes to the cast
of Asylum forty nine if they can make a customer
soil themselves. I saw this happen.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, the best bonus scheme I ever heard an employer do.
But it's still a fun kind of fear. And I
think that the hospital's haunted reputation adds to that. And
you know, regarding the propriety of this, I definitely get
those people that say, you know, maybe this isn't in
the best taste. But on the flip side, these places
would be a parking lot if it weren't for the
revenue brought in by the haunts. And they wouldn't be
(19:12):
there for us to enjoy. They would be demolished.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Absolutely. You know, it's a revenue stream to keep these
historic locations open, and quite a few of them do that.
Quite a few of them do ghost tours.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It's kind of along the same level. And I feel like,
as long as you're doing it respectfully than by all
meets please and haunts are fun. I absolutely hate them,
but yet I subject myself to them every year for
some reason, Like, you know, like I would love to
check this place out in person, I have not been there.
That's the theme this year on Haunted Road. I've done
(19:47):
so many episodes now that I'm running out of places
I've actually been to, So I'm kind of discovering these
new locations. And then when I got to this one,
I was like, I need to go check this place out.
But anyways, I am terrified when I go through those haunts.
I do Halloween hor every year and I'm just screaming
and laughing the whole way through. They could probably win
their competition with me. It's not hard to make me
pee my pants these days.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Well that's a challenge accepted. If you're ever out in Tuila,
I'll make sure you get to put your nerves to
the test.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Okay, So now you how many years running have you
had this tradition?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Well, gosh, since I wrote that book. I took COVID
off because I'm a paramedic and that was a busy
year for all of us. But so twenty twenty I
didn't do it. But beyond that, I've been going since
I want to say, it's twenty seventeen. And you know,
partly it's because the family community atmosphere in this place.
Tuila is a small town. The cast stars are mostly teenagers,
(20:43):
and you know, without a place like this to bring
them some community, I fear for what would happen to them.
And instead I see a lot of parenting, big brother,
big sister and things like that going on. The atmosphere
is just unbelievable. They've taken ghosts and hauntings and they've
made it such a positive thing for the community. I
wish more people would see it. Well.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I love that, And what a cool job for a
teenager too. I would have loved to have been able
to do something like that. Now when did you know,
like you're like, oh, there's something to this. This place
is actually very haunted. When did you know it was?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
You know, we talk about as paranormal investigators, we talk
about seeing an apparition, being kind of about Holy Grail,
right amy, And yes, we can all well lucky if
we see one in a career. I'm at thirty years
in and the only one I can absolutely tell you
I'm convinced I saw was of Asylum in forty nine.
And how fitting that it would be over a Halloween night.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Hmmm, Well, tell us the story. I need to know.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
More absolutely well. Rather than working the haunt the first time,
I usually just go through like a customer would, so
I get that experience, you know, I like to see
what fresh horrors the cast is planning for the year.
So I went through this one night, and I saw
about halfway through a little girl and she looked kind
of like little Red riding Hood, you know, or Goldilocks,
(21:58):
that kind of dress, that kind of age as well,
And she was tugging a lady into one of the rooms.
And this girl looked like she was having so much fun,
and this lady looked like she wasn't. The lady I
remember was dressed in a very contemporary way, you know, jeans,
and a sweater. Obviously of our time. The little girl wasn't.
She was wearing kind of one of those flowing dresses
(22:19):
or nightgowns. But I just thought that's that's a costume, clearly,
you know. It was only after I got to the
end that I thought she was kind of young for
a full contact haunted house, Like it would almost be
irresponsible to have a kid that young working this harnt.
So I went to the owners and I said, doesn't
it bother you that you have adults lumbering around in
the dark, you know, and a child this young. And
(22:42):
they just both looked at me, and they said, there
is no girl that age working here tonight. And I said,
there is. I saw her, and there's no way she
came through the ticket booth. There's no way anyone would
sell a ticket to someone with a kid this young.
So they took me to the cast hall where the
cast is taking off their makeup, and I went and
looked at each and every one. I talked to each
and everyone. The girl was not. Nobody in the ticket
booth had allowed admission to a kid that age either,
(23:04):
And they said, yeah, you saw Sarah. She's one of
the little girls that is well known to haunt this hospital.
And I kick myself amy because for years, you know,
I've listened to people talk about seeing an apparition, and
I just thought, why did you not reach into your
pocket and pull out your phone and take a picture
or take some video? And they tell me it never
occurred to me. I didn't realize what I was looking at,
(23:27):
And that's exactly what happened to me.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, I say that to people a lot. How when
you see an apparition, you know so many five maybe
more than that, your first instinct is that it's an
actual living person. I mean, unless they're like a weird
partial apparition, but like when you see a full bodied apparition,
your instinct is who is that? How did they get
in here? And it would be awkward for you to
(23:50):
immediately like pull out your phone and start recording and
Murphy's law half the time, probably more than half the time,
that's not going to show up anyway. Like you know,
I've had my camera's pointed straight on to anomalies plenty
of times and it didn't see anything, but you had
the experience, and personal experiences are powerful. So who do
they think that little girl is? Who are these kids
(24:12):
they think are haunting the hospital.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, there are three children that are most active there
that are known to have died in the hospital. A
researcher named Torri Westoff has written a series of books
about actually those who died in Asylum forty nine. They're
called We Are Asylum forty nine and they believe that
this is a young girl that died there. I think
it was about forty five fifty years ago, and seems
(24:34):
to be a happy ghost. In fact, the children are
very playful, you know when when they're around. There seems
to be a lot of pranking, a lot of touching,
a lot of practical jokes in humor. Nothing negative from them.
And I can only imagine that if you are the
spirit of a child, a hospital that is also a
haunted house is a playground to you, especially if you
get to scare adults.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Well yes, and you know, be seen and people don't
realize that a ghost, you know that you can kind
of have this moment to appear and play and that
would be so interesting, Like I wonder what it would
be like to be a spirit, and you know, know
that for like a time each year you can just
completely terrify people, and I imagine the energy is something
(25:19):
that you kind of exists on, you know, according to
many theories that we have out there. So you were
kind of saying that things peter out like when the
haunt is not happening, but I imagine things have to
happen when people are working there year round. Like what
do you think are kind of the more prevalent paranormal
experiences that people have in that building?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I think that. So firstly, they've started doing seasonal haunts,
so they do Valentine's Day haunts, now they do horn
I noticed that demonic rabbits take over the asylum. It's fantastic,
so you know, it's dormant for less of the year.
I think Also, for the longest time, the back half
of the building was a nursing home and so it
(26:02):
was off limits quite rightly so. But since they moved
that facility out and turned it into a community center,
that's opened up a whole new dimension to the haunting
because you have this back half that was completely off
limits for many, many years. And there seemed to be
a little crossover between some of the shall we say
more traditional, you know, the older haunting that's gone in
(26:22):
the hospital itself and what was once the nursing home,
and I stayed there. I was the first investigated to
spend a night on the psychiatric wing of the old
nursing home, and it was one of the creepiest feelings
in my life. One of the rooms, which is now
a store shop. The nursing staff told us that they
would not put people in there anymore because they all
(26:44):
woke up telling a very similar story of a dark
figure towering over their bed with glowing red eyes.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
And that was when it was an operation.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
An operational nursing home. In fact, they stopped putting people
in that room.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yeah, that's how it's going to say. I was going
to ask about, like, what did people report, you know,
when it wasn't operating. I imagine you've talked to past employees,
and the owners have talked to past employees. I mean,
there had been some inkling that there were ghosts there
before it ever became abandoned.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Absolutely, you know, and there was the classic figure in
black that was seen going into rooms hours or days
before somebody would pass. This idea of a harbinger of
impending death is something we see quite often in the
paranormal realm, and they would talk about that. They would
talk about paranormal activity ramping up in the nursing home
(27:35):
right before somebody died. And what impresses me is most
of these employees they don't want publicity, They don't want
their names or faces to be put out there. They
just want to share the stories. And they're still coming
forward to this day.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, I mean I wonder that, like you obviously you
wrote a whole book about haunted hospitals, of course, so like,
how common is that that employees and patients and things
report activity happening in these little locations.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
It's so common, you know. When I do the TV
show Haunted Hospitals, the tagline is every nurse has a
ghost story, and it's pretty much true, so do so
many patients. But hospitals and nursing homes and asylum forty
nine was both. That's the key thing. And right next
door its neighbor is the cemetery. So you have this
kind of trifecta of components of a haunting. But yeah,
(28:25):
so many hospitals have their ghost stories. Not all of
them like them to get out there or to be publicized,
but they do exist and they're more common than people think. Now.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
We sometimes in these kind of locations where there's this
high energy level abeit now or when it was an operation,
we kind of have theories and ideas that we might
be creating some of these hauntings, kind of in the
sense of like an Agrigor writer a Tolpus. So do
you think any of these hauntings can be attributed to that,
like things that were actually created by the energy of
(28:56):
people going there.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
I think it's entirely possible, especially as you're dealing with
a lot of fictional characters. The members of the cast
actually create their characters, you know, there's almost like a
role playing game element to it, and then they audition
in order to be selected. So they create these characters,
and it's kind of like the Philip experiment, which I
know you and your listeners are going to be familiar with,
but they breathe physical life into these characters. They create makeup,
(29:22):
they dress up, they assume the guys, and then they
go out there and terrify people. So it would be
remarkable if some of that didn't bleed over into the
paranormal realm.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I think, yeah, I'm always super interested in that I'm
not as familiar with their business model there. Is it
just the hunt or do they allow investigations. I believe
they have investigations right.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
They actually have stopped the investigations because they have a
crime museum right now as well. That's going on. It's
a part of the hospital that is containing memorabilia from
through crime serial modes, things like that, and they found
that people coming in to investigate, by no means all
of them, but have been disrespectful enough to the spirits
(30:05):
there and also have been stealing things and things like
that that the owners have kind of put the kibosh
on that they've stopped doing that for the time being.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Oh man, that's so unfortunate. And it's like it's sadly,
it's not a completely unfamiliar tale, you know, it's I
always tell investigators that when a location trusts you to,
you know, climb through their halls almost unsupervised, and you know,
some of these places are too large, Like there's this
(30:35):
level of respect that you have to have, and like
I would say, ninety nine percent of the time, people
are super respectful and they know that like this is uh,
you know kind of I don't want you know, this
is something that they're being trusted with and that what
they do reflects on all of us as a whole.
But then I also think sometimes there's people who don't
really have a lot of knowledge of the field and
(30:56):
they're just excited to kind of get in there for
a ghost unt and like you know, joe around and whatnot,
depending on what they watch on TV. And then and
then they end up doing things like that. So that's
so sad. I hope at some point they can kind
of reopen it again.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Me too. I do organize ghost ms there, usually once
a year or so for charity, so I'm always happy
to do those and show the place after people. And
you know, it's one thing to be gifted something from
a location, it's something else to take it. Sitting in
my office is the Board of Life from the old hospital,
which was gifted to me by the owners. It's the
whiteboard that has the names of which doctors, nurses and
(31:33):
techs are working on any given night for each department
who's on call for obe labor and delivery. I brought
that into my home and then had to have my
home blessed by a Catholic priest, so that may not
have been the smartest move, but I do really yeah,
which is serious for am agnostic.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I did not know that story. Your wife must have
loved that.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I was. I was in the doghouse for quite a while.
Fortunately I'm very happy around the dogs.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
But yeah, there you go. No, I think that's interesting.
I love taking little trinkets home like that from locations,
but that they're given to me, I certainly would not
take them by all means, you know, and that just
kind of makes it even more special. Okay, so we're
talking a bit about the activity and whatnot. So you
saw an apportion and that was like a big moment
(32:20):
for you, Like when do you find that most things
that people encounter there are of a friendly nature or
have people had experiences there that they would, you know,
kind of think we're negative.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
It runs the full gamut of the whole spectrum. So
on the one hand, you have people like Peter Hansford,
the X ray technician, who seem to be so happy
and fulfilled doing his job at the hospital that he's
still punching a time clock after he died. I think
that's wonderful. But then you have individuals or entities rather
like the guardian who is far darker and the Guardian's
area on the old side of the hospital. He is
(32:55):
notorious for physically attacking females. In fact, I would love
to see you go to to toe with this individual.
He scratches, pushes, shoves, tries to intimidate primarily female visitors
when they enter his part of the hospital.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Oh, I have to go visit. I'm more afraid of
those haunt actors than like dead people. Well, yes, I
tell people that all the time. I'm like, no, trust me,
living people are much worse. I'll go toe to toe
with a ghost any day. No, I really hope to visit.
I'm going to have to contact the owner and see
if you know I'm actually going to Utah. Oh, you're
(33:31):
going to be there too. How far away is this
place from there? Utah is a big state.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
So I tell you what, if you want to tack
on a bit of a drive, it's like a three
hour drive. I can make that happen.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, I might, It depends I have We're talking about
Phenomicon in September in Vernal, Utah. Richard and I will
both be there, and so I'm always trying to think of,
like how I can parlay these moments into visits to
haunted locations. So if I can, that would be really fun.
So I could report back to you Haunted Roadies and
let you know how it went. Let us know, Richard,
what are you up to these days? Like how can
(34:04):
people find you? What's your newest project? Like what do
you want people to know? What's going on in the
world in.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Richard Estep Yeah, writing, writing and writing. Of course. I
have two books coming out within one day of each
other at September because my publishers don't talk to one another.
One is called Mothman, co written with Tobias Whalan, and
the other is called Ghostly Encounters. So I'm excited about that.
I'm actually finishing a book on the hauntings of Tombstone,
another place you and I know well and haunted Rodyes
(34:33):
know well.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Also, I'm so excited for that. I can't wait to
go back to Tombstone. So THAT'SU. You are a machine.
I tell you. There are some people out there that
I know and admire in our field that are just
like just very disciplined when it comes to work, and
you are one of those people because you're holding down
a very important full time job as well, you know,
(34:56):
working as a paramedic, and then you're also just providing
all this wonderful content for us to consume, and I
just I love it so much.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Thanks so much, Amy, You're so kind and right back
at you.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Oh well, thanks as I record this in my closets,
so anyway we can we just make it work, right,
But I love it so well. I can't wait to
see you in person again very soon, and I really
appreciate you taking the time. Everyone out there, I highly
recommend Richard and his books, and he's just a lovely
(35:30):
person as long as you can put up with a
great number of dad jokes. He is the master of
dad jokes, so just be forewarned. So all right, thank
you so much, Richard. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Thanks, goodbye.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
It's natural to like being scared. It's one of the
main reasons why haunted attractions are so popular and why
we're drawn to real paranormal investigations. But when it comes
to Asylum forty nine, some may find the chills to
be a little too real, and the ghostly apparitions can
be a little too authentic, because the things we're most
(36:06):
frightened of may actually dwell here. I'm Amy Rooney and
this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is a production of
iHeartRadio and Grim and milds from Aaron Manky. Haunted Road
(36:30):
is hosted and written by me Amy Bruney, with additional
research by Cassandra de Alba. This show is edited and
produced by supervising producer Rima el Kali, with executive producers
Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. Learn more about
this show over at Grimandmild dot com, and for more
(36:51):
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky listener Discretion is advised. What
happens when you turn a haunted building into a haunted attraction.
I've investigated many a building with a paranormal reputation that
(00:23):
was also used as a haunted house during the fall
season for a few hours every night. These locations, already
buzzing with spiritual energy, are filled with thrill seekers, their nervous,
terrified energy permeating every crack in the wall and every
dark corner they turn toward. Their screams echo non stop,
(00:48):
unending until the last guest walks out the exit door
at closing time. Then the animatronics are turned off, the
actors wipe off their garish makeup, hang up the blood
stained costumes, and head home. And then the space is
silent or is it? I'm Amy Brunei and this is
(01:10):
Haunted Road. In Tuwela, Utah, a single story brick medical
facility sits right next to a graveyard. The rounded entrance
is covered in glass windows and the words Asylum forty
nine are scratched over the double doors out front. The
interior beyond the foyer is largely dark and windowless, with
(01:33):
fluorescent lighting overhead. The structure has all of the rooms
that you'd expect to find in a hospital, a maternity ward,
an er, staff lounges, locker rooms, and a conference room
that says you might not recognize the conference room if
you were to visit it today. It's dressed to look
like a chapel, and I'll cover why later on. The
(01:55):
main hallway runs from one side of the building to
the other, but one off shoot corridor dubbed the Green Mile,
has sterile greenish blue flooring and a never ending string
of doorways. The building is known alternatively as either the
Tuela Valley Hospital or Asylum forty nine. I haven't found
(02:15):
a historical record to verify this, but the hospital might
have begun its existence as a single residence home. It
may have been built shortly after members of the Church
of Latter day Saints first established Tuela in the mid
eighteen hundreds. It was a small community about forty miles
southeast of Salt Lake City. It was also already settled
(02:37):
by the indigenous go Huote people. In the midst of
bloody clashes between the go Shoote community and the newcomers,
a Mormon man named Samuel f. Leeb decided to build
a house on Main Street. I'll note now that Main
Street is actually several blocks from where the hospital now stands,
but perhaps in eighteen seventy three, which is when he
(02:58):
built his house, the roads were named differently. Samuel was
a major fixture in Tuela's early history. He served as
the town's mayor, and according to his obituary, which ran
in the Transcript Bulletin, he helped build the very first
roads in the city. He did this by using a
hand plow to dig trenches in straight lines, only for
(03:20):
those trenches to eventually become the streets. It's said that
Samuel and his family lived in the house for over
forty years, with his relatives remaining after his death in
eighteen ninety four. When they vacated the home in nineteen thirteen,
they converted it from a single family residence to a
care home for the elderly, as reported by Tyson Romero
(03:43):
of ABC News four. By nineteen forty nine, construction began
on another nearby facility, the Tuela Valley Hospital. The medical
center cost six hundred thousand dollars to build the equivalent
of about seven million dollars. Today, it had thirty six beds,
a maternity ward, and an er. The timeline is a
(04:05):
bit fuzzy, but for some time the hospital and Samuel's
nursing home operated side by side. But somewhere along the way,
the old house had to be demolished and a forty
bed nursing home was added onto the hospital to take
in its former residence. So the new building served two needs.
It provided medical care to the residents of Tuela and
(04:27):
ensured that their elderly citizens had a place to spend
their golden years. Sadly, the facilities were underfunded and understaffed.
While the doctors delivered over two thousand babies before nineteen sixty,
many other patients lost their lives in medical emergencies. In
their book The Haunting of Asylum forty nine Chilling Tales
(04:50):
of Aggressive Spirits, Phantom Doctors, and the Secret of Rooms
six sixty six, authors Richard Estep and Cammy Anderson noted
that the hospital earned a nick name among Tuela locals,
the Hospital of Death. It's also said that some Tuella
residents chose to travel to other facilities, sometimes miles away
(05:11):
for better medical care. Not only was the hospital poorly
equipped to meet its patient's needs, they also couldn't reliably
store all of the bodies of the people who died
within its walls. Tyson Romero reported that there was no
morgue on the grounds, so when someone passed, the staff
would leave the body in an empty room until a
(05:32):
coroner could come to process the remains. Oddly, in those days,
there were often reports of screams and cries coming from
the delivery room, even when it wasn't in use and
was supposed to be empty. Rather than deal with the
strange noises, the nurses reportedly set up a television set
and turned up its volume to drown them out. That's
(05:54):
according to Jamie Davis and Samuel Queen, who wrote Haunted
Asylum's Prisons and Sonatoriums. By two thousand and two, a new,
better equipped hospital had opened roughly three miles away, so
the Tuela Valley Hospital closed its doors for good. The
attached nursing facility kept running for over a decade before
(06:15):
it too was shuttered. However, I do want to tell
one story from when the nursing home was still running.
One day after visiting hours had ended, a man dressed
all in black walked in. He ignored the staff, who
warned him that he wasn't allowed to see the patients. Instead,
he walked into one residence room and locked the door
(06:37):
behind him. The employees grew increasingly agitated as they were
unable to open the door. They knocked, tried to pry
it open, and ultimately called maintenance to force it ajar.
When they finally got into the room, there was no
sign of the man in black, but the resident who
lived there was dead. Perhaps rumors like these inspired the
(06:59):
buildings new owners. After the hospital and the nursing home closed,
they acquired the facility's old, abandoned medical equipment and numerous
unclaimed X rays. According to the Haunting of Asylum forty nine,
some of those pictures were still hanging on the walls,
while drawers were still stuffed with medical manuals and reference books.
(07:20):
They put it all to use in a creative way.
These days. One part of the former hospital hosts a
shopping plaza called tuwella market place. There people can visit
local shops and restaurants. The rest of the hospital, dubbed
Asylum forty nine, operates as a haunted attraction. People can
book tours there, during which costumed actors jump out to
(07:42):
scare them. Parts of the building are dressed to evoke
particular horror tropes, like that former conference room that now
looks like a chapel. The owners have also added fake
blood dolls, mannequins, and other props throughout. But one feature
makes Asylum forty nine different from other haunted house attractions.
In this one, the ghosts are real. In fact, the
(08:05):
authentic spirits seem to be more active when the scare
event is running, like they're drawn to it. But eerie
reports came from the space even before it opened. While
the Haunted House was still under construction, there were numerous
reports of tools and other objects moving on their own.
In some cases, items would fall without warning, sometimes striking
(08:26):
workers in the head. There were also reports of disembodied
voices and inexplicable banging noises, and of doors opening and
closing even when nobody was standing nearby. During paranormal investigations,
researchers at the hospital have picked up EVPs from a
spirit calling himself Peter. He's thought to be a former
(08:47):
X ray technician. There have also been sightings of an
apparent former patient named Bonnie. She's in her mid fifties
and can be spotted walking with an IV dressed in
a hospital gown. It's believed that Bonnie may have died
of cancer during her time in the facility. Another patient
is a man named Robert. He's thought to be friendly,
(09:10):
but he also likes playing practical jokes. Some reports say
that he intentionally jumps out at guests to scare them,
or army crawls down the main hallway to try and
get to the conference room. The book The Haunting of
Asylum forty nine describes Robert as a large man. He's
both tall and broad, and he walks with a cane.
(09:31):
He's said to be productive of children, and he enjoys
telling jokes in his EVPs. Jeremy is another former patient.
He's sometimes nicknamed the clown faced guy due to the
red streaks that run across his face, but he's not
wearing makeup. His skin is badly burned and scarred. When
Jeremy is present, visitors sometimes catch the distinct scent of
(09:54):
something burning. It's said that Jeremy is less friendly than Robert.
Richard as step In Cammy Anderson wrote that he's been
known to harass female visitors. He's also a notorious liar
with the history of impersonating other spirits. The maternity ward
is thought to be especially active. There are countless reports
(10:14):
of a shadow figure that's been sighted there, as well
as a woman who attempts to communicate via sign language,
a little girl, and a surgeon dressed in scrubs. The
nursery is also where people have frequently cited a ghost
known as Nicholas. He's thought to be a former doctor
who's still trying to care for his long gone patience.
(10:35):
At least once, he was caught on camera during a
scare event. While actors pretended to perform a surgery, Nicholas
stood behind them, observing the mock operation. A pair of
girls known as Sarah and Tabitha also frequent the nursery.
Sarah looks to be about six years old. She wears
a white dress and has long, dark hair, while Tabitha
(10:57):
has a yellow dress. On It that Sarah died of tuberculosis,
while Tabitha passed of some kind of head injury, possibly
a brain tumor. While Tabitha can be shy and elusive,
according to the Haunting of Asylum forty nine. It seems
that Sarah likes attention and wants to be part of
the Haunted House attraction. She apparently enjoys hiding just to
(11:20):
jump out at visitors and scare them, just like the
actors are paid to do. Another spirit, known as either Wesley,
Wesley or West, frequents the maternity ward, particularly patient room six.
He looks like a shadow figure when he spotted leaving
the room. Many believe that Wes was an Alzheimer's patient
(11:41):
who lived in the nursing home after his death in
the nineteen nineties. His ghost was just as confused and
frightened as he had been in life. Wes doesn't like visitors,
and Richard Estep and Cammy Anderson claim that when people
walk into his room they often feel an intense sensation,
as those if someone desperately wants them to leave. Others
(12:03):
receive scratches and shoves from Wes's unseen hands. There are
also reports of Samuel f Lee, the man who may
have initially built his house on the property. He's said
to appear with his seven year old son, Thomas, except
there's no record of Samuel having a son named Thomas
or of any of his children, dying at the age
(12:24):
of seven. While we can't verify the ghost's identities, it's
said that the man often speaks out loud so visitors
can hear him without EVP equipment, and the boy enjoys
moving objects around, including flashlights and bed sheets as a
practical joke. In general, visitors at Asylum forty nine see
many strange things doors that open and close on their own,
(12:47):
mists that appear out of nowhere, and strange anomalies that
are shaped like circles and lights. But there are a
few reports that set the hospital apart from other haunted locations. First,
there seems to be a dark entity in the er.
Visitors have dubbed him the Guardian. Jamie Davis and Samuel
Queen wrote about the Guardian. They claim that the Guardian
(13:09):
looks like a shadow figure, but rumor goes that he
once was a hospital employee. Even then, he was rude
and made life miserable for his coworkers. There are also
many reports of a portal somewhere in the hospital. Some
feel like it could be a gateway to the afterlife.
It's said that a ghost named Maria guards the portal
(13:30):
and sometimes encourages spirits to pass through it. According to
reporting from Tyson Romero of ABC four, when the retirement
facility was still operational, elderly residents sometimes saw visions of Maria.
They always died a few days after spotting her. That said,
there's no guarantee that heaven waits on the other side.
Some claim that Maria has also warned people not to
(13:53):
go through the doorway because, according to her, whatever waits
beyond it is dangerous. When it comes to the Tula
Valley Hospital, it can be difficult to separate fact from
fiction or reality from artifice. But today we're gonna have
some help from my dear friend Richard Estep, who, as
referenced before, wrote a book on the location and he's
(14:15):
been there many many times. So Richard is coming up
after the break. All right, my friends, I am now
joined by friend of the show, frequent guest, mister Richard Estep.
Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Sir, Always a pleasure, Amy, thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Of course, I feel like normally have we ever done
one this way or have you always been a live guest.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
We've always been live in front of one of those
great strange escapes crowds.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yes, yes, so this is this is all new. So
I really do appreciate this. Now I was talking to
you usually like so for listeners, Richard has written eight
books on the paranormal, I would say, well on locations,
and like even before we started, I brought up or
(15:09):
he brought up a location and I said you should
write a book about that, and he said, I did.
It came out six months ago, and so I felt
like a very bad friend for a hot second. But
then I realize you've written so many books. I can't
keep track anymore. Richard.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I'm at like forty four right now. So I get it.
I have a hard time.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Sometimes you're going to give Hans Holzer a run for
his money.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, Hans Holzer. And you know Brad Steiger and the
great Rosemary al and Guiley on My Role Model.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Oh yeah, Rosemary was a lovely woman. Well, that being said,
you did happen to write a book about this location
we're discussing today. Now, I know people call it asylum
forty nine. How do you pronounce the town? Is it?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
This is the great Most people say tool and that
will get you thrown out. It's tuilla, like there's a
will in it the tuilla.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
To willa, like it's three syllables, exactly. Okay, good to
know because I was like, is it touley? Is it tool?
But now you've okay, so Tuela. So this was previously
its previous incarnation, it was Tula Hospital, correct.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It was actually it was the local valley hospital, okay,
Willa Valley Hospital, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Okay, perfect, And then it became this Asylum forty nine,
which makes sense. And I love your relationship with this place,
which I did not know. When I reached out to you.
I asked if you knew anyone who knew who I
could talk to about it. And you're like, well, I did,
of course write a book on it, and then you
actually go there and you participate in the hunt right
(16:44):
every Halloween.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So I wrote a book years ago called the World's
Most Wanted Hospitals, and I'd heard so much about Asylum
forty nine, and I went, and I went early in
the year. I made the mistake of going in like March,
and it was just quiet, and the owner said, you
need to come back over Halloween because this place builds
and over the Halloween season amy they have literally thousands
of people coming through all of them trying to get scared.
(17:08):
That's why you go to a full contact horn right right,
And so the act you're very familiar with cyclical hauntings.
Of course, Well, this is dormant over the winter period,
and then it builds as they start building the main
haunt for the year. They do construction, and of course
construction leads to increased paranormal activity, and then Halloween week
it all comes to a peak and the hospitals and
(17:28):
it's most active.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Oh, I believe it. You know, it's funny because it's
kind of controversial in the paranormal field, like having haunted
attractions in haunted locations, but the reality is some of
these locations don't really have a future other than something
like that, and then us kind of ghost hunters coming
in as well. But like you said, I've investigated many
(17:52):
of these places that have these seasonal haunts, and it
is most active right after the haunt has closed down
for the season. And I have been in at least one,
the Scarehouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They were in an old
mason's hall for a long time, and so I went
in one or there. Rather I investigated there like the
(18:13):
night they had the haunt open that night, and then
once they closed. It is the creepiest feeling to be
in there. When it's closed for the night. It's almost
like it's got a buzz in it. Did you experience
that there at all?
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Every year consistently? And I think that you know, where
one finds strong emotion, I've always believed one finds are haunting.
The kind of fear you get in a haunt, though,
isn't the bad kind of fear. It's but it is intense.
I mean, they actually give cash prizes to the cast
of Asylum forty nine if they can make a customer
soil themselves. I saw this happen.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, the best bonus scheme I ever heard an employer do.
But it's still a fun kind of fear. And I
think that the hospital's haunted reputation adds to that. And
you know, regarding the propriety of this, I definitely get
those people that say, you know, maybe this isn't in
the best taste. But on the flip side, these places
would be a parking lot if it weren't for the
revenue brought in by the haunts. And they wouldn't be
(19:12):
there for us to enjoy. They would be demolished.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Absolutely. You know, it's a revenue stream to keep these
historic locations open, and quite a few of them do that.
Quite a few of them do ghost tours.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It's kind of along the same level. And I feel like,
as long as you're doing it respectfully than by all
meets please and haunts are fun. I absolutely hate them,
but yet I subject myself to them every year for
some reason, Like, you know, like I would love to
check this place out in person, I have not been there.
That's the theme this year on Haunted Road. I've done
(19:47):
so many episodes now that I'm running out of places
I've actually been to, So I'm kind of discovering these
new locations. And then when I got to this one,
I was like, I need to go check this place out.
But anyways, I am terrified when I go through those haunts.
I do Halloween hor every year and I'm just screaming
and laughing the whole way through. They could probably win
their competition with me. It's not hard to make me
pee my pants these days.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Well that's a challenge accepted. If you're ever out in Tuila,
I'll make sure you get to put your nerves to
the test.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Okay, So now you how many years running have you
had this tradition?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Well, gosh, since I wrote that book. I took COVID
off because I'm a paramedic and that was a busy
year for all of us. But so twenty twenty I
didn't do it. But beyond that, I've been going since
I want to say, it's twenty seventeen. And you know,
partly it's because the family community atmosphere in this place.
Tuila is a small town. The cast stars are mostly teenagers,
(20:43):
and you know, without a place like this to bring
them some community, I fear for what would happen to them.
And instead I see a lot of parenting, big brother,
big sister and things like that going on. The atmosphere
is just unbelievable. They've taken ghosts and hauntings and they've
made it such a positive thing for the community. I
wish more people would see it. Well.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I love that, And what a cool job for a
teenager too. I would have loved to have been able
to do something like that. Now when did you know,
like you're like, oh, there's something to this. This place
is actually very haunted. When did you know it was?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
You know, we talk about as paranormal investigators, we talk
about seeing an apparition, being kind of about Holy Grail,
right amy, And yes, we can all well lucky if
we see one in a career. I'm at thirty years
in and the only one I can absolutely tell you
I'm convinced I saw was of Asylum in forty nine.
And how fitting that it would be over a Halloween night.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Hmmm, Well, tell us the story. I need to know.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
More absolutely well. Rather than working the haunt the first time,
I usually just go through like a customer would, so
I get that experience, you know, I like to see
what fresh horrors the cast is planning for the year.
So I went through this one night, and I saw
about halfway through a little girl and she looked kind
of like little Red riding Hood, you know, or Goldilocks,
(21:58):
that kind of dress, that kind of age as well,
And she was tugging a lady into one of the rooms.
And this girl looked like she was having so much fun,
and this lady looked like she wasn't. The lady I
remember was dressed in a very contemporary way, you know, jeans,
and a sweater. Obviously of our time. The little girl wasn't.
She was wearing kind of one of those flowing dresses
(22:19):
or nightgowns. But I just thought that's that's a costume, clearly,
you know. It was only after I got to the
end that I thought she was kind of young for
a full contact haunted house, Like it would almost be
irresponsible to have a kid that young working this harnt.
So I went to the owners and I said, doesn't
it bother you that you have adults lumbering around in
the dark, you know, and a child this young. And
(22:42):
they just both looked at me, and they said, there
is no girl that age working here tonight. And I said,
there is. I saw her, and there's no way she
came through the ticket booth. There's no way anyone would
sell a ticket to someone with a kid this young.
So they took me to the cast hall where the
cast is taking off their makeup, and I went and
looked at each and every one. I talked to each
and everyone. The girl was not. Nobody in the ticket
booth had allowed admission to a kid that age either,
(23:04):
And they said, yeah, you saw Sarah. She's one of
the little girls that is well known to haunt this hospital.
And I kick myself amy because for years, you know,
I've listened to people talk about seeing an apparition, and
I just thought, why did you not reach into your
pocket and pull out your phone and take a picture
or take some video? And they tell me it never
occurred to me. I didn't realize what I was looking at,
(23:27):
And that's exactly what happened to me.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, I say that to people a lot. How when
you see an apparition, you know so many five maybe
more than that, your first instinct is that it's an
actual living person. I mean, unless they're like a weird
partial apparition, but like when you see a full bodied apparition,
your instinct is who is that? How did they get
in here? And it would be awkward for you to
(23:50):
immediately like pull out your phone and start recording and
Murphy's law half the time, probably more than half the time,
that's not going to show up anyway. Like you know,
I've had my camera's pointed straight on to anomalies plenty
of times and it didn't see anything, but you had
the experience, and personal experiences are powerful. So who do
they think that little girl is? Who are these kids
(24:12):
they think are haunting the hospital.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, there are three children that are most active there
that are known to have died in the hospital. A
researcher named Torri Westoff has written a series of books
about actually those who died in Asylum forty nine. They're
called We Are Asylum forty nine and they believe that
this is a young girl that died there. I think
it was about forty five fifty years ago, and seems
(24:34):
to be a happy ghost. In fact, the children are
very playful, you know when when they're around. There seems
to be a lot of pranking, a lot of touching,
a lot of practical jokes in humor. Nothing negative from them.
And I can only imagine that if you are the
spirit of a child, a hospital that is also a
haunted house is a playground to you, especially if you
get to scare adults.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Well yes, and you know, be seen and people don't
realize that a ghost, you know that you can kind
of have this moment to appear and play and that
would be so interesting, Like I wonder what it would
be like to be a spirit, and you know, know
that for like a time each year you can just
completely terrify people, and I imagine the energy is something
(25:19):
that you kind of exists on, you know, according to
many theories that we have out there. So you were
kind of saying that things peter out like when the
haunt is not happening, but I imagine things have to
happen when people are working there year round. Like what
do you think are kind of the more prevalent paranormal
experiences that people have in that building?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I think that. So firstly, they've started doing seasonal haunts,
so they do Valentine's Day haunts, now they do horn
I noticed that demonic rabbits take over the asylum. It's fantastic,
so you know, it's dormant for less of the year.
I think Also, for the longest time, the back half
of the building was a nursing home and so it
(26:02):
was off limits quite rightly so. But since they moved
that facility out and turned it into a community center,
that's opened up a whole new dimension to the haunting
because you have this back half that was completely off
limits for many, many years. And there seemed to be
a little crossover between some of the shall we say
more traditional, you know, the older haunting that's gone in
(26:22):
the hospital itself and what was once the nursing home,
and I stayed there. I was the first investigated to
spend a night on the psychiatric wing of the old
nursing home, and it was one of the creepiest feelings
in my life. One of the rooms, which is now
a store shop. The nursing staff told us that they
would not put people in there anymore because they all
(26:44):
woke up telling a very similar story of a dark
figure towering over their bed with glowing red eyes.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
And that was when it was an operation.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
An operational nursing home. In fact, they stopped putting people
in that room.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yeah, that's how it's going to say. I was going
to ask about, like, what did people report, you know,
when it wasn't operating. I imagine you've talked to past employees,
and the owners have talked to past employees. I mean,
there had been some inkling that there were ghosts there
before it ever became abandoned.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Absolutely, you know, and there was the classic figure in
black that was seen going into rooms hours or days
before somebody would pass. This idea of a harbinger of
impending death is something we see quite often in the
paranormal realm, and they would talk about that. They would
talk about paranormal activity ramping up in the nursing home
(27:35):
right before somebody died. And what impresses me is most
of these employees they don't want publicity, They don't want
their names or faces to be put out there. They
just want to share the stories. And they're still coming
forward to this day.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, I mean I wonder that, like you obviously you
wrote a whole book about haunted hospitals, of course, so like,
how common is that that employees and patients and things
report activity happening in these little locations.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
It's so common, you know. When I do the TV
show Haunted Hospitals, the tagline is every nurse has a
ghost story, and it's pretty much true, so do so
many patients. But hospitals and nursing homes and asylum forty
nine was both. That's the key thing. And right next
door its neighbor is the cemetery. So you have this
kind of trifecta of components of a haunting. But yeah,
(28:25):
so many hospitals have their ghost stories. Not all of
them like them to get out there or to be publicized,
but they do exist and they're more common than people think. Now.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
We sometimes in these kind of locations where there's this
high energy level abeit now or when it was an operation,
we kind of have theories and ideas that we might
be creating some of these hauntings, kind of in the
sense of like an Agrigor writer a Tolpus. So do
you think any of these hauntings can be attributed to that,
like things that were actually created by the energy of
(28:56):
people going there.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
I think it's entirely possible, especially as you're dealing with
a lot of fictional characters. The members of the cast
actually create their characters, you know, there's almost like a
role playing game element to it, and then they audition
in order to be selected. So they create these characters,
and it's kind of like the Philip experiment, which I
know you and your listeners are going to be familiar with,
but they breathe physical life into these characters. They create makeup,
(29:22):
they dress up, they assume the guys, and then they
go out there and terrify people. So it would be
remarkable if some of that didn't bleed over into the
paranormal realm.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I think, yeah, I'm always super interested in that I'm
not as familiar with their business model there. Is it
just the hunt or do they allow investigations. I believe
they have investigations right.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
They actually have stopped the investigations because they have a
crime museum right now as well. That's going on. It's
a part of the hospital that is containing memorabilia from
through crime serial modes, things like that, and they found
that people coming in to investigate, by no means all
of them, but have been disrespectful enough to the spirits
(30:05):
there and also have been stealing things and things like
that that the owners have kind of put the kibosh
on that they've stopped doing that for the time being.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Oh man, that's so unfortunate. And it's like it's sadly,
it's not a completely unfamiliar tale, you know, it's I
always tell investigators that when a location trusts you to,
you know, climb through their halls almost unsupervised, and you know,
some of these places are too large, Like there's this
(30:35):
level of respect that you have to have, and like
I would say, ninety nine percent of the time, people
are super respectful and they know that like this is uh,
you know kind of I don't want you know, this
is something that they're being trusted with and that what
they do reflects on all of us as a whole.
But then I also think sometimes there's people who don't
really have a lot of knowledge of the field and
(30:56):
they're just excited to kind of get in there for
a ghost unt and like you know, joe around and whatnot,
depending on what they watch on TV. And then and
then they end up doing things like that. So that's
so sad. I hope at some point they can kind
of reopen it again.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Me too. I do organize ghost ms there, usually once
a year or so for charity, so I'm always happy
to do those and show the place after people. And
you know, it's one thing to be gifted something from
a location, it's something else to take it. Sitting in
my office is the Board of Life from the old hospital,
which was gifted to me by the owners. It's the
whiteboard that has the names of which doctors, nurses and
(31:33):
techs are working on any given night for each department
who's on call for obe labor and delivery. I brought
that into my home and then had to have my
home blessed by a Catholic priest, so that may not
have been the smartest move, but I do really yeah,
which is serious for am agnostic.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I did not know that story. Your wife must have
loved that.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I was. I was in the doghouse for quite a while.
Fortunately I'm very happy around the dogs.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
But yeah, there you go. No, I think that's interesting.
I love taking little trinkets home like that from locations,
but that they're given to me, I certainly would not
take them by all means, you know, and that just
kind of makes it even more special. Okay, so we're
talking a bit about the activity and whatnot. So you
saw an apportion and that was like a big moment
(32:20):
for you, Like when do you find that most things
that people encounter there are of a friendly nature or
have people had experiences there that they would, you know,
kind of think we're negative.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
It runs the full gamut of the whole spectrum. So
on the one hand, you have people like Peter Hansford,
the X ray technician, who seem to be so happy
and fulfilled doing his job at the hospital that he's
still punching a time clock after he died. I think
that's wonderful. But then you have individuals or entities rather
like the guardian who is far darker and the Guardian's
area on the old side of the hospital. He is
(32:55):
notorious for physically attacking females. In fact, I would love
to see you go to to toe with this individual.
He scratches, pushes, shoves, tries to intimidate primarily female visitors
when they enter his part of the hospital.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Oh, I have to go visit. I'm more afraid of
those haunt actors than like dead people. Well, yes, I
tell people that all the time. I'm like, no, trust me,
living people are much worse. I'll go toe to toe
with a ghost any day. No, I really hope to visit.
I'm going to have to contact the owner and see
if you know I'm actually going to Utah. Oh, you're
(33:31):
going to be there too. How far away is this
place from there? Utah is a big state.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
So I tell you what, if you want to tack
on a bit of a drive, it's like a three
hour drive. I can make that happen.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, I might, It depends I have We're talking about
Phenomicon in September in Vernal, Utah. Richard and I will
both be there, and so I'm always trying to think of,
like how I can parlay these moments into visits to
haunted locations. So if I can, that would be really fun.
So I could report back to you Haunted Roadies and
let you know how it went. Let us know, Richard,
what are you up to these days? Like how can
(34:04):
people find you? What's your newest project? Like what do
you want people to know? What's going on in the
world in.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Richard Estep Yeah, writing, writing and writing. Of course. I
have two books coming out within one day of each
other at September because my publishers don't talk to one another.
One is called Mothman, co written with Tobias Whalan, and
the other is called Ghostly Encounters. So I'm excited about that.
I'm actually finishing a book on the hauntings of Tombstone,
another place you and I know well and haunted Rodyes
(34:33):
know well.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Also, I'm so excited for that. I can't wait to
go back to Tombstone. So THAT'SU. You are a machine.
I tell you. There are some people out there that
I know and admire in our field that are just
like just very disciplined when it comes to work, and
you are one of those people because you're holding down
a very important full time job as well, you know,
(34:56):
working as a paramedic, and then you're also just providing
all this wonderful content for us to consume, and I
just I love it so much.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Thanks so much, Amy, You're so kind and right back
at you.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Oh well, thanks as I record this in my closets,
so anyway we can we just make it work, right,
But I love it so well. I can't wait to
see you in person again very soon, and I really
appreciate you taking the time. Everyone out there, I highly
recommend Richard and his books, and he's just a lovely
(35:30):
person as long as you can put up with a
great number of dad jokes. He is the master of
dad jokes, so just be forewarned. So all right, thank
you so much, Richard. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Thanks, goodbye.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
It's natural to like being scared. It's one of the
main reasons why haunted attractions are so popular and why
we're drawn to real paranormal investigations. But when it comes
to Asylum forty nine, some may find the chills to
be a little too real, and the ghostly apparitions can
be a little too authentic, because the things we're most
(36:06):
frightened of may actually dwell here. I'm Amy Rooney and
this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is a production of
iHeartRadio and Grim and milds from Aaron Manky. Haunted Road
(36:30):
is hosted and written by me Amy Bruney, with additional
research by Cassandra de Alba. This show is edited and
produced by supervising producer Rima el Kali, with executive producers
Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. Learn more about
this show over at Grimandmild dot com, and for more
(36:51):
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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