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MAN: These are more than cells. These were people's houses.
SCHREIBER: ...the sadness, the violence.
AARON: This was the path they would take to their death.
"Will twist men"?
Apart.
Is someone down here with me?!
This is Hell, and we're right in the heart of it.
My name is Zak Bagans,
lead investigator of the "Ghost Adventures" crew.
I never believed in ghosts until I came face-to-face with one.
You wanted us. You got us.
So I set out on a quest
to capture what I once saw onto video.
Go! Go!
With no big camera crews following us around,
I am joined only
by my fellow investigators Nick Groff and Aaron Goodwin.
The three of us will travel
to some of the most highly active paranormal locations,
where we will spend an entire night
being locked down...
from dusk until dawn.
You have reached your final destination -- Hell.
ZAK: Raw.
Stop!
Holy [bleep]
Stop! Stop running!
These are our ghost adventures.
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
In 1967, TIME magazine called this prison behind me
the bloodiest 47 acres in America.
Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City is huge,
it's old, and every square inch is haunted.
Anybody being marked?
Bruises, scratches, anything like that?
Yes?
Constructed in 1834 to help solidify
Jefferson City's status as the state's capital,
this prison was founded with noble intentions.
However, it wasn't long
before Missouri's only maximum-security prison
became known for its bloodshed and violence.
Did you ever have any weird experiences here?
Yeah. I was an officer down in the clothing factory
the last four years I was here.
And I'm standing there, talking to an inmate
just like we're talking,
and looked up and a guy in a white t-shirt
walked right out my door.
They knew it was count time
and knew they wasn't supposed to go outside.
So, this caught your eye
and you were like, "This guy better get back"?
It made me mad because he disrespected me
Right.
And I'm outside, stomping around,
looking for him, and can't find this guy.
And the inmate I'd been talking to,
he steps out and he's watching me,
and he said, "You ain't gonna find that guy."
The inmate, when you didn't even speak to him,
I just walked away out the door.
Yeah. And told you that you're not gonna see this guy.
Yeah.
So, an active corrections officer and an inmate
both saw the same full-bodied apparition.
This is one of the most compelling
prison paranormal encounters we've heard so far.
Maggie, a tour guide, has also had an eerie encounter.
Hers, however, was far more terrifying.
ZAK: Where do you not like to go?
"A" hall.
I had a pretty negative experience in there one night,
and I was absolutely terrified.
[ Echoing ] Terrified.
We were just sitting in the little chairs
in, you know, down on the main walk, and...
It came up behind me and wraps its hand around my shoulder
and squeezed really hard.
ZAK: We now meet Mark Schreiber,
who served as Deputy Warden for three years.
On the way into "C" hall, he tells us about the riot of 1954,
where a group of inmates hammered through a wall
to *** Walter Lee Donnell, who they believed was a snitch.
ZAK: Do you know how he was killed?
SCHREIBER: He was killed with a hammer.
So, these inmates just barged through.
Walter is in this cell right here.
All that he can hear
is the pounding on the brick wall over there...
[ Pounding ]
...knowing that these guys are coming after him.
And he knows that this door that he hates so much,
that has taken away his freedom,
is now the door that is going to save his life.
And once these inmates barge this door open, he's done.
Right now, we're gonna let you take a peek inside this cell,
and you may want to not watch this part.
DONNELL: [ Grunts ]
No! No! No! Stop!
ZAK: These events
that have super-charged, violent emotional energy
create an everlasting shock wave,
which we believe open these locations
to a portal of residual energy.
The Deputy Warden begins to open up to me further
about the harsh realities he witnessed during his tenure.
I came over here, and I took pictures of the inmate.
His hands were handcuffed behind his back.
He was in a law cage down there at the end.
They waited for this guy.
Even though he was escorted by a staff person,
they stabbed him right in front of the staff person.
They didn't care.
[ Camera shutter clicks ]
When you investigated this *** over here,
what did that scene look like?
Well, it was a bloody mess.
[ Camera shutter clicks ]
Was it ever hard for you to take these photos?
[ Sighs ]
Mm-hmm.
But did it always bother me? Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
And I also worked two officer homicides here,
and that bothered me a lot.
Was that hard?
Still is to this day.
Yep.
It's obvious that working at the prison
can take an emotional toll similar to the marks
that the violence and the bloodshed leave behind
in the spiritual terrain.
Sometimes, these traces are so profound
that they can manifest within the physical world.
In fact, Lupe, a tour guide here at Missouri State Penitentiary,
claims to have video evidence
taken from inside one of the cells.
So, what are we gonna see here?
Do we just hit "play" here?
You can push "play,"
and what you're looking for is the window in the back.
Lupe takes us to cell 40 in "A" hall
where this footage was originally captured.
First thing that I wanted to do is try and debunk,
is possibly somebody was on the outside,
tied this to a string or was messing around with it,
did this and did this.
But look how high up we are. [ Chuckles ]
So, the second thing I would've thought of
No.
No.
And if it was windy,
why would wind also suck the windows back closed?
This is the dungeon.
And the dungeon saw
some of the worst conditions of the prison here,
including lashings, suicides.
Men went crazy down there.
This is also where Lupe and dozens of others
in her tour group all heard chilling, disembodied screams.
A cry, I guess, of a man in pain
came from the dungeon area.
[ Groans ]
ZAK: Hey. Let us know if you see anything or hear anything.
AARON: All right. Whoo-hoo.
Oh. This must be the door.
Wow.
Just sitting here, man,
doesn't it make you think about what they --
what this must've felt like when it was in operation,
during the riot, everyone screaming in here, yelling?
There's countless little rooms.
Not something I want to witness.
This is the weirdest part -- is a couple of these rooms,
the door's there, but they, like, barricaded cement
over the front of it.
Makes you wonder what is actually in there.
It's like you're a small animal in the jungle.
You're just waiting to see who kills you and eats you.
""A" hall, Missouri State Penitentiary,"
by Mark Schreiber, December the 7th, 2000.
"A presence I feel as I walk through these halls,
"looking and touching these massive stone walls.
"Walls that are smooth and cold to the touch.
"Walls of lost history, of killings, and such.
"In the dim light, the specter I feel,
"walking and stalking, oh, yes, it is real.
"For this is a place where dead men are kept --
"a place where I, as their keeper, once crept.
"So, look as you will as you pass into space,
"for it is the tomb of our lost human race.
""Glance in a mirror as through life you race,
"so the specter I saw won't surprise you someplace.
As the specter you see may be your own face."
What did you say to me when you walked in here?
I said this building is a building
that's always given me a... a funny -- a funny sense,
a funny feeling.
This is the very essence
of what the Missouri State Penitentiary was about --
the sadness, the violence.
It's almost as if this building's alive to me.
This was called "The Hole."
Not anger, just sadness.
It's aware that we're here.
ZAK: As our investigation
of the Missouri State Penitentiary continues,
Mark takes us down to an area
that once housed violent and mentally deranged inmates.
This was called "The Hole" when I came here.
It was a punishment unit.
Look how small these cells are.
This would've been two cells.
And see down through here?
This would've been a cell and this was a cell.
You can tell by the two different doors.
That's so small.
Can only imagine.
You know of documented deaths that occurred here --
documented ***, suicides, natural causes, whatever,
but what about the stuff that's undocumented?
What you find is the more you learn, the more you don't know.
As a historian, you know what's factual.
You know what I'm saying, Zak?
But imagine the undocumented deaths
that actually occurred here, like the murders or the...
Absolutely.
...just the bad things that went down.
Absolutely.
You all right, Zak?
I don't know.
Hey, Nick, can you come here?
Yeah. Give me a second, Mark.
Go ahead.
Just warning you.
I just walked down through here
and just started, you know, like, [bleep] emotional, dude.
Yeah.
I just feel overwhelmed the whole time.
I mean, it's the prison setting for me in general,
but I haven't felt...l like, what do you mean?
Describe it.
I was walking down that way with him.
I was fine listening to him,
and then I get to the very end down here, and, man,
all this just -- not anger, just sadness.
Yeah.
From what we've learned so far,
it seems like "A" hall as well as "C" hall
are both especially strong hotspots
of negative and even aggressive activity.
It's now time for us to step into a third location
that's almost guaranteed to act as the same kind of conduit
for dark energy.
[ Door creaks ]
A little, small building
with a giant smoke stack coming out of it.
This is the gas chamber
where 40 people were killed -- 39 men, 1 woman.
It's kind of like when we first went to Pennhurst State School,
and as we were walking,
one of the gentlemen that we were interviewing --
I believe he was a doctor -- stated to us...
In this spot, all you could hear
is screaming from all those windows.
And when it closed in 1987, it was silent as it is now,
and it gives me the chills.
This place has that same feel.
All you can hear are just the little details,
the fans spinning and squealing from the wind,
but yet, you can still feel that loud, dark energy.
We're in broad daylight, the sun is shining,
but I'll tell you right now,
it's a very haunting feeling here.
It's like it's aware that we're here.
As we walk up slowly to the execution chamber,
there is a cross right here.
What these people did, I'm sure, were awful things,
but they were still human beings
and they were still killed... behind this wall.
Now, look at these rocks.
Like tape recorders.
These rocks were here at every death.
Death number 1, death number 2, death number 3,
and all the way up to death number 40.
And they absorbed the imprints of those moments.
So, here's all the faces of the people.
All of these people died right there.
The last thing that they saw
was this door being shut on their face.
Go have a seat, Aaron.
This is the last thing that these 40 people here saw.
Whew.
They'd sit here and watch people look at them as they died.
Probably the people that they killed -- their family member,
and then their family member got to watch them die.
This would be terrible.
ZAK: You can't help but think about the 40 lives
that ended here in this small space.
If you occupy that same space
and you touch those same surfaces,
it's as if you can still feel the residue
from that transition.
And when their spirits had left their bodies,
the exhaust fan would scream to life
to carry the poisonous gas from the chamber.
William Wright, John Brown, Raymond Boyer, Raymond Batson,
Johnny Jones, Adam Richetti, Granville...
Its purpose was to clear away all toxic remains
from the air -- to make it safe again.
...Van Lee Ramsey, Arthur, Ronald,
Marshal Perkins, Bonnie Brown Heady,
Carl Austin Hall.
But what about the traces left behind
that you can't smell, taste, or touch?
Is there something else maybe even more toxic that lingers on?
As we spend time in the gas chamber,
Aaron begins to feel uneasy.
The three of us have been doing this long enough to know
that sometimes an intense feeling of discomfort
like Aaron is experiencing now...
My heart rate was just up -- uncontrollable.
ZAK: ...or what I felt earlier
can be just as valid as any visual or audio evidence.
What I felt there was too impactful to ignore.
You felt those things, and the three of us know
when we feel something, you know?
But our understanding of this intense energy
surrounding the gas chamber
isn't only caused by what's imprinted on these rocks.
[ Screaming ]
It's also magnified by the horrors that lie just feet away.
Over here to my right is a parking lot,
and we were informed by the Deputy Warden
and another member of the prison
that underneath this asphalt right over here
are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bodies
that fell victim to a disease outbreak here at the prison.
These bodies are dishonorably buried in a potter's field
under a parking lot within 50 yards
from where 40 people were killed in a gas chamber.
Thousands of bodies.
Does this have anything to do with the negative energy
that is haunting Missouri State Penitentiary?
This is Hell, and we're right in the heart of it.
I'm starting to feel that sadness again.
What's really special about this lockdown for us
is the credible sources that we interviewed earlier,
telling us about all of the paranormal experiences
they had in this building,
including a corrections officer...
The inmate told you that you're not gonna see this guy.
Yeah.
...and a testimony from the Deputy Warden himself.
As you can see in the upper right-hand corner of the screen,
we're using a brand-new piece of equipment.
This is a 3-D motion Kinect camera system.
There was a similar camera that we used in Cripple Creek
with engineer Bill Chappell,
and we captured the little apparition on there.
And right next to it is another infrared camera --
just a regular X camera side-by-side.
You're looking in the same jail cell.
If you'll notice all of these little infrared dots,
they are being projected with a special microchip
to track the movement of objects,
and hopefully in our case, spirits and paranormal anomalies
through a system of light coding,
which employs image-based 3-D construction.
Once we leave this door right now,
we are exposed to this massive prison
where hundreds, thousands murders,
suicides, rapes happened.
This is Hell, and we're right in the heart of it.
You guys ready for this?
[ Thud ]
What the [bleep] was that?
Was that you guys -- that noise?
[ Walkie-talkie beeps ]
Yeah. Billy moved the chair.
We've set the Kinect camera in an area
where eyewitnesses have seen a huge shadow man.
Shadow man actually pushed them out of the cell.
Like, he was just coming right for them.
ZAK: I would like you to come here
and use this device to speak to us.
[ Static ]
Is there somebody in here with me?!
[ Static ]
I can help you be free from this prison.
I need you to tell me -- Who are you?!
[ Static ]
Over the course of about 45 minutes,
I don't capture a single spirit voice,
nor do Billy and Jay
see any visual evidence of the paranormal,
so I decide to return to a place
where earlier I experienced a very uncomfortable feeling
while interviewing the Deputy Warden.
Started getting stomach pains.
Stomach pains.
And I'm starting to feel that sadness again and that energy --
the same exact spot that I felt it during the day.
The pain in my stomach is very sharp,
as if someone is twisting it.
Very uncomfortable.
Not because I'm by myself,
but because I feel like something is around me.
I can feel it, but I can't see it.
I am trying to figure out
if an intelligent spirit may be causing the pain
I'm feeling in my stomach,
or am I feeling the residual energy
at the exact spot of where possibly an inmate was stabbed
or beaten in the torso area?
His guts were hanging out of his belly like that.
Who are you and what do you want?
[ Beeps ]
Is somebody in here?
Why are you making my stomach feel pain?
Were you stabbed in the stomach?
We receive our first piece of evidence tonight
as I capture an EVP.
It's a bit hard to make out what the spirit is saying,
as I hear it as "I ain't breathin',"
which could connect with why I'm feeling severe stomach pain,
because if an inmate was stabbed in the stomach here
and left for dead, this might be his last vocalization
before his spirit left his body.
What do you think?
Why are you making my stomach feel pain?
Were you stabbed in the stomach?
[ Bangs ]
This was the path they would take on the way to their death.
Coming in.
ZAK: What was that?
ZAK: The pain in my stomach is getting more severe
as I'm also starting to feel tenderness
on the outside of my rib cage,
as if I was just punched several times,
but as I head back to talk with the guys, this happens.
[ Bangs ]
Where does it hurt?
My stomach.
There's a sharp pain going through it.
I don't ever have stomach pain.
I mean, if it would've been from food or something that I ate,
it would've been a lot sooner than that.
Yeah, it hurts.
MAN: You might be feeling, like, that conscious energy
of, like, the freakin' prisoner who got shanked.
Yeah, somebody got stabbed.
I first try to rationalize with myself
that I'm having severe food poisoning,
but I ate over three hours ago,
and well, I have to be honest for the sake of research,
I have no diarrhea or vomiting,
and as I sit down, the pain over my rib cage worsens.
Now it's [bleep] starting to really [bleep] hurt, for real.
Just sore.
Hey, there are stories
of people getting their insides hurt by ghosts.
Who told us that some guy's stomach was ripped open?
The guy got his whole face stabbed.
ZAK: On another investigation, we interviewed this man
who claims a ghost twisted his insides apart
and later had a medical x-ray done to validate this.
It was crushed and twisted.
Guy saying that he saw a guy's stomach slit open
and his entrails were coming out.
'Cause he carried her past the -- into the woman's --
[ Bangs ]
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did you hear that?
Did you hear that?
Carried her past the -- into the woman's --
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
What was that?
ZAK: We decide to set up what we call three ghost traps,
which means setting up
various pieces of ghost-detection equipment
along with trigger objects
to trap spirits within three designated hotspots.
At the first ghost trap
in the cell where our 3-D Kinect camera is set up,
we have used cigarettes, which was like inmate gold,
and we've blanketed them over a digital recorder
and white-noise generator through the Ovilus III,
which spirits can manipulate to form EVP,
or electronic voice phenomenon.
At ghost trap number 2, we've set up in cell 23
where a man was brutally murdered
during a prison riot in 1954.
We have left this prop gun as a trigger object.
While our spirit box will be running by itself,
Billy and Jay will be asking questions remotely
from nerve center through a walkie-talkie.
We've put some rem pods in front of the camera.
Basically, these devices --
if a spirit passes over them and detects their energy...
[ Beeping ]
...it'll sound an alarm.
With cameras rolling and traps set, Nick and I make our way
over to the oldest cell house at the Missouri State Penitentiary,
"A" hall, which was in continuous operation
from the 1860s until 2004,
and where the notorious dungeon cells are located.
This dungeon in this prison was a true dungeon
as you would hear about in medieval castles.
A true dungeon.
Aaron will be investigating the gas chamber
where 39 men and 1 woman were killed.
AARON: Very uneasy feeling walking up towards this place.
This right here was the path they would take
on the way to their death.
They would see this cross.
I wonder what they felt when they saw this cross.
All right. Coming in.
Oh, my gosh, this is freaky.
Okay, how many spirits hanging out in this room?
[ Static ]
My body right now is feeling the energy of something.
It's all the static that's going through it.
Are you making me feel something right now?
[ Static ]
[ Bangs ]
Whoa.
ZAK: Aaron jumps as he hears what sounds like
someone hitting the metal gas chamber.
Was that you?
The stairway to Hell.
Wow.
NICK: Who's back here with me?
ZAK: While Aaron investigates the gas chamber
at the Missouri State Penitentiary alone,
Nick and I head over to "A" hall.
As we make our way to the staircase
that leads to the dungeon cells,
we are reminded that this place
conceived nearly every form of torture,
including whipping, water curing,
and being chained up with rings.
Men down here went insane,
and some went completely blind as they lived in pitch darkness,
and in 1890, a former inmate wrote a book
based on his experiences in the dungeon called "Buried Alive."
This is also where physical attacks are claimed to occur.
Have you heard about the scratches?
I've seen them.
Mm-hmm.
Here it is, ladies and gentlemen --
the stairway to Hell.
NICK: We're walking down into this dungeon --
the worst spot you would hate to go.
If you can hear my voice... follow us down here.
Oh, there's a doorway right there.
This is it right here.
Wow.
Did you actually do something wrong to be put down here?
What's down here?
Holy [bleep] It keeps going?
I'm getting kind of nervous in here.
Please talk to me.
[ Static ]
ZAK: The only voice that Aaron receives
from a 30-minute spirit box session is this one.
Dude, there is seriously something in here with me,
and I hope I captured it on that camera.
It sounds like this female spirit is saying "sorry."
Is this the only woman out of 40 total people
who died in this gas chamber
apologizing for the *** she committed,
or was this her last conscious thought
that we are hearing residually?
Dude, there is seriously something in here with me,
and I hope I captured it on that camera.
Oh, look at this. They cemented this.
ZAK: Yeah, they cemented this one up.
We notice some of the dungeon cells have been sealed shut,
and we wonder why this would happen
and what lies within these cells.
To get a taste
of what conditions these inmates lived in,
I decide to let Nick experience it firsthand.
We're gonna turn off night vision
so that you can get a sense of how dark it is here.
If you panic or you feel uncomfortable,
just say something and I'll turn it back on.
NICK: Is there anybody in front of me right now?
ZAK: While I leave Nick's camera off of night vision
so you can see exactly what he's seeing,
I grab my own camera and turn night vision on
and slowly back away.
NICK: Are you trapped here?
Is this negative energy just lingering
in this hell-forsaken jail cell?
ZAK: While Nick is in complete darkness,
I decide to head up to the second floor
to investigate this cell where a woman captured
this window opening and closing by itself.
NICK: Can't [bleep] see.
Hey, Zak?
We desert each other without the other person knowing sometimes
so that they will be more vulnerable
to possibly being ambushed by a spirit.
Is there a prisoner in this room...that hates this prison?
Hello?
Right now, I just heard a man's disembodied voice
come from right there.
Is there a prisoner in this room...that hates this prison?
Hello?
Who's back here with me?
"Demon."
There's someone down here with me!
ZAK: Back at our nerve center,
Billy and Jay attempt to communicate with spirits
trapped on death row.
Why are you in this prison?
If you talk to us, we can help you.
Reverend.
"Reverend."
Reverend?
Do you have some last words?
Is that why you want a reverend?
Information.
"Information."
Jesus.
Did he say "Jesus"?
Maybe he wants information on Jesus.
Change.
Bible.
"Bible."
ZAK: Is this spirit asking for a reverend
in order to get the right information about Jesus
because right now, it is stuck in purgatory
and needs to change its bible in order to be set free?
What's really disturbing is the word that comes through
20 seconds after "bible."
It's not too late to change.
Demon.
"Demon."
Are you in the company of the dark side, demons,
and other forces that want to take you to Hell?
Yes or no?
Right after Billy asks a question,
they hear two loud bangs.
Is this the spirit trying to respond to them?
Are you in the company of the dark side, demons,
and other forces that want to take you to Hell?
Yes or no?
The Ovilus now says three more very relevant words.
Now.
Lost.
Trap.
Is this spirit now telling us
he is lost and trapped here with demons right now?
Can you speak up? Talk louder.
I need answers to know for everybody.
All right, there was a man's disembodied voice right there.
I keep hearing a clear male voice
come from this next jail cell over.
ZAK: What's interesting
is that these spirit voices Nick is hearing
do not have an echo,
which is a very typical characteristic
of a disembodied voice.
We are going to put captions on screen
as to what we make these voices out to be saying.
The first voice sounds like an extended "Stop."
I need answers to know for everybody.
All right, there was a man's disembodied voice right there.
ZAK: They say men went insane down here.
Is Nick hearing the final words spoken by an inmate
before he took his own life?
NICK: Is there someone there?
ZAK: Nick?!
Hello?
Nick.
There's someone down here with me!
[Bleep]
[ Indistinct conversation ]
Holy [bleep]
ZAK: What were you seeing and hearing?
NICK: I heard a [bleep] man
talking in the next jail cell over from me.
Are you serious?
Yeah, I swear to God.
I heard him going, "Hurry out of here."
It was, like, weird as [bleep]
Did you get it? Whoa.
I told you. There it is.
There it is.
At this exact moment,
we hear an absolutely chilling growl-type sound
come up the stairs along with faint footsteps.
Are you serious?
Yeah, I swear to God.
I heard him going, "Hurry out of here."
It was, like, weird as [bleep]
Did you get it? Whoa.
Did you get it? Whoa.
Did you get it? Whoa.
I told you. There it is. There it is.
This is one of the most common things to hear in this prison.
But you, you've heard it?
I've heard them twice, yeah.
Were they animals?
No.
Nick and I return to nerve center
and find Jay and Billy in a panic
over what they've been hearing from the Ovilus device.
Yeah, we're having a conversation.
We're asking questions on the walkie-talkie,
and then they're sending us words back.
Yeah.
Twist.
Men.
"Will twist men?"
Apart.
"Apart."
It just said, "Will twist men apart."
That's what that felt like in my stomach.
Started getting stomach pains.
Who told us that some guy's stomach was ripped open?
The guy got his whole face stabbed.
See.
What does that say?
Nick.
As soon as you got in the [bleep] chair, it said "Nick."
Right there.
ZAK: As we wrap up our investigation,
the X camera we left rolling in "A" hall
captures something very compelling.
On the upper left side,
which would be in front of cell number 40,
where all the paranormal activity occurs,
including windowed doors opening and closing by themselves,
this very strange mist-like anomaly manifests
on the other side of the railing.
Then, as it appears to climb the rails,
this little white dot appears where the head would be,
almost like an eye, then it manifests
into a spinning, rectangular, mist-like anomaly.
Is this the same white, rectangular anomaly
that was seen by corrections officer Tom?
Mm-hmm.
The history behind these bloody 47 acres
spreads back over 168 years
filled with violence and tragedy,
from those killed where they sleep...
SCHREIBER: He was killed with a hammer.
ZAK: ...to the bodies laid to rest without a name,
the Missouri State Penitentiary
is much more than its limestone walls and decaying paint.
It's like it's aware that we're here.
Whatever negative energy remains here reached out to us...
[ Bangs ]
...to be heard, to be felt.
Now it's [bleep] starting to really [bleep] hurt.
Now the rocks aren't the only thing
to keep a record of the past.
As investigators,
we carry the story of every location wherever we go.