June 9, 2025 • 48 mins
Eastern State Penitentiary: a symbol of reform and penitence. But is it really? Join us as we walk through the history and then tell us your thoughts. Was it truly a place of reform or was it an experiment resulting in human suffering?
Sources & Reference Material:
https://www.easternstate.org/research/history-eastern-state/timeline
https://www.travelchannel.com/videos/eastern-state-penitentiary-5625480
https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-44-one-eyed-joe-6-3-2016/
Eastern State Penitentiary, Cellblock 3 | Weitzman
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
Sherlock Holmes once said when you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the
truth. But what if the truth isn't just
improbable? What if it's horrifying?
What if it's something so baffling that our minds can't
accept it? What if it's because our senses
can't confirm it? Or it makes your very soul
shudder from committing such a depraved act.
(00:38):
In this podcast, we'll journey through haunted history,
metaphysical happenings, unexplained disappearances, and
unconventional murders, events that challenge everything you
thought you knew. And sometimes we'll uncover the
truth, but perhaps not in the way you were hoping.
I'm Jen. And I'm Wu, and this is the
haunting truth where facts blur into the unknown and what
(01:01):
remains after we question everything might just shake us
to our core listener discretion advice.
(01:27):
So welcome back to the haunting truth and those who might be new
to us. I'm Jen, and my other Hostess
with the Mostess is here as well, Wu.
So in this episode, we're going to journey to Philadelphia.
So Philadelphia is a revolutionary city where the
Declaration of Independence was signed, where many of our
founding fathers live, which really fostered a hub of
(01:49):
creativity, civility, Prison Reform, and it was an epicenter
of education, including medical schools.
So two of these principles, the Prison Reform and the medical
schools, are going to be combined in this episode to
intertwine in a horrifying and surprising twist of events.
So we're going to explore Eastern State Penitentiary and
(02:10):
how it was potentially involved in body snatching and at least
organ harvesting, to everybody'sshock.
So grab a seat, turn down the lights, so we can explore the
dark and crumbling halls of Eastern State Penitentiary, a
place that once housed the nation's most notorious
criminals and now holds the restless spirits of those who
(02:31):
never left. So first, we're going to start
out with the history of Eastern State Penitentiary.
So now to truly understand Eastern State Penitentiary and
how these stories intersect, we're going to need to start at
the beginning. And as we all know, the path to
(02:53):
hell is always paved with good intentions, and Eastern State
Penitentiary is no different. Now you have to understand,
prison conditions in the 1700s were beyond abysmal.
Many jails had no sanitation, there was no guidelines for the
prisoners health, any records, and such Common amenities such
as clothing or even food were not necessarily furnished.
(03:15):
Sometimes, and especially in Philadelphia's old Stone Jail,
it was a prime example of everything a prison shouldn't
be, and it screamed for the needfor reform.
Now. This prompted Dr. Benjamin Rush
to find to found the Philadelphia Society of
alleviating the miseries of public that.
(03:38):
Is a great moniker alleviating the miseries.
I love it. Yes.
And I think it's like he definitely spelled it out to
everybody of what the society was supposed to be peace.
So OK, he ended up eventually being backed by Benjamin
Franklin. So he had a really good backer
politically and financially for this specific society.
(04:01):
So Benjamin Rush and others in the society, their hope was to
outline, outlaw public punishments and replace the
overcrowded prisons and corrupt system with a more private
solitary confinement and penitent system.
So this was Russia's kind of radical idea, to build a
penitentiary designed to inspireregret and penance in the hearts
(04:24):
of the people convicted of thesecrimes.
So this was part of the enlightening at this specific
time, but no government had necessarily carried out such a
program ever before. And it did take the society more
than 30 years to convince the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to
allow them to build this kind ofprison.
(04:45):
So they ended up being able to look at different land, and they
figured out that they could build, they were wanting to
build on farmland outside of Philadelphia on the top of the
hill that overlooked it as a warning to everyone, like an
after school special from the 80s.
Like this could happen to you? I love it.
Yeah. So they build it on 12 acres
(05:07):
overlooking Philadelphia. So the issue though, is they
really needed to get funding andthey also had to allow for the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to allow this kind of institution
to exist. So in 1821, the society held a
design contest where 4 firms competed for the Commission of
(05:28):
the design for Eastern State Penitentiary.
And then they got like $100 prize, which I think when I
looked it up was like, think like 3000 to 20.
That's a big gap. But like I thought it was like
3000. Dollars like today's money or
something like that? Yeah, today's money.
OK, Do we know? Who won the design contest?
I'm assuming it wasn't. Frank, So it was.
(05:48):
Yeah. So it was John.
It was a British born architect called John Haviland.
OK, All right. And then?
Before you go into anything a little bit further.
So we've been to Eastern State Penitentiary and it is very for
fitting looking. It's very dark and cold and I
can see how it would serve as anafter school specialist.
(06:10):
Don't let this happen to you. So I definitely get that.
And I, I think if you're going to go into this later, then,
then, then fine. I'll hold all my questions.
But what is the difference trulybetween the penitentiary
enlightenment way of thinking versus prison?
So the idea with prison was everybody was kind of just
crowded into large rooms with like no sanitation.
(06:34):
There was a lot of disease that was going around.
They didn't really have like a stable system of putting people
in there. It was basically you went in
there, you necessarily didn't have food, you necessarily
didn't have sanitation, you didn't even necessarily have
clean drinking water, and you were just put in a huge room and
there was no heat. You could have froze to death.
(06:56):
Nobody provided you. A lot of times with provisions
of food, clothing, there was no system really in place.
It was like they threw people inthere and then it had to serve a
couple years or they just killedthem.
So it was truly just you go in there and throw in the key and
they didn't care. So it was just sorry, get you
out of the way. OK.
And then the Enlightenment theory I guess involves with
(07:17):
something a little bit differentthan just locking locking them
away. Yeah, so it's more of like the,
and I, I'll definitely go over it.
So it's called the Pennsylvania system, but it is more of having
a structure making sure that when people got out, they didn't
they weren't recognized they could actually integrate into
(07:37):
society and they're they weren'tnecessarily recognized by people
as having been in the prison system.
Also, they had food, they had running water, they had
sanitation, and it created an atmosphere that was definitely
solitary to repent. Think of it almost like a
monastery. Almost OK.
So a lot of self reflection and think about what it is that you
(08:00):
did. And everything else, yeah, so
and I'll go into it, into it a little bit deeper, but they did
begin construction on Eastern State in 1822.
Now the premise of this was essentially it was consisted of
seven cell blocks that radiated from a central surveillance
Rotunda like a wagon wheel. So the concept with each
(08:20):
prisoner had their own private cell.
It was centrally heated. It had running water, a flushing
toilet and a skylight. Now adjacent to each cell was a
private outdoor exercise yard that can it was contained by a
10 foot wall. So this modern design was
impressive at the time. Like even the White House with
its new occupant at the time, Andrew Jackson, had no running
(08:43):
water and it still was heated bycoal burning stoves.
Yeah, Now I, I know when I saw, when we went and did the tour
and we saw the like the outline of the cells, I was actually
surprised because they were, andI've seen a couple prisons went
to Alcatraz and so on. But of course, every old jail
tour that I do on the, on the buildings, they're actually
(09:05):
pretty spacious and, and, and light.
I mean, like there was, there was actually a lot of light that
was coming in. And then the fact that you can
go outside when you wanted to orstay in was also, I, I hate to
put it this way, but it kind of reminded me of like the kennel
setups where you're kind of likein and you can run out.
Yeah. Well, it's a little bit
deceiving to a certain extent, because once the only light,
(09:26):
there was no actual lighting. The only light did come from a
skylight, and it was referred toas the eye of God.
Yeah. But it was lighting it up
pretty, pretty bright throughoutthe day there.
It, it was pretty bright, but atnight it, it, it really didn't
have a lot. And you got to have to think
that where we're, where Philadelphia is located, it's
dark a lot of times of the year.There's it's only bright.
Maybe it's half and half like 6 months.
(09:49):
So even after like in the in thewinter, it starts getting dark
at like 4:00. So you don't have a lot of light
time. And the skylight was the only
option. They didn't have candles or
anything else for the cell mates.
So for the prisoners that they had, I should say not cell
mates, but and also they were required to be in their cell for
23 of the 24 hours. So they only got an hour or half
(10:14):
hour blocks within that exercisebecause it was kind of like a
shared space where an inmate would go in, they would bring
them out, and then another inmate would be rotated into
that specific, specific space. So they didn't actually have the
their own ability to walk in andout of that.
Specific. I thought they were just like a
kennel set up. Let me look through.
(10:35):
Your now so like just like a kennel, they do have the doors
that allows people in and out like or animals but the yard
itself. Wasn't contained in between the
cells. Exactly.
The yard itself wasn't, it wasn't allowed to be accessed at
all times and they couldn't talkto anybody.
So they weren't allowed to communicate, talk, saying hum,
anything. They were not allowed to
(10:57):
vocalize. Just as I said, I think they got
a lot of these concepts from like monasteries that had a, a
ballast island, but I think they're, they missed one key
component when they were thinking of that.
And then we'll definitely get into that as well.
Now they did allow for the inmates to either pray, which is
(11:18):
the word of God, or do honest work such as shoe making, basket
weaving. They did allow him to do
haircuts, which I'm not sure howthat worked out exactly when
they had to always be with have a hood over their face anytime
they interacted with someone. So that's going to be I wasn't,
I wasn't sure how that worked. But the interior of the
penitentiary, as you said, it was by design.
(11:41):
It definitely resembles a church.
So it has like 34 like foot barrel bolted hallways, tall
archways, and the exterior lookslike a Gothic facade.
Like you said, it's like a Gothic castle of us.
Like it definitely tells you like this.
This place means business. There's punishment behind these
walls. So yeah, now as you said,
(12:03):
there's two different systems. They had the New York Auburn
system, and then they had the Pennsylvania system, which was
what Eastern State Penitentiary was now.
It was revolutionary and during its construction, more than 300
prisons were built in South America, Europe, Russia, China,
Japan and across the British Empire based on this specific.
(12:25):
So people frequently travel to Philadelphia to study Eastern
state in the Pennsylvania systembecause of its distinct form of
isolation practices. It was a symbol of progress and
modern principles. So there were a lot of people
who toured the facility once it was built.
That was in around the 1830s and1840s.
But they did start to debate theeffectiveness of the compassion
(12:48):
of solitary confinement and if the concept was really actually
making people reform. Or was it?
Driving them insane. OK.
So you said there's more than 300 globally built based on this
model. I wonder how many of them are
still in use today. I don't think none of them are
in use today. None of them are in use because
(13:10):
they did deem solitary confinement.
There's laws in, inside and outside of the United States
that you could only have somebody in solitary confinement
for so long because it's considered a form of abuse.
OK. Yeah, yeah, I.
Surely didn't think that way when I was a teenager.
All I wanted to do was left alone in solitary in my room.
(13:32):
Please don't talk to me. Yeah, please don't talk to me.
I know. But they did find that this was
not the best course. But you know the the
Pennsylvania legislation didn't realize that.
So in April 23rd of 1829, they did pass the law saying that
solitary confinement with with work was a preferred form method
(13:56):
of the prison system. And this was only a few months
prior to Eastern State Penitentiary opening on October
25th. So they were able to slide in
this legislation right before the opening of Eastern State
Penitentiary because they did believe that if a person
regretted their crime and they were repentant, then they could
go back into society and they would be reformed.
(14:17):
OK. Yeah.
So, you know, many of these theyhad and they also had to
prepare. So as I said, they had to have
hoods, they had to have equippedfeeding doors, they had to have
these individual exercise yards.They had to do all these things.
And then they had to train the guards that they had to have
minimal contact with the prisoners in order to ensure
(14:41):
that this was going to work. So as I said, October 25th,
1829, they opened their doors and they got their first
prisoner. So his name was Charles
Williams. He was prisoner #1 he was a
burglar. The description says light black
skin, 5 foot 710 inches. He has a scar on his nose and on
(15:02):
his thigh. On his thigh he had a broad
mouth, black eyes. He was a farmer by trade.
He can read. Theft included $120.00 watch,
one $3 gold seal and 1 gold key,and he was sentenced to two
years of confinement with labor.He was received by the warden,
which was Samuel Samuel R Wood, and he was the first warden of
(15:23):
Eastern State. OK.
So they thought that they were doing the right thing.
But yeah, the profound psychological effects on the
prisoners would definitely as you as we read through or as
we've seen throughout the history, it's not the best form
of punishment. As I said, it drove a lot of
people to madness all. Right.
(15:44):
Well, let's talk more about those impacts after the break
and then maybe you can give us alittle bit more flavor on that
it. Sounds good.
Welcome back, everybody. So as I said, a lot of people
were actually going in because of the solitary confinement
issue and the way the structure was for the Pennsylvania system.
(16:08):
Now, Eastern State Penitentiary decided to largely abandoned
these practices and it was just basically due to overcrowding in
the 1870s. So they abandoned the use of the
hoods, they enabled socialization amongst some of
the inmates, and they started using the inmates for a lot of
different projects and labor because with the overcrowding,
(16:29):
they needed to start building additions to the already
existing structures. So they didn't completely
abandoned some of the practices of solitary confinement as we
know today, but public opinion and authorities did kind of make
it as minimal as possible as they could.
But even today we do have solitary confinement when it
(16:52):
comes to our our person system as well.
But due to the overcrowding, as I said, they did have to change
a lot that had to do with Eastern State Penitentiary,
including having a functioning hospital facility.
Now, they converted Cell Block 3into a fully functioning
hospital facility by the 1710s, however, they had changed it
(17:13):
over time. So they did.
It was still able to by the 1870s.
It was able to perform surgeries.
They were able to house bodies, and there was a lot of different
functions that they refused to go outside of the hospital for.
So it did have a lot of different facilities inside the
prison itself so that they didn't have to transfer any of
(17:33):
the inmates out or take them to any kind of other facilities.
But as we said, you know, the path to hell is paved with good
intentions. So they did have surgeries, but
they found that they started performing experiments and at
times tortures were done in cellblock 3, which they stated
were different things to help the inmates adjust to Eastern
(17:57):
State Penitentiary. But, you know, a lot of secrets
are definitely held in those whitewashed walls.
And one of those we're going to explore specifically that was
the purpose of this. We're going to kind of see how
they kind of figured out that there was potentially organ
harvesting and great and grave robbing, as I say, or body
(18:18):
snatching going on potentially at Eastern State.
So some of the most notorious criminals in American history
pass through Eastern State stores, including the bank
robber Slick Lily Sutton and infamous Al Scarface Compone.
But one of the focal points is going to be a local celebrity
called John Frankfurt or One Eyed Joe.
(18:40):
And he was a prolific horse thief in Pennsylvania.
And he was. Why are they in every episode?
I know horse thieves. I mean apparently it was a very
popular profession back in the day, but he was also really
known because he was a pro at escaping jail as well all.
Right. So he actually got pretty good
notoriety because it was a pretty handsome fella, but he
(19:02):
was also very charismatic. So the reporters loved him
because he was very unapologeticabout stealing horses and he
bragged about everything that hedid so.
OK, we have a Do we have a view of what Mr. Langford looks like?
I don't unfortunately have a view of him, but I can
definitely add that to my sourcenotes if I'm able to find him.
(19:25):
I just really wasn't able to find a really good, it was like
a, a sketch drawing. So there wasn't a really good
yeah picture of him or anything else.
But he did end up passing away in 1896 at Eastern State
Penitentiary and specifically the the reason that he got
caught in the 1st place. So we'll go over that.
So John Frankfurt, he ended up crossing several different
(19:48):
regions from Ohio, PA to Maryland, and he scooted
sheriffs. He was stealing and selling
horses. But he grew up in Lancaster, PA.
And he once joked, as I said he liked to brag to a prison
warrant, that he was responsiblefor every missing horse in
Eastern Pennsylvania. Was he Amish?
Did he hit his 16 and go crazy? No, he was not Amish.
(20:13):
Sorry, that's what I think of every time I hear Lancaster.
I do too. Like definitely my first straw
there. But he did mostly run on his
own. But he did occasionally have
help from his son-in-law who wasaffiliated with the region's
biggest criminal gang called theBuzzard Brothers.
And they really did kind of helpa lot of times in facilitating
his, his, his jailbreaks. Oh.
(20:36):
Sorry, I'm sorry, you said Buzzard brothers.
I'm thinking you remember the old Bugs Bunny cartoons and
there was the flock of like crows or buzzards or something.
That's what I was thinking up. About the Buzzard, where he's
like, Nope, Nope, Nope. Yeah, yeah, He's one of my
favorites, I have to say. That's funny.
Yeah, so the group of six brothers were called the Buzzard
(20:58):
Brothers. Now, even Ike Buzzard once got
Frankfurt and several others outusing their classic jailbird
trick, is what they called it. OK, yeah, so the.
Jailbird trick. The jailbird trick was
essentially where the jailbird let me let me see here.
So the jailbird trick was essentially where they would say
(21:19):
that they had a bird in a cage and they would say, hey, can you
give this to my brother? And they were passing like keys,
information and everything in order to get out.
So yeah, so they were, they wereessentially stealing things from
the the jailers and the the other prisoners in order to pass
the bird back and forth, which led them to getting a key and
(21:42):
being able to jailbreak Frankfurt out of the facility.
OK, if we ever get in trouble, Iknow we always think jokes like
somebody's got to have the bail money.
I'm just going to pass you a bird.
Yes, yes, they were. Basically the cage itself had
like a false bottom and they were able to store things in
there. Because passing around a bird is
common, yes. Apparently it was back in the
(22:03):
day they shared a pet, but eventually, you know, with
Frankfurt. Lancaster County was tired of
Frankfurt's escape, so they built a special cell for him.
But in 1881 he cut through it and then dug under a wall and
crawled out through the chimney.Well, all.
Right A-frame. What is the the shoot?
(22:26):
The Shawshank Redemption. Yes, yes, yeah.
He was very similar to that. But he was spotted by one of the
guards and they did shoot him inthe face and that's how he lost
vision in one of his eyes. And that's how he got the
nickname One Eyed Joe. In the face.
Yes. That's terrible.
(22:46):
Was definitely not a good shot if he shot him in the face and
he still was fine. So was he shoot him?
With a I know, right? I'm.
Sorry, my apologies to anybody that lost their eye.
Yeah, I we apologize. We definitely do.
But, yeah. But in 1885, Frankfurt finally
made his match when he was caught at a horse sale in
(23:08):
Philadelphia. And this is where he was sent to
Eastern State Penitentiary. It was the most severe and
famous prison at the time as we said.
And he was set to serve 19 year sentence for horse thievery
there. 19 years for horse theory.
Yes, but again, he never been a.Woman probably get six months.
(23:29):
Don't tell me. Exactly.
But he never made it out, at least not alive.
So because of the the towering 30 foot walls, the way that they
had set up the prison still where it still had a lot of the
old fashioned cells that had a very large thick door that was
made of iron. And then he'd still had a lot of
feeding windows in there. So there was no way that he was
(23:52):
getting out of this. Now, unfortunately, it wasn't
the prison guards that he had toworry about.
It was the doctor. So the reason that he might not
have made it out, and this is conjecture, is because of, in my
opinion, and I nicknamed him this, the Frankenstein of
Eastern State, which was Doctor John Bacon.
So Doctor Bacon was interested in the facts of being a career
(24:14):
criminal on one's brain. Trump and Steve.
Yes, yes. So by the 1890s, about a decade
into Frank's term, he wasn't as closely confined.
So he was said to be a model prisoner.
He was hoping for a pardon. So he worked duties including
plumbing, plastering. He looked after the the prison's
(24:36):
dogs, which was a skill because if you're going to be a horse
thief, you have to be like a horse whisperer.
So he was really good with animals, But around Christmas
time in 1895, Frank was tending the dogs when one of them turned
on him and it bit him, causing asevere infection.
Yeah. Now by mid January, Frankfurt
took a turn for the worst and hedied in prison on January 20th,
(25:00):
1896. And he was 58 years old.
My brother's birthday, by the way.
Not 1896, but. Not 1896.
Are we sure? I mean, that's not that's pretty
prolific. I mean, he could be doing well.
But afterwards, So Doctor Bacon,as I said, he was interested on
the effects of the brain. So, you know, even though
(25:23):
Frankfurt had been locked away for about, I'd say a decade at
this point, his obituary was still front page news, which
turned out to be a grave misstepfor Doctor Bacon, since an
investigation would be performedbased on the condition of
Frankfurt's body when it was received by his daughter Maggie.
(25:43):
How popular was this Frankfurt guy that he's still making front
page news? As I said, 10 years after the
most prolific charismatic personthat was a horse thief in
Pennsylvania history essentially, That's crazy.
So I mean, he just bragged to everybody about what he did and
everybody liked his bravado. So he was in a lot of newspaper
(26:04):
articles. So when he died, it was front
page news, so. Trump of the Day.
Yes, yes. Not not Trump as a horse thief,
but just charismatic and yes, bragging all over the place.
Bragging all over the place? Absolutely.
It's front page news. Yes.
So Maggie Frankfurt Star was very close with her father, and
she frequently visited him. Well, when she traveled with her
(26:25):
husband to the prison to go pickhim up for transport for his
funeral in Lancaster, they wouldn't give her the body.
They said it wasn't ready, so they had to wait and wait and
wait. And then when they finally got
the body, it had bruises all over his body.
It had sewn marks, and his skullhad been cut open.
Oh, now, doctor. Yeah.
(26:48):
Doctor Franklin had said Frankfurt's official cause of
death was a strangulated hernia,which is an intestinal blockage.
What's gonna? Say, where did the dog bite him?
On his head. Yeah, like, there's the dog bit
him on his arm and he had an intestinal blockage, which would
understandably have his stomach,but there ain't nothing to do
with this man's head. Yeah, so it was very suspicious
(27:12):
based on what they told was the cause of death at this point in
time. So eventually a man named
Alexander Lefstner contain contacted Maggie and said he had
some information as to what actually happened to her father,
Lefster said. And he was a inmate at Eastern
State Penitentiary and he was there for second degree murder.
(27:35):
Now, he was actually friends with Frankfurt, and he really
respected him. So he told Maggie that he had
been out of his cell in a construction project, and he
tried to sneak over to the hospital wing to visit
Frankfurt. Now, this was in January of
1896. He said it was cold, it was
snowing, and he looked all over the place and he couldn't seem
(27:57):
to find Frankfurt. Well, he looked across the yard
and he saw a body on a table, naked.
And the doctor, Doctor Bacon, the prisoner physician, was
working on him. He said that he hid away so he
wouldn't be discovered. And he saw Doctor Bacon remove
Frankfurt's heart, put it in thesnow, presumably for
preservation. And then he said he was working
(28:19):
on his skull. He opened all the up the skull
and took out his brain, and he set it in the snow too.
OK, I I've never had hernia surgery.
Intestinal hernia. You've never had an intestinal
blockage that required you to pull out somebody's heart and
brain? Maybe that's a new.
(28:41):
Technique or Yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not
a physician, but I'm pretty goodwith anatomy.
And that does not require you todo an autopsy.
That requires you to move the brain and the heart.
Was he actually a doctor or was he a Barber at that time 'cause
I feel like the barbers would even know better than to do
that. No.
So he was actually a doctor, 'cause as you know, Philadelphia
(29:01):
was the epicenter of medical schools at this time.
They had several medical schools.
So he knew what he was doing when it came to taking apart a
body and putting it back together because there were
cadavers required for the medical schools at that time.
So he he knew where things were supposed to go, kind of like a
(29:22):
jigsaw puzzle, but he he tried to figure it out, apparently,
and put it back together. Yeah.
So as I said, he was opening up the Scully was taking things
out. Now Maggie reported this
condition of her father's corpsein the allegations, which did
prompt an investigation. And because he was so popular,
immediately they started openingup and looking that they had a
(29:45):
legislative committee, we saw testimony from inmate mates,
warden and even newspaper reporters about what happened to
Frankfurt. So Alexander Leppser did end up
taking the stand, and he claimedthat every inmate who died at
Eastern State risks being the doctor as Guinea pig.
Yeah. All right.
(30:06):
Well, I think I'm going to ask you more about that, but let's
take a break real quick and thenwe'll come back all.
Right. Sounds good.
Welcome back, everybody. So now I'm going to talk about
what Doctor Bacon's defense was in this investigation.
So Doctor Bacon ended up taking the stand.
(30:28):
And he testified he did perform emergency surgery on Frankfurt's
hernia right before he died. And this was a last ditch effort
to save him. That's why his stomach was cut
open. But then the legislative
committee asked him to explain what happened to Frankfurt's
body after he died, because there wasn't just the trauma to
the stomach. Now, Doctor Bacon said, a
(30:49):
prisoner whose name was Arthur had assisted him and had removed
the skull and taken out his brain, and the prison record of
the case and its treatment was submitted to the committee.
Well, they specifically asked, why did you take out the brain?
Doctor Bacon said that Frankfurtwas a typical criminal and he
wanted his brain for scientific purposes.
(31:11):
Doctor Bacon said that he had taken the brain out of two other
bodies and that he had actually done this frequently and it was
a common practice amongst the other doctors at Eastern Sea
even before him. Now he did deny other claims
that he had taken out the heart and bowels as well and carried
them in a bucket through cellblock 7 for many of the
(31:34):
other inmates to see. Yeah.
I wonder if they were eating them instead of studying them.
That's gross. Like I don't.
Even, I mean, I'm just thinking like, you know, study a brain,
fine, but it's not like they're doing this a lot.
What are they doing with the darn brains?
Well, we'll get to that. We will get to that, OK.
So OK, Doctor. Can I just real quick, yes,
before we go in there, I just want to share a little personal
(31:55):
story. When I was going through nursing
school, we had to do a a dissection of a brain and they
brought the brain out in a bucket.
We just brought flashback that smelled the formality of the.
Brain in practice. Apparently.
Apparently still today. Although this brain was a cow
brain, it wasn't the serial ocular brain or whatever.
But yeah, OK, flashback. Well, Frankfurt did say though
(32:16):
he might have actually carried the brain in a bucket through
that cellblock, yes, Yeah. However, John Frankfurt's brain
was never recovered and it's still missing to this day.
So. Hanging out with Patty Cannon's
skull somewhere. Maybe they took him to study it
again. Maybe they did.
Which actually actually it does make sense and we'll definitely
(32:38):
get into that. So they could actually have been
together at some point in time. So the reason why I think
personally that potentially whenyou hear this story, that it
does make sense that they were actually taking and harvesting
organs on a pretty regular basisfrom inmates after they had
(32:59):
passed away. Now, in 1867, the city of
Philadelphia and Allegheny County had passed an act to give
each medical school in the public and private sectors the
ability to get unclaimed bodies per student.
So the larger medical schools would get more bodies and a
smaller medical school can get up to 20 students.
(33:20):
They would get less bodies. But this would ensure that all
the medical schools, which they're, as I said, had the most
in Philadelphia, would be able to have these bodies in order
for them to do dissections. Now, if a person claimed they
wanted to be buried prior to death, their body would not be
allowed to be given to these medical.
Schools. They would instead be buried,
(33:41):
just they would be buried. But that you have to take into
consideration. There was no specific clause in
here saying that nobody could take their organs.
Yeah. Yes.
Well, that's yeah. Now, the reason they did this is
there was a lot of of Thomas that were caught.
(34:02):
I don't know if I'm saying that right.
They're. Anatomists.
Yeah, a lot of people who had the anatomy schools, they were
caught selling spare bodies or spare parts, and the same
punishment would apply to the robbers when they were caught.
So essentially this could be punishable by death.
I was going to say I've heard ofthis before.
(34:22):
Like the the grave robbers and you know, organ selling and
things back in the day. But I was wondering what the
punishment was for getting caught and I was like I bet you
it's probably less than horse thievery but you just told me it
could be put to death for. That, yeah, but it wasn't
something that this was only in Philadelphia and there wasn't an
(34:43):
actual anatomy act until 1883, which became national so that
everybody knew what to do in these specific situations and
that how these bodies would be divvied up.
There was most people were just doing things kind of Willy nilly
and people were really upset about that because death was one
of those things back in this time that every person, wealthy
(35:06):
or poor, prepared for. They nobody really wanted to
give their body up for science because they believed that they
needed to be buried on consecrated ground in order for
religious beliefs. So the demand in Philadelphia
was really high for bodies. So a lot of times when prisoners
(35:26):
came in, they didn't really state that they were going
really to the Potter's fields like they were supposed to.
And my belief is that they weren't actually going there.
Yeah, probably not. Yeah, because no money in that.
When I was researching it in thelate 1800s, they needed about
746 bodies for each student to get half a body.
(35:48):
But the law only allowed for 406bodies to be lawfully available,
so they were short about half. Yeah.
And I guess that kind of led to those big, the big operating
room, yes, like arena, everybodycould sit and watch the one
person down there do it. Yes, where they would have these
(36:09):
huge forums and they would have one person who was dissecting
and everybody that was a studentwas just watching and the public
would come in and watch in the gallery as well.
So it's kind of like the Super Bowl, just with a body.
So super body. It was, I kind of think of it as
like the Roman Colosseum of modern of like the 1800s, you
know, there. You go, yeah, wealthy people
sections and stuff. They did.
(36:30):
They had wealthy people, they had poor sections, like all that
kind of stuff. So now, only a few years before
Frankfurt's death, the author ofthe Anatomy Act of 1883 and 1867
for Pennsylvania was Doctor Forbes.
But he himself was involved in this scandal.
So he was the foremost autonomous in the country, and
(36:52):
he was at Jefferson Medical College.
And he was accused of having relationships with some people
who supplied cadavers for students.
So as I said, body snatching wasreally common in the 17 and
1800s. But most people who were
impacted by body snatching were those people who had less
security at their cemeteries, which was African Americans,
(37:15):
immigrants, people who died in asylums, alms, houses and
prisoners. So these people were called
resurrectionist, which is a fancy word for body snatchers,
and they would make really good money digging up corpses and
selling them to medical schools.I guess it's kind of like looked
(37:35):
at as a no victim crime, right? I mean the people that are dead
don't know. Right and their families were
the ones that were really upset now you and.
These guys probably didn't have the families around.
So to your point, right? You would think that this became
a big social issue. So the local papers caught on to
the fact that the medical schools were short bodies.
(37:56):
So they set up a sting operationin 1882.
So it was they went to a very large African American cemetery
in South Philadelphia, and they camped out at night armed with
guns, ready for the criminals inaction.
And they didn't have to wait long because in the winter there
were a lot of bodies that were being stolen from this
(38:17):
particular cemetery. So they did catch the
individuals and they did question them and they squealed
really quickly and said that Doctor Forbes was the one who
had requested the bodies. Wow.
Well, why winter specifically? Was there a reason for why it
was bigger in winter than any other season?
So I think it's because that they were able to wait a little
(38:41):
bit longer to get the bodies because it was cold outside,
they weren't decomposing as quickly.
So this was like prime real estate for getting bodies at
that particular time because winter was when the bodies would
decompose a lot less quickly, where as opposed they needed to
just kind of every single night go and grab them.
They could take their time digging up people at the.
(39:02):
Specific cemetery. Yeah.
As opposed to digging up a body in hot July or August?
Yeah, OK. Yeah, I got it.
They had to kind of there. There was, we can get into this
in another episode, but there was a a market where people
would actually sell their loved ones to these body snatchers.
But that was it only most of thetime if you were pretty
desperate. That's crazy.
(39:24):
Now this caused a huge uproar and there were a lot of protests
that happened it within Philadelphia because of Doctor
Forbes being arrested and charged with conspiring to steal
bodies and violating graves. So some thought that this would
end the Jefferson Medical College, which was a main
competitor of the University of Pennsylvania.
(39:47):
However, Forbes was found not guilty.
Yeah, wonder who he paid off. Well, yeah, I mean, he was a he,
he was a really big war hero. So he had been a doctor during
the Civil and the Crimean War. So that definitely held a lot of
weight. And they think that they just
kind of brushed this under the rug at this point.
(40:09):
So he returned to his medical post amid a lot of outrage in
the community but relief to the medical world.
So he did use his leverage to itto push through the new and
improved law of 1883, the Anatomy Act, which created a
more legal mechanism for the bodies to get to schools.
(40:29):
And he made it nationally renowned.
So essentially the Anatomy Act of 1883 was an important
landmark for the whole entire country, but it also basically
solidified him as having this ashis big landmark for his career.
So he got caught in 1882. He pushed through this law in
(40:52):
1883. And this was his, you know, this
was his big career, career move.OK.
I mean, if you're going to get caught for it illegally, you
might as well make it legal and go ahead and do it.
Obviously, it needed to be done right.
It was big. Yeah, it was like a it's a big
deal. And and definitely it did lead
(41:12):
to a lot of medical improvementsand things along those lines.
Now, the way that this intertwines with Eastern State
is if you go into the HarrisburgArchives in the 1890s, you will
see that Eastern State did in fact send about 90 bodies of
inmates to the anatomy facility.And this did happen until about
1935. But by that time, there were a
(41:34):
lot of people who are willing toget their bodies to the schools
of medical science. So over time, it came before
more socially acceptable in order to donate your body to
medicine. But as I said, Doctor Forbes,
this was his crowning achievement.
Now, the only reason this got passed through because the state
senator, William James McKnight,happened to be a surgeon in
(41:56):
northwestern Pennsylvania who had been convicted of body
snatching years earlier. Wow, This is this is like the
Buzzard Brothers, man. Yeah, One that's got off and the
other one's like, oh, man, us. Yeah, man.
Let's do this. I'm going to.
I'm going to boot you in. Yes.
(42:16):
I don't know. Buzzard Brothers.
Yeah, That's that's crazy. It is crazy.
Real life man as. Yeah, So it was very
interesting. So and and going back to John
Frankfurt now, what happened to the doctors in his specific
situation, because we can look at everything that happened in
1883, how they set everything up.
But you have to think back, thiswas in 1896.
(42:40):
So basically what happened during this investigation is
Doctor Bacon admitted to moving Frank's brain.
There was no major consequences.He repeatedly told people he was
taking organs and he was doing it without permission.
He basically just said he didn'tknow that it was illegal and
because organs weren't specifically in this act he got
(43:02):
away with it. Learning is very, very
important. That's, yeah, ridiculous.
But yeah, yeah. So Eastern.
I think everybody is just, this is just a big conspiracy for
everybody to let everybody off for body snatching because it's
just lucrative. Yes, and they get money off of
it. Pretty much, yeah.
And this was the only means of them to do so.
(43:24):
So Eastern Sea didn't even have any protocols regarding family
permission until 19 O 4 for postmortem examinations even after
this happened. Wow, that's.
So even though technically Frankfurt wasn't body snatch, he
was dissected without permission, his organs were
(43:46):
taken without permission, and basically everybody got off
Scott free because this was the only way that doctors could
network into helping each other at that point in time find
organs or bodies. No wonder people don't like
hospitals. I know you never know what's
going to happen, and in Eastern state, as Andrew Lesnar had
stated, it's true you were treated as a Guinea pig and you
(44:10):
were not going to get out of there with all of your body
parts. Oh, I wonder if that was his
brain in the bucket that I saw in school.
All said it was a cow brain but I don't know if it was a little
creeped out. Yeah, it's definitely creepy
now. Today, Eastern State
Penitentiary is open to the public.
It's became a hotspot for ghost hunters, thrill seekers.
(44:32):
There's a ton of paranormal investigations that have been
conducted. There's been countless overnight
visuals, everybody's shared stories of their encounters and
it has become one of the most famous haunted attractions and
museums in the country. Yes, yes, yes.
Well, but what is the haunting truth?
So in my opinion, you know, Eastern State Penitentiary was
(44:56):
supposed to be a place of reform, but it turned into a
dark, twisted experiment of human suffering.
Now, today, the spirits of the past remain within their walls.
Everybody hears their whispers, their tails.
Whether you believe in ghosts ornot, one thing to me is certain
it's not quiet at Eastern State.If you've ever been there day or
night, you're going to hear something, you're going to
(45:18):
experience something. And a lot of people feel things,
see things and hear things regardless of if it is expected
or not. So in this place, there is a lot
of people who hear these whispers.
There's a lot of things that have been heard through the cell
blocks. But in my opinion, some of the
ghostly residents there have literally are still there
(45:39):
because they literally lost their heads, their hearts, and
whatever body part the doctor down the street needed at the
time for one of his experiments.Creepy creepiness.
I'll, I'll also add here, I mean, we've gone on a tour
there. It's very cool history wise.
I highly recommend it. You do experience some things
(46:00):
while you're moving around from there.
But if you go, there's like a little beer garden and like a
little store like upstairs whereyou can, you know, relax and the
prisoners or there's a preservation society.
They do like movies, you know, from past prisoners that were in
there. You can see like artwork setups
and things like that. So if you're ever in Philly and
you get a chance to, to tour it,I I recommend it and you should
(46:21):
probably check out a cheese steak or two.
You were talking about what Philly was famous for back in
the day and I went in to just goback and bring back to cheese
steaks. Yes.
It is. It's everybody knows what you
know. Philly is famous for a lot of
things, but modern time it is definitely cheese steaks.
Yeah, cheese steaks, prison and rabid fans.
Yeah, yes, definitely rabid fans.
(46:42):
But I do highly suggest going toEastern State.
Is it a It is an amazing experience.
It's definitely very commercial.They've been able to revitalize
the whole thing. There's really great stories
they tell about it. So I would definitely contribute
to its preservation by going there even for the haunted
attraction or for the historicalattractions.
Yeah, and if you're going to do the haunting attractions, you
(47:04):
got a book in advance because that gets packed up.
Real quick. Yeah, it's it's extremely quick.
Regardless, it's usually packed up.
So I definitely would book online.
But thank you so much for joining me today for this spooky
stroll. If you enjoyed this episode,
please like, subscribe and leaveus a review.
But until next time, please start seeking this truth.
(47:24):
And in this situation, especially after the autopsy
part of it, don't drink the water there, please.
Yeah, I wouldn't. I'm going to guess their
sanitation isn't that great, even though you did mention they
did have running water. They.
Did they did, But that doesn't mean we know where it went.
That is true. All right.
Thank you so much for telling usabout that.
(47:45):
And until next week, friends. Seek the truth and.
Again, don't drink the water. Don't.
Drink the water, bye.
Sherlock Holmes once said when you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the
truth. But what if the truth isn't just
improbable? What if it's horrifying?
What if it's something so baffling that our minds can't
accept it? What if it's because our senses
can't confirm it? Or it makes your very soul
shudder from committing such a depraved act.
(00:38):
In this podcast, we'll journey through haunted history,
metaphysical happenings, unexplained disappearances, and
unconventional murders, events that challenge everything you
thought you knew. And sometimes we'll uncover the
truth, but perhaps not in the way you were hoping.
I'm Jen. And I'm Wu, and this is the
haunting truth where facts blur into the unknown and what
(01:01):
remains after we question everything might just shake us
to our core listener discretion advice.
(01:27):
So welcome back to the haunting truth and those who might be new
to us. I'm Jen, and my other Hostess
with the Mostess is here as well, Wu.
So in this episode, we're going to journey to Philadelphia.
So Philadelphia is a revolutionary city where the
Declaration of Independence was signed, where many of our
founding fathers live, which really fostered a hub of
(01:49):
creativity, civility, Prison Reform, and it was an epicenter
of education, including medical schools.
So two of these principles, the Prison Reform and the medical
schools, are going to be combined in this episode to
intertwine in a horrifying and surprising twist of events.
So we're going to explore Eastern State Penitentiary and
(02:10):
how it was potentially involved in body snatching and at least
organ harvesting, to everybody'sshock.
So grab a seat, turn down the lights, so we can explore the
dark and crumbling halls of Eastern State Penitentiary, a
place that once housed the nation's most notorious
criminals and now holds the restless spirits of those who
(02:31):
never left. So first, we're going to start
out with the history of Eastern State Penitentiary.
So now to truly understand Eastern State Penitentiary and
how these stories intersect, we're going to need to start at
the beginning. And as we all know, the path to
(02:53):
hell is always paved with good intentions, and Eastern State
Penitentiary is no different. Now you have to understand,
prison conditions in the 1700s were beyond abysmal.
Many jails had no sanitation, there was no guidelines for the
prisoners health, any records, and such Common amenities such
as clothing or even food were not necessarily furnished.
(03:15):
Sometimes, and especially in Philadelphia's old Stone Jail,
it was a prime example of everything a prison shouldn't
be, and it screamed for the needfor reform.
Now. This prompted Dr. Benjamin Rush
to find to found the Philadelphia Society of
alleviating the miseries of public that.
(03:38):
Is a great moniker alleviating the miseries.
I love it. Yes.
And I think it's like he definitely spelled it out to
everybody of what the society was supposed to be peace.
So OK, he ended up eventually being backed by Benjamin
Franklin. So he had a really good backer
politically and financially for this specific society.
(04:01):
So Benjamin Rush and others in the society, their hope was to
outline, outlaw public punishments and replace the
overcrowded prisons and corrupt system with a more private
solitary confinement and penitent system.
So this was Russia's kind of radical idea, to build a
penitentiary designed to inspireregret and penance in the hearts
(04:24):
of the people convicted of thesecrimes.
So this was part of the enlightening at this specific
time, but no government had necessarily carried out such a
program ever before. And it did take the society more
than 30 years to convince the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to
allow them to build this kind ofprison.
(04:45):
So they ended up being able to look at different land, and they
figured out that they could build, they were wanting to
build on farmland outside of Philadelphia on the top of the
hill that overlooked it as a warning to everyone, like an
after school special from the 80s.
Like this could happen to you? I love it.
Yeah. So they build it on 12 acres
(05:07):
overlooking Philadelphia. So the issue though, is they
really needed to get funding andthey also had to allow for the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to allow this kind of institution
to exist. So in 1821, the society held a
design contest where 4 firms competed for the Commission of
(05:28):
the design for Eastern State Penitentiary.
And then they got like $100 prize, which I think when I
looked it up was like, think like 3000 to 20.
That's a big gap. But like I thought it was like
3000. Dollars like today's money or
something like that? Yeah, today's money.
OK, Do we know? Who won the design contest?
I'm assuming it wasn't. Frank, So it was.
(05:48):
Yeah. So it was John.
It was a British born architect called John Haviland.
OK, All right. And then?
Before you go into anything a little bit further.
So we've been to Eastern State Penitentiary and it is very for
fitting looking. It's very dark and cold and I
can see how it would serve as anafter school specialist.
(06:10):
Don't let this happen to you. So I definitely get that.
And I, I think if you're going to go into this later, then,
then, then fine. I'll hold all my questions.
But what is the difference trulybetween the penitentiary
enlightenment way of thinking versus prison?
So the idea with prison was everybody was kind of just
crowded into large rooms with like no sanitation.
(06:34):
There was a lot of disease that was going around.
They didn't really have like a stable system of putting people
in there. It was basically you went in
there, you necessarily didn't have food, you necessarily
didn't have sanitation, you didn't even necessarily have
clean drinking water, and you were just put in a huge room and
there was no heat. You could have froze to death.
(06:56):
Nobody provided you. A lot of times with provisions
of food, clothing, there was no system really in place.
It was like they threw people inthere and then it had to serve a
couple years or they just killedthem.
So it was truly just you go in there and throw in the key and
they didn't care. So it was just sorry, get you
out of the way. OK.
And then the Enlightenment theory I guess involves with
(07:17):
something a little bit differentthan just locking locking them
away. Yeah, so it's more of like the,
and I, I'll definitely go over it.
So it's called the Pennsylvania system, but it is more of having
a structure making sure that when people got out, they didn't
they weren't recognized they could actually integrate into
(07:37):
society and they're they weren'tnecessarily recognized by people
as having been in the prison system.
Also, they had food, they had running water, they had
sanitation, and it created an atmosphere that was definitely
solitary to repent. Think of it almost like a
monastery. Almost OK.
So a lot of self reflection and think about what it is that you
(08:00):
did. And everything else, yeah, so
and I'll go into it, into it a little bit deeper, but they did
begin construction on Eastern State in 1822.
Now the premise of this was essentially it was consisted of
seven cell blocks that radiated from a central surveillance
Rotunda like a wagon wheel. So the concept with each
(08:20):
prisoner had their own private cell.
It was centrally heated. It had running water, a flushing
toilet and a skylight. Now adjacent to each cell was a
private outdoor exercise yard that can it was contained by a
10 foot wall. So this modern design was
impressive at the time. Like even the White House with
its new occupant at the time, Andrew Jackson, had no running
(08:43):
water and it still was heated bycoal burning stoves.
Yeah, Now I, I know when I saw, when we went and did the tour
and we saw the like the outline of the cells, I was actually
surprised because they were, andI've seen a couple prisons went
to Alcatraz and so on. But of course, every old jail
tour that I do on the, on the buildings, they're actually
(09:05):
pretty spacious and, and, and light.
I mean, like there was, there was actually a lot of light that
was coming in. And then the fact that you can
go outside when you wanted to orstay in was also, I, I hate to
put it this way, but it kind of reminded me of like the kennel
setups where you're kind of likein and you can run out.
Yeah. Well, it's a little bit
deceiving to a certain extent, because once the only light,
(09:26):
there was no actual lighting. The only light did come from a
skylight, and it was referred toas the eye of God.
Yeah. But it was lighting it up
pretty, pretty bright throughoutthe day there.
It, it was pretty bright, but atnight it, it, it really didn't
have a lot. And you got to have to think
that where we're, where Philadelphia is located, it's
dark a lot of times of the year.There's it's only bright.
Maybe it's half and half like 6 months.
(09:49):
So even after like in the in thewinter, it starts getting dark
at like 4:00. So you don't have a lot of light
time. And the skylight was the only
option. They didn't have candles or
anything else for the cell mates.
So for the prisoners that they had, I should say not cell
mates, but and also they were required to be in their cell for
23 of the 24 hours. So they only got an hour or half
(10:14):
hour blocks within that exercisebecause it was kind of like a
shared space where an inmate would go in, they would bring
them out, and then another inmate would be rotated into
that specific, specific space. So they didn't actually have the
their own ability to walk in andout of that.
Specific. I thought they were just like a
kennel set up. Let me look through.
(10:35):
Your now so like just like a kennel, they do have the doors
that allows people in and out like or animals but the yard
itself. Wasn't contained in between the
cells. Exactly.
The yard itself wasn't, it wasn't allowed to be accessed at
all times and they couldn't talkto anybody.
So they weren't allowed to communicate, talk, saying hum,
anything. They were not allowed to
(10:57):
vocalize. Just as I said, I think they got
a lot of these concepts from like monasteries that had a, a
ballast island, but I think they're, they missed one key
component when they were thinking of that.
And then we'll definitely get into that as well.
Now they did allow for the inmates to either pray, which is
(11:18):
the word of God, or do honest work such as shoe making, basket
weaving. They did allow him to do
haircuts, which I'm not sure howthat worked out exactly when
they had to always be with have a hood over their face anytime
they interacted with someone. So that's going to be I wasn't,
I wasn't sure how that worked. But the interior of the
penitentiary, as you said, it was by design.
(11:41):
It definitely resembles a church.
So it has like 34 like foot barrel bolted hallways, tall
archways, and the exterior lookslike a Gothic facade.
Like you said, it's like a Gothic castle of us.
Like it definitely tells you like this.
This place means business. There's punishment behind these
walls. So yeah, now as you said,
(12:03):
there's two different systems. They had the New York Auburn
system, and then they had the Pennsylvania system, which was
what Eastern State Penitentiary was now.
It was revolutionary and during its construction, more than 300
prisons were built in South America, Europe, Russia, China,
Japan and across the British Empire based on this specific.
(12:25):
So people frequently travel to Philadelphia to study Eastern
state in the Pennsylvania systembecause of its distinct form of
isolation practices. It was a symbol of progress and
modern principles. So there were a lot of people
who toured the facility once it was built.
That was in around the 1830s and1840s.
But they did start to debate theeffectiveness of the compassion
(12:48):
of solitary confinement and if the concept was really actually
making people reform. Or was it?
Driving them insane. OK.
So you said there's more than 300 globally built based on this
model. I wonder how many of them are
still in use today. I don't think none of them are
in use today. None of them are in use because
(13:10):
they did deem solitary confinement.
There's laws in, inside and outside of the United States
that you could only have somebody in solitary confinement
for so long because it's considered a form of abuse.
OK. Yeah, yeah, I.
Surely didn't think that way when I was a teenager.
All I wanted to do was left alone in solitary in my room.
(13:32):
Please don't talk to me. Yeah, please don't talk to me.
I know. But they did find that this was
not the best course. But you know the the
Pennsylvania legislation didn't realize that.
So in April 23rd of 1829, they did pass the law saying that
solitary confinement with with work was a preferred form method
(13:56):
of the prison system. And this was only a few months
prior to Eastern State Penitentiary opening on October
25th. So they were able to slide in
this legislation right before the opening of Eastern State
Penitentiary because they did believe that if a person
regretted their crime and they were repentant, then they could
go back into society and they would be reformed.
(14:17):
OK. Yeah.
So, you know, many of these theyhad and they also had to
prepare. So as I said, they had to have
hoods, they had to have equippedfeeding doors, they had to have
these individual exercise yards.They had to do all these things.
And then they had to train the guards that they had to have
minimal contact with the prisoners in order to ensure
(14:41):
that this was going to work. So as I said, October 25th,
1829, they opened their doors and they got their first
prisoner. So his name was Charles
Williams. He was prisoner #1 he was a
burglar. The description says light black
skin, 5 foot 710 inches. He has a scar on his nose and on
(15:02):
his thigh. On his thigh he had a broad
mouth, black eyes. He was a farmer by trade.
He can read. Theft included $120.00 watch,
one $3 gold seal and 1 gold key,and he was sentenced to two
years of confinement with labor.He was received by the warden,
which was Samuel Samuel R Wood, and he was the first warden of
(15:23):
Eastern State. OK.
So they thought that they were doing the right thing.
But yeah, the profound psychological effects on the
prisoners would definitely as you as we read through or as
we've seen throughout the history, it's not the best form
of punishment. As I said, it drove a lot of
people to madness all. Right.
(15:44):
Well, let's talk more about those impacts after the break
and then maybe you can give us alittle bit more flavor on that
it. Sounds good.
Welcome back, everybody. So as I said, a lot of people
were actually going in because of the solitary confinement
issue and the way the structure was for the Pennsylvania system.
(16:08):
Now, Eastern State Penitentiary decided to largely abandoned
these practices and it was just basically due to overcrowding in
the 1870s. So they abandoned the use of the
hoods, they enabled socialization amongst some of
the inmates, and they started using the inmates for a lot of
different projects and labor because with the overcrowding,
(16:29):
they needed to start building additions to the already
existing structures. So they didn't completely
abandoned some of the practices of solitary confinement as we
know today, but public opinion and authorities did kind of make
it as minimal as possible as they could.
But even today we do have solitary confinement when it
(16:52):
comes to our our person system as well.
But due to the overcrowding, as I said, they did have to change
a lot that had to do with Eastern State Penitentiary,
including having a functioning hospital facility.
Now, they converted Cell Block 3into a fully functioning
hospital facility by the 1710s, however, they had changed it
(17:13):
over time. So they did.
It was still able to by the 1870s.
It was able to perform surgeries.
They were able to house bodies, and there was a lot of different
functions that they refused to go outside of the hospital for.
So it did have a lot of different facilities inside the
prison itself so that they didn't have to transfer any of
(17:33):
the inmates out or take them to any kind of other facilities.
But as we said, you know, the path to hell is paved with good
intentions. So they did have surgeries, but
they found that they started performing experiments and at
times tortures were done in cellblock 3, which they stated
were different things to help the inmates adjust to Eastern
(17:57):
State Penitentiary. But, you know, a lot of secrets
are definitely held in those whitewashed walls.
And one of those we're going to explore specifically that was
the purpose of this. We're going to kind of see how
they kind of figured out that there was potentially organ
harvesting and great and grave robbing, as I say, or body
(18:18):
snatching going on potentially at Eastern State.
So some of the most notorious criminals in American history
pass through Eastern State stores, including the bank
robber Slick Lily Sutton and infamous Al Scarface Compone.
But one of the focal points is going to be a local celebrity
called John Frankfurt or One Eyed Joe.
(18:40):
And he was a prolific horse thief in Pennsylvania.
And he was. Why are they in every episode?
I know horse thieves. I mean apparently it was a very
popular profession back in the day, but he was also really
known because he was a pro at escaping jail as well all.
Right. So he actually got pretty good
notoriety because it was a pretty handsome fella, but he
(19:02):
was also very charismatic. So the reporters loved him
because he was very unapologeticabout stealing horses and he
bragged about everything that hedid so.
OK, we have a Do we have a view of what Mr. Langford looks like?
I don't unfortunately have a view of him, but I can
definitely add that to my sourcenotes if I'm able to find him.
(19:25):
I just really wasn't able to find a really good, it was like
a, a sketch drawing. So there wasn't a really good
yeah picture of him or anything else.
But he did end up passing away in 1896 at Eastern State
Penitentiary and specifically the the reason that he got
caught in the 1st place. So we'll go over that.
So John Frankfurt, he ended up crossing several different
(19:48):
regions from Ohio, PA to Maryland, and he scooted
sheriffs. He was stealing and selling
horses. But he grew up in Lancaster, PA.
And he once joked, as I said he liked to brag to a prison
warrant, that he was responsiblefor every missing horse in
Eastern Pennsylvania. Was he Amish?
Did he hit his 16 and go crazy? No, he was not Amish.
(20:13):
Sorry, that's what I think of every time I hear Lancaster.
I do too. Like definitely my first straw
there. But he did mostly run on his
own. But he did occasionally have
help from his son-in-law who wasaffiliated with the region's
biggest criminal gang called theBuzzard Brothers.
And they really did kind of helpa lot of times in facilitating
his, his, his jailbreaks. Oh.
(20:36):
Sorry, I'm sorry, you said Buzzard brothers.
I'm thinking you remember the old Bugs Bunny cartoons and
there was the flock of like crows or buzzards or something.
That's what I was thinking up. About the Buzzard, where he's
like, Nope, Nope, Nope. Yeah, yeah, He's one of my
favorites, I have to say. That's funny.
Yeah, so the group of six brothers were called the Buzzard
(20:58):
Brothers. Now, even Ike Buzzard once got
Frankfurt and several others outusing their classic jailbird
trick, is what they called it. OK, yeah, so the.
Jailbird trick. The jailbird trick was
essentially where the jailbird let me let me see here.
So the jailbird trick was essentially where they would say
(21:19):
that they had a bird in a cage and they would say, hey, can you
give this to my brother? And they were passing like keys,
information and everything in order to get out.
So yeah, so they were, they wereessentially stealing things from
the the jailers and the the other prisoners in order to pass
the bird back and forth, which led them to getting a key and
(21:42):
being able to jailbreak Frankfurt out of the facility.
OK, if we ever get in trouble, Iknow we always think jokes like
somebody's got to have the bail money.
I'm just going to pass you a bird.
Yes, yes, they were. Basically the cage itself had
like a false bottom and they were able to store things in
there. Because passing around a bird is
common, yes. Apparently it was back in the
(22:03):
day they shared a pet, but eventually, you know, with
Frankfurt. Lancaster County was tired of
Frankfurt's escape, so they built a special cell for him.
But in 1881 he cut through it and then dug under a wall and
crawled out through the chimney.Well, all.
Right A-frame. What is the the shoot?
(22:26):
The Shawshank Redemption. Yes, yes, yeah.
He was very similar to that. But he was spotted by one of the
guards and they did shoot him inthe face and that's how he lost
vision in one of his eyes. And that's how he got the
nickname One Eyed Joe. In the face.
Yes. That's terrible.
(22:46):
Was definitely not a good shot if he shot him in the face and
he still was fine. So was he shoot him?
With a I know, right? I'm.
Sorry, my apologies to anybody that lost their eye.
Yeah, I we apologize. We definitely do.
But, yeah. But in 1885, Frankfurt finally
made his match when he was caught at a horse sale in
(23:08):
Philadelphia. And this is where he was sent to
Eastern State Penitentiary. It was the most severe and
famous prison at the time as we said.
And he was set to serve 19 year sentence for horse thievery
there. 19 years for horse theory.
Yes, but again, he never been a.Woman probably get six months.
(23:29):
Don't tell me. Exactly.
But he never made it out, at least not alive.
So because of the the towering 30 foot walls, the way that they
had set up the prison still where it still had a lot of the
old fashioned cells that had a very large thick door that was
made of iron. And then he'd still had a lot of
feeding windows in there. So there was no way that he was
(23:52):
getting out of this. Now, unfortunately, it wasn't
the prison guards that he had toworry about.
It was the doctor. So the reason that he might not
have made it out, and this is conjecture, is because of, in my
opinion, and I nicknamed him this, the Frankenstein of
Eastern State, which was Doctor John Bacon.
So Doctor Bacon was interested in the facts of being a career
(24:14):
criminal on one's brain. Trump and Steve.
Yes, yes. So by the 1890s, about a decade
into Frank's term, he wasn't as closely confined.
So he was said to be a model prisoner.
He was hoping for a pardon. So he worked duties including
plumbing, plastering. He looked after the the prison's
(24:36):
dogs, which was a skill because if you're going to be a horse
thief, you have to be like a horse whisperer.
So he was really good with animals, But around Christmas
time in 1895, Frank was tending the dogs when one of them turned
on him and it bit him, causing asevere infection.
Yeah. Now by mid January, Frankfurt
took a turn for the worst and hedied in prison on January 20th,
(25:00):
1896. And he was 58 years old.
My brother's birthday, by the way.
Not 1896, but. Not 1896.
Are we sure? I mean, that's not that's pretty
prolific. I mean, he could be doing well.
But afterwards, So Doctor Bacon,as I said, he was interested on
the effects of the brain. So, you know, even though
(25:23):
Frankfurt had been locked away for about, I'd say a decade at
this point, his obituary was still front page news, which
turned out to be a grave misstepfor Doctor Bacon, since an
investigation would be performedbased on the condition of
Frankfurt's body when it was received by his daughter Maggie.
(25:43):
How popular was this Frankfurt guy that he's still making front
page news? As I said, 10 years after the
most prolific charismatic personthat was a horse thief in
Pennsylvania history essentially, That's crazy.
So I mean, he just bragged to everybody about what he did and
everybody liked his bravado. So he was in a lot of newspaper
(26:04):
articles. So when he died, it was front
page news, so. Trump of the Day.
Yes, yes. Not not Trump as a horse thief,
but just charismatic and yes, bragging all over the place.
Bragging all over the place? Absolutely.
It's front page news. Yes.
So Maggie Frankfurt Star was very close with her father, and
she frequently visited him. Well, when she traveled with her
(26:25):
husband to the prison to go pickhim up for transport for his
funeral in Lancaster, they wouldn't give her the body.
They said it wasn't ready, so they had to wait and wait and
wait. And then when they finally got
the body, it had bruises all over his body.
It had sewn marks, and his skullhad been cut open.
Oh, now, doctor. Yeah.
(26:48):
Doctor Franklin had said Frankfurt's official cause of
death was a strangulated hernia,which is an intestinal blockage.
What's gonna? Say, where did the dog bite him?
On his head. Yeah, like, there's the dog bit
him on his arm and he had an intestinal blockage, which would
understandably have his stomach,but there ain't nothing to do
with this man's head. Yeah, so it was very suspicious
(27:12):
based on what they told was the cause of death at this point in
time. So eventually a man named
Alexander Lefstner contain contacted Maggie and said he had
some information as to what actually happened to her father,
Lefster said. And he was a inmate at Eastern
State Penitentiary and he was there for second degree murder.
(27:35):
Now, he was actually friends with Frankfurt, and he really
respected him. So he told Maggie that he had
been out of his cell in a construction project, and he
tried to sneak over to the hospital wing to visit
Frankfurt. Now, this was in January of
1896. He said it was cold, it was
snowing, and he looked all over the place and he couldn't seem
(27:57):
to find Frankfurt. Well, he looked across the yard
and he saw a body on a table, naked.
And the doctor, Doctor Bacon, the prisoner physician, was
working on him. He said that he hid away so he
wouldn't be discovered. And he saw Doctor Bacon remove
Frankfurt's heart, put it in thesnow, presumably for
preservation. And then he said he was working
(28:19):
on his skull. He opened all the up the skull
and took out his brain, and he set it in the snow too.
OK, I I've never had hernia surgery.
Intestinal hernia. You've never had an intestinal
blockage that required you to pull out somebody's heart and
brain? Maybe that's a new.
(28:41):
Technique or Yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not
a physician, but I'm pretty goodwith anatomy.
And that does not require you todo an autopsy.
That requires you to move the brain and the heart.
Was he actually a doctor or was he a Barber at that time 'cause
I feel like the barbers would even know better than to do
that. No.
So he was actually a doctor, 'cause as you know, Philadelphia
(29:01):
was the epicenter of medical schools at this time.
They had several medical schools.
So he knew what he was doing when it came to taking apart a
body and putting it back together because there were
cadavers required for the medical schools at that time.
So he he knew where things were supposed to go, kind of like a
(29:22):
jigsaw puzzle, but he he tried to figure it out, apparently,
and put it back together. Yeah.
So as I said, he was opening up the Scully was taking things
out. Now Maggie reported this
condition of her father's corpsein the allegations, which did
prompt an investigation. And because he was so popular,
immediately they started openingup and looking that they had a
(29:45):
legislative committee, we saw testimony from inmate mates,
warden and even newspaper reporters about what happened to
Frankfurt. So Alexander Leppser did end up
taking the stand, and he claimedthat every inmate who died at
Eastern State risks being the doctor as Guinea pig.
Yeah. All right.
(30:06):
Well, I think I'm going to ask you more about that, but let's
take a break real quick and thenwe'll come back all.
Right. Sounds good.
Welcome back, everybody. So now I'm going to talk about
what Doctor Bacon's defense was in this investigation.
So Doctor Bacon ended up taking the stand.
(30:28):
And he testified he did perform emergency surgery on Frankfurt's
hernia right before he died. And this was a last ditch effort
to save him. That's why his stomach was cut
open. But then the legislative
committee asked him to explain what happened to Frankfurt's
body after he died, because there wasn't just the trauma to
the stomach. Now, Doctor Bacon said, a
(30:49):
prisoner whose name was Arthur had assisted him and had removed
the skull and taken out his brain, and the prison record of
the case and its treatment was submitted to the committee.
Well, they specifically asked, why did you take out the brain?
Doctor Bacon said that Frankfurtwas a typical criminal and he
wanted his brain for scientific purposes.
(31:11):
Doctor Bacon said that he had taken the brain out of two other
bodies and that he had actually done this frequently and it was
a common practice amongst the other doctors at Eastern Sea
even before him. Now he did deny other claims
that he had taken out the heart and bowels as well and carried
them in a bucket through cellblock 7 for many of the
(31:34):
other inmates to see. Yeah.
I wonder if they were eating them instead of studying them.
That's gross. Like I don't.
Even, I mean, I'm just thinking like, you know, study a brain,
fine, but it's not like they're doing this a lot.
What are they doing with the darn brains?
Well, we'll get to that. We will get to that, OK.
So OK, Doctor. Can I just real quick, yes,
before we go in there, I just want to share a little personal
(31:55):
story. When I was going through nursing
school, we had to do a a dissection of a brain and they
brought the brain out in a bucket.
We just brought flashback that smelled the formality of the.
Brain in practice. Apparently.
Apparently still today. Although this brain was a cow
brain, it wasn't the serial ocular brain or whatever.
But yeah, OK, flashback. Well, Frankfurt did say though
(32:16):
he might have actually carried the brain in a bucket through
that cellblock, yes, Yeah. However, John Frankfurt's brain
was never recovered and it's still missing to this day.
So. Hanging out with Patty Cannon's
skull somewhere. Maybe they took him to study it
again. Maybe they did.
Which actually actually it does make sense and we'll definitely
(32:38):
get into that. So they could actually have been
together at some point in time. So the reason why I think
personally that potentially whenyou hear this story, that it
does make sense that they were actually taking and harvesting
organs on a pretty regular basisfrom inmates after they had
(32:59):
passed away. Now, in 1867, the city of
Philadelphia and Allegheny County had passed an act to give
each medical school in the public and private sectors the
ability to get unclaimed bodies per student.
So the larger medical schools would get more bodies and a
smaller medical school can get up to 20 students.
(33:20):
They would get less bodies. But this would ensure that all
the medical schools, which they're, as I said, had the most
in Philadelphia, would be able to have these bodies in order
for them to do dissections. Now, if a person claimed they
wanted to be buried prior to death, their body would not be
allowed to be given to these medical.
Schools. They would instead be buried,
(33:41):
just they would be buried. But that you have to take into
consideration. There was no specific clause in
here saying that nobody could take their organs.
Yeah. Yes.
Well, that's yeah. Now, the reason they did this is
there was a lot of of Thomas that were caught.
(34:02):
I don't know if I'm saying that right.
They're. Anatomists.
Yeah, a lot of people who had the anatomy schools, they were
caught selling spare bodies or spare parts, and the same
punishment would apply to the robbers when they were caught.
So essentially this could be punishable by death.
I was going to say I've heard ofthis before.
(34:22):
Like the the grave robbers and you know, organ selling and
things back in the day. But I was wondering what the
punishment was for getting caught and I was like I bet you
it's probably less than horse thievery but you just told me it
could be put to death for. That, yeah, but it wasn't
something that this was only in Philadelphia and there wasn't an
(34:43):
actual anatomy act until 1883, which became national so that
everybody knew what to do in these specific situations and
that how these bodies would be divvied up.
There was most people were just doing things kind of Willy nilly
and people were really upset about that because death was one
of those things back in this time that every person, wealthy
(35:06):
or poor, prepared for. They nobody really wanted to
give their body up for science because they believed that they
needed to be buried on consecrated ground in order for
religious beliefs. So the demand in Philadelphia
was really high for bodies. So a lot of times when prisoners
(35:26):
came in, they didn't really state that they were going
really to the Potter's fields like they were supposed to.
And my belief is that they weren't actually going there.
Yeah, probably not. Yeah, because no money in that.
When I was researching it in thelate 1800s, they needed about
746 bodies for each student to get half a body.
(35:48):
But the law only allowed for 406bodies to be lawfully available,
so they were short about half. Yeah.
And I guess that kind of led to those big, the big operating
room, yes, like arena, everybodycould sit and watch the one
person down there do it. Yes, where they would have these
(36:09):
huge forums and they would have one person who was dissecting
and everybody that was a studentwas just watching and the public
would come in and watch in the gallery as well.
So it's kind of like the Super Bowl, just with a body.
So super body. It was, I kind of think of it as
like the Roman Colosseum of modern of like the 1800s, you
know, there. You go, yeah, wealthy people
sections and stuff. They did.
(36:30):
They had wealthy people, they had poor sections, like all that
kind of stuff. So now, only a few years before
Frankfurt's death, the author ofthe Anatomy Act of 1883 and 1867
for Pennsylvania was Doctor Forbes.
But he himself was involved in this scandal.
So he was the foremost autonomous in the country, and
(36:52):
he was at Jefferson Medical College.
And he was accused of having relationships with some people
who supplied cadavers for students.
So as I said, body snatching wasreally common in the 17 and
1800s. But most people who were
impacted by body snatching were those people who had less
security at their cemeteries, which was African Americans,
(37:15):
immigrants, people who died in asylums, alms, houses and
prisoners. So these people were called
resurrectionist, which is a fancy word for body snatchers,
and they would make really good money digging up corpses and
selling them to medical schools.I guess it's kind of like looked
(37:35):
at as a no victim crime, right? I mean the people that are dead
don't know. Right and their families were
the ones that were really upset now you and.
These guys probably didn't have the families around.
So to your point, right? You would think that this became
a big social issue. So the local papers caught on to
the fact that the medical schools were short bodies.
(37:56):
So they set up a sting operationin 1882.
So it was they went to a very large African American cemetery
in South Philadelphia, and they camped out at night armed with
guns, ready for the criminals inaction.
And they didn't have to wait long because in the winter there
were a lot of bodies that were being stolen from this
(38:17):
particular cemetery. So they did catch the
individuals and they did question them and they squealed
really quickly and said that Doctor Forbes was the one who
had requested the bodies. Wow.
Well, why winter specifically? Was there a reason for why it
was bigger in winter than any other season?
So I think it's because that they were able to wait a little
(38:41):
bit longer to get the bodies because it was cold outside,
they weren't decomposing as quickly.
So this was like prime real estate for getting bodies at
that particular time because winter was when the bodies would
decompose a lot less quickly, where as opposed they needed to
just kind of every single night go and grab them.
They could take their time digging up people at the.
(39:02):
Specific cemetery. Yeah.
As opposed to digging up a body in hot July or August?
Yeah, OK. Yeah, I got it.
They had to kind of there. There was, we can get into this
in another episode, but there was a a market where people
would actually sell their loved ones to these body snatchers.
But that was it only most of thetime if you were pretty
desperate. That's crazy.
(39:24):
Now this caused a huge uproar and there were a lot of protests
that happened it within Philadelphia because of Doctor
Forbes being arrested and charged with conspiring to steal
bodies and violating graves. So some thought that this would
end the Jefferson Medical College, which was a main
competitor of the University of Pennsylvania.
(39:47):
However, Forbes was found not guilty.
Yeah, wonder who he paid off. Well, yeah, I mean, he was a he,
he was a really big war hero. So he had been a doctor during
the Civil and the Crimean War. So that definitely held a lot of
weight. And they think that they just
kind of brushed this under the rug at this point.
(40:09):
So he returned to his medical post amid a lot of outrage in
the community but relief to the medical world.
So he did use his leverage to itto push through the new and
improved law of 1883, the Anatomy Act, which created a
more legal mechanism for the bodies to get to schools.
(40:29):
And he made it nationally renowned.
So essentially the Anatomy Act of 1883 was an important
landmark for the whole entire country, but it also basically
solidified him as having this ashis big landmark for his career.
So he got caught in 1882. He pushed through this law in
(40:52):
1883. And this was his, you know, this
was his big career, career move.OK.
I mean, if you're going to get caught for it illegally, you
might as well make it legal and go ahead and do it.
Obviously, it needed to be done right.
It was big. Yeah, it was like a it's a big
deal. And and definitely it did lead
(41:12):
to a lot of medical improvementsand things along those lines.
Now, the way that this intertwines with Eastern State
is if you go into the HarrisburgArchives in the 1890s, you will
see that Eastern State did in fact send about 90 bodies of
inmates to the anatomy facility.And this did happen until about
1935. But by that time, there were a
(41:34):
lot of people who are willing toget their bodies to the schools
of medical science. So over time, it came before
more socially acceptable in order to donate your body to
medicine. But as I said, Doctor Forbes,
this was his crowning achievement.
Now, the only reason this got passed through because the state
senator, William James McKnight,happened to be a surgeon in
(41:56):
northwestern Pennsylvania who had been convicted of body
snatching years earlier. Wow, This is this is like the
Buzzard Brothers, man. Yeah, One that's got off and the
other one's like, oh, man, us. Yeah, man.
Let's do this. I'm going to.
I'm going to boot you in. Yes.
(42:16):
I don't know. Buzzard Brothers.
Yeah, That's that's crazy. It is crazy.
Real life man as. Yeah, So it was very
interesting. So and and going back to John
Frankfurt now, what happened to the doctors in his specific
situation, because we can look at everything that happened in
1883, how they set everything up.
But you have to think back, thiswas in 1896.
(42:40):
So basically what happened during this investigation is
Doctor Bacon admitted to moving Frank's brain.
There was no major consequences.He repeatedly told people he was
taking organs and he was doing it without permission.
He basically just said he didn'tknow that it was illegal and
because organs weren't specifically in this act he got
(43:02):
away with it. Learning is very, very
important. That's, yeah, ridiculous.
But yeah, yeah. So Eastern.
I think everybody is just, this is just a big conspiracy for
everybody to let everybody off for body snatching because it's
just lucrative. Yes, and they get money off of
it. Pretty much, yeah.
And this was the only means of them to do so.
(43:24):
So Eastern Sea didn't even have any protocols regarding family
permission until 19 O 4 for postmortem examinations even after
this happened. Wow, that's.
So even though technically Frankfurt wasn't body snatch, he
was dissected without permission, his organs were
(43:46):
taken without permission, and basically everybody got off
Scott free because this was the only way that doctors could
network into helping each other at that point in time find
organs or bodies. No wonder people don't like
hospitals. I know you never know what's
going to happen, and in Eastern state, as Andrew Lesnar had
stated, it's true you were treated as a Guinea pig and you
(44:10):
were not going to get out of there with all of your body
parts. Oh, I wonder if that was his
brain in the bucket that I saw in school.
All said it was a cow brain but I don't know if it was a little
creeped out. Yeah, it's definitely creepy
now. Today, Eastern State
Penitentiary is open to the public.
It's became a hotspot for ghost hunters, thrill seekers.
(44:32):
There's a ton of paranormal investigations that have been
conducted. There's been countless overnight
visuals, everybody's shared stories of their encounters and
it has become one of the most famous haunted attractions and
museums in the country. Yes, yes, yes.
Well, but what is the haunting truth?
So in my opinion, you know, Eastern State Penitentiary was
(44:56):
supposed to be a place of reform, but it turned into a
dark, twisted experiment of human suffering.
Now, today, the spirits of the past remain within their walls.
Everybody hears their whispers, their tails.
Whether you believe in ghosts ornot, one thing to me is certain
it's not quiet at Eastern State.If you've ever been there day or
night, you're going to hear something, you're going to
(45:18):
experience something. And a lot of people feel things,
see things and hear things regardless of if it is expected
or not. So in this place, there is a lot
of people who hear these whispers.
There's a lot of things that have been heard through the cell
blocks. But in my opinion, some of the
ghostly residents there have literally are still there
(45:39):
because they literally lost their heads, their hearts, and
whatever body part the doctor down the street needed at the
time for one of his experiments.Creepy creepiness.
I'll, I'll also add here, I mean, we've gone on a tour
there. It's very cool history wise.
I highly recommend it. You do experience some things
(46:00):
while you're moving around from there.
But if you go, there's like a little beer garden and like a
little store like upstairs whereyou can, you know, relax and the
prisoners or there's a preservation society.
They do like movies, you know, from past prisoners that were in
there. You can see like artwork setups
and things like that. So if you're ever in Philly and
you get a chance to, to tour it,I I recommend it and you should
(46:21):
probably check out a cheese steak or two.
You were talking about what Philly was famous for back in
the day and I went in to just goback and bring back to cheese
steaks. Yes.
It is. It's everybody knows what you
know. Philly is famous for a lot of
things, but modern time it is definitely cheese steaks.
Yeah, cheese steaks, prison and rabid fans.
Yeah, yes, definitely rabid fans.
(46:42):
But I do highly suggest going toEastern State.
Is it a It is an amazing experience.
It's definitely very commercial.They've been able to revitalize
the whole thing. There's really great stories
they tell about it. So I would definitely contribute
to its preservation by going there even for the haunted
attraction or for the historicalattractions.
Yeah, and if you're going to do the haunting attractions, you
(47:04):
got a book in advance because that gets packed up.
Real quick. Yeah, it's it's extremely quick.
Regardless, it's usually packed up.
So I definitely would book online.
But thank you so much for joining me today for this spooky
stroll. If you enjoyed this episode,
please like, subscribe and leaveus a review.
But until next time, please start seeking this truth.
(47:24):
And in this situation, especially after the autopsy
part of it, don't drink the water there, please.
Yeah, I wouldn't. I'm going to guess their
sanitation isn't that great, even though you did mention they
did have running water. They.
Did they did, But that doesn't mean we know where it went.
That is true. All right.
Thank you so much for telling usabout that.
(47:45):
And until next week, friends. Seek the truth and.
Again, don't drink the water. Don't.
Drink the water, bye.
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