HGB Ep. 571 - Old Montana Prison

Moment in Oddity - Justin Bishop Blind Skateboarder

Sometimes you'll see a Grom going goofy-foot as they anchor-grind, maybe they are doing a pop-shove-it, hand plant or an alley-oop, but rarely do you see anyone skating as a blind person. These descriptive words are all skating terminology, as in skateboarding. When I was young, I used to skate on my penny board eventually graduating to a real deck. As a kid I even taught a couple of tricks to my neighbors. I recently came across the story of Justin Bishop. At just 8 years old, Justin was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa. This is a rare eye disease which typically causes the afflicted to go blind by middle age. Justin lost the majority of his eyesight at 25 and stopped skating while he concentrated on learning how to navigate life which would be his new normal. But Justin Bishop is anything but normal. His passion drove him to get back on his deck just four years after that! Justin skates with a cane. This additional sensory assist helps him feel the curve of a bowl or the width of a wall that he is grinding on. During an interview, Justin shared this about another item that assists him while he skates. "Zappos kind of saw one of my videos using it (the it being a beeping box that helps him "see" an area with his ears) and they do a program with Not Impossible Labs, and they actually made something called a phased array speaker system. It’s pretty much a beeper box on steroids. So I can actually change the direction of the sound. I can make a wall of sound. I can manipulate sound in all these crazy ways. So I’ve been using that a lot more to skate." Previously Justin was skating by muscle memory. Today he is a professionally sponsored skateboarder and is learning new tricks and gaining speed with confidence. This type of triumph that Justin Bishop has obtained takes perseverance and passion and I don't know that it makes him odd, but he certainly is awesome!

This Month in History - Aberdeen Snowman (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

In the month of January, on the 2nd, in 1963 an incredibly large snowman was built in Aberdeen, Scotland. It all started during Britain's Big Freeze which began on Boxing Day in 1962 and continued on for the following three months. Due to the amount of snowfall, school kids were enjoying a snow day. Siblings Roddy Stuart, age 16, brother Michael, 21 and sister Leslie 18 decided to create something unexpected during their time away from school. Leslie's boyfriend David, now husband, assisted the siblings as well. A snowman is not unexpected, however, a 17 foot tall snowman is not something one sees every day! It took them less than a day to complete the towering chap and the group topped him off with a straw basket hat, scarf and a pipe. Not only did the frozen creation resemble a snowman, but it had sculpted shoulders, arms, hands and legs! It was quite the endeavor that the young adults accomplished brilliantly! The snowman also caught the attention of the press and articles were run in the local Evening Express and international newspapers. Even a five year old girl in Florida saw the news about the snowman and she wrote a letter which was sent to Aberdeen. It was simply addressed to "Snowman Builder Roddy". Her letter read,  “Dear Roddy, I thought you might be happy to see how far your talents have reached in this wonderful world of ours.” Roddy responded to the young girl by writing her back and sending a copy of the Evening Express article along with 2 photos. The kid's fantastic feat is still noted today. And, not for lack of attempts by others, but there has never been a taller snowman built in Aberdeen to date.

Old Montana Prison (Suggested by: Sara Jimison)

The Old Montana Prison is said to be the most haunted location in Southwest Montana. This was a state prison that was used for over 100 years and was the first Territorial Prison in the western part of the United States. The prison closed in 1979 and has reopened as a venue with multiple museums, the main one being the prison itself. There were deaths here and a violent riot and perhaps that is why spirits walk the corridors and hide in the cells. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Old Montana Prison!

Deer Lodge is the second oldest town in Montana. We generally start these city histories with the Native American groups that lived in the area, but when it comes to Deer Lodge, there were no indigenous groups that lived there. They occasionally gathered for events like horse races. Lewis and Clark were the first documented visitors to pass by the Deer Lodge Valley and by 1846, the valley was part of the Oregon Territory. It moved to the Washington Territory and then the Idaho Territory before it finally was the Montana Territory in 1864. Johnny Grant was the first settler here and he raised cattle and horses. He encouraged others to join him, which wasn't hard to do when gold was found nearby. At the time, Deer Lodge was known as LaBarge City. In 1866, Conrad Kohrs bought Grants holdings and he became a Cattle King in Montana with over 50,000 head of cattle that grazed over 10 million acres. That property is now the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site. A territorial prison would be established at Deer Lodge in 1869.

This is a really cool looking prison. It looks like a red brick castle with lots of windows along the sides with turreted towers and iron gates. The property has several buildings including the Administration Building, the General Population Cell Blocks, the Library, the Death Tower, the Chapel, isolation cells and Maximum Security. This all got started with a Federal bill that put aside $40,000 for a Montana Penitentiary. The local government picked C. S. Ream and William Sturgis "to locate and fix the site for said penitentiary" and they chose a town called Argenta. The Territorial Government decided against the recommendation and ultimately chose Deer Lodge City, as it was called at the time. But as is the case so often with bureaucracy and funding, there wasn't enough money and there were many delays before the cornerstone was finally laid on June 2, 1870. George McBurney and William Lenior were contracted to construct the new prison. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, Lenior died suddenly. McBurney continued without him. Convict labor was used to build the prison and they laid 1.2 million bricks. Those bricks were quarried from a nearby area.

There was nothing fancy about this jail. The first wing to be finished was described as "nothing but bare stone walls, roof, floor, fourteen brick cells, six by eight feet, in the clear--with nothing between them and the roof, and only gratings for the lower windows." The outer sandstone walls stood 24-feet high with an additional four feet below the ground to prevent escape. The prison officially opened and took in its first nine convicts on July 2, 1871. William F. Wheeler was the U.S. Marshall for the Montana Territory and he was placed in charge of the Montana Prison. The first prisoner was Samuel E. Hughes who committed an armed assault and was sentenced to a year in prison. In these first couple of years, the prison was under Federal ownership even though only one person was a Federal prisoner. The rest were territorial prisoners. This seemed to be the case at many territorial prisons and the U.S. Congress decided to transfer the penitentiaries to their respective territorial governments. The Montana Prison had this happen on May 15, 1873. There were 21 inmates incarcerated at the time.   

A three-member directors' board with a warden was chosen as the best route to manage the prison. Those members were Hugh Duncan, J. H. Robertson, and Granville Stuart. C. B. Adriance became the warden. The board immediately petitioned for more cells to be built. Congress awarded the money and the new cell block was described as, "The building is of stone and its length is eighty and its width by forty feet on the outside. The walls are two feet thick and twenty-two feet high. The mansard roof makes a story and gives room for a third tier of cells. When the building was accepted it had but one tier of fourteen cells built in the center of the ground floor...Since then we have constructed a second tier of cells, above the others at a cost of $6,000.00." Despite the new cells, the prison was still inadequate for the needs of the community. The central administration building was constructed in 1884. This was made from stone and 50 feet long and housed the guards sleeping quarters, warden's office and a visitor's reception room.

In 1890, Frank Conley became the warden. As a teenager, he helped create Yellowstone National Park and then later he joined the Central Montana Vigilance Committee. He became a Deputy Sheriff and was assigned the duty to transport criminals to the Montana State Prison. He liked it there and joined as a guard and worked his way up. Conley would be responsible for building the bulk of the structures here. He was the one who constructed the outer walls that still stand today. He built separate housing for female prisoners. Several cell blocks were added. Several hundred inmates could be housed after this. And he built the first ever prison theater. This would be the WA Clark Theatre, which was named for Copper King William A. Clark who donated $10,000 for the theater. The theater had leather seats and could seat 1,000 people. There were plays, concerts, prize fights, movies and more. A fire broke out in the theater in 1975 and completely destroyed it. It was ruled arson. Conley became mayor of Deer Lodge eventually. he also became a corrupt man through the years and got very powerful. He was stripped of his role as warden, but stayed mayor. He died in Deer Lodge in 1939.
  
Life in the prison was very regimented. Inmates did all the work when it came to construction and they also made their own clothes, cooked, cut lumber, and performed 'all that is done for the prison and themselves.' If an inmate wanted to grow a mustache, he had to get permission from state authorities and there were written guidelines they had to follow. Potential escapees were issued shoes with concrete soles that weighed twenty pounds each. The interior was painted a drab gray and there was a broad yellow stripe along the floor to define the prisoner's walkway. Solitary confinement cells had heavy metal doors that blocked out all light and sound. Two of the worst areas in the prison were nicknamed "Siberia" and "The Hole." Siberia was an area that was freezing cold in the winter. Maximum Security was known as the Black Box and as many inmates died there as those who were executed. 

Let's talk about some of the inmates. Charles Panzram served time here from 1913 to 1915. He was an American serial killer, spree killer, mass murderer, rapist, child molester, arsonist, robber, thief and burglar who confessed to having murdered twenty-one boys and men, only five of which could be corroborated. It is thought he may have killed upwards of 100 boys and men.

Paul “Turkey Pete” Eitner resided in Cell No 1. Eitner had been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in 1918. He got his nickname because he was placed in charge of the prison's turkey flock. Turkey Pete was a model prisoner who eventually lost his mind. The prison's website describes what happened with Turkey Pete next, "Losing touch with reality, at one point he 'sold' the entire flock for the sum of 25 cents per bird, beginning a new career as the prison entrepreneur. Humoring his mental condition, inmates were allowed to print Eitner checks in the prison print shop and he was permitted to 'purchase' the prison and run it from his cell. He 'paid' all prison expenses and 'paid' the guards salaries. At age 89, Turkey Pete died in 1967 after 49 years behind bars. At his death, Cell No 1 was retired from use. His was the only funeral ever held within the walls of the prison."

One of the female inmates here was Muriel Murphy who was one of the youngest persons ever sentenced to life in prison. She was fifteen at the time. Murphy was an accomplice to her boyfriend William Newman who robbed a man named Gust Anderson outside of a bar. Murphy lured him outside and her boyfriend hit him over the head. Anderson was taken to a hospital where he developed pneumonia and died a couple days later. Murphy and Newman were charged with first degree murder. They were found guilty and would've been given the death penalty had the teens not claimed that Anderson had grabbed Muriel and Newman was defending her when he hit Anderson over the head. The judge gave them life in prison instead. The judge really felt bad about giving the teens this sentence and before they were led away he said, "This sentence does not really mean what it says. You may apply to the executive department and when the time comes, I will do all I can.” Muriel and William only served three years before they were released on conditional paroles. They married and started a family.

Lucy Cornforth was another female inmate. She ended up here after very tragic circumstances. First, Lucy was deficient intellectually. A local sheepherder took advantage of her by asking her to deliver a note to the young daughter of her neighbors. The little girl's parents got the note from their daughter and when they read it, they discovered it contained improper intentions. The parents came to Lucy and threatened to  ruin the lives of her and her daughter, Mary. Lucy's response to this was that she decided to kill herself and her daughter Mary. She went and bought some strychnine and poured it into a cup. Then she thought about it and decided that wasn't a good idea and put the cup aside. Mary had heard her mother talking about the poison and what she was going to do, so she grabbed the cup and drank the poison. Nobody knows why she made that decision. Lucy was arrested and she plead not guilty and then later plead guilty and a judge was going to giver her the death penalty until he realized that Lucy had mental in-capacities. Twenty-five years later, in 1954, a retired teacher wrote the parole board asking that Lucy be considered for parole. It was decided she couldn't cope with the outside world. She was sent to the Warm Springs Mental Facility for several years after that, but she eventually was released and she moved to Florida where she died in 1966. 

By the way, that psychiatric hospital is known as the Montana State Hospital and is still open today. It opened in 1877, so has been open for nearly 150 years and was the first hospital of its kind in the state. This was one of those hospitals that embraced eugenics and at least 256 people were forcibly sterilized from 1923 to 1954. Reports of abuse of patients have happened as recently as 2023. There are two cemeteries on the property and its thought that up to 5,000 people may be buried here. There are those that claim some restless spirits wander the cemeteries and the grounds. A ghost nurse haunts the main hospital.

Orlando Camillo Hanks was known as Charley Jones or Deaf Charley. He was an outlaw who was part of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch. Many claim he was the toughest of the outlaws. He robbed trains and was finally caught in 1892 robbing the Northern Pacific train at Big Timber, Montana. He served 8 years in the Montana State Prison and was released on April 30, 1901. Then he joined Butch Cassidy. He would come to his end in a saloon in San Antonio, Texas when Pink Taylor, who was the local law, recognized him and pulled a gun. Shots were fired and Deaf Charley fell dead.

Inmate Jerry Myles was the instigator of a riot at the prison in 1959. The Montana Prison was one of the worst in the country and was run with a "con boss" system. A con boss system is like a dictatorship among the inmates. One rises to the top and runs everything and that "everything" is stuff like protection, goods and illicit activities. The boss gets to the top  with manipulation and sometimes physical strength and he is usually part of a gang that he already runs, so he has the back-up of his gang members. At the Montana State Prison, Jerry Myles was one of the con bosses. He had been in prison longer than he had been free and he liked the hierarchy of the prison. He was a psychopath whom everyone called "Little Hitler." Myles was ruthless in his domination and he stalked young men for sexual favors. Another inmate named Lee Smart joined Myles in starting the riot.

The governor of Montana had appointed all the wardens up until 1958. It was after the resignation of Warden Burrell in 1958 that the Montana Council on Corrections decided that they themselves would conduct a nationwide search. They believed it was time for change. Floyd Powell was a man of reform who was from Wisconsin and the council chose him as the next warden. Powell had eighteen years of experience and he brought along his friend Ted Rothe to be his deputy warden. The two men committed themselves to abolishing the con boss system. They worked on getting rid of the black market in the prison and also getting rid of the drugs. Many guards were involved in the black market and they cracked down on them, either firing them or retraining them. Food quality was improved, but a rule was implemented that inmates had to eat all that they took. Both guards and inmates were resistant to the changes and con bosses weren't about to give up their power.

Into this steps Jerry Myles who already had experience with starting big trouble in prisons. He organized a mutiny in a federal penitentiary in Georgia in 1944, which ended up with him being shipped off to Alcatraz. While there, he learned all about rioting from the Battle of Alcatraz. He had arrived at the Montana prison in June of 1958. In April 1959, Myles instigated the riot with Lee Smart. Smart brought on his buddy George Alton. The men had figured out that the inmate to guard ratio was at its lowest during the dinnertime turnover. Alton had access to gasoline in the prison garage, so when the turnover started he grabbed some and gave it to Smart. Myles made a torch out of a mop. They loitered near a guard named Gus Byars who was on a catwalk in Cellblock 1 and surprised him by throwing gasoline on him and then lighting the torch with a match. Byars realized he was going to die if he didn't cooperate and he gave up his keys and rifle. Smart and Myles then locked him up in the hole.

Other inmates ambushed the other two guards in Cellblock 1. Several of the inmates then went to Cellblock 2 where the ammunition was stored. They easily overtook that block as well. Within 30 minutes, the inmates had control of the whole facility except for the upper floor of the Administration Building and the minimum security housing. Deputy Warden Rothe was oblivious to what was happening until Myles rushed into his office with a meat cleaver. Rothe managed to fight him off, but then Smart came in with a rifle and hit Rothe in the chest with a blast from it, killing the deputy warden instantly. The inmates forced another guard to call Warden Powell and tell him that there was a slight disturbance. The minute Poweel entered the Administration Building, he was taken hostage. The warden was forced to call the Governor, who was out of town, but he left a message that was a code the Governor would understand and know that the Warden had been compromised.

The Warden was left with a prisoner whom he promised amnesty if he helped and the inmate agreed and spread the word to the rest of the inmates. Several of them helped the Warden escape. Myles and his crew of inmates were angry to find out the Warden was gone and they began building an escape tunnel, which was doomed from the bigging because the jail was specifically designed to prevent tunneling. Warden Powell came back into the prison and negotiated with Myles who said he wanted reporters to be brought in so they could see the conditions the prisoners lived under. The Warden agreed, but he said nothing could be printed until all the hostages were freed. By the next day, the riot was international news. Three reporters came in and interview inmates and they left without incident. But Myles was angry, He wanted lots of reporters, so he wouldn't agree to release hostages. Myles said he wouldn't release anyone until the story ran and the Warden refused to run it. This started a 24-hour standoff.

Myles kept shouting to reporters outside the jail, but the rest of the inmates were giving up because they knew escape was impossible. The Montana National Guard finally came in and broke up the riot. It had lasted thirty-six hours, with only Deputy Warden Rothe dying on the police side, but several other guards were injured. Myles and Smart died via a murder-suicide. The Warden went through the entire prison with the National Guard and had all 438 inmates strip searched and their cells were emptied. Nearly 400 knives were confiscated and several truck loads of contraband were hauled off to the dump.

The prison eventually became outdated and the guards were horribly underpaid. The facility finally shut down in 1979. Today, the Old Montana Prison hosts five unique museums that include the Old Montana Prison, Powell County Museum, Frontier Montana Museum, Yesterday's Playthings and the Montana Auto Museum. It's closed during the Winter. Visitors can do guided tours of self-guided tours and there are also overnight ghost hunts. And there are ghost hunts because this is one of the most haunted locations in Montana. People claim to have been scratched. Disembodied footsteps are heard. Paranormal investigators have found that they get some of the best responses when it comes to responsive knocking. Investigators will knock out a pattern and ask for it to be replicated. Or they might ask for knocks as replies to questions. The general public usually doesn't have access to the Death Tower (which is technically the Northwest Tower), but ghost hunts do get to go to this area. Guided ghost hunts also get to investigate the Administration Building, Maximum Security, General Population and the Auditorium.

Ghost Adventures investigated during Season 11. They caught an interesting orb coming down directly from the noose in the gallows and also the sounds of a loud trap door noise and disembodied footsteps. The Ovilus came up with the words: "TOM", "WOODS", "SHOOT", "SELF" and "WEAPON." They had equipment issues and the batteries in one of the cameras even started fizzling acid. They felt cold spots and captured a figure on the SLS Camera going up and down the stairs in the gallows and moving its arm on command. They also caught a figure using the digital still camera outside in the yard.

Ghost Files with Ryan and Shane visited the prison in October 2023. They set up cameras and recorders in various areas, one of which was the 1912 Cellblock where apparently, a cannibalistic Satan worshiper was housed. The show claims this was Stanley Dean Baker who murdered, dismembered and partially ate James Schlosser in Montana. He and an accomplice were apprehended in California and brought back to Montana. Everything I looked up said Baker was sent to Park County Jail and then a mental hospital called Warm Springs. So I'm not sure he was at this prison. He was arrested in 1970 and this prison closed in 1979. So anyway, when Ryan and Shane asked how long someone had worked there or lived there, the Ovilus responded "eight." They also managed to get a spirit to respond with two solid claps. They stomped and got more clapping.

Ghost Lab investigated during its second season and Barry Klinge said this was his favorite episode from that season. An investigator told The Blaze rock station in 2021, " I experienced tables and chairs moving inside cells as well as disembodied whistles in the main cell block." A group investigating in 2017 asked the Spirit Box for a name and got "Jerry." They also captured three unexplained knocks. Then a flashlight started flickering and an investigator asked if someone was messing with the light and they caught a voice saying "That was me." There were also disembodied footsteps recorded. They also captured a whispered "no" and a male voice mumbling. And a maximum security cell opened and an investigator yelled "That was me!" This was followed by a cell slamming shut and the investigator yelled "That was not me!"

The Spokane Paranormal Society investigated in October of 2018. The Montana Right Now website wrote the story about the visit. A woman named Heather Gregory is a docent at the jail and she gave the group a guided tour before they investigated. She said, "At nighttime you'll feel like you're being watched, and turn around and get that glimmer." During the tour, the group heard unexplained sounds and one member was scratched on his shoulder by something as he descended the stairs from one of the towers at the prison. He said, "It hit me as I was going down the last part of the stairs." The group detected the smell of sulfur and a couple members felt nauseous. One of them was their medium Sarah James. She said, "I pick up on the negativity of this place. But, it's a prison. Anyone would think it would be negative. I do believe there's good here as well." During the investigation, they captured a couple of shadow figures on GoPros and noises on recorder.

An article on the Visit Southwest Montana website shares about a ghost hunting experience at the jail, "It wasn’t until we were exploring the prison alone that I truly felt an unexplainable presence. The first such experience took place in the prison yard in the Canteen. We entered the area, placed a simple cat toy on the ground between us and turned on a highly sensitive microphone. While I could hear nothing, someone mentioned hearing footsteps entering the room – we were of course alone and no one joined us. While the cat toy had remained unmoved up to this point (even with a couple strong gusts of wind) we asked the spirits to make the toy light up if they were there and promptly without question the ball lit up. As the flickering stopped, we proceeded saying that if they wanted to communicate to again move the toy and make it light up. Again, the toy flashed on. 'We are going to ask you some questions, light up the toy if you understand' – instant lights. 'If the answer to the question is yes, please light up the ball. Does that make sense?' – again the ball lit up. We carried on a conversation and eventually asked 'do you like visitors at the prison' – yes – 'do you want us to stay' – nothing – 'would you prefer if we left?' – yes. We quietly thanked the spirit for their time and exited back to the prison yard. Having been on edge all night, a sense of calm washed over me following this experience as if reassured that the spirits themselves enjoyed our company."

The Old Montana Prison has a long history. Like so many other historic jails, this one has its share of ghost stories. Is the Old Montana Prison haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 380 - Old Hamilton County Jail

Our sponsor for this episode is Wooga's June's Journey: The Lost Diaries Podcast. Check it out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast and anywhere you listen to podcasts!

Moment in Oddity - The Great Pig War

San Juan Island is located between Washington State and Canada and in the mid 1800s, the island was inhabited by Americans and British. Both countries claimed the island as their own because the Oregon Treaty didn't make it clear who had ownership. Things went pretty well despite this until The Great Pig War started. Lyman Cutlar was an American farmer who caught a British pig in his potato field. He shot the porcine thief and that was it. British Governor James Douglas ordered Cutlar to pay a $100 fine. Cutlar refused and the war was on. American Captain George Pickett was sent to the island to face off against the British who sent five warships and 2,000 troops. Pickett had been ordered to keep the British from getting on the island and he promised to make a Bunker Hill of the situation if he needed to. For a shot pig?! On the other side, the British Governor ordered his troops to take the island by force. British Rear Admiral Robert Baynes was in charge of the fleet of five ships and he thought about the orders for a minute. Was it really worth going to war over a pig? Baynes ordered his men to point their guns at an American fort, but they were told to stay on the ships and no order to fire was given. The Americans in turn also did not fire a shot. The two sides just stared each other down, neither wanting to start a war. We're not sure how long they sat there like that, but it would take 13 years before Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany gave San Juan Island to the United States. A war almost starting over a pig eating some potatoes, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Corporal Hiroshi H. Miyamura Becomes A Hero (Suggested by: Mike Rogers)

In the month of April, on the 24th, in 1951, Corporal Hiroshi H. Miyamura became a hero. Everyone called him Hershey and despite the fact that his wife was in an interment camp, he joined the US Army in 1945. Hershey was an American citizen, having been born in New Mexico. He trained as a machine gunner and was discharged at the end of World War II. He enlisted in the Armey Reserve and joined active duty again during the Korean War. On the night of April 24th, the Chinese attacked and soon Corporal Miyamura knew his troops would not be able to hold the line, so he ordered them to retreat while he stayed behind to offer cover. Hershey jumped from his shelter and rushed the Chinese. He bayoneted ten of them. He then returned to his position and got behind his machinegun and fired until he was out of bullets. The corporal left his spot, bayoneting his way over to another gun and fired until that gun ran out of ammunition. He killed another fifty men and then he was severly wounded. The Chinese captured him and he became a POW and would remain one for 28 months. He then was forced to march 300 miles before being released on August 20, 1953. Corporal Miyamura was awarded the Medal of Honor. He was the first recipient to be classified Top Secret because the government didn't want the Chinese to know what he had done to their men or he might have been killed while a prisoner.

Old Hamilton County Jail

In our modern era, we are used to large penitentiaries housing criminals, but there was a time when local cities and counties had fairly small jail houses where the warden would live with his family. We heard that one of our local paranormal investigation teams was hosting an investigation at one of these jails here in Florida, about 2.5 hours from us and we couldn't resist the chance to join them. The Hamilton County Jail was open for nearly 100 years and housed a variety of criminals and both men and women. Many people died here and at least three were executed and there are several bodies buried on the property. This has lead to claims of hauntings and based on our experiences, we would agree that this location is very active. Join us as we share our investigation of the Old Hamilton County Jail.

The Old Hamilton County Jail is located in Jasper, Florida and was built in 1893. The structure was constructed from red brick, steel and concrete and stands two-stories. Men and women were both housed in the jail and there were separate cells for not only them, but also African Americans. The jail was added to the Register of Historic Places in 1983 and the jail itself was used into the 1980s. Rehabilitation is being done and the building is in pretty good condition.

Jesse and Brooke of Brooksville PIT were our hosts and they took us on a tour of the property and shared what history they knew with us. They were a class act, care about the history and brought lots of equipment that they were generous in sharing. We started outside before heading into solitary confinement. The owner used ground penetrating radar on an area outside of solitary confinement and 84 bodies were detected. They only know of three hangings that took place at the jail. Two of those hangings were the last legal hangings east of the Mississippi River, making this an important historic location. Walter Durham was the name of the last man hanged and this happened in 1916. Durham shot and killed Sheriff's Officer W. Raiford Royals.

We then headed inside where Brooke explained that one half of the building was where the deputy sheriff lived with his family. The main floor had the master bedroom and the children slept upstairs. There was a sitting room with a fireplace on the first level, as well as the kitchen. Two children were born in the building. The local judge would come for dinner occasionally. The warden's wife cooked for more than just her family, she cooked for the inmates as well. That was until they finally hired a cook. As we said, there were women in the jail. Here Jesse and Brooke tell us about a couple of the female inmates. (OHCJ Women in Jail) We find out about the African American cell too. (OHCJ Black Cell)

The first room we investigated was a bedroom on the main floor that was used by the deputy warden's family and we weren't expecting much activity, but some responses we got from the dowsing rods were unsettling. (OHCJ Not Human) So this entity is claiming to be neither male or female and something other than human. We think we caught some kind of anomaly on EVP. There is a lot of background contamination, but this sounds odd. (OHCJ EVP Child) (OHCJ EVP Child Amped) We think it sounds like a child making a noise. Very similar to one we caught at Villisca House. The dowsing rods then did indicate that we had a little boy with us, but when we asked about age, the spirit seemed to have left.

Then we headed for a jail cell and things really picked up. We decided to do the Estes Method here and what worked good for us was using regular earbuds with shooting range ear muffs over the ears. Note: we take out a lot of the empty air in between responses. Diane felt like there were several spirits speaking at once because many voices came through and it was really hard to decipher what was being said. There were some really clear words though too. (OHCJ Estes 1) I laughed in the middle because I could tell the words were being said sloooowwwer. Then Kelly took over listening for awhile. (OHCJ Estes 2) Diane switched to a slower sweep to see if it worked better and here were the results. (OHCJ Estes 3) Too funny that you said touching REM Pod would not hurt and I say bullshit. So it makes us wonder now if they just doubted that to be true or if it does hurt a spirit? Kelly also invited the spirits to touch my hair. Remember that. Also remember that we got the name Bob. And very cool that it says there are 3 spirits there. We are going to get a third name.

Here is more of that Estes session. (OHCJ Estes 4) Rest of the session (OHCJ Estes 5) And that was the end of the Estes sessions. So it would seem we had 3 males and 1 female. Jesse checked in with us to see how things were going. (OHCJ Jesse) Sounded like another weird anomaly in that clip and as you heard, the flashlight turned on by itself. The EMF lit up periodically as we were in this cell. It went to red once when we asked them to get it there, but we mostly got a steady orange. We started a Facebook Live about this time and that video is up on our YouTube Channel, which you might want to check out so you can see what happens when Kelly jumps into a shower to see if she can coax some spirits out.

So Kelly did some dowsing rod questions in the cell and remember how she told the spirits they could touch Diane's hair? Well (OHCJ Hair) So now Diane has been touched again, but she wasn't the only one. Kelly was touched on her arm. (OHCJ Arm) Erina was watching the Live and suggested we try a dowsing rod session using the Estes Method, so we did. At the very beginning, you'll hear the Portal in the background. (OHCJ Estes Rods) So very interesting. It was like the spirits left right after responding they were there. Was it because Kelly was closed off? I love that Kelly could tell that the energy left with even the EMF going quiet. We continued and then the spirits indicated they wanted us to leave the cell. We moved to the African American cell and the EMF went crazy. This is where we had been told that people get scratched, but it was pretty uneventful for us in there.

We could hear another couple who were in a nearby cell and they mentioned the name Bob, so Diane went over to ask them about that. They had heard the name Bob come through the portal, Diane got that name and then we heard the portal say Bob again as Kelly started asking him questions with the dowsing rods. (OHCJ Bob) So there is definitely a Bob hanging out there. Bob claimed that he was a prisoner at the jail. Kelly also talked to Marney during this session and she could feel the difference in the rods. Next we headed to a cell where Brooke and another woman were using the SLS Camera. Kelly got in the shower and was joined by two entities. (OHCJ Shower) Based on this next bit of audio, we think one of the entities with Kelly was named Tom, whose name has come up for other investigators in the past. (OHCJ Tom) As you heard, the flashlight was going crazy. This next audio is fun. Kelly was finished playing in the shower and the spirit box responded. (OHCJ Shower Yep) Kelly got back in for a bit and there seemed to be a third entity that tried to join. It was real interesting to get to see and use the SLS Camera for ourselves. There was nothing else that the system could have been mapping other than Kelly.

We went back over to the living quarters and went upstairs to the children's room. There was a crib full of creepy dolls. We didn't get much interaction here other than a ball that moved ever so slightly. And the dowsing rods seemed to indicate a little girl was there with us. Our last spot that we investigated was solitary confinement. We used the dowsing rods and seemed to have a conversation with a former resident. (OHCJ Solitary)

We had such a great time at this location and plan to return again. Jails always provide us so many cool unexplained experiences and this one certainly did that. Is the Old Hamilton County Jail haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 375 - Wyoming Frontier Prison

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Moment in Oddity - Potong Gigi (Tooth Filing Ceremony) Suggested by: Scott Booker

We're  not sure if Bali has an obsession with vampires or if they really think that canine teeth just look prettier when they are filed down, but they've created a pretty bizarre ceremony around this practice. The Tooth Filing Ceremony or Potong Gigi as people from Bali call it, is observed when a young person comes of age. This is considered a beautiful and sacred ritual in the country. The ceremony has taken place for hundreds of years and is considered the last duty of a parent when preparing a child for the move to adulthood. Early ones were conducted in private at home, but today are an elaborate affair. These ceremonies take place in a temple with lots of prayers, chants and incense and a priest or priestess does the filing. The canine teeth are sharp and thought to represent the animal side of humans that usually presents as aggressive or evil behavior. These could be vices that need to be controlled. Filing down the points of the canines is a symbolic gesture of removing the evil from the fangs. Now these young adults can be thought of as angels on the right path versus demons prone to following the lusts of the heart. The fact that smooth canine teeth symbolizes goodness, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - The Boston Massacre

In the month of March, on the 5th, in 1770, the Boston Massacre occurred beginning the road to the American Revolution. Tensions were running high between American colonists and the British when a group of Bostonians started protesting against a small group of British soldiers guarding the Boston Customs House. The colonists soon were hurling insults and snowballs. The soldiers were under orders not to shoot, but they fired into the crowd anyway. The first man struck was an African American sailor named Crispus Attucks. He would be considered the first hero of the American Revolution. Crispus had been working on whaling ships for 20 years after escaping slavery. Four other colonists were shot and killed, but their identities are lost to history. Paul Revere made a famous engraving depicting the event. British Captain Thomas Preston and eight of his troops were arrested and charged with murder. John Adams was a lawyer at the time and he defended the British. The Captain and six soldiers were acquitted, while two others were found guilty of manslaughter and punished with branding before being released. What started as a small event, made martyrs of the protesters and united the colonies in a desire for freedom from British tyranny.

Wyoming Frontier Prison (Suggested by Sandtrooper Mick)

Wyoming can be a beautiful state, but it can also be harsh, particularly in the winter. The Wyoming Frontier Prison was a brutal place with no heat during the savage winters and if a prisoner could manage to survive that, there were other threats to their life. Hundreds lost their lives via murder, suicide and execution. Enough men suffered and died here that a spiritual residue has built up and there are many ghost stories connected to the prison. Join us as we explore the history and haunts of the Wyoming Frontier Prison!

The city of Rawlins is where the frontier prison is located. Rawlins is located in the southern part of Wyoming and was originally part of an area that was called Carbon County that covered the entire width of the Wyoming Territory. The term carbon reflected the coal deposits found here. Every trail leading west crossed through here from the Oregon Trail to the Mormon Trail and even the Union Pacific Railroad. General John A. Rawlins was the chief of staff of the U.S. Army when he brought a group of his troops through to protect the surveyors laying out the first trans-continental route in 1867. It must have been hot because Rawlins kept wishing for a cold drink of water. A couple of scouts from his group went out and stumbled upon a natural spring with cool drinkable water. They brought some back for General Rawlins and he declared that the water was the most refreshing drink he had ever tasted. He then said, "If anything is ever named after me, I hope it will be a spring of water." And so the spring became Rawlins Springs and that is what the community that built up around it was known as until 1886, when the city was incorporated and the name was shortened to just Rawlins.

The land where the prison was built was bought from the railroad in 1888 and the cornerstone was laid that same year. The weather that we mentioned in the intro was so bad after construction on the prison started, that it took thirteen years to complete. Economic issues also factored in as funding was hard to come by from the state. Local granite stone was used as the construction material. The design was by Salt Lake City architect Warren E. Ware and is in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. There are two castle-like turrets with conical roofs on either side of the main structure that rises three and a half levels. The main building has a main entrance topped by a wide, semicircular arch with radiating voussoirs, which are tapered stones. The upper-story windows have similar decorative archways above them. Stepping inside the entrance, there is a massive iron-bar gate that shields the front door, sidelights, and transom. There is also a small, decorated, gabled dormer on the roof. This main building was the Administration Building that originally housed offices on the first floor, an infirmary and a few cells for women on the second floor, and a chapel on the third floor. There were women at this prison, but very few and only for a few years.

Annie Bruce was one of the women who did time here. Annie liked baking pies and on March 20, 1907, she baked five delicious pies. Well, maybe that one tasted a little different. And it should have because she poured a full bottle of Strychnine into that pie. Annie then put the pie in her father's lunch and after about three bites, he crumpled over in horrendous pain. His co-workers got him medical care, but it was too late and James Bruce died with enough poison in his body to kill five men. They traced it back to Annie and she was convicted of manslaughter, the first time a woman had been convicted of any degree of murder in Wyoming. Annie was also just fourteen years of age. She told the court, "While I was in the act of making the pies, a feeling or a wish came over me to kill someone and this feeling, I could not resist." She was sentenced to four years, but served only one of them at the Wyoming Frontier Prison. She was moved to the Colorado State Penitentiary by request of her family. She was the last woman to serve time at the Wyoming Frontier Prison.

Another female prisoner here was also named Annie, Annie Groves. She had worked in a nearby town as a lady of the evening and developed a bad relationship with one of her customers. His name was James Passwater and Annie blamed him for giving her a venereal disease. After a sore destroyed her lower lip, she decided to exact revenge and she got herself a gun. Annie's got a gun! She walked into the saloon where Passwater was sitting and she aimed for the back of his head. She missed, just grazing his hat and hitting another man in the shoulder. Annie was arrested and sentenced to a year hard labor at the jail. Her, uh husband...yes, Annie was married, got her a pardon after six months and the couple left the state.

The prison finally opened in December of 1901 and was originally known as the Wyoming State Penitentiary. This was Wyoming's first state prison. There was only the main Administration Building and Cell Block A that featured 104 cells at that time and there was no running water, no electricity and no heat. This jail was built to take some of the pressure off the federal prison in nearby Laramie and so the first prisoners brought in came from that facility. Work on expanding the jail started almost immediately as more room was needed. These additions would include guard quarters, water tower, boiler and pump houses, horse barn, warden's house,  storage buildings, a commissary and garages. Most continued the Romanesque style, but a view incorporated Mission style. Cell Block A didn't get running hot water until 1978. Overcrowding would always be an issue and in the eighty years that the prison was open 13,500 people would pass through its doors including eleven women. No women would be housed at the prison after 1909.

Cell Block B was added in 1950 and with this came solitary confinement cells. A plus would be that a heating system was a part of this cell block, along with hot running water. In 1966, Cell Block C was added, which included 36 cells that were set aside for inmates who were discipline issues. The roughest of the rough would be housed between these two cell blocks and this prison was not about rehabilitation. This place dished out the punishment. Solitary confinement was always full and there were various varieties of these. And there was a punishment pole. Men would be handcuffed to this and then whipped with rubber hoses. Security was not great for many years and there were many escapes. James Williams was an inmate who was killed while trying to escape. There were also suicides, mostly from men throwing themselves from upper floors. One guard that worked in Tower 9 was so stressed out that he also committed suicide. Two men died from freezing to death in cells that had no heat.

The Death House was added in 1916 for those who were sentenced to death. There were six cells and executions would take place inside as well. First there were hangings and then the gas chamber was added. The worst part of this prison probably would have to be the Julien Gallows. We've never heard of anything like this. Inmates were executed using this device from 1912 to 1933. This invention forced the inmates to kill themselves. What the inmate would do is step out onto a trap door and a stream of water was started that would eventually open the trap door, and the prisoner would drop through. The only problem with that was that the drop was not far enough to break the man's neck and they would then take several minutes to strangle. Nine men met their fate on the Julien Gallows. One has to wonder why this issue was never fixed. The gas chamber was added in 1936 when the state of Wyoming chose this as their new execution method. Hydrocyanic acid gas was used as the death agent. Five men would die in the gas chamber that had windows around it, so people could watch. In all, fourteen men were executed here. 

One of the more heinous events connected to the prison occurred in 1912. Details of inmate Frank Wigfall's biography are hard to trace. He died at the prison at either the age of 39 or 49. He was born in South Carolina and came to Wyoming when he was twenty-four. In 1901, Wigfall was arrested in Cheyenne on the charge of assault with intent to kill. He had gotten into a fight in a saloon and stabbed  Ollie Buckley who survived. Wigfall was arrested, convicted and sentenced to serve 18 months at the prison in Rawlins. When he was released, he moved to Laramie where he shared a room with a man who had a lady friend named Mrs. Kruppa. This woman had a twelve year old daughter named Helen and before long, Wigfall had been arrested for attempted rape of Helen. Wigfall plead guilty to avoid a trial and begged to be sent off to jail quickly because he feared lynching. He was sentenced to fourteen years. During his time in the jail, an older woman whom all the prisoners called Granny Higgins would bring fresh baked cookies for the prisoners. They all loved her. 

When Wigfall was released he went to Granny Higgins house and sexually assaulted her after breaking her door down with an ax. He ran away, but a posse tracked him down. Now while he had been put in jail before to protect him from lynching, this time the inmates would be the danger. John Neale was the Cell House guard and he was doing morning inspections of cells on Tier 3 when a group of forty inmates overtook him and locked him in a cell. This group then grabbed Wigfall and put a rope around his neck and marched him up the stairs to the top floor. They then threw him over the rail and hanged him. Newspapers across the nation reported, "Convicts Keep Secret Pact – Full details of Lynching May Never be Known." It was rumored that the inmates had threatened that anyone who squealed would be the next to hang.

Prisoners did have work at the Wyoming Frontier Prison. The prison produced brooms over a period of sixteen years, but this ended in 1917 when inmates burned down the broom factory during a riot. The building was rebuilt and became a shirt factory, which brought in a ton of revenue for the state. This was closed in 1934 and transformed into a woolen mill in 1935. The mill won the “Navy E” in 1942 for the superior quality blankets they produced during World War II for the military. After the war, production switched over to license plates and this would continue until the jail closed in 1981. The property was abandoned after closing until 1987, when it was used as a film location for a low budget movie titled "Prison" starring Viggo Mortensen. Since the prison had not been set aside as a historic site, it wasn't protected and the film production caused some major damage. This got preservationists involved and a joint powers board was formed. They renamed the jail "The Wyoming Frontier Prison" and reopened it as a museum. The prison got its listing on The National Registry of Historic Places, and now offers daily tours. Approximately 15,000 visitors pass through the doors annually.

One of the inmates here was Bill Carlisle, who was dubbed the gentleman bandit. He was nicknamed this because he never shot anyone and didn't take money from women, children or servicemen. He started his criminal life in 1916 by robbing his first train, a Union Pacific passenger train. Carlisle put on a white mask and pulled out a gun, ordering a sleeping porter to collect money from the male passengers. The gun he used was actually a glass gun that had been filled with candy. He escaped the train by jumping off the top of one of the cars and rolling away into the brush. A posse went out after him, but he eluded them. He then went after the Overland Limited on April 4, 1916. He got away from that train too and went on to rob another train later that month. This time, Carlisle was captured and he was sentenced to life in prison. He was a model prisoner at the Wyoming Frontier Prison until he escaped. He worked in the shirt factory and hid himself in a packing crate full of shirts. Carlisle got out of the box, boarded a train and proceeding to rob the men. A posse was already after him and knew he was on the train. When he jumped from the train, he was shot in the wrist, but still managed to make a run for it. The posse caught up with him two weeks later and he had a bad infection from his bullet wound. He was returned to prison on December 18, 1919. He was paroled on good behavior in 1936 and married the nurse who took care of his bullet wound. They opened a hotel together in Laramie and eventually moved to Pennsylvania where he died of cancer at the age of 74.

Al Biscaro entered the prison in 1920 on charges of grand larceny. He went by several names. Charles Nichols and William Morgan were a couple of his other names. He was a lifelong criminal who had already served three prison terms and was considered a really violent guy. He did, however; prove to be a model prisoner...until he decided to escape and he did this in a huge way. Four months after he was put in the prison, he developed appendicitis. The doctor in the prison was Dr. Barber and he did an emergency appendectomy on Biscaro who stayed in the infirmary for nearly a month. Biscaro asked for a meeting with the Warden who was named Hadsell or with the Deputy Warden named Kiefer. Both said they were too busy and this seemed to set Biscaro off. 

A man named Rich Magor came into the prison to do some handyman work. Dr. Barber had told him that he would give him a ride back to ton and so when he was finished, he went to the infirmary to wait for the doctor to get off work. Neither Dr. Barber or Magor knew that Biscaro's wife had somehow gotten a gun to him. He pulled out this revolver and everyone in the infirmary at gunpoint. This included Magor, Dr. Barber, a guard and seven other convicts. He told the guard to take his demands to the Warden. He wanted a car brought to the infirmary door with four women inside and for all the guards to be removed. If these demands were not met, he said he would kill the doctor - who had saved his life - and Magor. Dr. Barber and Magor offered themselves in place of the women, so Biscaro agreed to take them hostage instead. The doctor also offered his own car, which was near the infirmary. The Warden agreed to have the guards stand down until Biscaro was two blocks away. Biscaro loaded up his hostages and held a gun to Dr. Barber's head as he ordered him to drive. 

A posse set off almost immediately and Biscaro told Magor to tell the Warden if they continued their pursuit, he would kill the doctor and then he kicked Magor out of the car while it was traveling at 45 mph. Magor managed to survive the tumble without much injury and relaid the message, but the Warden wouldn't have to worry about the doctor for long. Dr. Barber knew he was a dead man and so he did a brave thing throwing his weight behind the wheel and wrecking his car on purpose. The doctor made his way out of the wreckage and ran, nearly being shot as Biscaro opened fire. Biscaro ran into a nearby ravine to hide. The posse began searching for him and heard three shots. When they followed the direction of the shots, they found Biscaro dead with self-inflicted wounds to his heart and head. The third bullet was never found. Biscaro’s wife, Grace Nichols, later confessed to providing the gun for her husband saying, "I’d do it again." When she was allowed to see Biscaro's body she said to him, "Well, Old Scout, guess I will finish your sentence."

There are many ghosts stories connected to this site. Many visitors and staff have seen the spirit of a black cat roaming about the cells and there is a good reason for that. The staff needed to test the mixer for the gas chamber and most times they would use a pig, but on this occasion they found a stray black cat and put it in the gas chamber. A tour guide named Erin was in A Block and she came out of a cell when a black cat darted out in front of her. He went around the corner and another tour guide named Molly was standing there and she saw the cat and then it just disappeared. Solitary Confinement or the Dungeon House or the Black Hole - names used by all the inmates - has a lot of activity. A malevolent spirit resides here and threatens anyone who ventures here. 

There are those who call the whole prison a death house. More than 200 prisoners died here. Some of their spirits remain. Ted Ford was a former tour guide at the museum and he claimed to see the figure of a man one day. He was standing in a doorway, so Ted approached him and he disappeared. Another tour guide named Kaitlyn saw a similar figure. She too saw him in a doorway after turning around and she was shocked to see him there. She thought somebody had broken in, so she shouted "hello" to let him know that she saw him. She walked towards him shouting "hey!" and he backed away in a room and when she got to the doorway, he was nowhere in the room. The interesting backstory is that both of these guides saw this man in the same doorway and this was near where a guard was beaten and stabbed to death by two inmates. They were drunk on some prison hooch. They dragged him down some stairs that lead into the room where the ghost disappeared. Was this shadow man the murdered guard?

A full-bodied apparition of a man wearing a brimmed hat has been seen in the Death House where inmates were hanged. Most apparitions are seen out of the corner of the eye. And back to the story about Wigfall, when conditions are right his lynching is played over as if on a loop. The Destination Mystery Team investigated the jail in July of 2020 and they believe they captured an apparition in the upstairs area of the chapel. It's an interesting capture. We'll share a still photo an Instagram and you can see what you think. Tina Hill was Museum Director back in 2001. She claimed to hear booted footsteps outside the public bathroom. When she walked over to the area, no one was there. This had once been the guards' kitchen. Another former tour guide named Becky Munsinger once saw a dark-haired man wearing a gray shirt and gray pants while walking a cell block one day.

(Warning) Andrew Pixley was one of the most notorious prisoners. A family from Chicago was in Jackson Hole on a ski vacation and he raped and killed the two young daughters, 11 and 12. The beating was horrible and there was evidence of cannibalism. While he was in his cell, he carved the faces of his female victims on the walls of the cell and referred to them as his guardian angels. Those carvings are still visible in the cell. He was killed in the gas chamber in 1965 and he took longer to die than any other man in the Death House. Most inmates took 3 minutes to die in the chamber. Pixley took a full six minutes. A tour guide named Mike calls this cell the scariest one in the Death House and he liked to tell guests on his tours that it took longer to kill Pixley because it is harder to kill evil. He had a chilling experience one day. He was recording the dates all the executions in the prison and he went up to the hanging room to verify some dates because they have them posted on the wall up there. It was dark and he needed a flashlight. The minute the beam fell upon the black eyes of Pixley in his mug shots, Mike heard the sobbing of little girls. The sound was coming from the gas chamber. He was scared to death. Especially when he realized the date. It was the same day that Pixley had been executed. They light a candle in there during tours and it flares brighter all the time. Another tour guide named Susie says the hair on the back of her neck always stands up when she is in that cell and talking about this prisoner.

Ghost Adventures investigated the prison in 2013. They captured a lot of unexplained noises on their audio recorder. To us it sounded like banging on the cell bars. They had a camera spin out in a shower room and fall down by itself and they all heard a male voice audibly. They checked the prison to make sure nobody was in there with them and they were the only ones. Billy was sitting in a cell block by himself and saw a light. He described it being as if a guard was walking the block with a flashlight, but he was alone in that area. The guys felt like they got some good evidence. It was definitely interesting.

The Wyoming Frontier Prison was a harsh and cruel place that became the final home for some 200 inmates who would not leave this location alive. Is it possible that some of their spirits are still here, trapped or otherwise? Is the Wyoming Frontier Prison haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 362 - 1837 Bed & Breakfast and the Old Jail

Moment in Oddity - Spider Webs as Bandages (Suggested by: Scott Booker)

Many of you listeners are probably afraid of spiders. So the idea of a spider web bandage might not be appealing. But the truth is that they make a great natural way to protect and heal wounds. The idea of using spider webs for bandages started in ancient Greece and Rome. They would first clean the wounds with honey and vinegar and then ball up spider webs to cover the wounds. THis would dry out the wound quickly. Spider webs were perfect for a number of reasons. They are rich in Vitamin K, which promotes clotting, they have natural antiseptic and anti-fungal properties as well. On top of this, the webs are very strong since they are made from silk produced from the body proteins of the spider. If you would like to give this a whirl, you need to find a newly spun web with no insect corpses in it and no spider as well. Ball up the web and stuff it into your wound and cover with a sterile cloth to secure it. You can use warm water to remove the hardened web later. A team at the University of Nottingham developed a synthetic material that resemebles spider silk. It took five years. This spider silk is also not allergenic or inflammatory. But you have to admit the thought of using spider web as a bandage, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Berlin Wall Comes Down

In the month of November, on the 9th, in 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. Yes, it pains us too to realize that this event happened thirty years ago...man we are getting old! Many of you listeners probably remember this time, which really wasn't so long ago, that the country of Germany was split in two with East and West Germany being separated by an actual stone wall with barbed wire. Construction of the wall began in August of 1961. East Germany was headed by Communists and they wanted to keep what they referred to as "fascists" from coming into East Germany and undermining their socialist state. What it actually did was imprison the people of East Germany, many of whom tried to escape. The East German Communist Party announced on November 9, 1989 that their citizens could cross the border whenever they wanted and that evening, a newly freed people did what President Ronald Reagan told the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to do, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" People hammered and picked at the wall, breaking off chunks. Bulldozers and cranes moved in and took care of the rest. What followed was the greatest street party in history as 2 million people went from East Berlin to West Berlin. A Berliner spray painted on the wall, "Only today is the war really over."

1837 Bed and Breakfast

The 1837 Bed and Breakfast in Charleston, South Carolina is the former home of a cotton planter. The style of the home is a great example of the Charleston Single home. Although this was not a plantation, it still had slaves that lived on the third level and there are stories that claim that a mother and father were sold off to another planter, leaving their nine-year-old son without his parents. He may have tried desperately to find them and ultimately lost his life. Ghost stories claim that he is still here at the house, acting like a poltergeist pulling pranks on visitors and perhaps even appearing as footsteps on the bed spread. While in Charleston, we couldn't pass up the chance to visit the Old Charleston Jail. This was Diane's second visit and Kelly's first, and we got to do an investigation there! Join us as we share the history and investigation at the 1837 Bed and Breakfast and the Old Charleston Jail!

The neighborhood where the bed and breakfast is located was developed in the 1840’s and was called Harleston Village because the original owners of the land were the Harleston family. This was a family that had been in Charelston a long time. A golf course had been on the land too called Harleston Green. The 1837 Bed and Breakfast was thought to have been built in 1837, but after a visit from some descendants of the original owners, it was discovered that the house was built in 1798. Of course, they didn't change the name because that would be marketing suicide. The builder of the house was Henry Mockenfuss, a German immigrant who built many properties in the area. The house was built in the Federal-style and as a single house, which was popular in Charleston. The standard Charleston single house was built with a narrow side that ran two- or three-bays wide with a gable end along the street and then a longer side that was perpendicular to the street and running five-bays. The design worked well here because the main part of Charleston was laid out with long, narrow lots. Single houses all had the same basic layout inside with the house being one room wide inside. There would be two rooms on each floor with each floor designed the same way. There would be one room to the side and one to the rear of the house. Many of the houses had multiple porches, or what they call piazzas, in Charleston.

The next owner of the house was thought to be Martin Hurlbert, a schoolmaster. He sold it in 1818 for $3,000 to Nicholas Cobia, a cotton planter. In 1842, Nicholas’s wife, Ann, leased the house to Miss Margaret Cobia along with two slaves known as “Mary” and “Nancy.” Eventually Ann's nephew, Henry Cobia, inherited the house along with a slave named “Fanny” and her six children. In the early 1900s, the former mayor of Charleston, William Schirmir, owned the house and he converted it into a boarding house, connecting the carriage and kitchen house to the main house and adding a rear third story. During World War II, the house served as an apartment building for ship builders at the Navy Yard. In 1956, the house was turned into a beauty shop on the first floor and probably rented rooms above. In 1983, Sherri Weaver and Richard Dunn bought the house and converted it into the bed and breakfast it is today. The bed and breakfast has its dining room, kitchen, and parlor on the first floor of the main house. There are three guest rooms on each of the second and third floors. And there are rooms in the carriage house with two on the bottom and one on the second floor. We stayed in one of the first floor rooms in the carriage house. We were greeted by Mohamad who owns the inn with his wife Lynn. (1837 Inn Welcome) 

The house is beautiful and very welcoming inside with the kitchen and dining room being an open concept design. The formal parlor of the main house contains many of the original design elements like the red cypress cornice, wainscoting, and the black marble fireplace. During renovations the cypress was stripped from a scaffold with heat gun, sanded and oiled with tung oil. The front door opened into a small entry way that has the narrow stairs leading up to the other levels. The medallion on the ceiling in the entry hall is original and it took four days to clear the old paint away with a dental tool during renovations. Portions of the plaster cornice had been cut years ago to put in a partition and had to be replaced and rebuilt with plaster.  The plaster is original and has been mixed with horsehair as we have discussed in other episodes. The wood floors are made from wide planks of heart of pine. The house boasts that these planks are amongst the widest in the city with one in the dining room measuring 14 inches wide. Mohamad gave us a little tour outside as he took us to our room. (1837 Tour)

We settled in a bit and then decided we would try to get some communicating going with any spirits at the house. The ghost stories about this bed and breakfast seem to center around just one ghost and he is known by the name George. The backstory for George is not verified, nor does anyone know if any part of the legends are true, but here is what people claim is the story about George. George's parents worked inside the house and they lived on the third floor. George worked out in the stables and ran errands. He had time to play, so life didn't seem so bad for him taking into account that a nine-year-old boy didn't know anything other than slavery. For some reason, the cotton planter decided to sell off George's parents and keep George. One can imagine how upsetting this was and there are two versions of how George reacted. In the the first, George hears that his parents are aboard a slave ship in Charleston Harbor. He leaves the house and manages to find an empty row boat and starts rowing towards the ship. In the process, he falls out of the boat and drowns. In the other version, George runs away and is eventually captured and thrown into the barracoon in the heart of Charleston. A barracoon was a barracks like building for housing slaves. While he was in there, he could have gotten sick and died or his owner might have retrieved him and he lived a very short life back at the house. Whatever happened, people are pretty sure that a nine-year-old boy is running around the bed and breakfast in the afterlife. 

Guests have heard the incessant rocking of a rocking chair outside their rooms that only stops when someone shouts, "Stop that rocking, George!" No one has seen George, but they hear his footsteps. He likes to shake guests beds and he opens and closes doors. He turns the TVs on by themselves too. There are other noises that might be caused by something else and this usually entails hearing the crack of a whip. Chandeliers tend to sway on their own too. Most of the activity is said to occur on the third floor. We feel like we did get some kind of communication with a spirit. (1837 Investigation 1) Okay, right there I thought I heard a whisper, I'll replay the original section (1837 Whisper) and now here it is amplified (1837 Whisper Amplified) We think we hear a breath and then "I'm so mad." It makes sense because we were dancing around asking about his parents. We continued with trying to communicate and I did a Facebook Live and while I was outside showing the Bed and Breakfast, Kelly got a little emotional talking to who we thought was George. The communication really seemed to break down over that. (1837 Investigation 2)

The next morning we went to breakfast, which was delicious and very filling! (1837 Breakfast)

So you heard on that exchange that we had the opportunity to investigate the old jail. This was up in the air as it has been for Bull Dog Tours and the jail for a couple of years. Listeners might recall that Diane visited with a couple of listeners two years ago because we thought it would be closing. Our listener Myra has joined us on investigations at the St. Augustine Lighthouse and the Exchange Hotel and she contacted me a couple days before the trip to say we could get in to the jail. Joy met us there and we were joined by another young couple who had never been to the jail or investigated before. We cannot remember their names, but the male was a police office who also was a person of color and he had a couple of experiences that unnerved him a bit with feeling very dizzy and a little ill on a stairway. There was a set of stairs that seemed to affect Myra and Kelly too. As Diane told Mohamad and Lynn, she didn't experience anything that she would equate to a haunting. This was her second time there with nothing unusual happening, so for her personally, she can't say the jail is haunted.

Joy was a wonderful guide! She shared experience stories and took us into every area of the jail, even some places she disliked going. One of these was a room where Mike Brown of Pleasing Terrors used a Ouija Board. We got to see what the warden's living area was like. He was here with his wife and children and they sometimes had boarders too. All of this 12 inches away from Death Row. The place smelled so bad you could smell the scent blocks away. Imagine living there! (Charleston Jail Joy) So you heard that we all felt an unusually cold spot. That was it for Diane feeling anything in the building.The tour continued and we have a few of the highlights here. (Charleston Jail Joy 2)

HGB Ep. 353 - Boggo Road Gaol

Moment in Oddity - Rapunzel Syndrome

We imagine that most of you have never heard of the rare illness known as Rapunzel Syndrome. No, this is not a disease that makes you burst into song as a man climbs up your hair to rescue you from your tower prison. This also is not a sickness that causes your hair to grow and grow and grow...you get the picture. This is an illness that causes a person to excessively chew on their hair over years, which wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that they then swallow a bunch of that hair and it tends to build-up inside the body. In August of 2020, a seventeen-year-old named Sweety Kumari underwent surgery in India. The doctors had found a mass in the teenager's stomach and thought it was a tumor. Imagine their shock when they found a 15 pound ball of hair in her stomach! The doctor said he had never seen that kind of accumulation of hair in the body in his forty years of practicing medicine. Many people chew on their hair when they are nervous, but ingesting the hair into a ball that one couldn't cough up if they tried, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Jesse Owens Born

In the month of September, on the 12th in 1913, Jesse Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama. He was the youngest of ten children born to a sharecropper. His birth name was James, but he would be knon as Jesse from an early age for an interesting reason. His family moved from the south to Ohio and when Jesse told his teacher what his name was he said J.C. and she thought he said Jesse. He developed a passion for running when he was young. Owens first came to national attention when he equaled the world record in the 100 yard dash. He did this while still in high school. Owens took part in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. He won four medals in track and field there, defeating Nazi athletes which really angered Adolf Hitler. His world record in the long jump stood for 25 years. While Owens was clearly a gifted athlete, Hitler's Nazi minister Albert Speer wrote that Hitler "was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games." Owens said his success came from letting his feet "spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up." Unfortunately, he took up smoking and lung cancer would take him at the age of 66 in 1980.

Boggo Road Gaol (Suggested by: Danika Ehlers and Natalie)

(Kelly, are you a crim or a screw?)

The history of Boggo Road Gaol is both interesting and troubling. This history goes all the way back to the late 1800s when Brisbane was finally moving from a penal colony to a free community. Many violent offenders came to their ends at the gaol. Punishment was dealt out in the black hole. Conditions became so poor that reforms were necessary. Today, the gaol is a museum offering tours and there are stories of ghosts on the grounds. Join us as we share the history and hauntings of the Boggo Road Gaol!

Brisbane was originally inhabited by the aboriginal tribes, Turrbal, Quandamooka and Yugara. In 1825, the Moreton Penal Colony was established for Sydney to have somewhere to send its British convicts. By 1839, the colony was free and many settlers came to partake of the fishing, farming and timber. The town, which was named for the Governor of New South Wales Sir Thomas Brisbane, grew and in 1859 it became the colonial capital. Queensland separated from New South Wales and Brisbane became the official capitol of the state in 1901. In 1924, Brisbane became an official city. The first jail here was established in Redcliffe, but was eventually moved to the center of Brisbane next to a bend in the river that provided a good natural barrier. There would be another gaol built after this and that is the one we are featuring.

Boggo Road Gaol had not been known by that name officially. In 1883, it was Hay Chim Gaol South Brisbane, then it was Brisbane Prison and in the early 1970s it was changed to the Brisbane Prison Complex and then finally the Brisbane Correctional Center at the end of its time after reforms were put in place. So how did it come to be known to everyone by this name? When it rained in this area, the track that had been dug out for the road would flood and get very muddy, similar to the quagmire of a bog. The area around this came to be known as Boggo and thus the track was given the name Boggo Road. These names started in the 1850s. There are some who believe that the name actually was derived from an Aboriginal word, Bloggo, that meant "two leaning trees." Whatever the case, the name stuck, even when the track became a street that was named Annerly Road in 1903.

The hill upon which the gaol was built was originally an indigineous camp. This would be the third gaol to be built in Brisbane. The land here was already a government reserve, but it would not be set aside specifically for building a jail until 1880. Robert Porter built the first cell block and it opened in July of 1883. Some time later it would officially be known as Number 1 Division. There were 57 cells originally and it held only men, but eventually a place for women would be required. A new prison was begun in 1903 for that purpose. There will be other buildings added onto the complex, but this one built for the women was known as the Number 2 Division and would be the only building to remain standing.

This was a hanging jail and forty-two people would be hanged on the grounds, which included one woman and two teenagers. The final hanging would occur in 1913 and this would be Queensland's last execution. Ernest Austin was the criminal to have that final honor. Austin had been a child killer. Ernest Austin was sentenced to death in 1913 for the vicious murder and sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl named Ivy Mitchell. This was a heinous crime as he slit the poor little girl's throat. A legend claims that Austin was lead to the scaffold and when he got to the top, he shouted that he was proud of his crime. He then gave a creepy laugh and mocked the people there to watch and he swore that he would return from the grave. What actually happened is that Austin had been sorry for his crime and even tried to kill himself before his trial. Several reporters and officials witnessed the hanging when the day came for him to be put to death and he was administered morphine and he said to the group, "I ask you all to forgive me. I ask the people of Samford to forgive me. I ask my mother to forgive me. May you all live long and die happy. God save the King! God save the King! God be with you all! Send a wire to my mother and tell her I died happy, won’t you. Yes tell her I died happy with no fear. Goodbye all! Goodbye all!" One newspaper proclaimed in a headline that "The State Slays its Own Creation." It was thought that Austin had been institutionalized for most of his life moving from a home for neglected children and then eventually onto jail.

George Silva was hanged the year before in 1912. He was a mass murderer. Silva worked for a man named Charles Ching. On November 16, 1911, Ching told Silva that he needed to go to ton for supplies. Silva had taken an interest in Ching's eldest daughter. He made advances towards her on this day and when she rejected him he killed the entire Ching family except for Charles who was away. This was six people. Four of the bodies were in the house. The son Hugh and baby Winnie had their skulls smashed and the mother named Agnes and the eldest daughter Maud had been shot by a revolver and a muzzle-loading rifle. Two other bodies were found a mile and a half away with their skulls smashed and they had been shot. Silva eventually turned himself in because he feared a lynch mob.

Eventually in the 1920s, the women would be moved out of the jail and prisoners from the St Helena Island Prison in Moreton Bay were moved into Number Two Division. There would be a later building constructed to once again house female prisoners. Number Two Division became home for the worst of the worst offenders who had long sentences to serve. Three cell blocks were set aside specifically for Lifers. These cells seem horrible. The building is made from brick and there are doors with slits for each cell. So they seem very claustrophobic. In the 1960s it was decided that an update was needed to Number One Division and so a new building was constructed around its perimeter and then it was demolished. The open oval area left behind was turned into a recreational yard. The new jail building was updated with toilets and running cold water in each cell. Another new feature was the black hole, which was under the oval. This was used throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s for punishment.

The 1970s would feature a time of great unrest at the gaol as inmates started fighting back against the poor living conditions. They staged roof-top protests, hunger strikes and riots. This got the inmates a lot of attention and it was warranted as the Number Two Division had not been updated, so there was no sanitation. Inmates still had only buckets in their cells for toilets. The government of Queensland came in and did a survey and were appalled at what they found. They officially shut down the building in 1989. In the 1970s, there were four prisoners who formed some wire bound with rubber into these little crosses and they swallowed them. These crosses would spring open in the stomach and cause pain and bleeding. This was a way for the prisoners to get out of jail because they needed to have surgery to remove the crosses. The cross idea came from John Andrew Stuart who was serving a life term for being one of the Whiskey Au Go Go Killers. He underwent surgery five times to remove crosses.

The Whiskey Au Go Go Killers were John Andrew Stuart and James Richard Finch. Whiskey Au Go Go was a cabaret nightclub that was in Brisbane. The club was firebombed in the early hours of March 8, 1973. Two five-gallon drums of gas were placed in the club's foyer and lit with fire. Carbon monoxide fumes rushed into the main room and the club was soon a deathtrap. Vats of used cooking oil were lined against the only escape route and they were upended as people stampeded through and eventually it was hard for people to stay on their feet. When they did manage to get outside, they were met with a six-foot high fence in the alley. There were fifty people in the club and 15 of them would die. Those that survived jumped from broken windows onto an awning and then dropped the remaining 15 feet to the ground. There were also windows in the bathrooms that people squeezed through. John Stuart had warned the police that Whiskey Au Go Go was going to be firebombed, so he became their top suspect. An associate of Stuart's named James Richard Finch was arrested. He proclaimed he was innocent, but the police said that Stuart planned the crime and Finch lit the fires. Both men would claim during their trials that they had been pressured to give false confessions. Stuart not only swallowed metal objects, he also once sewed his lips shut with wire paperclips. Finch was a self-harmer too. He cut off one of his fingers during the trial. *Fun Fact: Inmates were photographed holding their open hands against their body to show that they had all their fingers upon entry into the jail.* Stuart died in jail in 1979 after a six day hunger strike. Finch was released in 1988 after serving fifteen years.

Number One Division would close in 1992 and all but the C5 guard tower were demolished in 1996. The women's prison, which was operated for 100 years, was used until 2000 and then torn down in 2006. The only section of Boggo Road Gaol that still remains is Number Two Division and it has been heritage listed. In December of 2012 it was reopened and serves as a museum offering tours and there are a variety of tours. These are conducted by Boggo Road Gaol Pty. There was redevelopment done as well and this lead to the construction of an urban village that was completed in 2010.

Another infamous convict at the jail was Patrick Kenniff who was Australia's last bushranger. He and his brother, James, were cattle thieves. They stole horses and robbed stores as well, but what got Kenniff thrown into Boggo Road Gaol was murder. A police posse had set off after the boys after they stole a pony. They managed to capture James, but the rest of the group got away. They later ambushed the two men who made up the posse and their remains were later found burned up in saddle bags of one of the men's horses. The brothers were sentenced to death, but James' sentence was later commuted to life. Patrick was hanged in 1903.

Florence MacDonald and her husband, Angus, were sentenced to death for murdering Grace MacDonald. This was later commuted to life imprisonment. She was the first woman sentenced to life imprisonment in Queensland. Florence was known as the stepmother of the "Longreach Cinderella." She and her husband kept Grace chained up under the family home and they deprived her of food. They worked the poor girl to death. Florence was released after serving twelve years.

"Slim" Halliday was nicknamed the "Houdini of Boggo Road." He escaped from the jail twice, once in 1940 and again in 1946. He tried four other times, but failed. Slim was exactly that, tall and thin. He was a thief and enjoyed breaking into houses. He eventually was caught and convicted in 1939. He was sentenced to five years of hard labor. Slim tried his first jailbreak in 1939 and was busted using a drill to drive out the rivets that held the bolt. Halliday made his first jail break on January 28, 1940. He slipped out of line and climbed over a wall and ran for the prison workshop where he had his escape kit. Over several months he put together a grappling hook that was made out of two wooden hammock sticks and he attached 30 feet of rope to it that was knotted every 18 inches. There was a spot on the outer wall that could not be seen from the towers. He worked his way over with the grappling hook. It took hours before he was missed and he was long gone. He was recaptured a week later. His next escape in 1946 was with two other men using a grappling hook again. They were recaptured four days later. Eventually he was released, but he returned to jail in 1952 a murderer.

We came across a website while searching for ghost stories that denied that the gaol was haunted. The author said something along the lines of, even if ghosts were real why would they be any more prevalent in a jail than other places? Of course, they may not, but we all understand that the higher the levels of trauma, the more likely it is that a location will be haunted. The author wrote, "The recent television-inspired fad for 'ghost hunts' - based on the use of obviously fake 'ghostometer gadgets' - has also proved problematic. Such activities have not only been scientifically discredited, but they are clearly disrespectful in a place where people have committed suicide or been murdered within living memory. Relatives of the deceased have strongly expressed their opposition to commercial 'paranormal industry' activities inside Boggo Road. This led to the Queensland Government taking the welcome step of banning ghost hunts at the heritage prison in 2015." And that really is disappointing because many investigators just want the spirits to tell their stories. Ghosts are at these locations for a reason and we believe that is because they have a story they need to tell. So let's look at these non-existent ghosts at Boggo Road Gaol.

Ghost tours are hosted by Brisbane Ghost Tours. The child killer Ernest Austin is said to haunt Number Two Division even though he was hanged in Number One Division. Prisoners claimed to see his face appear outside their cell door. His eyes were filled with darkness and prisoners claimed that they knew when they looked in those eyes that he had made a deal with Satan. That deal was that he would snatch their souls in exchange for his own. Then the apparition of Austin would come through the door and try to strangle them. This was said to drive a few of them crazy. Haunting Australia investigated the jail in 2015 and they got some interesting evidence. The most evidence came through the spirit box. There were a lot of angry responses and choice words we cannot share here.

Jack Sim is a dark historian, writer and Director of Boggo Road Gaol. He shared some ghost stories with the ladies from Haunted Down Under. Jack himself had seen one of the ghosts that old prison guards used to talk about experiencing. This was the ghost of a former guard who was killed in the jail workshop in the late 1960s known as Birdie. Sadly, he was not supposed to be on duty that day, but he had switched shifts with another guard. An inmate who was incarcerated after being found guilty of multiple murders killed him. Most guards who reported seeing his apparition were working the graveyard shift. It was as though he were still on duty patrolling the place. His disembodied footsteps would be heard many times. Jack saw him standing outside one day and at first he thought he was some member of the state government security detail named Steve. So he said, "Hey Steve, I'll be right out in a second." And then he did a double take because he realized it wasn't Steve and then the man in the uniform just disappeared. 

The back track that runs the perimeter of the jail property is a type of no man's land and this is reputed to be the most haunted area of the jail. Most prisoners knew that the gaol was haunted and they knew which specific cells were haunted. They would place bets with each other when a new prisoner would be placed inside one of these cells as to how long it would take before they were begging to be moved. There was only one prisoner to each cell and Jack was told by a former inmate that one rainy night he awakened and felt as though someone were watching him. He looked to the end of his cell and there sitting on the floor was a young man. Then he disappeared. 

Jack related a really scary experience for himself. The doors to the cells are heavy and Jack had gone into one of the cells that was reputedly haunted one day and the door slammed shut. He turned and watched the slide bolt move by itself and he was locked inside. He was all alone. His cell phone and keys were on the lower floor and no one was expected at the jail until two days later. He started to panic thinking that he would be locked in there for two days. Then suddenly, the slide bolt moved again and unlocked the door. The ghost or ghosts were clearly playing with Jack and trying to scare him and they certainly did!

Many visitors to the jail have seen the apparition of an older woman in a high necked dress. Some people think that this spirit belongs to Ellen Thompson, the only woman legally hanged in Queensland. She was tried, along with her younger lover, for the murder of her husband. The Judge, Justice Pope Cooper, said the following as he sentenced the two, "Prisoner Ellen Thompson and you prisoner John Harrison, have been found guilty of the crime of murder on evidence which I must say to my mind is quite sufficient. One of the jury has thought to make a recommendation of mercy on the grounds that he is of the opinion that there may have been a quarrel between the murdered man and Harrison immediately preceding the murder. I will, of course, forward that recommendation to the proper authorities. I can give you no more hope than that. That you, Harrison killed the old man Thompson, I have no doubt whatever. The jury have found that you did so, and I confidently believe that Thompson's wife was present at the time aiding and abetting you. You committed a most cruel murder, and you did it, in my opinion, for sake of gain. Nothing now remains for me but to pass upon you both, the sentence of the law. I have no option in the matter. The sentence that I have to pass on you, Ellen Thompson, is, that you be taken to the place whence you came, and thence to the Brisbane gaol; and thence on the date to be appointed by the Governor-in-Council, you be led to the place of execution, and that you be hanged by the neck until your body be dead." When people describe seeing Ellen, they say that she is wearing the clothes that she was photographed wearing before she was hanged. Visitors will go into the section of the museum with the gallows displays and swear that they have just seen the woman that is in the pictures there. Female guards did have similar clothes, so it is possible that the spirit belongs to one of them, but we haven't heard of any of them dying at the gaol. 

Like all gaols, this one has a history of interesting characters and infamous inmates. Deaths by suicide and execution were plenty. The emotions that a jail spawns feed negative energy. Is the Boggo Road Gaol haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 223 - Old Idaho State Penitentiary

Moment in Oddity - Bug Spray Attracts Bigfoot

Do mosquitoes tend to bug you when you are searching for Bigfoot in the woods? Are you having trouble attracting Bigfoot to come out of hiding? Well, a woman in North Carolina has solved your problems with her Bigfoot Juice. It would seem that Allie Megan Webb created her environmentally safe, Bigfoot attracting bug repellent quite by accident. Her husband, who is a member of Bigfoot 911, asked his wife if she could make her home brewed bug spray less "feminine smelling." She tried a few concoctions to get a woodsy smell. Bigfoot 911 tried out the bug repellent several times and Webb noticed that there was a direct correlation between the use of her bug spray and Bigfoot sightings reported by the research group. She figured it must attract Sasquatch and when asked how she knows it works, she said, "How do you know it doesn’t work?” Good question, although we have to admit that it couldn't be that simple to finally get Bigfoot to come out of hiding. If it is, then that, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Kennedy/Nixon Debate Televised

In the month of September, on the 26th, in 1960, the first-ever televised presidential debate occurred on CBS between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. During the 1960 presidential election, America was engaged in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Nixon was a seasoned lawmaker while Kennedy was a young senator. When the two men met before the cameras, Nixon had a slight lead in the polls. His experience was a plus and the fact that Kennedy was a Catholic caused some people to not want to vote for him. But Nixon was older and he had suffered an infection that landed him in the hospital prior to the debate. When he was released, he had lost weight and looked frail. Nixon was offered make-up, but he refused to wear any. Kennedy had a nice tan, which could even be seen on the black and white television. Nixon sweated profusely, while Kennedy looked freshed-face and young. People who listened to the debate on the radio, thought that Nixon had won, while those who watched it on television thought Kennedy had won. The damage was done for Nixon because most Americans gravitated towards Kennedy after the debate. Today, it is standard for debates to be televised and most Americans would probably agree that there are far too many.

Old Idaho State Penitentiary

The Old Idaho State Penitentiary was in use for over a hundred years and had more than 13,000 prisoners pass through the gates. As was the case in most prisons that were built in the 1800s, conditions were brutal with a complete lack of sanitation and ventilation. All variety of criminals were housed here and many were executed on the gallows that were set up first in the Rose Garden, and later inside the prison walls. Violent riots have had their place in the prison's history. All of this negative energy seems to have absorbed into the sandstone walls and now reflects back haunting energy. Guests and employees claim to have experienced paranormal activity. On this episode, we are joined by the hosts of the Not Alone Podcast, Sam Frederickson and Jason Moitoso, to discuss the history and hauntings of the Old Idaho State Penitentiary.

Boise is located in southwestern Idaho, about 41 miles east of the Oregon border. It is believed that French Canadian trappers named a river for which the city of Boise in Idaho derives its name. The river was called "La rivière boisée", which means "the wooded river." The federal government later established Fort Boise here when it was still a territory. The area was near the Oregon Trail and the fort was meant to protect the trail. Boise was incorporated as a city in 1863.

In  1867,  the  United  States  Congress  provided  for  the construction of the Idaho Penitentiary and the Idaho assembly codified it into territorial law in 1869. In September 1870, the Idaho Statesman reported, "The penitentiary looms up like the frowning walls of some impregnable  fortress. Distance  lends  enchantment. This building will be ready for the reception of guests in a very little while. The man who would commit a felony within sight of its gloomy walls ought to spend the remainder of his days within them." Construction began outside Boise City on the prison in 1870 and took two years. It was built from sandstone that was quarried from the nearby ridges using convict labor. Initially, the prison was a single cell house known as the territorial prison. A 17-foot high wall was built around the perimeter. The first prisoners were eleven inmates that were brought over from the Boise County Jail.

The jail was clearly too small and construction on other buildings began. A new cell house was built in 1889 and had three tiers with cells built from steel. The third tier was used to house inmates on Death Row because it was closest to the future Rose Garden where the gallows were located. The Administration Building was completed in 1894 and this housed the armory, a visitation room and the warden's office. A year later, the building that housed the commissary and blacksmith shop was completed. It would be renovated in the future to include a barber shop starting in 1902 and a hospital in 1912. The Dining Hall was built in 1898 and in 1899, Cell House 2 and 3 were finished. These houses featured cells that could hold two men, their bunks and a honey bucket for their waste.

Women were brought to the Idaho Penitentiary as well. There was no separate place for them, so the male inmates built a wall around the old warden's home and the woman stayed in there. There were seven two-person cells inside along with a kitchen and bathroom facilities. The 1920s brought more expansion with a Multipurpose Building that had a bakery, shoe shop, license plate shop, shirt factory, laundry and recreation room. There were also communal showers here. The Cooler was built at this time as well. It had cells that could hold four to six men, but it was used for solitary confinement. Siberia was added in 1926 with 12 3'x8' cells that were designed to hold one man. Cell House 4 was added in 1952 and Cell House 5 was completed in 1954. This building was used for Maximum Security inmates and the gallows was moved inside of this building. There were ten executions at the prison. Six of them were held outside where the Rose Garden is located today. The other four took place inside Cell House 5.

Conditions throughout the years were poor, especially in the very beginning. The sandstone walls were bad insulation. The sandstone retained the heat in the summer and was bitterly cold in the winter. As we mentioned earlier, the toilets in the cells were just buckets. Plumbing didn't reach the prison until the 1920s. There was no real sanitation then and with no proper ventilation, disease spread easily. Add to that the brutal nature of inmate on inmate abuse and abuse from the guards. The prisoners fought back in the 1970s with two violent riots. The first occurred in 1971 and lasted three hours. There was $25,000 in damage and one inmate was killed. The riot that followed in 1973 was far worse and ended with a fire that destroyed many of the buildings. The original building that the prison started with eventually became the chapel in the 1930s. Prisoners burned that chapel and then the dining hall to the ground. After the riot, the prisoners were moved to a more modern penitentiary and the Old Idaho Jail was closed down.

It was almost as if the jail was frozen in time. Visitors can see paintings that inmates created on their cell walls, calendars still hang on some of the walls, the walls are still discolored from the smoke and fire and other belongings were left behind. The Penitentiary was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It offers tours and is a museum today. There are thirty historic buildings on the site and several special exhibitions are offered, one of them being the J. Curtis Earl Memorial Exhibit of Arms and Armaments. Events and programs are held year round and these include Halloween events. The prison was featured in 2017 on an episode of the Lowe Files.

Several infamous inmates spent time here. One of them was Lyda Southard, otherwise known as Lady Bluebeard. She was one of America's first female serial killers. She was an insurance killer much like HH Holmes. She killed four of her husbands, her daughter and a brother-in-law. She used flypaper to make arsenic and that is how she killed her victims. A chemist who was related to her first husband began to suspect foul play when other husbands started dying and he asked another chemist and a doctor to help him test the body. With their findings, they convinced the Twin Falls County Prosecutor Frank Stephan to exhume the other bodies. Lyda was living in Honolulu with her fifth husband when she was arrested. She was extradited to Idaho. Her trial lasted 6 weeks and she was convicted of second degree murder. Her sentence was ten years to life. She escaped from prison and ran to Denver where she took on a false identity and worked as a housekeeper for a man she eventually married. He would be the one to lead the police to her and she was arrested again and returned to the Old Pen. She later was out on probation and eventually died of a heart attack in 1958.

Another was Raymond Allen Snowden, who was dubbed "Idaho's Jack the Ripper." Snowden was convicted of murder in 1956 and sentenced to death by hanging at the Old Pen. He had murdered a woman named Cora Dean. She was local and a single mother to two children. Snowden claimed that the couple fought, he backhanded her and she then kicked him. He completely snapped after that and used his two-and-a-quarter-inch pocketknife to stab Cora 35 times. Before his hanging, Snowden confessed to murdering two other women. He met his fate a little after midnight on October 18, 1957.

Harry Orchard was an inmate who died in the prison in 1954. He had been in the prison for 50 years. He had been convicted of the murder of Gov. Frank Steunenberg. During his trial he confessed to many crimes. He claimed to have been a union terrorist and his deeds had killed 17 people. He also claimed to be an alcoholic, a bigamist, womanizer and gambler. The calm way he reported all of this, stunned the courtroom room. Although sentenced to death, a judge recommended his sentence be commuted to life in prison, and the Board of Pardons agreed. His sentence was the longest sentence served by any Idaho State Penitentiary inmate.

An interesting death was that of Douglas Van Vlack. He had received the death penalty for the kidnapping and murder of his estranged wife.  He was sentenced to hang at the prison on December 10th in 1937. He visited with his mother on December 9th and then shortly thereafter slipped past the guards and climbed into the rafters of his cellhouse. When the guards found him, he shouted, "My  mother  told  me  it  was  all right for me to choose the way I wanted to die.  I’ll never hang on that  rope." He then dove head first   onto the concrete below and died several hours later. Van Vlack is believed to haunt the former Death Row and is usually seen as a greenish ball of light. Batteries drain quickly in here.

All variety of paranormal activity has been reported at the prison. Employees report feeling negative energy, weird noises and shadow figures. The most active location is Cell House 5 where inmates were executed and the many spirit hanging out here seems to belong to Snowden. Solitary Confinement is the next most active area. Cold spots are a common occurrence and people claim to have seen full-bodied apparitions. The Rose Garden has spirit reports and cold spots as well attributed to the inmates hanged on the gallows here.

Is the Old Idaho Penitentiary haunted? That is for you to decide!