WEBVTT - The Bloodiest 47 Acres in America 0:00:01.160 --> 0:00:04.400 Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:08.880 and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky Listener. Discretion is advised. 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.119 From the outside, this penitentiary looked like the model of 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:24.240 capital punishment. Its inmates powered factories that made the prison 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:28.040 a center of industry, manufacturing goods that were shipped across 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.000 the country in a system that penal experts hailed as 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:34.160 a master class in efficiency and an example for other 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:37.600 prisons to follow. But on the inside, inmates told a 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.559 different story, one of severe punishments for infractions as minimal 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.720 as playing cards in their cells, or, in some instances, 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:47.840 for just speaking at all. Prisoners were immersed in ice 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.159 baths to which nausea inducing chemicals had been added when 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:55.400 they were suspected of faking illness. The beatings continued long 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.280 after the prison claimed to have phased out corporal punishment, 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.800 but when it eventually did, the alternatives were no better. 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:06.520 Guards shifted their disciplinary methods to psychological ones, leaning on 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:11.920 tactics like degradation, humiliation, and isolation to enforce penalties on inmates. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:16.000 Many were confined to the whole the medieval style dungeon 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:19.280 that served as the prisons solitary confinement. Some were kept 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.120 alone in the dark for ages. In one case, a 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.480 man was kept alone in the hole for twelve long years. 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.360 It's no wonder that stories of ghosts and hauntings abound here, 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:33.319 a place that you can even visit yourself. So let's 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.840 head to Jefferson City, Missouri and visit the Bloodiest forty 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:41.600 seven acres in America, otherwise known as Missouri State Penitentiary. 0:01:42.480 --> 0:02:03.120 I'm Amy Brunei and welcome to Haunted Road. Missouri State 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:07.520 Penitentiary was decommissioned in two thousand four after nearly one 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:12.040 hundred seventy years of brutal incarceration, but the stories of 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.400 harsh punishments and austere living conditions still live on in 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.160 the buildings today, in the people who come to visit 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.680 the prison, and in the spirits who have stayed behind, 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.200 replaying their years at what is sometimes called the Bloodiest 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:28.440 forty seven acres in America, over and over into infinity. 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:32.800 The first state penal institution west of the Mississippi, Missouri 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:36.720 State Penitentiary, opened in eighteen thirty six. It's located in 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:40.320 Jefferson City, today, a city of about forty thousand midway 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.440 between Kansas City and St. Louis on the Missouri River. 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.440 Jeff City, as it's known to locals, was originally intended 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.800 to be Missouri's capital as early back as eighteen twenty one. 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.720 According to the City of Jefferson's historical records. The town 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.360 was incorporated in eighteen twenty five, and the General Assembly 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.320 moved there in eighteen twenty six. At that time, the 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.400 town had thirty one families, a general store, a hotel, 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.560 and a few other buildings. Other cities resented Jefferson's status 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.640 and attempted to have the capital moved, Aiming to cement 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.320 its status as Missouri's capital. Governor John Miller proposed the 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.040 city as the site for a new state penitentiary in 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.919 eighteen thirty two. This would become the Missouri State Penitentiary. 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:26.119 Its first inmate, Wilson Eisen, was sentenced to over two 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:30.160 years for stealing a watch valued at thirty nine dollars 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:33.840 about eight hundred thirty dollars today. Initially, the prison only 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:37.840 housed male inmates, but began incarcerating women in eighteen forty two. 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.360 Even outside the prison walls, the city has seen its 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.320 share of strife over the years. In eighteen forty nine, 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.160 a ship carrying a mixture of Mormon migrants and gold 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.600 rush hopefuls landed in Jefferson City. Some of the passengers 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.480 were infected with cholera, and the resulting outbreak in the 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:57.720 city lasted two long years. In eighteen fifty five, residents 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.280 waited to welcome the first train on the new cific 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.480 railroad line from St. Louis into Jefferson City, but it 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:06.640 never arrived. A bridge collapse had caused a wreck over 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.880 the Gasconade River that killed around thirty people and injured 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.440 dozens more. During the Civil War, the state Assembly voted 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.320 to remain in the Union, but Governor Jackson refused to 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.719 recognize federal authority and also refused to send troops to 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.560 fight for the Union Army, instead raising a militia to 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.039 join the Confederate Army. In response, Union troops took over 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.480 the city After the war ended, Missouri State Penitentiary built 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.680 housing unit for commonly known as a hall, for post 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:36.320 Civil War criminals who spent their days quarrying stone. The 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:41.719 prison eventually expanded its industrial work, manufacturing products with prison labor. 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:46.359 By eighty five, according to sources, it housed six shoe factories, 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:50.360 clothing broom and twine factories, and the largest saddletree factory 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:54.479 in the world. Located on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River, 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.960 Missouri State Penitentiary is a collection of buildings ringed with 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.839 a limestone wall two and a half feet thick in 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.920 parts as high as thirty feets hall, dotted with eleven 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.000 guard towers. The wall itself is one of the oldest 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.680 architectural structures in the city, with sections still standing today 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.599 that were built between eighteen thirty three and eighteen thirty 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.200 five before the prison opened. Although some of the buildings 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:19.640 were torn down when the prison was decommissioned in two 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.919 thousand four, including the chapel and warehouses, many remain, including 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:27.560 multiple housing units and factories, as well as the gas chamber. 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.200 Six of the prison cells date back to the eighteen forties. 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.719 The oldest remaining building, a hall, was built in eighteen 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:38.320 sixty eight in the high Victorian Gothic style. The castle 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.640 like four story building has cells that overlook a central hall, 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.440 the isolation cells where prisoners were kept in solitary confinement 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.279 or in the basement of that building. Housing Unit one, 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.080 built in nineteen o five, was the female department of 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.159 the prison. Above one of the arches leading inside was 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.520 the biblical quote, he who converteth a center from the 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:00.000 error of his way, shall save a soul from death. 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.800 Additional housing units were built about a decade later, and 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.599 the prison added a gas chamber in nineteen thirty seven. 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.280 Until that point, all of the executions, and there were many, 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.520 were public hangings, with countless citizens of Jefferson City watching 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.719 the building housing The gas chamber has two viewing rooms 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.760 and two cells. Inside the white walled gas chambers, steel 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.880 execution chairs are still in place to this day. Also 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.480 still on the property the J. S. Sullivan Saddletree Factory Building, 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.359 constructed in eighteen ninety two, Primeers Boot and Shoe Factory 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:34.919 originally built around eighteen eighty nine, which was burned in 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.200 the nineteen fifty four prison riots and rebuilt in the 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.800 nineteen sixties, and the hobby Craft building, completed in nineteen 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:44.640 sixty eight. Though the prisoners were employed in those factories, 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.640 they were still subject to harsh treatment from guards, both 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.200 in the factories and in the prison buildings themselves. Corporal 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.920 punishment was rampant in the prisons earlier days. Inmates were 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.080 routinely flogged for offenses such as playing cards in their 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.640 cells and talking in the prisons op according to meticulous 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.039 logs from the eighteen eighties. According to an article in 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:08.440 the St. Louis Post Dispatch, four prisoners who had tools 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.480 in their cells and tried to escape got the following punishment. 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.800 One half of head shaved and leg irons. Conditions were 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.520 bad even for those who weren't cop breaking the rules. 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:22.560 By the late eighteen hundreds, according to the Penitentiaries Historical Timeline, 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.280 it was considered one of the most efficient prisons in 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:29.080 the country, housing and feeding inmates for eleven cents per day. 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.160 That's about three dollars and fifty cents in today's dollars. 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:35.640 By contrast, today the cost of incarceration in America is 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:40.160 about one eight dollars per prisoner per day. However, efficiency 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.480 in the Missouri State Penitentiary did not equal safety. Violence 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.720 persisted within the walls, both from inmates and from guards. 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.120 In one nineteen o five incident, an inmate, a guard, 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.800 and a gatekeeper were killed and three more men were 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:56.280 wounded during an escape attempt in which four prisoners attempted 0:07:56.280 --> 0:08:00.840 to use nitroglycerin to destroy the prisons iron Gates. Mistreatment 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.120 from the guards wasn't just common, it was encouraged by 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.840 prison officials. In a nineteen oh six opinion piece in 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.440 the Kentucky Post and Time, star warden Matt W. Hall 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.840 called for hanging anyone who had committed a wilful and 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.480 deliberate murder and declared, I would amend the Constitution of 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.840 the United States and unsexed every man or woman as 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.040 soon as the fact was established that he or she 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.360 was a habitual criminal, I would let the second offense 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.240 of larceny established the fact. The prison claimed to have 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.480 ended floggings and other corporal punishments around the turn of 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:39.000 the twentieth century, instead choosing to punish inmates by placing 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.400 them in the hole. The dungeon like basement isolation cells 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.679 where the worst offenders were kept, including inmates on death row. 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.880 These six foot by five foot cells were tiny and 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.480 dark and could house prisoners for a very long time. 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.520 Some inmates spent more than a decade in the whole. 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:59.000 One man JB. Firebug Johnson spent twelve of his eighteen 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.560 years in the penitent jury in solitary. Convicted of robbery, 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.520 he attacked several guards and set the prisons harness shop 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.720 ablaze in eighteen eighty three, a fire which destroyed three 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.480 buildings and left four convicts severely burned. Newspapers of the 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.960 time reported that he spent his days training the cockroaches 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:18.280 in his cell, as well as learning to read and 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:22.040 to write. Eventually, he authored a book called Buried Alive 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:27.280 or Eighteen Years in the Missouri Penitentiary. However, in nineteen thirteen, 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.360 prisoners told The Washington Post that not only did flogging 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.160 persist as a punishment in the institution, but that they 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.000 were subjected to being held underwater in ice bats with 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.040 a Nazia causing chemical added if they were thought to 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.400 be faking illness to avoid prison labor. By nineteen thirty two, 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:47.480 Missouri State Penitentiary held fifty two hundred inmates, the largest 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:51.520 inmate population in the United States. According to Atlas Obscura, 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.240 it was considered one of the most successful prisons in 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.240 the country. However, that is a far larger number of 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.160 inmates than the prison was designed to hold, another act 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:02.920 that speaks to the quality of the living conditions inside 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.559 those walls. Once the gas chamber was installed in nineteen 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:10.000 thirty seven, it was the site of forty executions. The 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.760 first men executed in the gas chamber on March third, 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.040 nineteen thirty eight, where John Brown thirty five and William 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:18.960 Wright thirty two. Brown had been convicted of killing a 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.520 police officer while holding up a bar, and Wright had 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.640 killed an employee in a drug store robbery. At least 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:28.160 one prisoner executed in the gas chamber, twenty four year 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:30.640 old Robert West, had helped to corey the stone that 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.120 built it. One man, Claude McGee, was executed in nineteen 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:36.960 fifty one for a crime committed within the prison. He 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.840 had beaten a fellow inmate, John Masson, to death with 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.280 a hammer in the prison yard in nineteen forty eight. 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.480 Only one woman was ever executed at the Missouri State Penitentiary, 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.280 Bonnie B. Hetty, who, along with Carl Austin Hall, kidnapped 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.200 and murdered a young boy. They were both executed on 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.080 December eighteenth, nineteen fifty three. Hetty would be the last 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:01.000 woman executed by the federal government until twenty twenty one. 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.560 The last execution at the prison of George tiny Mercer 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.440 was done by lethal injection in nineteen eighty nine. In 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:12.120 nineteen fifty four, a deadly riot shook the prison. At 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.679 the time, the penitentiary held two thousand, five hundred seventy 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.200 five inmates, almost four hundred more than in nineteen thirty two, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.280 when the prison was already considered to be deeply overcrowded. 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.440 At the time of the riot, many prisoners had grievances, 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.559 according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, over bad food, 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:32.680 dirty conditions, and an unforgiving parole board. An inmate later 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.439 said that the cause of the riot was brutality, cruel 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.120 and unusual punishment by the guards, and that the clothes 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.880 they wore were raggedy clothes that didn't fit them, the 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.680 shoes they wore didn't fit them, and you were short 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:47.920 changed on medication. There too, inmates and EHL Lord guards 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.680 to their cell. The overpowered them and stole their keys, 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:54.280 proceeding to free other inmates from their cells. According to 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.720 a history from the Missouri State Penitentiary, soon a large 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.000 group of inmates was running loose race around the compound 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:04.480 and emptying other cell blocks along their path. One group 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.760 of inmates entered the dining hall, smashing windows and chairs. 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.280 In the prison shops, anything flammable was set a fire 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.439 freed inmates didn't just enact revenge on the guards and 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:20.040 the prison itself, but on fellow incarceories. As violence ran rampant, 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:23.880 one inmate in solitary confinement, thirty year old Walter Lee Donald, 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.880 was tortured and eventually killed with a sledgehammer by fellow prisoners. 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.040 Donald was incarcerated for first degree robbery and had testified 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.240 against others. Called a stool pigeon, he had been stabbed 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:37.960 while in the general population and was in solitary for 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:41.079 his own protection. In an attempt to control the riot, 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:44.240 state troopers responded and opened fire on the prison from 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:48.000 the administration building with machine guns, killing three more inmates 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:52.080 and injuring nineteen others. Police forces eventually called the riot, 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:56.360 during which no prisoners escaped. The damage, though was extensive. 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.760 Fire set by inmates destroyed a number of structures and 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:04.280 foting the prisons recreation building, vocational building, tobacco shop, license 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.360 plate factory, and dining hall, which housed the chapel and 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.640 the prison school. As Mike Lear described in his history 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.440 of the riot, the Truman Commission that studied the prison 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.520 after the September nineteen fifty four riot used the word 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.200 deplorable repeatedly in its report on the conditions and state 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.520 of the facility. Despite the riot and the public scrutiny, 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:28.240 that prison then received nothing inside changed. Seven inmates were 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:30.960 convicted on murder charges, but all of them gave what 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:35.240 were believed to be coerced confessions a month later. Another 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.520 shorter riot occurred in October of that year, during which 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.920 one inmate, year old Joseph our Coffee, was killed by 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.839 corrections officers. A new warden, E. V. Nash, was brought 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:49.040 in after the riot, but violence and poor conditions continued 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.679 inside the walls. Another wave of violence in nineteen sixty 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.880 four finally prompted an overhaul of the prison when an 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:00.640 administrative review condemned conditions inside. A day after review, on 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.200 December eighteenth, nineteen sixty four, Nash shot himself in the 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.680 head in a house across the street from the penitentiary 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.240 after returning home from a Department of Corrections Christmas party. 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.199 A new warden and a new state Director of Corrections 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:17.079 were hired, who saw to it that rehabilitation programs were improved. 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.560 Fresh food was provided, more shower rooms were constructed, and 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.360 recreation facilities including a handball cart and miniature golf course 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.840 were built for the inmates. While conditions did improve over 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:30.920 the years, one year in the nineteen seventies, the penitentiary 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:35.040 had thirteen inmate homicides. It said that overall, more than 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.040 two thousand people died inside the walls during the prisons operation. 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.760 After operating continuously for over one hundred sixty years, the 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.280 penitentiary closed in two thousand four and inmates were moved 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:51.440 to the nearby Jefferson City Correctional Center. Famous inmates over 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:55.080 the years include political activists Emma Goldman and Kate O'Hare, 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:59.120 boxer Sunny Liston Bank, Robbert, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Lee Shelton, 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.560 the inspiration for the folk song stagger. Lee list And 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:05.720 learned to box while incarcerated there, and his skills led 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.120 to him being granted early parole in nineteen fifty two. 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:13.800 Another prisoner, James Earl Ray, successfully escaped the penitentiary in 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.040 a bread truck in nineteen sixty seven. Just under a 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.040 year later, he would go on to assassinate Martin Luther 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:24.640 King Jr. An activist for the Socialist Party. O'Hara became 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.080 a prison reformer after her release. She also reported that 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.280 many of the women incarcerated with her in nineteen nineteen 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:35.480 to nineteen twenty turned to spiritualism. In letters home, O'Hara wrote, 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.840 these poor victims of society feel that God takes no 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:41.480 concern for them, and they are not strong enough to 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.520 stand alone. So they find comfort for their six souls 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.600 in the belief that they're dead. Comrades and misery come 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.680 back to care for and protect them. In the weary 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.280 hours after the lights are out. The cell house is 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.880 peopled by many ghosts, but they are all kindly, comfortable, 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.360 amiable ghosts who flit about all night on air of 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:05.800 mercy and love. She wasn't the only one talking about 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:10.000 ghosts inside the penitentiary. Even before the prison closed, guards 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:15.240 and inmates alike reported paranormal activity. Jamie Rasmussen wrote about 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:18.479 the hauntings in her book on the Missouri State Penitentiary. 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.200 When the prison still operated, She wrote, some guards reported 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.280 hearing footsteps after all the prisoners were in their cells. 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:27.600 When the guard would turn to look, he would see 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.040 a shadowy figure that looked like it was wrapped in 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.880 a blanket to keep warm. Others said Firebug Johnson still 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:37.320 walked the halls. One former guard who began working there 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.840 in nineteen nine, told the News Tribune about an experience 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.080 he had while working in the penitentiary. During a routine 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:46.440 head count, the guard said he saw an inmate with 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.880 long blonde hair and a white T shirt walk out 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.760 a door. Thinking this inmate was trying to escape, the 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.880 guard frantically searched the grounds and a parked supply van, 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.000 but there was no sign of the man he had seen. 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.800 Then he noticed another inmate watching him. I shut the 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.000 doors and I'm like what, and he goes, you ain't 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.639 going to find that guy. I said, what are you 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.199 talking about? He said, I saw him. I said what 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.359 did he look like? And he said he had long 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.760 blonde hair and a white T shirt. He says, wells, 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.840 we ain't got nobody in this building that looks like that. 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.200 And I was just like, whoa, You're right. It felt 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.800 like somebody had just punched me in the chest. According 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.600 to a paranormal history of the prison by Kathy Wiser Alexander, 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.360 throughout the old facilities, people have heard cell doors slamming, 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:37.840 ghostly footsteps, loud banging, shadowy figures, the smell of cigarette smoke, 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:42.520 objects being mysteriously moved around and fast moving entities. They 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.199 also report having felt dread, a sense of sorrow, and 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.920 a feeling of being watched. According to another book about 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.920 hauntings in Missouri, one visitor saw the bloodied face of 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:55.560 a prisoner looking out from the third tier of cells 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.240 and asked to leave the tour. Apparitions of prisoners and 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.679 old fashioned dress, both male and female, have been reported, 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.919 as well as sightings of orbs and even of UFOs. 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.480 There have been many accounts of a woman wearing a 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.040 long gray skirt and gray, high collared blouse in the 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.119 women's prison area. Some have claimed to have sensed the 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.679 spirits of children and dogs. At least one child was 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:20.200 present at the prison for a time. According to the St. 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:24.879 Louis Post Dispatch, in a woman named Maddie Scott begged 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.200 a judge at her sentencing not to keep her away 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.760 from her four month old daughter. The judge allowed her 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.679 to take her child to the prison. A hall, the 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.360 oldest building on the site, is also said to be 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:39.280 the most haunted. Reports of activity here include visitors being 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.800 touched or scratched by unseen hands, the feeling of someone 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:47.240 breathing down your neck, disembodied voices, strong smells, shadow figures 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:52.119 walking between cells, apparitions and electronics acting up. In the 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.359 isolation cell where Walter Lee Donald was bludgeoned to death, 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.879 Number forty eight, visitors claim to have captured an apparition 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.199 of a man, as well as having strange feelings. A 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:06.440 spirit nicknamed fast Jack or occasionally Fast Harry, is said 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:08.960 to show up in the housing units and control room, 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:11.960 as well as the tunnels connecting the buildings. Though he 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.960 appears to be solid, even wearing a white lab coat 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.520 and carrying a clipboard, he's sometimes seen moving through walls. 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.160 Some believe that he once worked in the prisons medical facility, 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.240 possibly as an inmate whose job was to escort fellow 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.520 prisoners to and from the clinic. According to tour guide 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.520 Mary Lacy, he has been seen by many people, and 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.240 the description is always that he is walking quickly down 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.359 a hallway with his back to the person. According to 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.160 Kathy Wiser Alexander's Haunted History of the Prison, at one 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:43.800 point a tour guide passed through the control center to 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.520 secure the outer doors, only to return just a few 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.000 minutes later to find all the lockers had been opened. 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:53.600 This antic was attributed to fast Jack. It probably won't 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:55.920 surprise you to learn that the gas chamber is one 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:59.199 of the most haunted places on the grounds. Visitors report 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.840 hearing groans and cries in the spaces, as well as 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.320 women's whispers. Some claim that the ghost of Bonnie B. Hetty, 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:09.080 executed in nineteen fifty three, still lingers in the gas chamber. 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:13.040 Hetty was notoriously talkative until the end, telling the guards 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:15.440 who were tightening the straps on the gas chamber chair 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.960 what was variously reported as it's all right or it 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:23.120 is tight and I'm not going anywhere. She also said 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.919 goodbye to the prison guards and asked, hall, are you 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.119 all right, honey. Reporters noted that the two kept on 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.480 talking to each other even after the door to the 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:36.359 lethal chamber had been sealed. Paranormal investigator Dan Terry claims 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:39.439 to have made contact with the spirit of George tiny Mercer, 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.199 the last person to be executed in the gas chamber, 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.959 inside the space. To talk more about the hauntings at 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:49.399 Missouri State Pen, I have Diane Kitchell coming up next. 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:51.960 She has been a ghost tour guide there for years 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:54.760 and it's built up quite the rapport with the spirits there. 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:59.120 She has some downright terrifying experiences to share, so we'll 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:12.080 get to those after the break. I am now joined 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.480 by Diane Kitchel, who is a ghost tour guide at 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:20.440 Missouri State Penitentiary, and I have no doubt she has 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.480 no shortage of stories to tell us. So thanks for 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:27.119 joining us, Diane, thank you for having me. I appreciate 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:30.280 the APA, of course, you know so I am. I 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:35.680 have investigated Missouri State Penitentiary probably half a dozen times 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:40.120 over the years, and I have never been in there 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:45.560 and not had some sort of experience. I have experienced shadows, 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:50.359 I have experienced banging sounds, I have experienced the sounds 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:54.080 of doors sliding shut off in the distance. I mean, 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.359 it's just never ending. And so you must have the 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:02.480 most fun job ever, the best job on the planet. Indeed, 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:07.400 what would you say, is probably the paranormal report that 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:11.159 comes out of there more than anything else. Oh, a 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:15.159 lot of people get their hair touched or pulled, especially 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:20.480 the pretty young blondes. That happens quite a lot. Um, 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:24.320 we do get scratches on some people saying things out 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:26.800 of the corner of their eye, good old peripheral vision. 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:29.959 There's not many places that I go into and I 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.600 feel scared or you know, but and I don't feel 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:37.280 scared at Missouri State, but I definitely do get sometimes 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:40.640 kind of like an anxious feeling or like always looking 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:44.680 over my shoulder. But also sometimes I just feel sad, 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.440 like I just feel like sadness. And so it must 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:49.360 be kind of interesting. I know that during the day 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:52.040 you guys have historical tours and then at night you 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:54.240 have the ghost tours. And so when people do the 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:58.120 ghost tours, what kind of experiences do they have? Well, 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:03.000 that runs the gamut you've had, you know, everything from 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.399 thinking they herod whispering or maybe got in touch to 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:12.359 seeing a full blown shadow figure. Are speakers as we 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:15.199 like to call them, Sometimes they sometimes they like to 0:23:15.280 --> 0:23:17.160 lean out of the cells and just kind of check 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:20.919 you out and go agreet them again. You know, they 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:24.320 about back in that what would you say is maybe 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:28.600 the most compelling experience that you've had in Missouri State. 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:35.960 Somebody explained doppel gangers to me because they freaked me out. 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:40.040 Two years ago was the year of the doppel Ganger. 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:43.840 At MSP. I mean, we've we've gotten them once in 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:47.840 a while. We would hear something mimicking one of us, 0:23:48.440 --> 0:23:51.680 or we would, you know, maybe once a year, once 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:54.800