August 31, 2024 • 59 mins
What if the walls of a prison could tell you stories of madness, audacious escapes, and a dog accused of murder? Join me, Jeremy Haig, on a chilling journey through the haunting history of Eastern State Penitentiary. Built by the Quakers in 1829 with the aim of reforming prisoners through silence and isolation, the institution quickly became a house of psychological torment. Hear the tragic tale of Charles Williams, the first inmate, and the profound impact of extreme solitude that led to widespread madness and despair.
Explore the architectural vision of John Haviland, whose radial design imposed constant surveillance and solitude, and delve into the grim realities of the Pennsylvania system. We’ll uncover infamous stories of escapes, like Willie Sutton’s legendary tunnel escape in 1945 and Leo Callahan's daring ladder escape in 1923. Hear about the lighter moments, too, such as Pep the prison dog boosting inmate morale, and Al Capone's surprisingly luxurious stay at Eastern State Penitentiary.
As we walk through the corridors of this historic prison, we reflect on the devastating impact of a lack of empathy that stripped inmates of their humanity. The echoes of fear, anger, and indifference may explain the hauntings reported within its walls. This episode offers a poignant look at the human spirit and the consequences of extreme solitude, providing new insights into the spiritual world and the lessons these haunting stories offer us today.
Explore the architectural vision of John Haviland, whose radial design imposed constant surveillance and solitude, and delve into the grim realities of the Pennsylvania system. We’ll uncover infamous stories of escapes, like Willie Sutton’s legendary tunnel escape in 1945 and Leo Callahan's daring ladder escape in 1923. Hear about the lighter moments, too, such as Pep the prison dog boosting inmate morale, and Al Capone's surprisingly luxurious stay at Eastern State Penitentiary.
As we walk through the corridors of this historic prison, we reflect on the devastating impact of a lack of empathy that stripped inmates of their humanity. The echoes of fear, anger, and indifference may explain the hauntings reported within its walls. This episode offers a poignant look at the human spirit and the consequences of extreme solitude, providing new insights into the spiritual world and the lessons these haunting stories offer us today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode includes graphic depictions of torture
and violence and is intended formature audiences.
Listener discretion is advised.
Philadelphia 1829.
On the edge of the city theybuilt something different A
(00:20):
place where stone walls weremeant to save souls, not just
cage them.
A place where stone walls weremeant to save souls, not just
cage them.
Eastern State Penitentiary wasan experiment, a grand one,
maybe even noble, depending onwho you ask.
The Quakers who dreamed it upbelieved they could redeem even
the darkest of souls throughsilence and isolation.
You were alone with nothing butyour thoughts, your sins and
(00:48):
that tiny sliver of light fromabove.
But what they didn't tell youwas that if you stayed in the
dark long enough, sometimes thedark started to look back.
For prisoners like JosephTaylor, it wasn't the silence
that broke him, it was thevoices that came after.
They started as whispers.
Just outside the edge ofhearing, he'd lie on that narrow
(01:12):
cot, eyes wide open, in thedark and listen until he
couldn't stand it anymore.
Joseph wasn't the first tobreak and he certainly wasn't
the last.
In cell block five the wallsstill carry his despair.
Visitors say they hear himsometimes a soft weeping that
never seems to fade, like anecho that just keeps bouncing
(01:35):
back, no matter how long it'sbeen.
But if you listen closely,there's more.
You might hear the laughter too.
Cell block 12, they call it theshadow block.
It's where the darkness lives,where the walls are thick, with
all things left unsaid, all thecries that went unanswered.
(01:56):
Eastern State was built to savesouls, but in the end it might
just have trapped them.
What happens when you leave aman alone with nothing but his
regrets, when the light he'ssupposed to find never comes,
and in that darkness where hopewithers and empathy dies?
What was left?
(02:17):
If no one hears a man's cry inthe dark, does it mean he never
cried out at all?
Can the soul survive whereempathy dies?
I'm Jeremy Haig, and this iswhen Walls Can Talk.
Throughout the ages, man hasrepeated the same earnest saying
(02:52):
.
More of a question, really, orperhaps even a plea if these
walls could talk.
But what if they do, and alwayshave?
Perhaps their stories, memoriesand messages are all around us.
If only we would take themoment to listen.
(03:13):
On this podcast, wereinvestigate legends and tales
of the past and allow the echoesof their lessons to live on
once again, informing us,educating us and sharing new and
unique insight into the innerworkings of the paranormal and
spiritual world.
Will you dare to listen?
This is when Walls Can Talk.
(03:33):
The podcast October 22nd 1829.
The day the gates of EasternState Penitentiary first opened
to receive a soul, a young man,barely more than a boy, charles
(03:55):
Williams.
He was 18, convicted ofburglary, and he was about to
enter a world no one could everhave prepared for.
Harrisburg was his home, butnow it was a distant memory, as
cold and unreachable as thelight that barely penetrated the
prison's high stone walls.
They say that when Charlescrossed the threshold, he was
(04:18):
stripped of everything Hisclothes, his belongings, even
his name.
Clothes, his belongings, evenhis name.
In their place, he was given auniform, a number and a new
identity as Prisoner Number One.
The clerk logged it allmeticulously, recording every
detail.
Eighteen years old, a farmer bytrade, light, black complexion,
(04:41):
black eyes, curly hair.
Black complexion, black eyes,curly hair.
They measured his stature fivefeet and seven and a half inches
, his feet eleven inches.
It was as if they werecataloging him not as a person
but as property, an object to bestored away in the cold, dark
cells of Eastern State.
(05:02):
But the worst was yet to come,hooded and disoriented, as all
prisoners were to avoid them.
Gaining perspective of theprison's layout for escape,
charles was led through the mazeof corridors, never knowing
which way he turned, neverseeing the faces of the men who
guided him, he was brought to anexercise yard enclosed by walls
(05:26):
so high they blotted out thesun.
Through another set of doors heentered his cell, a
twelve-by-seven-foot tomb wherehe would spend the next part of
his life alone, with histhoughts, his regrets and the
silence.
The walls were bare, the onlyfurniture, a bed that folded
against the wall, a small shelf,a seat and a few simple items
(05:50):
for hygiene.
The window, a mere slit highabove, let in just enough light
to remind him that the worldoutside still existed, but not
enough to see it.
Every day followed the sameroutine he would rise at
daybreak, his meals coarse,barely sufficient, not enough to
see it.
Every day followed the sameroutine he would rise at
daybreak, his meals, coarse,barely sufficient, delivered
(06:12):
through a slot in the wall.
He was allowed one hour in theexercise yard, but never with
another prisoner.
The guards moved like ghosts,their footsteps muffled by socks
over their shoes, pushing cartswith leather-covered wheels to
keep the silence unbroken.
And in that silence.
Charles was expected to workShoemaking.
(06:34):
They assigned him learning tocraft as many as ten pairs a day
by 1831.
He was to reflect on his crimes, seek forgiveness, but from
whom?
The walls, the darkness, thesilence.
And this was the ideal scenario.
(06:54):
This was what the reformersenvisioned A place where men
could be broken down and rebuilt, where silence would lead to
penitence and solitude toredemption.
But the reality, the realitywas far more destructive.
The silence didn't bring peace,it brought madness.
(07:15):
The solitude didn't lead toreflection, it led to despair.
And for Charles Williams andall who followed him, eastern
State Penitentiary was not aplace of redemption, but a place
where the light of hope wasextinguished, leaving only the
shadows behind.
(07:36):
To understand Eastern StatePenitentiary you have to step
back, as always, way back to atime when America was young and
wild, a place where the forestswere thick and the roads were
few and a man's soul was oftenas rough and untamed as the land
itself.
And in this era, one of the mostinfluential groups was the
(07:58):
Religious Society of Friends,more commonly known as the
Quakers.
Their roots were in England,but by the time they'd crossed
the Atlantic they'd plantedthemselves firmly in the soil of
Pennsylvania, a colony foundedby Quaker William Penn on
principles of religioustolerance, pacifism and social
justice.
Quakers were a strange andquiet people who believed that
(08:23):
God spoke to them in the silencebetween thoughts, in the
stillness of a soul searchingfor light.
They called it the inner lightand they saw it in every man,
woman and child.
They believed that if youlistened close enough, you could
hear God whispering in your ear, telling you right from wrong,
(08:43):
good from evil.
Whispering in your ear, tellingyou right from wrong, good from
evil.
It's a faith rooted insimplicity, peace, integrity and
, most importantly, equality.
In the America of the 17th and18th centuries, these were
radical ideas.
Quakers were abolitionists,advocates for prison reform and
(09:04):
champions of education for all,regardless of class or gender.
But their most definingcharacteristic was their belief
in nonviolence, a commitment tosolving conflicts without
resorting to physical force.
This was a community deeplyinvested in the moral
improvement of society, andnowhere was this more evident
(09:25):
than in their approach to crimeand punishment.
But it wasn't an easy life In aworld that thrived on violence
and dominance.
The Quakers were outsiders,strange birds in a flock of
hawks.
They were ridiculed, persecuted, but they held fast to their
beliefs, clinging to theirideals, like a drowning man,
(09:46):
clings to driftwood.
By the late 18th century, theamerican justice system was a
horror show of public executions, whippings and prisons that
were little more than cesspoolsof disease and despair.
It was a system that punishedbut never, never reformed.
And that's where the Quakerssaw an opportunity, a chance to
(10:10):
bring their light into thedarkest corners of society.
They wanted a prison thatdidn't just lock men away, but
one that could save their souls.
They dreamed of a place where aman could sit in silence, alone
with his thoughts, until hefound his way back to God.
And so, in 1821, the idea forEastern State Penitentiary was
(10:35):
born.
The Philadelphia Society forAlleviating the Miseries of
Public Prisons, a Quaker-ledorganization, proposed a new
kind of prison, one that wouldembody their ideals of reform
and redemption.
It took eight years of planningand debate, but in 1829,
(10:55):
eastern State opened its doors.
It was a fortress, a grandexperiment in social engineering
, designed to inspire awe andfear in equal measure.
The process began with a law, apiece of paper inked with the
hopes and fears of men whobelieved they could reshape the
(11:16):
very fabric of human nature.
1821, the Pennsylvania StateLegislature passed an act that
would set into motion one of themost ambitious and terrifying
projects in American history Astate penitentiary.
They called it, a place where250 souls could be confined,
(11:38):
isolated and, they hoped,redeemed through solitude.
They appointed 12 men tooversee the creation of this
place and handed them a hundredthousand dollars a king's ransom
in those days with the chargeto build something that would
last, something that would standas a monument to the power of
reform or a warning of thedarkness that comes when you
(12:01):
meddle with the human soul.
They called themselves theBoard of Commissioners, but what
they really were was a group ofdreamers and pragmatists, each
with their own idea of what thisprison should be.
They studied plans, debateddesigns and finally settled on a
plot of land in the SpringGarden District of Philadelphia,
(12:21):
a place known as Cherry Hill,where the ground was high and
the air was clean.
They bought it for $11,500, abargain even in those days and
began the work of turning acherry orchard into a fortress.
Four architects submitted theirdesigns, each one a vision of
how to best contain and controlthe human spirit, but in the end
(12:44):
it was John Haviland's planthat won out, a plan that would
come to define Eastern StatePenitentiary.
Haviland envisioned a placethat resembled a medieval
fortress, a gothic castle, wherethe walls themselves seemed to
loom over you judging, watching,waiting.
He designed a prison with aradial layout, each cell block
(13:13):
fanning out from a central hublike the spokes of a wheel.
From the observatory at thecenter.
Guards could watch over everyquarter, every cell, without
ever being seen themselves.
It was a place where solitudewas enforced by architecture and
the very design of the buildingpressed down upon the soul, as
if to remind the inmates thatthey were always being watched,
(13:35):
always being judged.
It was a design that would becopied by over 300 prisons
worldwide.
But even as the walls went up,even as the towers and cell
blocks took shape, there wastension.
Strickland, the architect whohad lost the design competition,
was tasked with overseeing theconstruction, but his heart
(13:58):
wasn't in it.
Haviland, meanwhile, continuedto tweak his designs, adding
towers, thickening walls,refining his vision of a prison
that was as much a symbol as itwas a structure.
By the time the cornerstone waslaid, in May of 1823, it was
clear that Eastern StatePenitentiary would be more than
(14:18):
just a place to lock upcriminals.
It would be a place where thewalls themselves held power
criminals.
It would be a place where thewalls themselves held power, a
power that would endure longafter the last stone was set,
long after the last prisoner waslocked away.
But the most striking feature ofEastern State was not its
imposing architecture nor itssheer size.
(14:39):
It was the cells.
Each one was a small,self-contained world measuring
just 8 by 12 feet, with a singlenarrow window high up on the
wall, angled to let in light butprevent any view of the outside
world.
This window was known as theEye of God, a constant reminder
(15:00):
to the inmates that they werealways being watched, not just
by the guards but by a higherpower.
The doors were intentionallylow, forcing prisoners to bow as
they entered, a physicalgesture of submission and
humility.
The Pennsylvania system, as itwas called, was based on the
idea that solitude would lead topenitence.
(15:22):
Prisoners were kept in completeisolation, no contact with
other inmates, no visitors, noletters.
They were given a Bible andtheir own thoughts.
Solitude and silence weresupposed to lead a man to repent
, to find God in the emptiness.
But what they didn't considerwas that in that emptiness
(15:45):
something else might find themfirst, something darker.
The silence wasn't a bomb, itwas a blade slicing away at the
mind, until all that was leftwas the raw nerve of fear, of
regret, and for some it led tomadness, and for some it led to
madness, for others somethingeven worse.
(16:08):
But what they didn't understand,what they couldn't have known,
was that the mind is a fragilething.
It needs light, it needsconnection, and without those
things it withers, it turnsinward on itself, like a snake
devouring its own tail.
They call it prison psychosis,a polite term for a descent into
(16:31):
madness.
The doctors who studied ittried to quantify the symptoms
Hallucinations, paranoia, severeanxiety but numbers and words
could never capture the truehorror of it.
Imagine being trapped in a boxday after day, with nothing but
(16:51):
your own thoughts.
At first you might hold on toyour sanity, clinging to the
hope that one day you'll be free.
But as the days stretch intoweeks and the weeks into months,
that hope fades, the wallsstart to close in, and the weeks
into months, that hope fades,the walls start to close in, and
the silence, the silencebecomes a living thing, wrapping
(17:16):
itself around your mind,squeezing, until something
inside of you snaps.
Many famous individuals came tovisit the radical facility, but
few as famous as Charles Dickens, a man who knew a thing or two
about suffering, about the darkplaces in the human soul.
When he visited Eastern Statein 1842, he was horrified.
He called it a house of horrors, a place where men were buried
(17:40):
alive in their own minds.
He saw the blank st stairs, thetrembling hands, the way the
inmates flinched at every sound,as if they were waiting for
something terrible to happen.
And maybe they were.
Dickens wrote that the systemwas cruel and wrong and it did
(18:00):
nothing but break the minds andspirits of the men it was
supposed to save.
He could see what the Quakerscouldn't, that this place wasn't
saving souls, it was devouringthem.
By 1834, eastern StatePenitentiary had only been open
for a few years, but already thecracks were beginning to show.
(18:20):
The grand experiment meant toreform souls through solitary
confinement was rotting from theinside out, and when the rot
finally broke through to thesurface, it was uglier than
anyone could ever have imagined.
It started out quietlyaccusations of immoral and
(18:40):
licentious behavior among theprison staff but the whispers
grew louder until they couldn'tbe ignored.
A state legislative committeewas convened to investigate, and
what they uncovered was acesspool of corruption and vice
that would have shocked even themost hardened souls.
The warden, samuel Wood, alongwith his inspectors and a host
(19:03):
of other officials, were accusedof embezzling funds, misusing
public property and subjectingprisoners to cruel and unusual
punishments.
But that was only the beginning.
They spoke of parties carousing, and quote habitual intercourse
with lewd and depraved personsright there in the
administrative building course,with lewd and depraved persons
(19:27):
right there in theadministrative building.
The very place that wassupposed to embody moral reform
had become a den of vice.
And then there were theprisoners Women, housed in a
single room in one of the towers, overseen by men who treated
them not as inmates but asservants.
When the scandal broke, thewomen were hurriedly moved to a
more secure cell block and amatron, mrs Harriet Hall, was
(19:50):
hastily hired to oversee them.
But the damage was done.
The vision of Eastern State asa place of moral and benevolent
reform had been shattered,replaced by a darker reality of
exploitation and abuse.
Shattered, replaced by a darkerreality of exploitation and
abuse.
But the scandal was just onesymptom of a deeper problem.
The very architecture ofEastern State, designed to
(20:13):
isolate and reform, was flawed.
The cells were cold, theventilation poor and the heating
barely adequate to keep theprisoners from freezing to death
in their solitude.
The resident physician became akey figure.
His monthly reports to theboard a litany of the prisoners
deteriorating mental andphysical health.
(20:34):
It was clear that solitaryconfinement wasn't producing the
redemption the Quakers hadhoped for.
It was producing broken mindsand bodies.
Even the work, the shoemakingand weaving that kept the
prisoners occupied was part of asystem that was beginning to
falter.
The quote public account andquote peace price systems kept
(20:57):
the penitentiary's industriesrunning, but the labor didn't
bring the salvation the Quakershad envisioned.
Instead, it merely masked adeeper failure of the
Pennsylvania system itself, asystem that was being abandoned
across the country as prisonsturned to the Auburn model of
silence and labor over thesolitary confinement that had
(21:17):
proven so destructive.
And so the grand experimentcontinued.
But it was clear that the dreamof a moral and benevolent
penitentiary was just that, adream.
What was left behind was aplace where the darkness had
seeped into the very walls,where the ideals of reform were
(21:37):
swallowed up by the harshrealities of human nature.
Eastern State Penitentiary wasno longer a prison.
It was a monument to thedangers of unchecked power, to
the corruption that festers whenthe light of scrutiny fades.
After the Civil War, america wasa nation on the move.
Freed slaves headed north insearch of a better life, while
(22:00):
rural families packed up andleft the fields behind for the
promise of the city.
But the promise wasn the city.
But the promise wasn't foreveryone.
For many, the streets weren'tpaved with gold.
They were paved withdesperation.
And that desperation led themto the gates of Eastern State.
By 1866, it was bursting at theseams.
(22:20):
The prison, designed to hold540 souls in solitary
confinement, now housed 569.
The inspectors, faced withovercrowding and a rising tide
of despair, made a decision thatwould mark the beginning of the
end for the Pennsylvania system.
They started doubling upprisoners two to a cell,
(22:43):
sometimes even three.
It was a necessary evil, theysaid, for those of such a low
grade of mental capacity thatthey were unfit for anything but
restraint.
But what happens when you cramtoo many souls into a space
meant for one?
Well, the darkness spreads.
By 1872, the inspectors had anew name for their program the
(23:06):
Individual Treatment System, apolite way of saying.
They were abandoning the veryprinciples on which Eastern
State was built.
Solitude was no longer sacred,just a word they used to hide
the truth.
The system was failing and theinmates were paying the price.
In a last-ditch effort to savethe dream, they embarked on a
(23:27):
building spree.
Overseer Michael J Cassidy, whowould become warden in 1881,
added new cell blocks cellblocks 8 through 11, and
extended the existing ones.
The cells were larger, nearly50% more spacious than those
built by Haviland, as if Cassidyknew he'd need room for more
(23:49):
than one.
But it wasn't enough.
Even Cassidy, who objected tomore than one man per cell, had
to admit defeat.
We have sometimes threeprisoners to a cell, he
confessed in 1884.
The dream of solitary reformwas dead, buried beneath layers
of stone and steel.
(24:10):
Yet in the midst of all of this,life at Eastern State was
evolving.
Inmates, once trapped in thebleakest solitude, did find
small comforts.
They tended gardens, raisedrabbits and kept birds.
They decorated their cells withmurals, as if to make the walls
feel less like a cage.
The diet improved, the mailcame more frequently and family
(24:35):
visits were allowed.
A teacher was hired and alibrary was built, a haven of
books and magazines whereprisoners could escape, if only
in their minds.
The prison chaplain preachedand the men sang hymns, their
voices rising through the cellblocks like a prayer for
redemption.
But no amount of song or solacecould change the fact that
(24:58):
Eastern State Penitentiary wascrumbling.
The cracks in the wall were morethan just physical.
They were symbolic of a systemthat had outlived its purpose.
The Pennsylvania system, oncehailed as revolutionary, was now
a relic of the past.
Physicians at the prison hadlong lobbied for better
conditions, more light, cleanerair, a place where the inmates
(25:21):
could exercise their bodies, ifnot their minds.
By the mid-1880s a smallgymnasium was built in cell
block three.
The convicts, masked and herdedlike cattle, were brought in
groups of six to exercise underthe watchful eyes of their
captors.
But it wasn't enough.
Eastern State had become abreeding ground for disease,
(25:43):
both physical and mental.
But the real horrors were thedark cells Klondike they called
them where men could be lockedaway in total darkness, left to
rot in their own despair.
It was said that these cellswere a death sentence, that the
men who entered them only leftin a pine box.
(26:04):
Tuberculosis ran rampant andthe mortality rates at Eastern
State were higher than any otherprison in the country.
There are many stories toldabout the men who passed through
the Iron Gates of Eastern State.
Some of them are stories ofredemption but most of horror.
There's even one about AlCapone and his haunted cell.
(26:26):
But none of them have quitecaptured the public's
imagination like the story ofWillie Sutton and the Great
Tunnel Escape of 1945.
You've probably heard the nameWillie Sutton before.
He was the Babe Ruth of bankrobbers, after all, the
Gentleman Bandit, slick Williethe Actor.
(26:47):
But let me tell you, thosenicknames only scratch the
surface.
Willie Sutton was the kind ofcriminal you can't help but
admire even as you cross thestreet to avoid him.
He had charm, wit and a smilethat could disarm even the most
suspicious bank teller.
But underneath that smoothexterior was a man who lived for
(27:10):
the thrill of the escape.
In the 11 years he spent atEastern State, sutton made five
attempts to break free, each onebolder than the last, but it
was the sixth attempt that wouldgo down in history.
They were like the dirty dozen,but less well-adjusted.
Twelve men, driven bydesperation and a shared hatred
(27:34):
for the walls that held them,worked together for over a year
chiseling, digging and clawingtheir way through the earth.
And at the center of it all wasSutton, the mastermind, or so
he claimed In his 1953autobiography.
Where the Money Was, suttontook full credit for the
operation.
But here's the thing aboutSutton he's as much a
(27:58):
storyteller as he was a bankrobber.
The tunnel escape was daring, nodoubt about it.
But the reality was far messier, far more desperate than
Sutton's smooth-talking personawould have you believe.
This was no Hollywood heist, itwas a gamble.
A gamble that, for most of them, didn't pay off.
(28:19):
The tunnel may have led themout of their cells, but it
didn't lead to freedom.
And as for Sutton, well, heliked to say he was the
mastermind, but in the end theescape was as much a trap as it
was a way out.
Behind every great escape,there's someone who does the
dirty work, someone who stays inthe shadows pulling the strings
(28:41):
while the others take the glory.
For Sutton, that man wasClarence Clinney.
Clindinst, a plasterer,stonemason, burglar and forger,
with the charm of Frank Sinatraand the resourcefulness of
MacGyver.
Clinney was a man who could getyou anything, anything except
freedom, or so it seemed.
(29:01):
But give him a year and hecould get you out of the most
impregnable fortress in America.
Working in teams of two, theescapees took 30-minute shifts,
digging through the wall of Cell38 with nothing more than
spoons and flattened cans.
Inch by inch, they carved a31-inch hole through solid stone
(29:22):
, then dug 12 feet straight downinto the earth.
But they didn't stop there.
They dug another 100 feet,tunneling their way through the
walls of Eastern State likemoles burrowing toward daylight.
This was a work of desperategenius.
The tunnel was shored up withscavenged wood, lit by makeshift
(29:43):
lamps and even ventilated tokeep the air flowing.
At the halfway point theytapped into the prison's brick
sewer system, creating a hiddenpassage to dispose of their
waste and keep the fumes fromchoking them to death.
It was an engineering marvelborn out of sheer necessity and
desperation.
But even more impressive wasthe way they concealed it.
It was an engineering marvelborn out of sheer necessity and
(30:03):
desperation, but even moreimpressive was the way they
concealed it.
Clinney, with his craftsman'shands, fashioned a false panel
that blended seamlessly with theplaster walls of Cell 68.
Hidden behind a metalwastebasket, the tunnel escaped
inspection time and again.
A secret just waiting to bediscovered.
This was the reality of theGreat Escape, the painstaking
(30:26):
work of men with nothing to lose.
Sutton may have been thecharming face of the operation,
but it was Clinney who made ithappen, brick by brick, inch by
inch.
It was an escape plan thatshould have been impossible, and
for most it would have been.
But desperation makes men doincredible things and in the end
(30:48):
, what emerged from that tunnelwasn't just a path to freedom,
but a testament to the lengths aman will go to when he's got
nowhere else to turn.
Of course this was the ideal,the perfect scenario.
Of course this was the ideal,the perfect scenario.
But as with so many things atEastern State Penitentiary, the
reality was far darker and farmore complex, because getting
(31:12):
out was only the beginning.
It was the morning of April 3rd1945, when the men, all 12 of
them, desperate and determined,finally put their plan into
action.
They had spent months workingin shifts, digging through stone
and dirt with spoons, like ants, tunneling toward daylight.
It was slow, back-breaking work, but they were driven by a
(31:35):
singular need to escape thewalls that had become their tomb
and so on.
That morning the men made theirmove.
As the prison began to stir, asbreakfast was being prepared,
they slipped away to cell 68,the gateway to their freedom.
One by one, they loweredthemselves into the tunnel, the
(31:58):
cold earth pressing in aroundthem as they crawled on hands
and knees, inching toward thelight.
At the end, they emerged, oneby one, into the world beyond
the walls, free, if only for amoment.
But like most plans hatched inthe dark, the reality didn't
live up to the dream.
Clinney, the mastermind, madeit a whole three hours before
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the law caught up with him.
Sutton well, he barely tastedfreedom.
Three minutes, that's all hegot before he came face to face
with the law.
In his own words, he leapedfrom the hole and ran headlong
into two policemen and when theytold him to put his hands up,
he told them to shoot.
And maybe in that moment hemeant it.
(32:44):
Maybe, after all the digging,the planning, the hoping, he was
ready for it all to end.
The police's bullets missed,but Sutton's luck had run out.
He tripped, fell and the dreamwas over.
For those who thought they couldoutwit the walls of Eastern
State Penitentiary, the price offailure was steep.
(33:06):
The firsts to be captured afterthe 1945 tunnel escape,
including the infamous WillieSutton, were dragged down into
the bowels of the prison, aplace few knew existed and fewer
escaped.
These were the Klondikes Hiddenaway in the mechanical spaces
below one of the cell blocks.
These cells were illegal, builtin secret by guards who
(33:30):
understood that some men neededto be broken body and soul.
Sutton, the man who had stolenheadlines and charmed the public
with his daring, found himselfin a cell that wasn't big enough
to stand up in and wasn't wideenough to lay down in here.
There was no light, no sound,just the suffocating weight of
darkness pressing in on allsides.
(33:51):
It was as if the very earth wastrying to swallow him whole, to
erase the memory of his escape,to punish him for daring to
dream of freedom.
But even the Klondikes couldn'tkeep Sutton contained for long.
After his time in the hole, hewas transferred to the
supposedly escape-proofHolmesburg prison.
(34:12):
Within months, sutton did whathe did best.
He escaped, vanishing into theshadows for six more years,
before the law finally caught upwith him in Brooklyn, brought
down by a witness who recognizedhim from a wanted poster.
The tunnel that Sutton and hiscomrades had painstakingly
carved out of the earth wasn'tforgotten, though.
(34:33):
The guards did their best toerase it After the escape.
They filled it with ash, buriedit under cement, trying to
cover up the evidence of theirfailure.
It wasn't until 2005 that thelost tunnel was found again.
Using ground-penetrating radar,a team of archaeologists traced
the path of the escape,uncovering sections of the
(34:56):
tunnel that had survived theguards' attempts to bury it.
They sent a robotic roverthrough the remains, documenting
the scaffolding, the lightingsystems, the evidence of
desperation etched into everyinch of the tunnel.
The discovery didn't revealmuch, just the bones of a legend
long buried.
But for a moment, the public'simagination was reignited as
(35:21):
they dreamed of the daring menwho had risked everything for a
taste of freedom, only to findthat the outside world was as
unforgiving as the walls they'dleft behind.
Over the course of its 142 years, eastern State Penitentiary saw
more than 100 escape attempts.
The walls, towering 30 feethigh and buried 10 feet deep,
(35:45):
were meant to be an impenetrablebarrier, a final line of
defense between society andthose who had fallen beyond
redemption.
And yet, despite the odds, 59people managed to breach those
walls, but true success.
People managed to breach thosewalls, but true success.
Escape and evasion wassomething rarer, something
(36:06):
almost mythic.
For years, it was believed thatonly one man, leo Callahan, had
managed to escape the grasp ofEastern State and vanish into
the ether, never to be seenagain.
But the past has a way ofrevealing itself, and now we
know that Callahan wasn't alone.
Leo Callahan's story is thestuff of legend.
(36:27):
In 1923, he and five othersconstructed a ladder, a simple
device that would be theirticket to freedom.
They scaled the east wall,subduing two guards along the
way.
While his accomplices wereeventually recaptured, one of
them, in Honolulu no lessCallahan disappeared without a
(36:48):
trace, the only one that gotaway.
But as researchers delveddeeper into the prison's
archives, they discovered othernames, other stories lost to
time.
Bernard Tease was the first, in1838.
He was just two years into athree-year sentence for
horse-stealing when he slippedout of his cell, scaled the
(37:09):
perimeter wall and disappeared.
The warden spent monthssearching for him, spending over
a hundred dollars, a smallfortune at the time.
Yet Tease was never found.
His family would never see himagain and his records were
marked simply escaped.
Then there was Patrick Laffertywho, in 1866, walked right
(37:31):
through the front gate Dressedin another prisoner's clothes.
He passed by the guardsunnoticed, slipping into the
city and out of history.
And Timothy Boyle who, in 1877,used his job in the bakery to
hide in an empty cask, which wasthen loaded onto a wagon and
carried beyond the walls.
He was nearly two years into a12-year sentence for
(37:54):
second-degree murder, but afterthat day he was gone, his story
making headlines even yearslater as rumors swirled of his
escape to Europe.
These four men Callahan, tease,lafferty, boyle each found a
way to break free from EasternState Penitentiary and
(38:14):
disappeared into the worldbeyond, never to be recaptured.
But for every escape thatsucceeded, there were dozens
more that failed, with menthrown back into the darkness,
their dreams of freedom crushedunder the weight of those
30-foot walls.
The past has a way ofsurprising us, of reminding us
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that history is never fullywritten and that there are
always more stories waiting tobe told.
Fully written, and that thereare always more stories waiting
to be told.
In the summer of 1924, governorGuilford Pinchot of Pennsylvania
found himself in a peculiarsituation.
He was, in his own words,over-dogged.
It wasn't that he disliked dogs, in fact he was quite fond of
(38:58):
them.
But when you're the governorand people start gifting you
puppies like they're the latestfashion accessory, it's easy to
feel overwhelmed.
One of these dogs was Pep, theblack Labrador retriever, who
had a particular fondness forchewing on the cushions of the
Pinchot's front porch sofa.
Pinchot was everybody's dog,friendly, good-natured and
(39:20):
unusually intelligent.
But like so many good dogs, pephad a problem he was a bit too
much to handle.
Pinchot had recently heard abouta therapy dog named Governor,
who had been sent to ThomsonState Prison in Maine, and the
idea stuck with him.
The Eastern State Penitentiaryin Philadelphia was overcrowded,
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the inmates' morale was low andPinchot thought maybe, just
maybe, pep could help.
So, with the blessings of hiswife, cornelia, pinchot made a
call to the prison warden andjust like that Pep was on his
way to the big house.
Not for any crime, despite whatthe newspapers would later
claim, but to lighten thespirits of the men behind those
(40:02):
towering walls.
Pep was received at EasternState in quote due in ancient
form, as the warden liked to say.
This means they gave him aninmate number C-2559, took his
mugshot and even recorded hiscrime in the prison ledger
Murder.
But it wasn't long before thestory took on a life of its own.
(40:23):
Some enterprising newspapermen,in a fit of creative
inspiration, decided that Pephad been sent to the prison for
killing the governor's cat.
The tale spread like wildfire.
Letters poured in from all overthe world accusing Pinchot of
cruelty, condemning him forlocking up a dog for following
its instincts.
(40:44):
No amount of clarification fromthe governor could stem the
tide of outrage.
But the truth was far lesssensational.
For the inmates of Eastern State, pep was a blessing he wandered
the prison freely, liftingspirits wherever he went.
He accompanied the guards ontheir nightly rounds, became a
(41:05):
master rat catcher in the darkquarters and even gained a bit
of weight thanks to the extratreats from the prisoners.
Pep was featured in a radiobroadcast from the prison in
1925.
His image, captured forever ina photograph that showed him
sitting proudly in front of amicrophone, surrounded by guards
, in a place where despair wasthe daily bread, pep was a
(41:26):
reminder that not all the worldwas lost to darkness.
Pep spent several years atEastern State, becoming
something of a legend in its ownright.
But, as with all good things,his time at the penitentiary
came to an end.
In 1929, he was quote, pardonedand sent to the Graterford
prison farm where he lived outthe rest of his days in peace.
(41:50):
The story of Pep the prison dogis one of those curious tales
that refuses to fade a smallwarm light in the stone cold
darkness of eastern stateshistory.
But remember, while thenewspapers had a field day with
the tale of the cat murderingdog, the truth was something far
simpler and perhaps, in its ownway, far more human.
(42:11):
Alphonse Gabriel Capone, betterknown to the world as Al Capone
or Scarface was one of the mostnotorious gangsters in American
history.
Born in Brooklyn, new York,1899, capone would rise through
the ranks of organized crime tobecome the undisputed king of
(42:33):
the Chicago underworld duringthe Prohibition era.
Known for his ruthless businesstactics, capone built a
criminal empire on bootlegging,gambling and extortion, amassing
a fortune and a reputation thatmade him both feared and
admired.
But for all his power, capone'sstory is not just one of
(42:54):
violence and vice.
It's also a tale of unexpectedtwists, including a brief but
infamous stint at Eastern StatePenitentiary.
In May 1929, as mob violenceescalated in Chicago, capone
found himself far from his hometurf.
While traveling from AtlanticCity back to Chicago, capone
(43:16):
made a fateful stop inPhiladelphia.
There, outside a movie theater,he was arrested for carrying a
concealed, unlicensed .38caliber revolver a rookie
mistake for a man of hisexperience.
The Philadelphia courts, knownfor their toughness, handed
Capone the maximum sentence oneyear in prison.
(43:36):
It was the first taste ofprison life for the man who had
managed to elude the law for solong.
Capone served seven months ofhis sentence, but his experience
there was anything buttypical.
Despite the Philadelphiacourt's attempts to make an
example of him, the officials atEastern State were remarkably
(43:56):
accommodating to their famousguest.
Capone's cell was no ordinarycell.
It was furnished with finefurniture, beautiful rugs,
tasteful paintings and a fancyradio that played the waltzes
that Capone loved to listen to.
The Philadelphia newspaperswere quick to note the lavish
conditions, describing the Salonsuch a way that it could have
(44:18):
easily been mistaken for anupscale motel room.
But why was Capone inPhiladelphia to begin with?
Rumors swirled that Capone hadintentionally gotten himself
arrested to avoid the escalatingviolence in Chicago, using the
prison as a hideout.
Capone, of course, denied theseclaims for the rest of his life
, insisting that his arrest wasa matter of bad luck rather than
(44:41):
a calculated move.
Regardless of the truth, caponespent thousands of dollars
trying to secure his release,but the Philadelphia courts were
notswayed.
His time at Eastern State,however, was far from wasted.
If anything, it added anotherlayer to the myth of Al Capone,
the gangster who lived like aking even behind bars.
(45:01):
His time here was a story ofcontradictions a ruthless
gangster living in unexpectedcomfort behind bars.
But not everyone at EasternState experienced such luxury.
For most of its inmates, lifewas a far cry from Capone's
cushioned reality, and as theyears wore on the walls that
(45:24):
held Capone's radio and finefurniture would witness
something much more darker andmore violent the
riots.
Eastern State was no strangerto unrest.
The rigid routines, theisolation and the harsh
conditions created a powder kegwaiting to explode and explode.
It did, multiple times in fact,over the decades.
(45:47):
One of the earliest and mostviolent riots occurred in 1933,
during the Great Depression,when overcrowding and poor
conditions pushed the inmates totheir breaking point.
It started with a small groupof prisoners, angry about the
lack of food and the brutalityof the guards, who began
smashing windows and lightingfires in their cells.
(46:08):
In the brutality of the guardswho began smashing windows and
lighting fires in their cells.
Before long the unrest hadspread throughout the prison,
with inmates attacking guardsand destroying anything within
reach.
The riot was only quelled afterreinforcements were called in,
but not before significantdamage was done both to the
prison itself and to the alreadyfragile morale of those inside.
But 1933 was only thebeginning.
(46:33):
In 1945, the same year asWillie Sutton's tunnel escape,
the prison saw anothersignificant riot.
This time, the catalyst was theovercrowded conditions and the
frustration of inmates who feltthey had nothing left to lose.
What began as a protest overthe quality of food quickly
escalated into a violent clash,with prisoners seizing tools and
(46:54):
attacking the guards.
The riot was eventually subdued, but the scars that left on the
prison were deep, bothliterally and figuratively.
The last major riot to rockEastern State occurred in 1961,
as the prison was nearing theend of its operational life.
Once again, overcrowding andpoor conditions were at the
(47:16):
heart of the unrest.
The prisoners pushed to theirlimits, launched a coordinated
attack on the guards, takingcontrol of several cell blocks
and setting fires.
The National Guard waseventually called in to restore
order, but the damage was done.
The riot underscored thecrumbling state of the building,
signaling that its days as afunctioning prison were
(47:39):
numbered.
But while it was operational,eastern State Penitentiary was
not just a place of solitaryconfinement.
It was a place of punishment, aplace where the sins of the
body were paid for in pain, insilence, in blood.
For those who dared to speakout, who couldn't bear the
(48:00):
crushing weight of solitude,there were consequences, dark,
brutal consequences that leftscars far deeper than the stone
walls that surrounded them.
Take, for instance, the irongag, a device designed not just
to silence but to torture.
Imagine you're a few monthsinto your sentence, the
isolation gnawing at your sanityand you can't keep quiet any
(48:24):
longer.
That's what happened toMatthias McComsey in 1833, a man
convicted of manslaughter whomade the mistake of trying to
speak to his neighbor.
For his crime of conversation,the guards bound his hands
behind his back and forced aniron gag over his tongue.
Chains connected the gag to hisshackled wrists, pulling
(48:46):
tighter with every movement,ripping into his flesh.
They left him there alone inthe dark, his screams swallowed
by the cold iron.
When they found him an hourlater, he was dead, his tongue
torn to shreds.
His blood pooled on the coldstone
floor.
But the iron gag wasn't theonly nightmare that awaited the
(49:10):
inmates of Eastern State.
There was also the mad chair, achair that still exists there
today, an invention born of atwisted belief that insanity
could be cured by stopping theflow of blood.
The idea was simple Cruel Strapthe inmate into the chair so
tightly that he couldn't move amuscle, not even to breathe
(49:32):
freely.
Days could pass without food,without the slightest relief,
until the body began to betrayitself.
Limbs swelled, circulationstopped and when they were
finally released if they werereleased amputation was often
the only option.
It wasn't just the mind thatwas broken in that chair.
(49:53):
It was the body too, piece bypiece.
And then there was the waterbath, an especially cruel
punishment reserved for thecoldest nights of winter.
The process was as simple as itwas deadly Dunk the inmate's
head or full body in ice-coldwater and then hang them on the
(50:14):
wall dripping and exposed to thefreezing air.
By morning, their skin would beiced over their body, stiff,
the life slowly drained fromthem by the relentless cold.
Not all survived to see thedawn.
Eastern State was built on thepromise of reform, of penitence,
(50:36):
of this elusive idea ofredemption.
But as the years turned todecades, the walls that once
stood as a symbol of progressionbegan to crumble, both
literally and figuratively.
The very ideals that hadinspired its creation—solitude,
(50:56):
reflection, isolation—had turneditself into something much
darker.
The once-radical Pennsylvaniasystem, built by the Quakers,
with its strict emphasis onsolitary confinement, was
proving to be a failure.
On solitary confinement wasproving to be a failure not just
in theory, but in practice.
By the mid-20th century,eastern State had become a relic
, a place where the pastlingered like a ghost in the
(51:19):
cold, damp air.
Overcrowding was now the norm,with cells originally designed
for holding one now holding two,three and even four inmates.
The riots, violent eruptions offrustration and desperation
were just the most visible signsof a system that was slowly,
inexorably, breaking down.
The once innovative design ofthe prison had become its
(51:43):
greatest flaw.
Unable to adapt to the changingneeds of the penal system or
the growing number of prisonerscrammed within its walls, the
Pennsylvania system, with itsstrict focus on isolation, was
abandoned long before theprison's closure, but the scars
it left on the inmates and theinstitution itself were deep and
(52:04):
enduring.
By the 1960s, eastern State wasa shadow of its former self, a
crumbling, outdated fortressstruggling to hold on to
relevance in a world that hadmoved on.
The facilities weredeteriorating, the walls
cracking under the weight oftime, and the concept of
solitary confinement was beingincreasingly criticized as
(52:26):
inhumane and counterproductive.
In 1970, the state ofPennsylvania made the inevitable
decision Eastern StatePenitentiary would close its
doors for good.
The last remaining inmates weretransferred to other facilities
and the once feared prison,with its towering walls and iron
gates, was left empty,abandoned.
(52:48):
With its towering walls andiron gates, was left empty,
abandoned, a crumbling monumentto a failed experiment in human
rehabilitation.
But the story of Eastern Statedidn't end with its closure the
echoes of its past, the whispersof its ghosts continue to
linger in the corridors.
Eastern State was supposed tobe different, a place not
(53:08):
designed to punish but to reform.
But over time the reality ledto something else.
Isolation begot despair, andthat despair left its mark Long
after the last prisonerleft.
People who visit Eastern Statetoday report strange things.
They hear voices, see shadowswhere there shouldn't be any.
(53:31):
It makes you wonder what'sreally happening here.
Are these just stories or isthere something more going on?
And if there is, what does thatsay about what went on here
while the prison was stilloperational?
Let's start with Cell Block 12.
It's one of those places peopletalk about the most when they
(53:52):
mention Eastern State's hauntedreputation.
Visitors say they hear laughter, but it's not the kind that
makes you smile.
It's unsettling, almost mocking.
Then there are the shadows,dark figures that seem to move
just out of the corner of youreye.
Could this be the residualenergy of men who lost
(54:13):
themselves in the silence?
It's hard not to think aboutthe years some of them spent in
total isolation, cut off fromliterally any kind of human
connection.
It begs the question whathappens to a person's mind or
their soul when they're deprivedof basic empathy for that long.
Cell Block 4 is another hotspotfor
(54:35):
activity.
People talk about feeling anintense cold, even on warm days.
Some say they felt like they'rebeing watched, though there's
no one else around.
It's easy to see how theprison's history ties into these
experiences.
Imagine living your days withno one to talk to, no one to
break the monotony, except maybea guard walking by if you're
(54:58):
lucky and then consider thatthis was a place where empathy
was in short supply by design.
You start to wonder if whatpeople are experiencing now is
tied to that lack of humanconnection.
But the most intense reportscome from death row.
Visitors describe it as beingalmost unbearable, like there's
(55:18):
a weight pressing down on them,making it hard to breathe.
Some have even seen apparitions, figures of men who look like
they've been through hell andback.
And when you consider whatDeath Row was An end point, a
place where hope was snuffed outit's hard not to draw a
connection between what happenedhere and what people feel when
(55:38):
theyvisit.
Empathy, or the lack thereof,is central to all of this, to
this entire story.
In a place where empathy wasintentionally stripped away,
what does that do to the peopleinside?
And, more importantly, doesthat impact linger after the
person is gone.
This place was built on an idea, one that seemed noble on the
(56:04):
surface Solitude as a path toredemption, silence as a tool
for reflection.
But strip away the words, theideals, and what you're left
with is a place where peoplewere broken down bit by bit,
until there was nothing left butthe shell of who they used to
be.
It's easy to talk about thesystem, the walls, the
(56:26):
punishments.
It's harder to talk about thesystem, the walls, the
punishments.
It's harder to talk about whathappens when those things erode
the very core of a person.
What happens when empathy thethread that connects us, that
makes us human, dies?
What fills that void that'sleft behind?
For the inmates of EasternState, it was a darkness that
(56:49):
clung to them long after they'dleft their cells, a darkness
that some say still lingers inthe cold spots, the shadows, the
voices that seem to call outfrom the past.
Maybe that's what we're hearingwhen people talk about the
hauntings.
Maybe it's not just ghosts inthe traditional sense, but the
(57:11):
echoes of lives that werereduced to something less than
human.
When empathy dies, what'sleft?
Fear, anger, regret.
Those are powerful emotions.
They don't just disappearbecause a prison closes or
because time moves on, theylinger, they infect the space
(57:36):
around them and they becomesomething else, something darker
.
And here's the thing it's notjust about a place like Eastern
State, it's about what we'recapable of, what any one of us
might become if empathy isstripped away.
If you push someone far enough,isolate them long enough, they
(58:00):
stop seeing themselves as humanand they start acting like
somethingelse.
That's the real horror story,isn't it?
Not the ghosts, not the coldspots, but the reminder that
we're all just a few steps awayfrom losing what makes us who we
are.
So what's left when empathydies?
(58:22):
Fear, certainly, anger,undoubtedly, but maybe the most
dangerous thing that's leftbehind is indifference,
indifference to suffering, toothers, to ourselves.
And that indifference, once ittakes root, is hard to shake,
(58:43):
becomes part of the walls, theair, the very foundation of a
place.
That's what Eastern Statereminds us that when empathy
dies, what's left is a shadow ofwhat we could be, and maybe
those shadows are what we'rereally afraid of.
(59:04):
Thank you, you.
This episode includes graphic depictions of torture
and violence and is intended formature audiences.
Listener discretion is advised.
Philadelphia 1829.
On the edge of the city theybuilt something different A
(00:20):
place where stone walls weremeant to save souls, not just
cage them.
A place where stone walls weremeant to save souls, not just
cage them.
Eastern State Penitentiary wasan experiment, a grand one,
maybe even noble, depending onwho you ask.
The Quakers who dreamed it upbelieved they could redeem even
the darkest of souls throughsilence and isolation.
You were alone with nothing butyour thoughts, your sins and
(00:48):
that tiny sliver of light fromabove.
But what they didn't tell youwas that if you stayed in the
dark long enough, sometimes thedark started to look back.
For prisoners like JosephTaylor, it wasn't the silence
that broke him, it was thevoices that came after.
They started as whispers.
Just outside the edge ofhearing, he'd lie on that narrow
(01:12):
cot, eyes wide open, in thedark and listen until he
couldn't stand it anymore.
Joseph wasn't the first tobreak and he certainly wasn't
the last.
In cell block five the wallsstill carry his despair.
Visitors say they hear himsometimes a soft weeping that
never seems to fade, like anecho that just keeps bouncing
(01:35):
back, no matter how long it'sbeen.
But if you listen closely,there's more.
You might hear the laughter too.
Cell block 12, they call it theshadow block.
It's where the darkness lives,where the walls are thick, with
all things left unsaid, all thecries that went unanswered.
(01:56):
Eastern State was built to savesouls, but in the end it might
just have trapped them.
What happens when you leave aman alone with nothing but his
regrets, when the light he'ssupposed to find never comes,
and in that darkness where hopewithers and empathy dies?
What was left?
(02:17):
If no one hears a man's cry inthe dark, does it mean he never
cried out at all?
Can the soul survive whereempathy dies?
I'm Jeremy Haig, and this iswhen Walls Can Talk.
Throughout the ages, man hasrepeated the same earnest saying
(02:52):
.
More of a question, really, orperhaps even a plea if these
walls could talk.
But what if they do, and alwayshave?
Perhaps their stories, memoriesand messages are all around us.
If only we would take themoment to listen.
(03:13):
On this podcast, wereinvestigate legends and tales
of the past and allow the echoesof their lessons to live on
once again, informing us,educating us and sharing new and
unique insight into the innerworkings of the paranormal and
spiritual world.
Will you dare to listen?
This is when Walls Can Talk.
(03:33):
The podcast October 22nd 1829.
The day the gates of EasternState Penitentiary first opened
to receive a soul, a young man,barely more than a boy, charles
(03:55):
Williams.
He was 18, convicted ofburglary, and he was about to
enter a world no one could everhave prepared for.
Harrisburg was his home, butnow it was a distant memory, as
cold and unreachable as thelight that barely penetrated the
prison's high stone walls.
They say that when Charlescrossed the threshold, he was
(04:18):
stripped of everything Hisclothes, his belongings, even
his name.
Clothes, his belongings, evenhis name.
In their place, he was given auniform, a number and a new
identity as Prisoner Number One.
The clerk logged it allmeticulously, recording every
detail.
Eighteen years old, a farmer bytrade, light, black complexion,
(04:41):
black eyes, curly hair.
Black complexion, black eyes,curly hair.
They measured his stature fivefeet and seven and a half inches
, his feet eleven inches.
It was as if they werecataloging him not as a person
but as property, an object to bestored away in the cold, dark
cells of Eastern State.
(05:02):
But the worst was yet to come,hooded and disoriented, as all
prisoners were to avoid them.
Gaining perspective of theprison's layout for escape,
charles was led through the mazeof corridors, never knowing
which way he turned, neverseeing the faces of the men who
guided him, he was brought to anexercise yard enclosed by walls
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so high they blotted out thesun.
Through another set of doors heentered his cell, a
twelve-by-seven-foot tomb wherehe would spend the next part of
his life alone, with histhoughts, his regrets and the
silence.
The walls were bare, the onlyfurniture, a bed that folded
against the wall, a small shelf,a seat and a few simple items
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for hygiene.
The window, a mere slit highabove, let in just enough light
to remind him that the worldoutside still existed, but not
enough to see it.
Every day followed the sameroutine he would rise at
daybreak, his meals coarse,barely sufficient, not enough to
see it.
Every day followed the sameroutine he would rise at
daybreak, his meals, coarse,barely sufficient, delivered
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through a slot in the wall.
He was allowed one hour in theexercise yard, but never with
another prisoner.
The guards moved like ghosts,their footsteps muffled by socks
over their shoes, pushing cartswith leather-covered wheels to
keep the silence unbroken.
And in that silence.
Charles was expected to workShoemaking.
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They assigned him learning tocraft as many as ten pairs a day
by 1831.
He was to reflect on his crimes, seek forgiveness, but from
whom?
The walls, the darkness, thesilence.
And this was the ideal scenario.
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This was what the reformersenvisioned A place where men
could be broken down and rebuilt, where silence would lead to
penitence and solitude toredemption.
But the reality, the realitywas far more destructive.
The silence didn't bring peace,it brought madness.
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The solitude didn't lead toreflection, it led to despair.
And for Charles Williams andall who followed him, eastern
State Penitentiary was not aplace of redemption, but a place
where the light of hope wasextinguished, leaving only the
shadows behind.
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To understand Eastern StatePenitentiary you have to step
back, as always, way back to atime when America was young and
wild, a place where the forestswere thick and the roads were
few and a man's soul was oftenas rough and untamed as the land
itself.
And in this era, one of the mostinfluential groups was the
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Religious Society of Friends,more commonly known as the
Quakers.
Their roots were in England,but by the time they'd crossed
the Atlantic they'd plantedthemselves firmly in the soil of
Pennsylvania, a colony foundedby Quaker William Penn on
principles of religioustolerance, pacifism and social
justice.
Quakers were a strange andquiet people who believed that
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God spoke to them in the silencebetween thoughts, in the
stillness of a soul searchingfor light.
They called it the inner lightand they saw it in every man,
woman and child.
They believed that if youlistened close enough, you could
hear God whispering in your ear, telling you right from wrong,
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good from evil.
Whispering in your ear, tellingyou right from wrong, good from
evil.
It's a faith rooted insimplicity, peace, integrity and
, most importantly, equality.
In the America of the 17th and18th centuries, these were
radical ideas.
Quakers were abolitionists,advocates for prison reform and
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champions of education for all,regardless of class or gender.
But their most definingcharacteristic was their belief
in nonviolence, a commitment tosolving conflicts without
resorting to physical force.
This was a community deeplyinvested in the moral
improvement of society, andnowhere was this more evident
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than in their approach to crimeand punishment.
But it wasn't an easy life In aworld that thrived on violence
and dominance.
The Quakers were outsiders,strange birds in a flock of
hawks.
They were ridiculed, persecuted, but they held fast to their
beliefs, clinging to theirideals, like a drowning man,
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clings to driftwood.
By the late 18th century, theamerican justice system was a
horror show of public executions, whippings and prisons that
were little more than cesspoolsof disease and despair.
It was a system that punishedbut never, never reformed.
And that's where the Quakerssaw an opportunity, a chance to
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bring their light into thedarkest corners of society.
They wanted a prison thatdidn't just lock men away, but
one that could save their souls.
They dreamed of a place where aman could sit in silence, alone
with his thoughts, until hefound his way back to God.
And so, in 1821, the idea forEastern State Penitentiary was
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born.
The Philadelphia Society forAlleviating the Miseries of
Public Prisons, a Quaker-ledorganization, proposed a new
kind of prison, one that wouldembody their ideals of reform
and redemption.
It took eight years of planningand debate, but in 1829,
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eastern State opened its doors.
It was a fortress, a grandexperiment in social engineering
, designed to inspire awe andfear in equal measure.
The process began with a law, apiece of paper inked with the
hopes and fears of men whobelieved they could reshape the
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very fabric of human nature.
1821, the Pennsylvania StateLegislature passed an act that
would set into motion one of themost ambitious and terrifying
projects in American history Astate penitentiary.
They called it, a place where250 souls could be confined,
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isolated and, they hoped,redeemed through solitude.
They appointed 12 men tooversee the creation of this
place and handed them a hundredthousand dollars a king's ransom
in those days with the chargeto build something that would
last, something that would standas a monument to the power of
reform or a warning of thedarkness that comes when you
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meddle with the human soul.
They called themselves theBoard of Commissioners, but what
they really were was a group ofdreamers and pragmatists, each
with their own idea of what thisprison should be.
They studied plans, debateddesigns and finally settled on a
plot of land in the SpringGarden District of Philadelphia,
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a place known as Cherry Hill,where the ground was high and
the air was clean.
They bought it for $11,500, abargain even in those days and
began the work of turning acherry orchard into a fortress.
Four architects submitted theirdesigns, each one a vision of
how to best contain and controlthe human spirit, but in the end
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it was John Haviland's planthat won out, a plan that would
come to define Eastern StatePenitentiary.
Haviland envisioned a placethat resembled a medieval
fortress, a gothic castle, wherethe walls themselves seemed to
loom over you judging, watching,waiting.
He designed a prison with aradial layout, each cell block
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fanning out from a central hublike the spokes of a wheel.
From the observatory at thecenter.
Guards could watch over everyquarter, every cell, without
ever being seen themselves.
It was a place where solitudewas enforced by architecture and
the very design of the buildingpressed down upon the soul, as
if to remind the inmates thatthey were always being watched,
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always being judged.
It was a design that would becopied by over 300 prisons
worldwide.
But even as the walls went up,even as the towers and cell
blocks took shape, there wastension.
Strickland, the architect whohad lost the design competition,
was tasked with overseeing theconstruction, but his heart
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wasn't in it.
Haviland, meanwhile, continuedto tweak his designs, adding
towers, thickening walls,refining his vision of a prison
that was as much a symbol as itwas a structure.
By the time the cornerstone waslaid, in May of 1823, it was
clear that Eastern StatePenitentiary would be more than
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just a place to lock upcriminals.
It would be a place where thewalls themselves held power
criminals.
It would be a place where thewalls themselves held power, a
power that would endure longafter the last stone was set,
long after the last prisoner waslocked away.
But the most striking feature ofEastern State was not its
imposing architecture nor itssheer size.
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It was the cells.
Each one was a small,self-contained world measuring
just 8 by 12 feet, with a singlenarrow window high up on the
wall, angled to let in light butprevent any view of the outside
world.
This window was known as theEye of God, a constant reminder
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to the inmates that they werealways being watched, not just
by the guards but by a higherpower.
The doors were intentionallylow, forcing prisoners to bow as
they entered, a physicalgesture of submission and
humility.
The Pennsylvania system, as itwas called, was based on the
idea that solitude would lead topenitence.
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Prisoners were kept in completeisolation, no contact with
other inmates, no visitors, noletters.
They were given a Bible andtheir own thoughts.
Solitude and silence weresupposed to lead a man to repent
, to find God in the emptiness.
But what they didn't considerwas that in that emptiness
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something else might find themfirst, something darker.
The silence wasn't a bomb, itwas a blade slicing away at the
mind, until all that was leftwas the raw nerve of fear, of
regret, and for some it led tomadness, and for some it led to
madness, for others somethingeven worse.
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But what they didn't understand,what they couldn't have known,
was that the mind is a fragilething.
It needs light, it needsconnection, and without those
things it withers, it turnsinward on itself, like a snake
devouring its own tail.
They call it prison psychosis,a polite term for a descent into
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madness.
The doctors who studied ittried to quantify the symptoms
Hallucinations, paranoia, severeanxiety but numbers and words
could never capture the truehorror of it.
Imagine being trapped in a boxday after day, with nothing but
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your own thoughts.
At first you might hold on toyour sanity, clinging to the
hope that one day you'll be free.
But as the days stretch intoweeks and the weeks into months,
that hope fades, the wallsstart to close in, and the weeks
into months, that hope fades,the walls start to close in, and
the silence, the silencebecomes a living thing, wrapping
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itself around your mind,squeezing, until something
inside of you snaps.
Many famous individuals came tovisit the radical facility, but
few as famous as Charles Dickens, a man who knew a thing or two
about suffering, about the darkplaces in the human soul.
When he visited Eastern Statein 1842, he was horrified.
He called it a house of horrors, a place where men were buried
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alive in their own minds.
He saw the blank st stairs, thetrembling hands, the way the
inmates flinched at every sound,as if they were waiting for
something terrible to happen.
And maybe they were.
Dickens wrote that the systemwas cruel and wrong and it did
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nothing but break the minds andspirits of the men it was
supposed to save.
He could see what the Quakerscouldn't, that this place wasn't
saving souls, it was devouringthem.
By 1834, eastern StatePenitentiary had only been open
for a few years, but already thecracks were beginning to show.
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The grand experiment meant toreform souls through solitary
confinement was rotting from theinside out, and when the rot
finally broke through to thesurface, it was uglier than
anyone could ever have imagined.
It started out quietlyaccusations of immoral and
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licentious behavior among theprison staff but the whispers
grew louder until they couldn'tbe ignored.
A state legislative committeewas convened to investigate, and
what they uncovered was acesspool of corruption and vice
that would have shocked even themost hardened souls.
The warden, samuel Wood, alongwith his inspectors and a host
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of other officials, were accusedof embezzling funds, misusing
public property and subjectingprisoners to cruel and unusual
punishments.
But that was only the beginning.
They spoke of parties carousing, and quote habitual intercourse
with lewd and depraved personsright there in the
administrative building course,with lewd and depraved persons
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right there in theadministrative building.
The very place that wassupposed to embody moral reform
had become a den of vice.
And then there were theprisoners Women, housed in a
single room in one of the towers, overseen by men who treated
them not as inmates but asservants.
When the scandal broke, thewomen were hurriedly moved to a
more secure cell block and amatron, mrs Harriet Hall, was
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hastily hired to oversee them.
But the damage was done.
The vision of Eastern State asa place of moral and benevolent
reform had been shattered,replaced by a darker reality of
exploitation and abuse.
Shattered, replaced by a darkerreality of exploitation and
abuse.
But the scandal was just onesymptom of a deeper problem.
The very architecture ofEastern State, designed to
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isolate and reform, was flawed.
The cells were cold, theventilation poor and the heating
barely adequate to keep theprisoners from freezing to death
in their solitude.
The resident physician became akey figure.
His monthly reports to theboard a litany of the prisoners
deteriorating mental andphysical health.
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It was clear that solitaryconfinement wasn't producing the
redemption the Quakers hadhoped for.
It was producing broken mindsand bodies.
Even the work, the shoemakingand weaving that kept the
prisoners occupied was part of asystem that was beginning to
falter.
The quote public account andquote peace price systems kept
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the penitentiary's industriesrunning, but the labor didn't
bring the salvation the Quakershad envisioned.
Instead, it merely masked adeeper failure of the
Pennsylvania system itself, asystem that was being abandoned
across the country as prisonsturned to the Auburn model of
silence and labor over thesolitary confinement that had
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proven so destructive.
And so the grand experimentcontinued.
But it was clear that the dreamof a moral and benevolent
penitentiary was just that, adream.
What was left behind was aplace where the darkness had
seeped into the very walls,where the ideals of reform were
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swallowed up by the harshrealities of human nature.
Eastern State Penitentiary wasno longer a prison.
It was a monument to thedangers of unchecked power, to
the corruption that festers whenthe light of scrutiny fades.
After the Civil War, america wasa nation on the move.
Freed slaves headed north insearch of a better life, while
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rural families packed up andleft the fields behind for the
promise of the city.
But the promise wasn the city.
But the promise wasn't foreveryone.
For many, the streets weren'tpaved with gold.
They were paved withdesperation.
And that desperation led themto the gates of Eastern State.
By 1866, it was bursting at theseams.
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The prison, designed to hold540 souls in solitary
confinement, now housed 569.
The inspectors, faced withovercrowding and a rising tide
of despair, made a decision thatwould mark the beginning of the
end for the Pennsylvania system.
They started doubling upprisoners two to a cell,
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sometimes even three.
It was a necessary evil, theysaid, for those of such a low
grade of mental capacity thatthey were unfit for anything but
restraint.
But what happens when you cramtoo many souls into a space
meant for one?
Well, the darkness spreads.
By 1872, the inspectors had anew name for their program the
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Individual Treatment System, apolite way of saying.
They were abandoning the veryprinciples on which Eastern
State was built.
Solitude was no longer sacred,just a word they used to hide
the truth.
The system was failing and theinmates were paying the price.
In a last-ditch effort to savethe dream, they embarked on a
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building spree.
Overseer Michael J Cassidy, whowould become warden in 1881,
added new cell blocks cellblocks 8 through 11, and
extended the existing ones.
The cells were larger, nearly50% more spacious than those
built by Haviland, as if Cassidyknew he'd need room for more
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than one.
But it wasn't enough.
Even Cassidy, who objected tomore than one man per cell, had
to admit defeat.
We have sometimes threeprisoners to a cell, he
confessed in 1884.
The dream of solitary reformwas dead, buried beneath layers
of stone and steel.
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Yet in the midst of all of this,life at Eastern State was
evolving.
Inmates, once trapped in thebleakest solitude, did find
small comforts.
They tended gardens, raisedrabbits and kept birds.
They decorated their cells withmurals, as if to make the walls
feel less like a cage.
The diet improved, the mailcame more frequently and family
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visits were allowed.
A teacher was hired and alibrary was built, a haven of
books and magazines whereprisoners could escape, if only
in their minds.
The prison chaplain preachedand the men sang hymns, their
voices rising through the cellblocks like a prayer for
redemption.
But no amount of song or solacecould change the fact that
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Eastern State Penitentiary wascrumbling.
The cracks in the wall were morethan just physical.
They were symbolic of a systemthat had outlived its purpose.
The Pennsylvania system, oncehailed as revolutionary, was now
a relic of the past.
Physicians at the prison hadlong lobbied for better
conditions, more light, cleanerair, a place where the inmates
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could exercise their bodies, ifnot their minds.
By the mid-1880s a smallgymnasium was built in cell
block three.
The convicts, masked and herdedlike cattle, were brought in
groups of six to exercise underthe watchful eyes of their
captors.
But it wasn't enough.
Eastern State had become abreeding ground for disease,
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both physical and mental.
But the real horrors were thedark cells Klondike they called
them where men could be lockedaway in total darkness, left to
rot in their own despair.
It was said that these cellswere a death sentence, that the
men who entered them only leftin a pine box.
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Tuberculosis ran rampant andthe mortality rates at Eastern
State were higher than any otherprison in the country.
There are many stories toldabout the men who passed through
the Iron Gates of Eastern State.
Some of them are stories ofredemption but most of horror.
There's even one about AlCapone and his haunted cell.
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But none of them have quitecaptured the public's
imagination like the story ofWillie Sutton and the Great
Tunnel Escape of 1945.
You've probably heard the nameWillie Sutton before.
He was the Babe Ruth of bankrobbers, after all, the
Gentleman Bandit, slick Williethe Actor.
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But let me tell you, thosenicknames only scratch the
surface.
Willie Sutton was the kind ofcriminal you can't help but
admire even as you cross thestreet to avoid him.
He had charm, wit and a smilethat could disarm even the most
suspicious bank teller.
But underneath that smoothexterior was a man who lived for
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the thrill of the escape.
In the 11 years he spent atEastern State, sutton made five
attempts to break free, each onebolder than the last, but it
was the sixth attempt that wouldgo down in history.
They were like the dirty dozen,but less well-adjusted.
Twelve men, driven bydesperation and a shared hatred
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for the walls that held them,worked together for over a year
chiseling, digging and clawingtheir way through the earth.
And at the center of it all wasSutton, the mastermind, or so
he claimed In his 1953autobiography.
Where the Money Was, suttontook full credit for the
operation.
But here's the thing aboutSutton he's as much a
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storyteller as he was a bankrobber.
The tunnel escape was daring, nodoubt about it.
But the reality was far messier, far more desperate than
Sutton's smooth-talking personawould have you believe.
This was no Hollywood heist, itwas a gamble.
A gamble that, for most of them, didn't pay off.
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The tunnel may have led themout of their cells, but it
didn't lead to freedom.
And as for Sutton, well, heliked to say he was the
mastermind, but in the end theescape was as much a trap as it
was a way out.
Behind every great escape,there's someone who does the
dirty work, someone who stays inthe shadows pulling the strings
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while the others take the glory.
For Sutton, that man wasClarence Clinney.
Clindinst, a plasterer,stonemason, burglar and forger,
with the charm of Frank Sinatraand the resourcefulness of
MacGyver.
Clinney was a man who could getyou anything, anything except
freedom, or so it seemed.
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But give him a year and hecould get you out of the most
impregnable fortress in America.
Working in teams of two, theescapees took 30-minute shifts,
digging through the wall of Cell38 with nothing more than
spoons and flattened cans.
Inch by inch, they carved a31-inch hole through solid stone
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, then dug 12 feet straight downinto the earth.
But they didn't stop there.
They dug another 100 feet,tunneling their way through the
walls of Eastern State likemoles burrowing toward daylight.
This was a work of desperategenius.
The tunnel was shored up withscavenged wood, lit by makeshift
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lamps and even ventilated tokeep the air flowing.
At the halfway point theytapped into the prison's brick
sewer system, creating a hiddenpassage to dispose of their
waste and keep the fumes fromchoking them to death.
It was an engineering marvelborn out of sheer necessity and
desperation.
But even more impressive wasthe way they concealed it.
It was an engineering marvelborn out of sheer necessity and
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desperation, but even moreimpressive was the way they
concealed it.
Clinney, with his craftsman'shands, fashioned a false panel
that blended seamlessly with theplaster walls of Cell 68.
Hidden behind a metalwastebasket, the tunnel escaped
inspection time and again.
A secret just waiting to bediscovered.
This was the reality of theGreat Escape, the painstaking
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work of men with nothing to lose.
Sutton may have been thecharming face of the operation,
but it was Clinney who made ithappen, brick by brick, inch by
inch.
It was an escape plan thatshould have been impossible, and
for most it would have been.
But desperation makes men doincredible things and in the end
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, what emerged from that tunnelwasn't just a path to freedom,
but a testament to the lengths aman will go to when he's got
nowhere else to turn.
Of course this was the ideal,the perfect scenario.
Of course this was the ideal,the perfect scenario.
But as with so many things atEastern State Penitentiary, the
reality was far darker and farmore complex, because getting
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out was only the beginning.
It was the morning of April 3rd1945, when the men, all 12 of
them, desperate and determined,finally put their plan into
action.
They had spent months workingin shifts, digging through stone
and dirt with spoons, like ants, tunneling toward daylight.
It was slow, back-breaking work, but they were driven by a
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singular need to escape thewalls that had become their tomb
and so on.
That morning the men made theirmove.
As the prison began to stir, asbreakfast was being prepared,
they slipped away to cell 68,the gateway to their freedom.
One by one, they loweredthemselves into the tunnel, the
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cold earth pressing in aroundthem as they crawled on hands
and knees, inching toward thelight.
At the end, they emerged, oneby one, into the world beyond
the walls, free, if only for amoment.
But like most plans hatched inthe dark, the reality didn't
live up to the dream.
Clinney, the mastermind, madeit a whole three hours before
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the law caught up with him.
Sutton well, he barely tastedfreedom.
Three minutes, that's all hegot before he came face to face
with the law.
In his own words, he leapedfrom the hole and ran headlong
into two policemen and when theytold him to put his hands up,
he told them to shoot.
And maybe in that moment hemeant it.
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Maybe, after all the digging,the planning, the hoping, he was
ready for it all to end.
The police's bullets missed,but Sutton's luck had run out.
He tripped, fell and the dreamwas over.
For those who thought they couldoutwit the walls of Eastern
State Penitentiary, the price offailure was steep.
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The firsts to be captured afterthe 1945 tunnel escape,
including the infamous WillieSutton, were dragged down into
the bowels of the prison, aplace few knew existed and fewer
escaped.
These were the Klondikes Hiddenaway in the mechanical spaces
below one of the cell blocks.
These cells were illegal, builtin secret by guards who
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understood that some men neededto be broken body and soul.
Sutton, the man who had stolenheadlines and charmed the public
with his daring, found himselfin a cell that wasn't big enough
to stand up in and wasn't wideenough to lay down in here.
There was no light, no sound,just the suffocating weight of
darkness pressing in on allsides.
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It was as if the very earth wastrying to swallow him whole, to
erase the memory of his escape,to punish him for daring to
dream of freedom.
But even the Klondikes couldn'tkeep Sutton contained for long.
After his time in the hole, hewas transferred to the
supposedly escape-proofHolmesburg prison.
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Within months, sutton did whathe did best.
He escaped, vanishing into theshadows for six more years,
before the law finally caught upwith him in Brooklyn, brought
down by a witness who recognizedhim from a wanted poster.
The tunnel that Sutton and hiscomrades had painstakingly
carved out of the earth wasn'tforgotten, though.
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The guards did their best toerase it After the escape.
They filled it with ash, buriedit under cement, trying to
cover up the evidence of theirfailure.
It wasn't until 2005 that thelost tunnel was found again.
Using ground-penetrating radar,a team of archaeologists traced
the path of the escape,uncovering sections of the
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tunnel that had survived theguards' attempts to bury it.
They sent a robotic roverthrough the remains, documenting
the scaffolding, the lightingsystems, the evidence of
desperation etched into everyinch of the tunnel.
The discovery didn't revealmuch, just the bones of a legend
long buried.
But for a moment, the public'simagination was reignited as
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they dreamed of the daring menwho had risked everything for a
taste of freedom, only to findthat the outside world was as
unforgiving as the walls they'dleft behind.
Over the course of its 142 years, eastern State Penitentiary saw
more than 100 escape attempts.
The walls, towering 30 feethigh and buried 10 feet deep,
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were meant to be an impenetrablebarrier, a final line of
defense between society andthose who had fallen beyond
redemption.
And yet, despite the odds, 59people managed to breach those
walls, but true success.
People managed to breach thosewalls, but true success.
Escape and evasion wassomething rarer, something
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almost mythic.
For years, it was believed thatonly one man, leo Callahan, had
managed to escape the grasp ofEastern State and vanish into
the ether, never to be seenagain.
But the past has a way ofrevealing itself, and now we
know that Callahan wasn't alone.
Leo Callahan's story is thestuff of legend.
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In 1923, he and five othersconstructed a ladder, a simple
device that would be theirticket to freedom.
They scaled the east wall,subduing two guards along the
way.
While his accomplices wereeventually recaptured, one of
them, in Honolulu no lessCallahan disappeared without a
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trace, the only one that gotaway.
But as researchers delveddeeper into the prison's
archives, they discovered othernames, other stories lost to
time.
Bernard Tease was the first, in1838.
He was just two years into athree-year sentence for
horse-stealing when he slippedout of his cell, scaled the
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perimeter wall and disappeared.
The warden spent monthssearching for him, spending over
a hundred dollars, a smallfortune at the time.
Yet Tease was never found.
His family would never see himagain and his records were
marked simply escaped.
Then there was Patrick Laffertywho, in 1866, walked right
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through the front gate Dressedin another prisoner's clothes.
He passed by the guardsunnoticed, slipping into the
city and out of history.
And Timothy Boyle who, in 1877,used his job in the bakery to
hide in an empty cask, which wasthen loaded onto a wagon and
carried beyond the walls.
He was nearly two years into a12-year sentence for
(37:54):
second-degree murder, but afterthat day he was gone, his story
making headlines even yearslater as rumors swirled of his
escape to Europe.
These four men Callahan, tease,lafferty, boyle each found a
way to break free from EasternState Penitentiary and
(38:14):
disappeared into the worldbeyond, never to be recaptured.
But for every escape thatsucceeded, there were dozens
more that failed, with menthrown back into the darkness,
their dreams of freedom crushedunder the weight of those
30-foot walls.
The past has a way ofsurprising us, of reminding us
(38:36):
that history is never fullywritten and that there are
always more stories waiting tobe told.
Fully written, and that thereare always more stories waiting
to be told.
In the summer of 1924, governorGuilford Pinchot of Pennsylvania
found himself in a peculiarsituation.
He was, in his own words,over-dogged.
It wasn't that he disliked dogs, in fact he was quite fond of
(38:58):
them.
But when you're the governorand people start gifting you
puppies like they're the latestfashion accessory, it's easy to
feel overwhelmed.
One of these dogs was Pep, theblack Labrador retriever, who
had a particular fondness forchewing on the cushions of the
Pinchot's front porch sofa.
Pinchot was everybody's dog,friendly, good-natured and
(39:20):
unusually intelligent.
But like so many good dogs, pephad a problem he was a bit too
much to handle.
Pinchot had recently heard abouta therapy dog named Governor,
who had been sent to ThomsonState Prison in Maine, and the
idea stuck with him.
The Eastern State Penitentiaryin Philadelphia was overcrowded,
(39:41):
the inmates' morale was low andPinchot thought maybe, just
maybe, pep could help.
So, with the blessings of hiswife, cornelia, pinchot made a
call to the prison warden andjust like that Pep was on his
way to the big house.
Not for any crime, despite whatthe newspapers would later
claim, but to lighten thespirits of the men behind those
(40:02):
towering walls.
Pep was received at EasternState in quote due in ancient
form, as the warden liked to say.
This means they gave him aninmate number C-2559, took his
mugshot and even recorded hiscrime in the prison ledger
Murder.
But it wasn't long before thestory took on a life of its own.
(40:23):
Some enterprising newspapermen,in a fit of creative
inspiration, decided that Pephad been sent to the prison for
killing the governor's cat.
The tale spread like wildfire.
Letters poured in from all overthe world accusing Pinchot of
cruelty, condemning him forlocking up a dog for following
its instincts.
(40:44):
No amount of clarification fromthe governor could stem the
tide of outrage.
But the truth was far lesssensational.
For the inmates of Eastern State, pep was a blessing he wandered
the prison freely, liftingspirits wherever he went.
He accompanied the guards ontheir nightly rounds, became a
(41:05):
master rat catcher in the darkquarters and even gained a bit
of weight thanks to the extratreats from the prisoners.
Pep was featured in a radiobroadcast from the prison in
1925.
His image, captured forever ina photograph that showed him
sitting proudly in front of amicrophone, surrounded by guards
, in a place where despair wasthe daily bread, pep was a
(41:26):
reminder that not all the worldwas lost to darkness.
Pep spent several years atEastern State, becoming
something of a legend in its ownright.
But, as with all good things,his time at the penitentiary
came to an end.
In 1929, he was quote, pardonedand sent to the Graterford
prison farm where he lived outthe rest of his days in peace.
(41:50):
The story of Pep the prison dogis one of those curious tales
that refuses to fade a smallwarm light in the stone cold
darkness of eastern stateshistory.
But remember, while thenewspapers had a field day with
the tale of the cat murderingdog, the truth was something far
simpler and perhaps, in its ownway, far more human.
(42:11):
Alphonse Gabriel Capone, betterknown to the world as Al Capone
or Scarface was one of the mostnotorious gangsters in American
history.
Born in Brooklyn, new York,1899, capone would rise through
the ranks of organized crime tobecome the undisputed king of
(42:33):
the Chicago underworld duringthe Prohibition era.
Known for his ruthless businesstactics, capone built a
criminal empire on bootlegging,gambling and extortion, amassing
a fortune and a reputation thatmade him both feared and
admired.
But for all his power, capone'sstory is not just one of
(42:54):
violence and vice.
It's also a tale of unexpectedtwists, including a brief but
infamous stint at Eastern StatePenitentiary.
In May 1929, as mob violenceescalated in Chicago, capone
found himself far from his hometurf.
While traveling from AtlanticCity back to Chicago, capone
(43:16):
made a fateful stop inPhiladelphia.
There, outside a movie theater,he was arrested for carrying a
concealed, unlicensed .38caliber revolver a rookie
mistake for a man of hisexperience.
The Philadelphia courts, knownfor their toughness, handed
Capone the maximum sentence oneyear in prison.
(43:36):
It was the first taste ofprison life for the man who had
managed to elude the law for solong.
Capone served seven months ofhis sentence, but his experience
there was anything buttypical.
Despite the Philadelphiacourt's attempts to make an
example of him, the officials atEastern State were remarkably
(43:56):
accommodating to their famousguest.
Capone's cell was no ordinarycell.
It was furnished with finefurniture, beautiful rugs,
tasteful paintings and a fancyradio that played the waltzes
that Capone loved to listen to.
The Philadelphia newspaperswere quick to note the lavish
conditions, describing the Salonsuch a way that it could have
(44:18):
easily been mistaken for anupscale motel room.
But why was Capone inPhiladelphia to begin with?
Rumors swirled that Capone hadintentionally gotten himself
arrested to avoid the escalatingviolence in Chicago, using the
prison as a hideout.
Capone, of course, denied theseclaims for the rest of his life
, insisting that his arrest wasa matter of bad luck rather than
(44:41):
a calculated move.
Regardless of the truth, caponespent thousands of dollars
trying to secure his release,but the Philadelphia courts were
notswayed.
His time at Eastern State,however, was far from wasted.
If anything, it added anotherlayer to the myth of Al Capone,
the gangster who lived like aking even behind bars.
(45:01):
His time here was a story ofcontradictions a ruthless
gangster living in unexpectedcomfort behind bars.
But not everyone at EasternState experienced such luxury.
For most of its inmates, lifewas a far cry from Capone's
cushioned reality, and as theyears wore on the walls that
(45:24):
held Capone's radio and finefurniture would witness
something much more darker andmore violent the
riots.
Eastern State was no strangerto unrest.
The rigid routines, theisolation and the harsh
conditions created a powder kegwaiting to explode and explode.
It did, multiple times in fact,over the decades.
(45:47):
One of the earliest and mostviolent riots occurred in 1933,
during the Great Depression,when overcrowding and poor
conditions pushed the inmates totheir breaking point.
It started with a small groupof prisoners, angry about the
lack of food and the brutalityof the guards, who began
smashing windows and lightingfires in their cells.
(46:08):
In the brutality of the guardswho began smashing windows and
lighting fires in their cells.
Before long the unrest hadspread throughout the prison,
with inmates attacking guardsand destroying anything within
reach.
The riot was only quelled afterreinforcements were called in,
but not before significantdamage was done both to the
prison itself and to the alreadyfragile morale of those inside.
But 1933 was only thebeginning.
(46:33):
In 1945, the same year asWillie Sutton's tunnel escape,
the prison saw anothersignificant riot.
This time, the catalyst was theovercrowded conditions and the
frustration of inmates who feltthey had nothing left to lose.
What began as a protest overthe quality of food quickly
escalated into a violent clash,with prisoners seizing tools and
(46:54):
attacking the guards.
The riot was eventually subdued, but the scars that left on the
prison were deep, bothliterally and figuratively.
The last major riot to rockEastern State occurred in 1961,
as the prison was nearing theend of its operational life.
Once again, overcrowding andpoor conditions were at the
(47:16):
heart of the unrest.
The prisoners pushed to theirlimits, launched a coordinated
attack on the guards, takingcontrol of several cell blocks
and setting fires.
The National Guard waseventually called in to restore
order, but the damage was done.
The riot underscored thecrumbling state of the building,
signaling that its days as afunctioning prison were
(47:39):
numbered.
But while it was operational,eastern State Penitentiary was
not just a place of solitaryconfinement.
It was a place of punishment, aplace where the sins of the
body were paid for in pain, insilence, in blood.
For those who dared to speakout, who couldn't bear the
(48:00):
crushing weight of solitude,there were consequences, dark,
brutal consequences that leftscars far deeper than the stone
walls that surrounded them.
Take, for instance, the irongag, a device designed not just
to silence but to torture.
Imagine you're a few monthsinto your sentence, the
isolation gnawing at your sanityand you can't keep quiet any
(48:24):
longer.
That's what happened toMatthias McComsey in 1833, a man
convicted of manslaughter whomade the mistake of trying to
speak to his neighbor.
For his crime of conversation,the guards bound his hands
behind his back and forced aniron gag over his tongue.
Chains connected the gag to hisshackled wrists, pulling
(48:46):
tighter with every movement,ripping into his flesh.
They left him there alone inthe dark, his screams swallowed
by the cold iron.
When they found him an hourlater, he was dead, his tongue
torn to shreds.
His blood pooled on the coldstone
floor.
But the iron gag wasn't theonly nightmare that awaited the
(49:10):
inmates of Eastern State.
There was also the mad chair, achair that still exists there
today, an invention born of atwisted belief that insanity
could be cured by stopping theflow of blood.
The idea was simple Cruel Strapthe inmate into the chair so
tightly that he couldn't move amuscle, not even to breathe
(49:32):
freely.
Days could pass without food,without the slightest relief,
until the body began to betrayitself.
Limbs swelled, circulationstopped and when they were
finally released if they werereleased amputation was often
the only option.
It wasn't just the mind thatwas broken in that chair.
(49:53):
It was the body too, piece bypiece.
And then there was the waterbath, an especially cruel
punishment reserved for thecoldest nights of winter.
The process was as simple as itwas deadly Dunk the inmate's
head or full body in ice-coldwater and then hang them on the
(50:14):
wall dripping and exposed to thefreezing air.
By morning, their skin would beiced over their body, stiff,
the life slowly drained fromthem by the relentless cold.
Not all survived to see thedawn.
Eastern State was built on thepromise of reform, of penitence,
(50:36):
of this elusive idea ofredemption.
But as the years turned todecades, the walls that once
stood as a symbol of progressionbegan to crumble, both
literally and figuratively.
The very ideals that hadinspired its creation—solitude,
(50:56):
reflection, isolation—had turneditself into something much
darker.
The once-radical Pennsylvaniasystem, built by the Quakers,
with its strict emphasis onsolitary confinement, was
proving to be a failure.
On solitary confinement wasproving to be a failure not just
in theory, but in practice.
By the mid-20th century,eastern State had become a relic
, a place where the pastlingered like a ghost in the
(51:19):
cold, damp air.
Overcrowding was now the norm,with cells originally designed
for holding one now holding two,three and even four inmates.
The riots, violent eruptions offrustration and desperation
were just the most visible signsof a system that was slowly,
inexorably, breaking down.
The once innovative design ofthe prison had become its
(51:43):
greatest flaw.
Unable to adapt to the changingneeds of the penal system or
the growing number of prisonerscrammed within its walls, the
Pennsylvania system, with itsstrict focus on isolation, was
abandoned long before theprison's closure, but the scars
it left on the inmates and theinstitution itself were deep and
(52:04):
enduring.
By the 1960s, eastern State wasa shadow of its former self, a
crumbling, outdated fortressstruggling to hold on to
relevance in a world that hadmoved on.
The facilities weredeteriorating, the walls
cracking under the weight oftime, and the concept of
solitary confinement was beingincreasingly criticized as
(52:26):
inhumane and counterproductive.
In 1970, the state ofPennsylvania made the inevitable
decision Eastern StatePenitentiary would close its
doors for good.
The last remaining inmates weretransferred to other facilities
and the once feared prison,with its towering walls and iron
gates, was left empty,abandoned.
(52:48):
With its towering walls andiron gates, was left empty,
abandoned, a crumbling monumentto a failed experiment in human
rehabilitation.
But the story of Eastern Statedidn't end with its closure the
echoes of its past, the whispersof its ghosts continue to
linger in the corridors.
Eastern State was supposed tobe different, a place not
(53:08):
designed to punish but to reform.
But over time the reality ledto something else.
Isolation begot despair, andthat despair left its mark Long
after the last prisonerleft.
People who visit Eastern Statetoday report strange things.
They hear voices, see shadowswhere there shouldn't be any.
(53:31):
It makes you wonder what'sreally happening here.
Are these just stories or isthere something more going on?
And if there is, what does thatsay about what went on here
while the prison was stilloperational?
Let's start with Cell Block 12.
It's one of those places peopletalk about the most when they
(53:52):
mention Eastern State's hauntedreputation.
Visitors say they hear laughter, but it's not the kind that
makes you smile.
It's unsettling, almost mocking.
Then there are the shadows,dark figures that seem to move
just out of the corner of youreye.
Could this be the residualenergy of men who lost
(54:13):
themselves in the silence?
It's hard not to think aboutthe years some of them spent in
total isolation, cut off fromliterally any kind of human
connection.
It begs the question whathappens to a person's mind or
their soul when they're deprivedof basic empathy for that long.
Cell Block 4 is another hotspotfor
(54:35):
activity.
People talk about feeling anintense cold, even on warm days.
Some say they felt like they'rebeing watched, though there's
no one else around.
It's easy to see how theprison's history ties into these
experiences.
Imagine living your days withno one to talk to, no one to
break the monotony, except maybea guard walking by if you're
(54:58):
lucky and then consider thatthis was a place where empathy
was in short supply by design.
You start to wonder if whatpeople are experiencing now is
tied to that lack of humanconnection.
But the most intense reportscome from death row.
Visitors describe it as beingalmost unbearable, like there's
(55:18):
a weight pressing down on them,making it hard to breathe.
Some have even seen apparitions, figures of men who look like
they've been through hell andback.
And when you consider whatDeath Row was An end point, a
place where hope was snuffed outit's hard not to draw a
connection between what happenedhere and what people feel when
(55:38):
theyvisit.
Empathy, or the lack thereof,is central to all of this, to
this entire story.
In a place where empathy wasintentionally stripped away,
what does that do to the peopleinside?
And, more importantly, doesthat impact linger after the
person is gone.
This place was built on an idea, one that seemed noble on the
(56:04):
surface Solitude as a path toredemption, silence as a tool
for reflection.
But strip away the words, theideals, and what you're left
with is a place where peoplewere broken down bit by bit,
until there was nothing left butthe shell of who they used to
be.
It's easy to talk about thesystem, the walls, the
(56:26):
punishments.
It's harder to talk about thesystem, the walls, the
punishments.
It's harder to talk about whathappens when those things erode
the very core of a person.
What happens when empathy thethread that connects us, that
makes us human, dies?
What fills that void that'sleft behind?
For the inmates of EasternState, it was a darkness that
(56:49):
clung to them long after they'dleft their cells, a darkness
that some say still lingers inthe cold spots, the shadows, the
voices that seem to call outfrom the past.
Maybe that's what we're hearingwhen people talk about the
hauntings.
Maybe it's not just ghosts inthe traditional sense, but the
(57:11):
echoes of lives that werereduced to something less than
human.
When empathy dies, what'sleft?
Fear, anger, regret.
Those are powerful emotions.
They don't just disappearbecause a prison closes or
because time moves on, theylinger, they infect the space
(57:36):
around them and they becomesomething else, something darker
.
And here's the thing it's notjust about a place like Eastern
State, it's about what we'recapable of, what any one of us
might become if empathy isstripped away.
If you push someone far enough,isolate them long enough, they
(58:00):
stop seeing themselves as humanand they start acting like
somethingelse.
That's the real horror story,isn't it?
Not the ghosts, not the coldspots, but the reminder that
we're all just a few steps awayfrom losing what makes us who we
are.
So what's left when empathydies?
(58:22):
Fear, certainly, anger,undoubtedly, but maybe the most
dangerous thing that's leftbehind is indifference,
indifference to suffering, toothers, to ourselves.
And that indifference, once ittakes root, is hard to shake,
(58:43):
becomes part of the walls, theair, the very foundation of a
place.
That's what Eastern Statereminds us that when empathy
dies, what's left is a shadow ofwhat we could be, and maybe
those shadows are what we'rereally afraid of.
(59:04):
Thank you, you.
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