Speaker 1: Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Minky.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: Without further ado, really bring the house down, make some
Speaker 3: noise for the Haunted Road podcast host Amy Brunie.
Speaker 1: Holy moly, thank you, guys. I appreciate. I'm just making
Speaker 1: sure everything's working. So, as I stated before, I don't
Speaker 1: know that all of you are in here when I
Speaker 1: said this, but there is definitely a content warning today.
Speaker 1: This is a really heavy episode of Haunted Road. I
Speaker 1: have Kleenex in my pocket. It will be a miracle
Speaker 1: if I make it through this without crying, So just
Speaker 1: be ready. Okay, So, if you haven't heard Haunted Road before,
Speaker 1: the first half, we delve deep into the history of
Speaker 1: a haunted location, and then the second half I interview
Speaker 1: someone who has knowledge of the hauntings there and so
Speaker 1: we talk about the paranormal experiences. So, without further ADO,
Speaker 1: let's get started, Okay. In some ways, Penhurst Asylum was
Speaker 1: a paragon of progressive thinking about how to treat people
Speaker 1: with cognitive disabilities, giving them social support and a safe
Speaker 1: place to live where they could be protected from the
Speaker 1: dangers of a judgmental society presented to their health and safety.
Speaker 1: To many who had nowhere else to go, it promised
Speaker 1: to be a dream scenario, but the dream was well
Speaker 1: a dream. Penhurst may have opened with the best of intentions,
Speaker 1: but it didn't end up that way. And it's seventy
Speaker 1: nine years of operation, the asylum was characterized by the
Speaker 1: harshest of patient mistreatment. It's more than ten thousand residents
Speaker 1: were subjected to what the Philadelphia Inquirer described as medical experimentation, punishments,
Speaker 1: and constant threats to physical and psychological well being. Residents
Speaker 1: were trapped, forced into labor against their will, unable to leave,
Speaker 1: out of control of the most basic elements of their
Speaker 1: own lives, and that was the adults. Children under five
Speaker 1: years old were kept in cages, lying in their own
Speaker 1: filth for days on end. As one newspaper put it
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two, Penhurst Asylum was the shame of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Many inmates stayed there as long as thirty five years,
Speaker 1: and some never left. I'm Amy Bruney, and this is
Speaker 1: haunted road. Penhurst Asylum originally opened in nineteen oh eight
Speaker 1: as the Eastern Pennsylvania Institution for the feeble minded and epileptic.
Speaker 1: According to the Penhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance, it was
Speaker 1: once seen as a model institution. At the time the
Speaker 1: asylum opened, people with mental illness and cognitive disabilities were
Speaker 1: called defectives and were dealt with in horrific ways like
Speaker 1: forced segregation from society and even sterilization. As the Alliance
Speaker 1: described in the eighteen hundreds, defectives and other dependent deviant
Speaker 1: groups such as aged paupers and the sick poor were
Speaker 1: grouped together and sold to the lowest bidder. Built in
Speaker 1: Spring City, Pennsylvania, Penhurst promised to be the antidote to
Speaker 1: that kind of treatment. Before the asylum opened, the state
Speaker 1: legislature organized a commission in nineteen o three to get
Speaker 1: a sense of the needs of that underserved population. They
Speaker 1: found nearly four thousand residents who were either incarcerated or
Speaker 1: were in poorhouses or hospitals for the insane, who were
Speaker 1: all in desperate need of actual care for their conditions.
Speaker 1: Penhurst was designed to hold five hundred people, with room
Speaker 1: for expansion, but the need far outweighed the space. The
Speaker 1: asylum was overcrowded almost from the day it opened. Within
Speaker 1: five years of admitting its first patients. Penhurst was under
Speaker 1: pressure from the legislature to admit immigrants, orphans, and criminals
Speaker 1: the state did not know how to handle. Pennsylvania created
Speaker 1: a Commission for the Care of the Feeble Minded, who
Speaker 1: pushed those with cognitive impairments into Penhurst to prevent them
Speaker 1: from cro creating and passing down their genes, calling them
Speaker 1: a menace to the peace. Immigrants designated as feeble minded
Speaker 1: immigrants were deemed unfit for American citizenship, and the state
Speaker 1: demanded they be to admit it into custody. In report
Speaker 1: to the state, Penhurst's chief physician quoted Henry H. Goddard,
Speaker 1: a leading eugenicist, by saying, every feeble minded person is
Speaker 1: a potential criminal. The general public, although more convinced today
Speaker 1: than ever before that it is a good thing to
Speaker 1: segregate the idiot or the distinct imbecile, they have not
Speaker 1: as yet been convinced as to proper treatment of the
Speaker 1: defective delinquent, which is the brighter and more dangerous individual.
Speaker 1: As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, by nineteen fifty seven, the
Speaker 1: institution had more than thirty five hundred residents with just
Speaker 1: six hundred staff from grounds keepers to aids. That number
Speaker 1: rose to forty one hundred patients by the early nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: The newspaper further reported that by the nineteen sixties, the
Speaker 1: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was appropriating more than two million dollars
Speaker 1: a year for Penhurst operations, and the facility's residents were
Speaker 1: impressed into a forced labor system the Supreme Court would
Speaker 1: rebuke as peonage or involuntary servile labor. Residents had lost
Speaker 1: their fundamental freedoms, including the right to leave or to
Speaker 1: exercise the most basic of life choices. A local news
Speaker 1: station aired a documentary in nineteen sixty eight called Suffer
Speaker 1: the Little Children that laid bare the horrible mistreatment at Penhurst.
Speaker 1: Among the many horrifying revelations in the documentary was reporter
Speaker 1: Bill Baldini's discovery that large American zoos were spending more
Speaker 1: per day to feed their animals than the States spent
Speaker 1: on the people in the asylum. As the Philadelphia Inquirer
Speaker 1: described it, the documentary shattered Philadelphians and other Americans' easy
Speaker 1: complacency and blind indifference to what had been occurring for
Speaker 1: decades behind institutional walls. Far removed from public scrutiny. Baldini
Speaker 1: later said that he had trouble keeping his camera crew
Speaker 1: on the documentary shoot because they were literally getting sick
Speaker 1: from what they saw. Matt Lake, Rusty Tagliarini, and Mark
Speaker 1: Moran wrote about Penhurst for Weird New Jerseys, saying on
Speaker 1: the flickering monochrome televisions of the time came images of
Speaker 1: full grown hands and feet bound by straps to adult
Speaker 1: sized crib beds. Inmates of the institution were shown rocking, pacing,
Speaker 1: and twitching. Many were severely disabled, either mentally or physically,
Speaker 1: but others were quite lucid and coherent, but withdrawn into
Speaker 1: themselves because of overstimulation of the senses in the loud
Speaker 1: and sometimes frightening place. When one patient was asked by
Speaker 1: the interviewer what he would like most in the world
Speaker 1: if he could have anything he wanted, the sad and
Speaker 1: withdrawn reply was simply to get out of Penhurst. The
Speaker 1: documentary caused public outcry and spurred widespread calls for changes
Speaker 1: to the treatment of and constitutional rights for the mentally disabled.
Speaker 1: Baldini later told NPR about the horrors he saw in
Speaker 1: the asylum. Think of a ward of infants and children
Speaker 1: from the ages of six months to five years old.
Speaker 1: He said, there are eighty of them in metal cages.
Speaker 1: These people were literally lying in their own feces for days.
Speaker 1: According to Weird New Jersey, probably the most chilling scene
Speaker 1: showed one of the hospital's physicians describing how he dealt
Speaker 1: with a particularly vicious bully who had brutalized one of
Speaker 1: his other inmates. He described how he had asked one
Speaker 1: of his colleagues which injection he could use to cause
Speaker 1: the most discomfort to a patient without permanently injuring him.
Speaker 1: Then he proceeded to administer that injection to the bully.
Speaker 1: That was a common punishment in Penhurst. Doctors would use
Speaker 1: what they called harmless but painful injections as recourse for
Speaker 1: bad behavior, even on children. In nineteen seventy, medical sociologist
Speaker 1: Jim Conroy arrived at Penhurst to research the developmental disabilities.
Speaker 1: As he told NPR, I saw a place with thirty
Speaker 1: seven hundred people in it that was built for far
Speaker 1: far fewer, and I saw things that I will never forget.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy two, local newspaper The Mercury called Penhurst
Speaker 1: the shame of Pennsylvania, describing seventeen hundred human beings stored
Speaker 1: away in crumbling warehouses. The urine's stench of decades soaked
Speaker 1: so deeply into the walls and floors that it can
Speaker 1: never be washed out. About half of the more than
Speaker 1: ten thousand inmates housed in Penhurst died there, largely due
Speaker 1: to patient mistreatment and neglect. In nineteen seventy four, patient
Speaker 1: Terry Lee Halderman filed a complaint with the state on
Speaker 1: behalf of all other Penhurst residents about their treatment. The
Speaker 1: complaint alleged that the residents live in inhumane and dangerous conditions,
Speaker 1: are subjected to unnecessary physical restraints, are given unnecessary and
Speaker 1: dangerous medication, are consigned to lives of idleness and because
Speaker 1: of lack of habilitative programs, and are subject to numerous
Speaker 1: physical injuries resulted from a lack of adequate supervision. The
Speaker 1: complaint further alleged that this treatment caused Halderman and her
Speaker 1: class to deteriorate and regret emotionally, intellectually, and physically, and
Speaker 1: that they were being denied due process and equal protection
Speaker 1: of the law and inflicted on them cruel and unusual
Speaker 1: punishment unimaginably bad treatment came to light as a result
Speaker 1: of this case. Patients who were in crisis could go
Speaker 1: days without seeing a psychologist for treatment. When they were
Speaker 1: in a crisis situation, they would most likely be restrained
Speaker 1: through either physical or chemical measures. People could be bound
Speaker 1: to a bed or a chair, or sedated with unusually
Speaker 1: high doses of psychoactive drugs. According to the Penhurst Memorial
Speaker 1: and Preservation Alliance, psychotropic drugs at Penhurst are often used
Speaker 1: for control and not for treatment, and the rate of
Speaker 1: drug use on some of the units is extraordinarily high.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy eight, the court ordered that Penhurst be
Speaker 1: closed and that its remaining twelve hundred residents be provided
Speaker 1: living arrangements and support services. To accomplish this, special Master
Speaker 1: was appointed to supervise the arrangements. The asylum was to
Speaker 1: stay open until that work was finished. In nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: Time described the place as having a history of being understaffed, dirty,
Speaker 1: and violent. The hospital was on its way to closing,
Speaker 1: but for the patients it must have seemed like the
Speaker 1: hell was never coming to an end. By nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: Penhurst had six hundred forty patients, who had been there
Speaker 1: an average of thirty five years at that time. The
Speaker 1: Department of Justice indicted nine present and former aids for
Speaker 1: assaulting and abusing patients, including beating patients, some of whom
Speaker 1: were confined to wheelchairs, and forcing patients to assault each other.
Speaker 1: A study following patients released from Penhurst was ordered by
Speaker 1: the court as part of the hospital's closure. Its results
Speaker 1: were released in nineteen eighty five. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer,
Speaker 1: the researchers followed one thy one hundred and fifty four
Speaker 1: people who lived at Penhurst and found that none became
Speaker 1: became homeless or incarcerated. They tended to live at least
Speaker 1: six years longer, and fourteen percent became more independent. Almost
Speaker 1: all said that they were better off outside of Penhurst.
Speaker 1: Despite a reported nineteen percent increase in services, the cost
Speaker 1: of taxpayers went down by fifteen percent compared to funding Penhurst.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven, the last patient left Penhurst, and
Speaker 1: the asylum was finally closed in the nineteen nineties. Part
Speaker 1: of the building briefly served as a veteran's home, but
Speaker 1: was sold to a private developer in the early two thousands.
Speaker 1: Under the Penhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance. It was added
Speaker 1: to the international Coalition of Sites of Conscience, a worldwide
Speaker 1: network of historic sites specifically dedicated to remembering struggles for justice.
Speaker 1: In twenty ten, part of the campus was reopened as
Speaker 1: a seasonal Haunted attraction, which immediately started pulling in as
Speaker 1: much just two million dollars annually from people eager to
Speaker 1: experience the place. But given the Asylum's dark history, many
Speaker 1: locals in those previously affiliated with Penhurst objected to that use,
Speaker 1: especially since the attraction misrepresented much of what happened there
Speaker 1: in the past. Reporter Bill Baldini, whose documentary brought the
Speaker 1: asylum's atrocities to light, and Jim Conroy, the medical sociologist
Speaker 1: who spoke publicly about his experiences there, said they believed
Speaker 1: the site shouldn't be trivialized as a haunted house, but
Speaker 1: rather be a memorial to the past. As Diana M.
Speaker 1: Kadovich wrote for the National Council on Public History, the
Speaker 1: first version of the Haunted Asylum was as bad as anticipated.
Speaker 1: A fictional doctor and his minions were shown experimenting on
Speaker 1: asylum inmates in a minor nod to the history of
Speaker 1: Penhurst's patrons. Were able to view artifacts retrieved from the property,
Speaker 1: notably a dentist's chair an electroshock therapy machine. Yet historical
Speaker 1: fact and shock fiction were poorly separated, and visitors were
Speaker 1: left to wonder which was which. The council quoted disability
Speaker 1: studies historian Sarah Hanley Cousins is saying, I like a
Speaker 1: ghost story as much as anyone, but the patients who
Speaker 1: lived at Penhurst weren't spooky spirits. They were human beings
Speaker 1: with complex lives. In twenty seventeen, ownership changed and the
Speaker 1: new owner and general manager created an environment intended to
Speaker 1: be more respectful to the disabled community, As Diana Kadovich wrote,
Speaker 1: aware of the unintended consequences of a conflated story, they
Speaker 1: changed features of the attraction and empowered a group of
Speaker 1: disabled performers with creative control. More than half of the performers,
Speaker 1: called the Haunters, identify as disabled, a few even half
Speaker 1: personal histories of institutionalization. This new Haunted Asylum turns the
Speaker 1: original plot on its head. The Haunters each assume a
Speaker 1: fictional identity, and the inmates conspire to take over the
Speaker 1: asylum from the professionals. The fictional doctors nurses and the
Speaker 1: visitors become the new inmates. Today, Penhurst offers daytime history
Speaker 1: tours and overnight paranormal investigations. While many buildings on the
Speaker 1: campus were deemed unsafe and have been torn down, others
Speaker 1: are maintained through proceeds of those tours. Jim Ansbach, founder
Speaker 1: of the Shore Paranormal Research Society, which regularly investigates Penhurst,
Speaker 1: says the asylum is rife with paranormal activity. Weird New
Speaker 1: Jersey wrote that the group has conducted several large scale
Speaker 1: investigations of the old asylums many buildings, and documented a
Speaker 1: variety of evidence of paranormal activity, including photos, videos, recordings
Speaker 1: of voice phenomena, and personal encounters with spirits. Among the
Speaker 1: recordings are the sounds of disembodied voices uttering things like
Speaker 1: go away, I'll kill you, were upset, and why did
Speaker 1: you come here? An unknown male states I'm scared, while
Speaker 1: an invisible female asks why won't you leave? In the
Speaker 1: Administration building, investigators have said they've picked up disembodied voices
Speaker 1: and the sounds of toilets flushing though there's no running
Speaker 1: water or the building. And other buildings, people claim to
Speaker 1: hear children's voices and EVPs of distressed adults. According to Shore,
Speaker 1: a firefighter police officer Anna Marine All saw a woman
Speaker 1: in an old style nurse's uniform in the Limerick Building.
Speaker 1: Investigators claim to have been touched in the Mayflower Building
Speaker 1: and the Tinycum Building, and to have seen shadow figures
Speaker 1: manifest and dissipate in the Quaker Building. These shadows include
Speaker 1: what appeared to be a girl with long black hair,
Speaker 1: a hunched over presence with long dangling arms, and figures
Speaker 1: poking out from behind obstacles. Doors and a rocking chair
Speaker 1: have moves on their own, and objects like pride bars
Speaker 1: and brass pixtures have been observed being thrown by unseen forces.
Speaker 1: And investigators have also been physically harmed. According to Shore,
Speaker 1: one was shoved from behind hard enough on a stairway
Speaker 1: to leave a deep red mark, and another was scratched
Speaker 1: on the arm. Now I have investigated Penhurst a number
Speaker 1: of times, including once on live television where I proceeded
Speaker 1: to drop an F bomb while millions of people were watching.
Speaker 1: So here to talk more about that experience, as well
Speaker 1: as many others, are two of my dear friends who
Speaker 1: have also both spent quite some time investigating the asylum.
Speaker 1: Mister Aaron Sagers and mister Adam Berry. Welcome my friends.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I didn't turn your microphones on it and
Speaker 1: want them to actually hear you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having us. This is Haunted Row. I'm Amy Brune.
Speaker 2: May the fourth be with you?
Speaker 1: Okay, So real talk. We have investigated Penhurst quite a
Speaker 1: few times. Strangely, we're actually going back there next weekend
Speaker 1: or ericon. I'm just gonna be cool. It is one
Speaker 1: of those places I feel like you have to be
Speaker 1: very cognizant of the history, and I think that we've
Speaker 1: gotten so much better at that in recent years. I'm
Speaker 1: sure the first time I investigated there, I was completely
Speaker 1: guilty of just kind of being like, oh, terrible things
Speaker 1: happen here. It's super haunted. How cool. And then I
Speaker 1: actually took the time to watch that documentary it's on
Speaker 1: YouTube and you see what happened there and it is appalling.
Speaker 1: So but so, just talk a little bit more, like Arin,
Speaker 1: you've investigated there many times over the years. What first
Speaker 1: brought you to Penhurst?
Speaker 3: I think it was actually for an event the very
Speaker 3: first time I went there, but actually many years ago,
Speaker 3: I was working as a reporter at some newspapers in
Speaker 3: the Philadelphia area. So maybe I went there first for
Speaker 3: one of their Haunted House attractions, and even then, honestly,
Speaker 3: it didn't sit right with me because this is one
Speaker 3: of those locations that, look, it just has it's a
Speaker 3: city of shame. It really is a city, and it
Speaker 3: has such a dark legacy that it makes you angry
Speaker 3: when you go there and you're aware of what took
Speaker 3: place there, and the fact that it also was taking
Speaker 3: place in my lifetime. I was ten years old when
Speaker 3: it closed, so it's this recent history and it's disgusting.
Speaker 3: But yeah, the very first time I think I went
Speaker 3: there was for the Haunted House, and the first time
Speaker 3: I invested get it was part of an event.
Speaker 1: Okay, mister Barry, I went with someone named Amy Bruney.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if it was one of your Ghost
Speaker 1: Hunters Academy locations.
Speaker 2: I never know, No, Waverley, Actually we're going to Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: it was the very first place I ever investigated on television.
Speaker 2: I mean, you and I investigated that on Ghost Hunters,
Speaker 2: and and I remember, you're right, we were in a
Speaker 2: different mindset in a way. We were excited to get
Speaker 2: to this incredibly historic haunted location. We were It was
Speaker 2: multiple nights, which is a big deal for when we
Speaker 2: investigated something like that. But I think for us, we
Speaker 2: were we didn't know what to expect, right, and you
Speaker 2: and I we had we were in Philadelphia, so we
Speaker 2: had just started investigation. This is probably a month into
Speaker 2: us working together, that's true, So we were still sort
Speaker 2: of getting our feet wet on you know, how we
Speaker 2: interact with each other and what experiences we will have.
Speaker 2: But I know that the activity that we had there
Speaker 2: flipped our brains in side out because it was it
Speaker 2: was really incredible activity. But at that point, I think
Speaker 2: we didn't know what to do with that information.
Speaker 1: I guess, right, I mean I think that I actually
Speaker 1: I think I wrote about one of the experiences we
Speaker 1: had there in the book, which was and this happened
Speaker 1: not on the lot. Was this on the live show?
Speaker 1: When we heard that thing in the closet?
Speaker 2: I don't know that was it? Yeah? That was, yeah,
Speaker 2: on the live show.
Speaker 1: So we'll talk about that experience.
Speaker 2: Yes, So Amy and I were in the I guess
Speaker 2: it would be the children's section wherever they said the
Speaker 2: heart of hearing would be. And I think when we
Speaker 2: started hearing those kind of thoughts where oh the kids were,
Speaker 2: you know, just they had a physical disability where they
Speaker 2: couldn't hear or they couldn't see, they were put in
Speaker 2: here to us. I mean that was already like what
Speaker 2: are you talking about? Like there are schools for the
Speaker 2: blind and death, Like what are you doing? But we
Speaker 2: were in that section, and I remember being on the
Speaker 2: third or fourth floor and she and I you know,
Speaker 2: were slowly walking through to get our bearings, and we
Speaker 2: started asking questions and then to the left of us,
Speaker 2: down the hallway, you could hear what sounded like a
Speaker 2: footstep and a drag, so it was like step step,
Speaker 2: like step dry and she and I looked at each
Speaker 2: other like what the actual is that? And we were
Speaker 2: looking down this hallway nothing was there. And then almost
Speaker 2: instantaneously after that, we heard what sounded like clawing, like
Speaker 2: scratching and clawing on wood. And at this point, I
Speaker 2: think they it's on television, but you can go back
Speaker 2: and watch. But she and I are like on top
Speaker 2: of each other, were and like back to back, and
Speaker 2: we're sort of trying to like figure out where the
Speaker 2: sound's coming from, what's happening, And we knew that the scratching.
Speaker 2: It was like a scratch, clawing, scratching, like trying something,
Speaker 2: trying to get out of something.
Speaker 1: It was so incredibly loud, terrifying. It was so loud.
Speaker 1: I can't over state howbut it was.
Speaker 2: And also your mind starts playing tricks on you because
Speaker 2: you hear this step dragon. I picture horror movie. I
Speaker 2: picture like the you know, some person walking down the
Speaker 2: thing trying to get us. So we had to make
Speaker 2: our way toward the sound, like any good horror movie,
Speaker 2: and we pinpointed to this room. We walk into the room.
Speaker 2: The scratching is still going on. It's louder. We know
Speaker 2: it's coming from in front of us, where a closet
Speaker 2: door is closed.
Speaker 1: And we we thought animal. We were like, there's an
Speaker 1: animal there. We were about to have our faces torn
Speaker 1: off by whatever this is.
Speaker 2: But and she was like, you open it.
Speaker 1: That's true. You were new.
Speaker 2: I was new.
Speaker 1: You were new.
Speaker 2: And so she is standing maybe five feet away from
Speaker 2: the door, and I'm like creeping up on the handle
Speaker 2: like it's gonna pop out, And I take the handle
Speaker 2: and I went and I opened it really quick and
Speaker 2: jump back because I was a know something rabbit is
Speaker 2: coming out of there, and that did not happen. There
Speaker 2: was nothing in the closet. There was no signs of rodents,
Speaker 2: there was no animal droppings. There did not smell of urine.
Speaker 2: It was just a normal closet. There were no holes
Speaker 2: in the ceiling. And I think we even used the
Speaker 2: thermal imaging.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say we double checked. We brought
Speaker 1: the thermal. The one time I enjoyed the thermal, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, we can see there's an animal in here.
Speaker 2: There was no animal, no traces of animal, no signs
Speaker 2: and animals trying to claw out in any section. And
Speaker 2: we never heard it again ever and anywhere else in
Speaker 2: that building. I mean, yes, of course it was stabited.
Speaker 2: It could have been an animal, but we we checked
Speaker 2: our boxes for that and it was wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that was That was terrifying. And what's so
Speaker 1: funny is that we were like, oh, a few, it's
Speaker 1: a ghost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, We're like, oh right, oh great. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: thinking about that experience now, I sort of wonder what
Speaker 2: that was though. Like you talk about, you know, the
Speaker 2: young children in cages and people being trapped and tied up.
Speaker 2: It's like, now, when I think about that a sound.
Speaker 2: It's no longer spooky, it's sad.
Speaker 3: It's heartbreaking. Yeah, someone was confined and that was their reality,
Speaker 3: So what would they do?
Speaker 1: It would well, that's just it. It's like if that
Speaker 1: I imagine at some point someone was probably locked in
Speaker 1: that closet, like I almost think it had to have happened,
Speaker 1: and so is I pray that that is not like
Speaker 1: their actual consciousness still there trying to leave and instead
Speaker 1: is just kind of like that imprint there, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I would prefer it's just the actual
Speaker 1: turmoil or emotion left behind, because I would hate to
Speaker 1: think there's someone just perpetually stuck in this closet. You know.
Speaker 3: I don't like to think as I don't like to
Speaker 3: think in terms of children or people being stuck in places.
Speaker 3: And yet I do wonder in facilities like that where
Speaker 3: people were so physically and emotionally broken, like where they
Speaker 3: were broken by other people, if there's something about that
Speaker 3: where they are just lingering there in some form or fashion.
Speaker 1: Well, the sad thing to think about is that, you know,
Speaker 1: they were probably told their entire lives that they weren't
Speaker 1: meant for anywhere else, you know, and so there, it's
Speaker 1: so ingrained in them that they were not meant to
Speaker 1: be in society. This is where you are because of
Speaker 1: how you are. And so when given the choice and death, like,
Speaker 1: does that mean they carry that like I'm not meant
Speaker 1: to go anywhere but here. It's kind of like sometimes
Speaker 1: when we investigate jails, I feel like sometimes the inmates
Speaker 1: are like, it's this kind of you know, self imposed sentence,
Speaker 1: like I'm supposed to be here and I can't leave,
Speaker 1: And I would not be surprised if that's what's happening there.
Speaker 3: And it's some extent it was official policy too, like
Speaker 3: as early when it opened in nineteen oh was it
Speaker 3: by nineteen thirteen? There was already official policy about eugenics
Speaker 3: on the books in Pinnhurst, and that not only are
Speaker 3: you not worth anything, you're not even worth like getting
Speaker 3: out and having a family. You need to be separated.
Speaker 3: You are dehumanized, oh completely, And when it reaches that
Speaker 3: point where you're no longer considered human, it makes it
Speaker 3: all the easier to abuse and hurt and break these people.
Speaker 1: Down when you watch that documentary, and so this is
Speaker 1: what I think of when I investigate there. I see
Speaker 1: these spaces and I mean, I haven't watched it in years,
Speaker 1: but is permanently ingrained in my brain. I see the
Speaker 1: faces of these people and I think of them as
Speaker 1: I investigate there. You know, are these the people? Are
Speaker 1: people like this who are talking to me? But it's
Speaker 1: they were so coherent. They were not they were like
Speaker 1: talking to anyone in here. They weren't like it wasn't
Speaker 1: like they couldn't speak. It wasn't like they were emotionless,
Speaker 1: like they were completely able to have a conversation. They
Speaker 1: were calm. It's the weirdest thing. And you're like, why
Speaker 1: are you there? Like it just didn't make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense.
Speaker 2: No, And I think the first time I saw the
Speaker 2: documentary was when we went back, maybe even the following
Speaker 2: It was the following year for the live show, and
Speaker 2: we knew we were going back there, and you know,
Speaker 2: we had talked about the documentary and I watched it,
Speaker 2: and I think that changed the way we investigated that
Speaker 2: space on live television. Yeah, for sure, because we were
Speaker 2: thinking about it. And if you notice we went back
Speaker 2: to that same spot if you watched that live show,
Speaker 2: and we were using the flashlights for communication, and we
Speaker 2: had set three flashlights on the mantle, which was in
Speaker 2: the room just past where we heard the scratching down
Speaker 2: the hall from where we heard the foot dragging, and
Speaker 2: we would set them up right like straight up, and
Speaker 2: you know, live television, anything can happen, and we like
Speaker 2: to do the hardest techniques on live televis because we're like,
Speaker 2: you know, we don't We're going to use it. We
Speaker 2: believe in it. We're going to see what happens and
Speaker 2: if it works great on live television. We started having
Speaker 2: a conversation with someone in the space who knew we
Speaker 2: were there, who was answering our questions yes, no, I
Speaker 2: don't know, on command, on live television in front of
Speaker 2: millions of people watching. And it was because we had
Speaker 2: humanized what was there and we genuinely wanted to have
Speaker 2: a conversation. I actually forgot the cameras in that moment.
Speaker 2: I forgot that we were on live television because we
Speaker 2: were making such a connection, right.
Speaker 1: And it's bizarre investigating on live television because first of all,
Speaker 1: you're investigating the entire time, so you're just kind of
Speaker 1: going about your business and then suddenly the camera operators
Speaker 1: like they're coming to you, and there's this twinge where
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, okay, now that'd be great, yeah, but
Speaker 1: in that moment like I don't know. So the for
Speaker 1: people who are not familiar, we to quite often use
Speaker 1: this technique with flashlights, where we would line up three
Speaker 1: flashlights in a row. The only reason we've stopped using
Speaker 1: this technique is since Maglight introduced their new like led lights,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't work the same anymore, and slowly but surely,
Speaker 1: every single one of our old maglights has burned out.
Speaker 1: If you want to help us with that maglight if
Speaker 1: you're listening.
Speaker 2: But this episode is sponsored by Backlight bag Light.
Speaker 1: But so what we did is we used this flashlight
Speaker 1: technique where we would set the flashlights to where they were.
Speaker 1: It was very easy to turn them on and off
Speaker 1: because you twist it so uh and people would use
Speaker 1: one flashlight a lot, but we didn't really feel like
Speaker 1: that was a very controlled situation. So we would use
Speaker 1: three flashlights and we would first establish they actually wanted
Speaker 1: to interact using the flashlights, and then when we were
Speaker 1: it was clear that they could answer us, we would
Speaker 1: have them pick which flashlight wanted to be yes, which
Speaker 1: wanted to be no, which was like I don't know,
Speaker 1: and this is happening on live television, and it was
Speaker 1: like clockwork, like we were having this entire conversation through
Speaker 1: these lights. I think we were on screen for like
Speaker 1: a solid twenty to thirty minutes doing this, which is
Speaker 1: like unheard of in these live shows. But it just
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop. And whoever was there was able to talk
Speaker 1: through the lights, recognize the lights. Who like, that's a
Speaker 1: universal signal, right, everybody can speak through lights, and they
Speaker 1: wanted to talk. They were eager to talk.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember when it was done. I think the
Speaker 2: camera operator was not only was his shoulder killing him
Speaker 2: at that point, but he also did not understand what
Speaker 2: was happening. He was like, what was that? Because I
Speaker 2: think the crew for the live show wasn't our normal crew.
Speaker 2: It was because they were all Union.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were all like they were used to shooting
Speaker 1: like football games I have TV, and they did not
Speaker 1: know what they had signed up for.
Speaker 2: This guy's the eyes were big than in his head
Speaker 2: and he was just like, what was that? How did
Speaker 2: you guys do that? And we were like, we didn't
Speaker 2: do anything. All we did was ask questions. Yeah, girl,
Speaker 2: we did some crazy stuff on that day, Yeah, we did.
Speaker 1: Like I said earlier, that was my first F bomb
Speaker 1: on live television. Can you say an F bomb on
Speaker 1: live TV? You hear the IFBs of every camera operator,
Speaker 1: So we screaming in the control booths and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: There was another time. I can't remember if we were
Speaker 2: investigating in a different section, but we had walked through
Speaker 2: and they kept saying that the windows had giant like
Speaker 2: screens on them, heavy screens, and so sometimes they would
Speaker 2: you'd hear them like knock or bang, and we were
Speaker 2: just walking through, investigating and calling out just to see
Speaker 2: if it was there, and it was like show, like
Speaker 2: the loudest sound I had ever heard, and we tried
Speaker 2: to figure out what it was, couldn't figure it out.
Speaker 2: Not an animal. It was like somebody had taken it
Speaker 2: and slammed it, and we knew we weren't welcome in
Speaker 2: that moment. We were like, we're not welcome.
Speaker 3: It's a location that I think every time I've been there,
Speaker 3: it's again a sad and terrible location, but it from
Speaker 3: a paranormal activity perspective, it seems like it always delivers
Speaker 3: in different ways. There was one time actually I was
Speaker 3: there with a paranormal event, and it was a group
Speaker 3: of people in one area. I forget all of the
Speaker 3: building names. I think they call it dietary. It's like
Speaker 3: in the back of the grounds and the session was
Speaker 3: coming to a close and people are doing an investigation
Speaker 3: and somebody walked by me, and then standing next to
Speaker 3: me was two of the volunteers that assist with the investigation.
Speaker 3: Someone walks by me and they walk into another room,
Speaker 3: and this is sort of the free time of the investigation.
Speaker 3: Time winds down, It's like, okay, time to wrap it up,
Speaker 3: move everybody to the next location. And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: let me go grab the person that moved into that
Speaker 3: next room over there, and the volunteers like, yes, someone
Speaker 3: walked in there. Walk into this room, no one's in there,
Speaker 3: walk into this adjacent room and there is no other exit,
Speaker 3: and myself and the volunteer, like I know, we both
Speaker 3: physically saw someone walk in here. And instead against this
Speaker 3: pack wall was a very like distinct shadow, kind of
Speaker 3: like hunched against the wall, and it reminded me in
Speaker 3: that moment of the final scene of the Blair Witch Projects,
Speaker 3: which I want to tell you all that I'm mister
Speaker 3: Brave at every moment but that was a moment where
Speaker 3: I was Nope, the f out of there.
Speaker 2: I was like, no, yep, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Speaker 2: Isn't that? Isn't that where when we were doing somebody
Speaker 2: was doing the walkthrough before wherever we got there for
Speaker 2: the live show, and they saw a gentleman that looked
Speaker 2: like a worker.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, was it Chris Williams? Did she see it?
Speaker 1: It might be because she.
Speaker 2: Was like, I saw there's a man standing there, like
Speaker 2: getting ready. It was like a worker. And they were like,
Speaker 2: nobody else is back there, And she came over talking
Speaker 2: about like, oh, yeah, there's a guy back there or
Speaker 2: something and there, and the guy was like, no, there's
Speaker 2: nobody back there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it does not surprise me.
Speaker 3: There was another time I was actually filming. It was
Speaker 3: right before all the COVID lockdown and I was filming this.
Speaker 3: It was a about haunted houses, but it wasn't a
Speaker 3: paranormal show. It was about haunted house attractions. And after
Speaker 3: a very long night of filming, everybody is very tired,
Speaker 3: winding down, waiting to get cut for the night. Because
Speaker 3: it's removed from any nearby hotels, it's definitely.
Speaker 2: Like a cab ride.
Speaker 3: And I'm standing outside facing the admin building. No one
Speaker 3: is in this building, and I'm standing next to the
Speaker 3: like a sound guy or whatever, and we're just chatting like, yeah,
Speaker 3: long night, like where you're gonna go. You're gonna grab
Speaker 3: some dinner at the local pub or whatever afterwards. And
Speaker 3: we're facing the admin building and you see this lone
Speaker 3: wheelchair just cross past the threshold. Nope, And I'm like,
Speaker 3: like you you you saw this, right, Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2: Should we go in?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And for that reason, I'm out. So that is
Speaker 2: a wild, well, something that a lot of people just
Speaker 2: don't know. So you and I got to explore Penhurst
Speaker 2: during the day.
Speaker 1: That's right. Oh, that's right. We did a photo shoot there.
Speaker 1: We dressed in really fancy clothes and took pictures in Penhurst. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so as one does. Yes, you know, were a magazine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Actually it's on the back of one of
Speaker 2: our magazines. It's the double duo image where it looks
Speaker 2: like we're kind of floating. That's Penhurst. And I remember
Speaker 2: being there during the day and of course things in
Speaker 2: the daytime when light, when sunlight hits it, you know,
Speaker 2: you see it in a different way. And I remember
Speaker 2: we got to actually take the time and really stand
Speaker 2: in a spot without cameras and like look, and at
Speaker 2: times it felt really creepy and intense, and then at
Speaker 2: times there was this weird, like destroyed, destructed beauty about it.
Speaker 2: But then you could see what kind of life it had,
Speaker 2: Like the beds were there, all lined up still, like
Speaker 2: people had been in these little sections and cobby holes,
Speaker 2: and you just knew what kind of like you know,
Speaker 2: little town or life this place had exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think that's important, and that's kind of I
Speaker 1: think one of the greatest byproducts of what we do
Speaker 1: and what you all do, is that we are kind
Speaker 1: of realizing that history. You know, we're not pushing it aside,
Speaker 1: we're not forgetting it existed. I love the new kind
Speaker 1: of outlook as we investigate these places that were uber
Speaker 1: respectful of what happened there. You know, we're not going in,
Speaker 1: you know, antagonizing. We go in with deep respect and sympathy.
Speaker 1: And I think that really not only helps us as
Speaker 1: far as kind of gaining interaction, but I think it
Speaker 1: helps them. They You know, you walk in as a
Speaker 1: living person and you're showing them respect they might not
Speaker 1: have ever had in life to begin with. So I
Speaker 1: think it's important that these places are explored. I think
Speaker 1: it's important that we learned the history that happened there
Speaker 1: before we ever got there. And I think that you know,
Speaker 1: regardless of how anyone feels about the paranormal field, there
Speaker 1: are places like this that are being remembered because of us,
Speaker 1: and so we have great responsibility. And that includes where
Speaker 1: we're going tonight as well, since we're going to Waverly Hills.
Speaker 1: So I want to thank my friends here for joining
Speaker 1: me today, and I want to thank all of you
Speaker 1: for this, and I hope you enjoyed it very much.
Speaker 1: I'm Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road
Speaker 1: is hosted and written by me Amy brune with additional
Speaker 1: research by Taylor Hagerdorn and Cassandra day All. This show
Speaker 1: is edited and produced by Rima El Kali, with supervising
Speaker 1: producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Menke, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. Haunted Road is a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaronmanke. Learn more about this
Speaker 1: show over at grimanmild dot com, and for more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.