Speaker 1: Hello, there's Richard McLain smith here to let you know
Speaker 1: that I now have a substack page if you enjoy
Speaker 1: Unexplained and want to go deeper into the world of
Speaker 1: the show. I've created a new space for all the
Speaker 1: bits that don't quite fit into the podcast, including the
Speaker 1: Unexplained Dedendum, a weekly companion piece to each new episode.
Speaker 1: Expect essays that lean more academic and analytical explorations of folklore, psychology,
Speaker 1: and the shadowy corners of history that have shaped the
Speaker 1: stories you hear on the show. But it's also a
Speaker 1: home for something more personal, my fiction, my strange amusings,
Speaker 1: and the odd fragments that don't belong anywhere else. Search
Speaker 1: for Richard McClain smith on substack, or go to Richard
Speaker 1: mcclainsmith dot substack dot com to find out more and subscribe.
Speaker 1: If you'd like a little bit more of me and
Speaker 1: Unexplained in your week, join me on substack and let's
Speaker 1: keep exploring the unknown together. New writing most Tuesdays. Deep
Speaker 1: beneath Edmondson County, in the central belt of Kentucky, there
Speaker 1: is a hidden world of rock and shadow. Mammoth Cave
Speaker 1: is the largest known cave system in the world. To date,
Speaker 1: over four hundred and twenty square miles of passageway have
Speaker 1: been surveyed, with additional mapping every year. The vast honeycomb
Speaker 1: structure encompasses cathedral like vaults, claustrophobic tunnels, and the so
Speaker 1: called bottomless pit that drops for one hundred and five
Speaker 1: feet straight down, ready to swallow anyone who takes an
Speaker 1: unwary step. It's an awesome but alienating environment. Yet for
Speaker 1: a short while in the nineteenth century, it was home
Speaker 1: to a very particular community, for whom it offered a
Speaker 1: last possible antidote to their dwindling hope. Doctor John Crogan
Speaker 1: was a physician and native of Kentucky who specialized in
Speaker 1: the study of tuberculosis or tea. Elsewhere in the world,
Speaker 1: the disease was known as consumption scropula or a host
Speaker 1: of other names. In Kentucky, they called it the white plague.
Speaker 1: Tb attacks the lungs and respiratory system, consuming the sufferer's
Speaker 1: energy and ability to breathe, until finally they choke on
Speaker 1: their last breath. For most of humankind's history, it has
Speaker 1: been a death sentence. As late as the eighteen eighties,
Speaker 1: it was approximated that one in seven human beings worldwide
Speaker 1: died of TB or related conditions, and though the first
Speaker 1: major progress towards a vaccine was made in nineteen o six,
Speaker 1: widespread success in treating the disease would not arrive until
Speaker 1: after the Second World War in the form of antibiotics.
Speaker 1: But in eighteen forty two, Doctor Crogan had a plan.
Speaker 1: Crogan was a believer in the humoral tradition of medicine,
Speaker 1: the idea that ailments were due to an imbalance in
Speaker 1: one or more of the four humors that supposedly regulated
Speaker 1: the body. As mentioned in our Charles Walton episode a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago. These were yellow bile, black bile, blood
Speaker 1: and phlegm, and the white plague, according to Dr Crogan,
Speaker 1: could be blamed on excess flem brought about by unregulated
Speaker 1: temperature and humidity. The answer, therefore, was simple, find a
Speaker 1: place offering a consistent, dry environment that could help stabilize
Speaker 1: the patient's imbalanced system. Mammoth Cave fit the bill perfectly.
Speaker 1: Dr Crogan's ambition was to turn Mammoth Cave into a
Speaker 1: luxury underground health spa, but he began his experiment with
Speaker 1: just fifteen people, eleven tb infected patients, four companions, and
Speaker 1: the child of a patient. They would be fed and
Speaker 1: served by the enslaved people that had been included in
Speaker 1: Dr Crogan's purchase of the cave. The group entered it
Speaker 1: in the winter of eighteen forty two with the intention
Speaker 1: of remaining within indefinitely, or until sufficiently recovered enough to leave.
Speaker 1: They lived in roofless stone huts, and their only source
Speaker 1: of light was from oil lamps and fires, both of
Speaker 1: which filled the caverns with noxious fumes, no doubt ailing
Speaker 1: their already weakened lungs. To add to the indignity of
Speaker 1: their suffering, the patients became unwilling exhibitions for tourists, who
Speaker 1: saw them as a novel addition to the long running
Speaker 1: cave tours. Those who encountered the commune spoke of pale,
Speaker 1: skeletal figures scuttling in and out of the lamplight. The
Speaker 1: caves reverberated with the constant sound of coughing. The experiment
Speaker 1: ended after just five months. By then five of the
Speaker 1: group had died. At each death, the bodies were laid
Speaker 1: out on a low flat stone they called corpse rock.
Speaker 1: Moore would die upon leaving the cave, no doubt further
Speaker 1: weakened by their time underground, Dr Crogin himself eventually became
Speaker 1: infected with TB. He died from the disease in eighteen
Speaker 1: forty nine. It isn't known how many of the enslaved
Speaker 1: people that he forced to take part in this failed
Speaker 1: endeavour also died as a result. Stephen and Charlotte Bishop
Speaker 1: and their six year old son Thomas were three of them. Stephen,
Speaker 1: who was considered one of the first explorers and guides
Speaker 1: of the cave system, was only thirty eight when he died.
Speaker 1: We can only assume as a result of contracting TB.
Speaker 1: The fate of his wife and son are not known.
Speaker 1: Subsequent visitors to the cave have reported hearing strange noises
Speaker 1: around the site, now known as the Tuberculosis Wart. In particular,
Speaker 1: they describe hearing shuffling feet, muttering voices, and a carerus
Speaker 1: of harsh, persistent coughs. As eerie as that echo of
Speaker 1: the past may be, it is neither the sole nor
Speaker 1: most lingering trace of Kentucky's battle with tuberculosis. The disease
Speaker 1: would return to wreak havoc again, and next time the
Speaker 1: medical establishment's fight back would have loftier ambitions and leave
Speaker 1: an even more haunting legacy. You're listening to Unexplained, and
Speaker 1: I'm Richard MacLean Smith. When the White Plague returned to
Speaker 1: Kentucky in the early nineteen hundreds, it was Jefferson County
Speaker 1: that took the brunt as the most densely populated area
Speaker 1: in the state. Situated along the Ohio River wetlands, Jefferson
Speaker 1: and in particular the city of Louisville, was the perfect
Speaker 1: environment for a highly contagious disease to run rampant. At
Speaker 1: the turn of the century, it had the highest TB
Speaker 1: infection rate in the nation. Scant progress had been made
Speaker 1: in treating the disease beyond the convalescence and quarantine at
Speaker 1: the core of doctor Crogan's Mammoth Cave project, and though
Speaker 1: the authorities had no desire to follow in the doctor's
Speaker 1: subterranean footsteps. Like him, they sought to remove the infected
Speaker 1: from society, placing them somewhere clean and comfortable. To attempt
Speaker 1: what recovery they could, they looked to the sanatorium. The
Speaker 1: concept was still relatively new in the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: built around the idea of nourishment and dry, fresh air.
Speaker 1: The sanatorium was not a million miles away from what
Speaker 1: doctor Crogan had envisioned. Whereas Krogan went down into the earth. However,
Speaker 1: the more modern sanatoria prized higher altitudes, as doctors theorized
Speaker 1: that increased external pressure would better match that of the
Speaker 1: body's interior, enhancing the flow of oxygen carrying blood. The
Speaker 1: first sanatorium design specifically for the treatment of TB was
Speaker 1: built in Germany in eighteen sixty three. From there, the
Speaker 1: model spread across the high altitude regions of Europe before
Speaker 1: making the leap to the United States. New York was
Speaker 1: home to the first American facility, the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium,
Speaker 1: which opened in eighteen eighty five. Others followed in North Carolina, Arizona,
Speaker 1: and Oregon. By nineteen eleven. Need for such an institution
Speaker 1: must truly dire in Jefferson, Kentucky, especially as the recently
Speaker 1: commissioned plans for a new Louisville hospital included no provision
Speaker 1: for TB patients. Instead, the local board, the Tuberculosis Association,
Speaker 1: were given a twenty five thousand dollar grant to build
Speaker 1: their own bespoke hospital. They cast around Louisville for a
Speaker 1: likely sight, and soon honed in on a plot of
Speaker 1: land known as Waverley Hill. Waverley Hill was named by
Speaker 1: the school teacher who taught at the one room school
Speaker 1: that occupied the site. She was a huge fan of
Speaker 1: Walter Scott's Waverley novels and had named the school accordingly.
Speaker 1: Her landlord had appreciated the whimsy and applied the name
Speaker 1: to his whole property. When the Tuberculosis Association purchased the land,
Speaker 1: they kept the name. At some unspecified point in time,
Speaker 1: and s was added, pluralizing it to Waverly Hills. The
Speaker 1: name stuck and has ever since been synonymous with the
Speaker 1: haunting heritage of early medical practices. Waverley Hills is a
Speaker 1: primary node on the American Atlas of Bad Places. It
Speaker 1: began humbly. The first iteration of the sanatorium was a
Speaker 1: simple wooden structure with space for forty patients. In the
Speaker 1: early stages of the disease, they were split into two wards,
Speaker 1: each housing twenty patients. These were more pavilion tents than buildings,
Speaker 1: allowing for the best possible airflow, but presumably less than
Speaker 1: comfortable in the baking sun. Or pouring rain. At first,
Speaker 1: the only solid structure was the two story administration office,
Speaker 1: where the skeleton staff did the best they could. And
Speaker 1: it should be said, unlike many supposedly haunted hospitals, Waverley
Speaker 1: Hills as little history of wanton cruelty, patients were made
Speaker 1: as comfortable as possible, seated by large open windows or
Speaker 1: unspacious porches. For maximum ventilation. Sunlight was key, and specialist
Speaker 1: sun rooms were set up to subject the lungs to
Speaker 1: bacteria killing UV light. This approach has since become recognized
Speaker 1: practice in the treatment of TB Sadly, other practices were
Speaker 1: somewhat less efficacious, such as the art of vinumouth or
Speaker 1: axe procedure, in which balloons would be inserted into the
Speaker 1: patient's lung and inflated, often with disastrous results. I will
Speaker 1: leave it to your imagination to guess at what those
Speaker 1: might have been exactly. Even more extreme cases saw the
Speaker 1: removal of muscle and rib from the chest, theoretically allowing
Speaker 1: the lungs more room to expand. It was an extremely
Speaker 1: violent last resort, and often if the surgery itself didn't
Speaker 1: kill the ensuing infectioned it. This need for more extreme
Speaker 1: treatment led to the first expansion of Waverley Hills. In
Speaker 1: December nineteen twelve, the first solid wards were built at
Speaker 1: Waverley to care for another forty patients with even more
Speaker 1: severe symptoms. These were busted in en mass from the
Speaker 1: overrun Louisville City Hospital. Two years later, in nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: the Children's Pavilion was completed. This housed up to fifty
Speaker 1: young people, but the tragedy of the arrangement was that,
Speaker 1: in addition to children with TB, the pavilion also housed
Speaker 1: the uninfected offspring of Waverley's adult patients if they had
Speaker 1: nowhere else to go. At the time, it wasn't understood
Speaker 1: that TB largely spreads from person to person through the air.
Speaker 1: As such, Waverley Hills almost certainly introduced healthy children to
Speaker 1: the fatal disease. At this point, Waverley had an official
Speaker 1: capacity of one hundred and thirty patients. Sadly, this was
Speaker 1: a drop in the ocean of cases afflicting Jefferson County,
Speaker 1: and the hastily assembled wooden canvas was proving no match
Speaker 1: for the Kentucky winters. It wasn't until October nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: six that the far more substantial. Waverley Hills, as it
Speaker 1: is known today, was finally constructed at five stories high
Speaker 1: with rue for four hundred and thirty five patients. It
Speaker 1: was a welcome but foreboding sight. Built from red stone
Speaker 1: in the Victorian Gothic style. It s brought outward on
Speaker 1: long wings from a central entrance hall, and was dotted
Speaker 1: with windows that, although provided access to light and fresh
Speaker 1: air for its patients, seemed also to peer down at
Speaker 1: approaching visitors, like the many eyes of a gigantic spider.
Speaker 1: This was Waverley Hills in its final form as a sanatorium,
Speaker 1: a grand edifice to the final decades of humanity's besiegement
Speaker 1: by the White Plague. The widespread introduction of the strepto
Speaker 1: mice in antibiotic in nineteen forty three saw a rapid
Speaker 1: decline in the need for convalescence, and by the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties the hospital had become largely redundant. In nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: one it was closed down for good. Thousands of patients
Speaker 1: met their end there. Exactly how many, it's possible to say.
Speaker 1: The lowest estimate is six thousand deaths, while some claims
Speaker 1: multiply that up to ten times. The truth, however, will
Speaker 1: remain forever lost, as patient records were kept off site
Speaker 1: at an office in Louisville and destroyed in the huge
Speaker 1: flood of nineteen thirty seven. Regardless, Waverly Hills saw its
Speaker 1: fair share of individuals shuffling grimly off this mortal coil,
Speaker 1: and it's no surprise that there are stories. The earliest
Speaker 1: reports that something more malignant than bacteria lurked in Waverly
Speaker 1: Hills date back to nineteen twenty eight. This is the
Speaker 1: year in which a nurse named Mary Hillenburg hanged herself
Speaker 1: from the light fixture in Room five oh two, a
Speaker 1: nurse's station on the fifth floor of the building. It's
Speaker 1: often been rumored that the fifth floor was reserved for
Speaker 1: TB PAP patients who also suffered from severe mental illness.
Speaker 1: In truth, the top floor was in fact reserved for
Speaker 1: the most severe infections, whether the t B had reached
Speaker 1: deep into the bone itself. These patients were placed nearest
Speaker 1: the heleotherapy department for ready access to sunlight on the
Speaker 1: roof or in a UV room. Most poignantly, the children
Speaker 1: of the hospital had a swing set built on the roof. Still,
Speaker 1: the fifth floor was a grim place to work. The
Speaker 1: precise cause of Mary Hillenburg's suicide is debated. Some speak
Speaker 1: to the tragic futility of her daily tasks, pushing back
Speaker 1: against the inevitable deaths of those under her care. The
Speaker 1: more often repeated theory is that she was pregnant out
Speaker 1: of wedlock and took her own life out of shame,
Speaker 1: but some dispute the story. In May twenty ten, the
Speaker 1: team at Darkness Radio hosted a paranormal conference in Kentucky
Speaker 1: and invited guests to join them on a late night
Speaker 1: excursion to the abandoned shell of Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Among
Speaker 1: the visitors to the ominous property that night were self
Speaker 1: described mediums Lynn Sutherland Olson and Rhonda Sheenler. Even in daylight,
Speaker 1: such buildings, their sheer size, their monolithic uniformity, and the
Speaker 1: combination of tragedy and death that's harboured within will send
Speaker 1: a shiver up the spine. But at night, as the
Speaker 1: moon peeks out intermittently from behind the scudding clouds above,
Speaker 1: with the black mass of the Gothic style sanatorium looming
Speaker 1: over you, the dark rooms behind its windows even blacker still,
Speaker 1: the eeriness can become all consuming, and so it was
Speaker 1: with no little trepidation that Lynn and Ronda, along with
Speaker 1: the handful of other visitors attending that night, entered the
Speaker 1: building's front doors, before pressing on into the seemingly endless
Speaker 1: labyrinth of darkened corridor beyond. As the visitors found out,
Speaker 1: each felt their own way along whatever strange essence of
Speaker 1: the past they seemed to have tuned into. As they
Speaker 1: all steadily wandered deeper into the building, Lynn and Roonda
Speaker 1: eventually found their way to the third floor. It was
Speaker 1: there that Lynn claimed that something suddenly made contact with Roonda.
Speaker 1: She called herself Mary. Though Lynn and Roonda were aware
Speaker 1: of Room five oh two and its unsettling reputation, both
Speaker 1: claimed not to have heard the name Mary associated with
Speaker 1: it before. As this apparent entity spoke to Roonda, she
Speaker 1: in turn relayed the story to Lynn about how she'd
Speaker 1: met her untimely end in room five oh two. Arriving
Speaker 1: outside the room some time later, both Lynn and Roonda
Speaker 1: immediately sensed a wicked energy emanating from inside of it.
Speaker 1: Ronda claimed to sense Mary's presence again and quickly struck
Speaker 1: up another conversation with the apparent entity. Linda, meanwhile, claimed
Speaker 1: to pick up an equally tortured presence in the room's
Speaker 1: adjoining bathroom. Writing about the experience later on her own
Speaker 1: WordPress site, Linda claimed it was the spirit of a
Speaker 1: former intern, the man who'd supposedly got Mary pregnant, which
Speaker 1: some believed was the reason the woman had taken her
Speaker 1: own life. Only that wasn't the end, according to Lynn.
Speaker 1: It was some weeks later that Lynn and Ronda decided
Speaker 1: to try and reconnect with Mary once again. This time,
Speaker 1: the story Mary apparently gave Ronda was very different. The
Speaker 1: man Lynn had apparently met in the bathroom of Room
Speaker 1: five oh two wasn't just the father of Mary's unborn child.
Speaker 1: He was also their murderer, or one of them in
Speaker 1: any case, According to Lynn, when he discovered Mary was pregnant,
Speaker 1: he convinced her to have an abortion to save himself
Speaker 1: the shame of fathering a child out of wedlock with
Speaker 1: a woman that his parents apparently didn't approve of. Lynn
Speaker 1: recounted a vision of Mary's hanging body with her lower
Speaker 1: half drenched in blood, supposedly from the botched abortion. Rather
Speaker 1: than wait for her to bleed out, the intern, along
Speaker 1: with three colleagues, had decided to hang her instead and
Speaker 1: make her death like a suicide. Though quite how they
Speaker 1: were planning to explain away the blood from a botched
Speaker 1: abortion is any one's guess. Either way, there really was
Speaker 1: a Mary Hillenburg who was found hanged in Room five
Speaker 1: o two, and, regardless of the truth of how or why,
Speaker 1: the room inevitably developed a sinister reputation soon after, and
Speaker 1: perhaps an energy all of its own. Four years later,
Speaker 1: in the winter of nineteen thirty two, another nurse is
Speaker 1: said to have thrown herself from the room's balcony. Though
Speaker 1: several colleagues tried to stop her, she slipped by them
Speaker 1: and leapt, plummeting to the lawn below. Unlike Mary Hillenburg,
Speaker 1: this other nurse's name has been lost to time. Is
Speaker 1: it a true story, did something in the room somehow
Speaker 1: make her do it? Or is it simply one more
Speaker 1: legend folded into the history of Waverly Hills. Whatever the
Speaker 1: case may be, what is certain are the many complaints
Speaker 1: and claims made by staff and patients who spent time
Speaker 1: in the eerie property over the years. Many are said
Speaker 1: to have reported feeling cold spots in the rooms on
Speaker 1: even the most humid of days, or a feeling of
Speaker 1: intense depression that dissipated the moment they left. Several nurses
Speaker 1: claimed to see a dim female shape dressed in white
Speaker 1: and a disembodied voice screaming get out. Two months after
Speaker 1: Lynn and Ronda's visit, in twenty ten, one of Waverly
Speaker 1: Hills's current owners, Charlie Mattingly, was apparently alone at the
Speaker 1: property when a woman arrived, claiming to be working on
Speaker 1: post production for a paranormal show that had recently filmed.
Speaker 1: There After Charlie led her into the building, she climbed
Speaker 1: the stairs from the main hallway and quickly slipped out
Speaker 1: of sight. Slightly irked by her uninvited arrival, Charlie called
Speaker 1: the number he'd been given by the production company to
Speaker 1: check her credentials. The company told him that they hadn't
Speaker 1: sent anyone to Waverly Hills that day. Charlie radioed his
Speaker 1: security staff and two members of the team were promptly
Speaker 1: dispatched to find the mysterious woman. They eventually caught up
Speaker 1: with her on the third floor landing, where she admitted
Speaker 1: she'd lied to gain admittance, so she apparently wouldn't give
Speaker 1: them her name. She explained that she was a medium
Speaker 1: who'd been drawn to the third floor of the old
Speaker 1: sanatorium after making contact with the spirit of a young
Speaker 1: girl named Mary. Charlie was immediately skeptical. Accounts of the
Speaker 1: hospital's apparent hauntings were hardly kept secret, and Mary was
Speaker 1: just about the most obvious name the so called medium
Speaker 1: could have plucked out of the air. He was about
Speaker 1: to demand she leave when she suddenly jerked to attention
Speaker 1: and fixed her gaze on a nearby door. Since he
Speaker 1: didn't want to man handle a stranger, Charlie was content
Speaker 1: to let her cross the corridor and wander into the
Speaker 1: room beyond. This was Mary's room. She said, if you
Speaker 1: look in the closet, you'll find her things. By now
Speaker 1: a little curious himself, Charlie obliged, but when he opened
Speaker 1: the closet, all he could see was dust and scattered debris.
Speaker 1: But before he could say a word, the woman stepped
Speaker 1: up beside him and said, you're looking in the wrong place.
Speaker 1: She pointed to the back of the closet, where a
Speaker 1: crack in the plaster exposed a cavity. Charlie reached in
Speaker 1: and felt several loose objects. First, he pulled out a
Speaker 1: metal fork, which everyone present could only look at in confusion,
Speaker 1: followed by a single small house slipper. Then he reached
Speaker 1: behind the plaster again and withdrew three brown photographs. The
Speaker 1: first was of a stretch of rural road, empty and
Speaker 1: tree lined. The second captured a group of four middle
Speaker 1: aged men sitting on a wall, seemingly at rest from work.
Speaker 1: The final photograph was of a young woman with a
Speaker 1: shy smile and long brown hair. On the back, in
Speaker 1: neat cursive was written the name Mary Lee. At this point,
Speaker 1: according to Charlie, the mysterious woman gave a slight smile
Speaker 1: and left the room. Despite calling her back, she apparently
Speaker 1: ignored them, descended the stairs and left the hospital. No
Speaker 1: one to this day knows her name or who she
Speaker 1: really was. Every floor of Waverly Hills has its own
Speaker 1: share of legend and encounter. On the ground floor of
Speaker 1: the north wing there is a pair of old, stained
Speaker 1: wooden doors. They give access to a grim concrete tunnel
Speaker 1: running five hundred and twenty five feet on a downward slant.
Speaker 1: The tunnel was once equipped with a pulley car system
Speaker 1: to carry supplies from the bottom of the hill. However,
Speaker 1: at the peak of the hospital's capacity, the death shoot,
Speaker 1: as it was morbidly named, was used to discreetly transport
Speaker 1: bodies down to a receiving hearse. During those peak years,
Speaker 1: over a thousand bodies made their final journey through this
Speaker 1: dark conduit. It's no surprise that such a micabreough feature
Speaker 1: has become an epicenter for much of the hospital's alleged
Speaker 1: uncanny activity. Several ghosts are said to appeer in and
Speaker 1: around the tunnel, including the shade of an old man
Speaker 1: and his dog. Tina Mattingly, the wife of Charlie and
Speaker 1: co owner of the property, told BuzzFeed reporters that while
Speaker 1: locking up after a guided tour, she saw a tall,
Speaker 1: disheveled man with long, thinning hair. He didn't move, simply
Speaker 1: stared Caught in the beam of her flashlight. Tina jumped
Speaker 1: back in shock and lost sight of him. After collecting herself,
Speaker 1: she began to explore near by rooms, looking for what
Speaker 1: she presumed was a member of the tour or an intruder,
Speaker 1: but the man was nowhere to be seen. Returning to
Speaker 1: the main corridor, she looked down to where a German
Speaker 1: shepherd dog was lying calmly on the floor. She called
Speaker 1: to it, but it refused to move. After a second,
Speaker 1: it was gone. According to Tina, I didn't see it disappear.
Speaker 1: It didn't get up and walk away. It just wasn't
Speaker 1: there any more. Tina likes to think that even if
Speaker 1: what remains of the old man is stuck in the
Speaker 1: grounds of the hospital, then at least he's with his
Speaker 1: best friend. The apparent ghost most associated with the tunnel
Speaker 1: and ground floor is similarly benign. Many visitors claim to
Speaker 1: have interacted with the shadow of a young boy who,
Speaker 1: legend has it was named Timmy. According to law, Timmy
Speaker 1: first came to the hospital in nineteen thirty when he
Speaker 1: was six, accompanying his infected parents. When they died in
Speaker 1: the upper wards, Timmy was placed in the children's hospital,
Speaker 1: where he first caught the disease and then succumbed to it.
Speaker 1: He is apparently seen throughout the grounds, but mostly at
Speaker 1: the tunnel entrance. Timmy has become the focus of most
Speaker 1: ghost hunting expeditions to Waverley Hill, both because of the
Speaker 1: mass of physical phenomena associated with its presence, but also
Speaker 1: because the playful spirit of a six year old boy
Speaker 1: is a far less fearsome prospect than other lingering residents.
Speaker 1: After all, no one wants to meet the Creeper. Of
Speaker 1: all the entities encountered in Waverly Hills, the shadowy figure
Speaker 1: known as the Creeper as the most fearsome reputation, said
Speaker 1: to have been encountered all over the hospital, but most
Speaker 1: associated with the second and fourth floors. The Creeper is
Speaker 1: said to be a humanoid figure seemingly made from nothing
Speaker 1: but corporeal shadow. Those who claim to have seen it,
Speaker 1: and there are many, describe it in unnervingly consistent terms
Speaker 1: as a dark figure with arms that seem too long
Speaker 1: for its body, and everything below the waist into an
Speaker 1: ill defined mass. It rarely approaches directly and is most
Speaker 1: often spotted from the corner of a nervous eye, crawling
Speaker 1: along the walls or ceiling when the visitor's back is turned.
Speaker 1: Many photos have been taken of strange, out of place
Speaker 1: shadows in the halls that make no sense in relation
Speaker 1: to light sources. In the early twenty twenties, a woman
Speaker 1: named Moira was taking part in a guided tour of
Speaker 1: the sanatorium when she started to feel a little too
Speaker 1: unnerved by the stories of death and disease. While the
Speaker 1: tour guide was showing off the heliotherapy rooms on the
Speaker 1: fifth floor, Moira excused herself and descended to the second
Speaker 1: floor to use one of the renovated bathrooms. Stepping inside,
Speaker 1: she was immediately surprised by a distinct chill in the room,
Speaker 1: despite it being a pleasant day outside and the windows
Speaker 1: being closed. Moira was about to enter a cubicle when
Speaker 1: she heard the unsettling sound of heavy dragging coming from
Speaker 1: the corridor beyond. Then the door slowly groaned open. Moira
Speaker 1: fixed her attention on the middle of the doorway, where
Speaker 1: a human would be framed, but it stayed empty. It
Speaker 1: was only when her gaze jerked upwards when she saw
Speaker 1: the long, dark arms reaching around the upper segment of
Speaker 1: the door. Moira claims that a human torso then pulled
Speaker 1: itself into the bathroom and crept across the ceiling in
Speaker 1: a series of uncanny jerking movements. The thing, whatever it was,
Speaker 1: is said to have pursued Moira into a cubicle before
Speaker 1: she eventually managed to run away and rejoin the group.
Speaker 1: After reporting what had happened to the tour guide, she
Speaker 1: was met with only a knowing smile. Despite years of
Speaker 1: research and apparent encounters, no one has ever found a cause, backstory,
Speaker 1: or explanation for that most sinister of Waverley's residents, Co
Speaker 1: owner Tina Mattingly claims that some troublesome patients were kept
Speaker 1: from roaming the halls by having weights attached to their legs.
Speaker 1: If any staff heard the dragging of the irons, they
Speaker 1: would know that someone was out of their room, though
Speaker 1: this has never been verified. For the next half century
Speaker 1: after it ceased to be a sanatorium, Waverley Hills went
Speaker 1: through various owners and reincarnations. From nineteen sixty two to
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty it was a geriatric care facility, which was
Speaker 1: eventually shut down amid controversy about patient cruelty, including the
Speaker 1: liberal application of electroshock therapy. After that, it stood empty
Speaker 1: for twenty years. One developer, J. Clifford Todd, had plans
Speaker 1: to reopen it as a prison and, failing that, luxury apartments,
Speaker 1: but in the end couldn't raise the capitol. A subsequent
Speaker 1: owner had plans to demolish the hospital and replace it
Speaker 1: with the world's largest statue of Jesus. The project fell
Speaker 1: short of its fundraising aims, and Waverly Hills continued its
Speaker 1: lonely vigil as just another dilapidated ruin on the edge
Speaker 1: of an American town, gathering shadows and rumors along with
Speaker 1: its dust. Finally, in two thousand and one, a full
Speaker 1: forty years after it closed its doors on the last
Speaker 1: TB patient, the property was purchased by the Mattingleys. Rather
Speaker 1: than demolishing the ruin, the Mattingleys turned it into a
Speaker 1: museum and leased it to the Waverly Hills Historical Society,
Speaker 1: who run regular tours of both the history and the hauntings. Today,
Speaker 1: if you dare, you can run your own personal expedition
Speaker 1: into the facility and spend a long night alone inside
Speaker 1: what some claimed to be America's most haunted hospital. But
Speaker 1: the precise nature of just who or what you might
Speaker 1: encounter there seems destined to forever remain unexplained. This episode
Speaker 1: was written by Neil McRobert and produced by Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Thank you as ever for listening Unexplained as an Avy
Speaker 1: Club production podcast created by Richard McLain smith. All other
Speaker 1: elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced
Speaker 1: by me. Richard McLain Smith Unexplained. The book and audiobook
Speaker 1: is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon,
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Speaker 1: and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or
Speaker 1: ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you have an explanation or a story of your own
Speaker 1: you'd like to share. You can find out more at
Speaker 1: Unexplained podst dot com and reaches online through x and
Speaker 1: Blue Sky at Unexplained pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com,
Speaker 1: Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast