Haunted Prison in West Virginia

Located in Moundsville West Virginia is the old West Virginia State maximum security prison. Now this prison has a long and sometimes violent history. Prisoners were murdered in their cells by other inmates, during riots, and most notably, they were put to death in the electric chair, "old sparky", who was built by an inmate from that facility. The prison is closed now, but you can still tour it, and if you are brave enough even spend the night there, of which I plan on doing once I return stateside.

This story concerns the day light tour I took of the facility while I was a corrections officer with the state of West Virginia. Once we had received our initial briefing about the facility, we were allowed to tour it on our own and pretty much go where ever we wanted, even places the public isn't allowed. While touring the facility, I was in a section of the prison known as the sugar shack, supposedly where some of the worst offenders were housed. I was the only person in this section of the prison at the time and while I was up on the third tier, inspecting some of the old cells, when down below me the cell doors slammed shut.

Now, this wouldn't have come as much of a surprise to me if it weren't for the fact that all the doors had closed at once which is what they are supposed to do, but they are controlled by a lever from a central location which I could see from my vantage point and no one was there and the lever was still in the up position. Taking that as a cue, I left that section of the prison and made my way down to the basement and the location of the HOLE, this was a place they say drove some inmates mad. While in the basement, I kept having the feeling of someone following me and as I grew near to the hole, a feeling of dread and despair almost overwhelmed me. I kept my senses, though, and started to make my way deeper into the basement. I caught the glimpse of a figure, just off in the shadows, moving from right to left that should have brought them into the light, what little there was, but they never appeared and I didn't see them go the other way.

Once again I took it as a cue to leave. I went from there up to the medical and dental ward of the facility, no physical events took place here, just a sense of foreboding over the area. This has all lead me to believe that something is still behind the walls of this prison and that they may never be able to leave. I am going to do an all night ghost hunt of this facility and I plan on taking some video and audio equipment and see if I can capture any thing on film or tape.