West Virginia State Penitentiary

Rebecca and her sister, Erica Shott, have visited and investigated the West Virginia State Penitentiary more than a dozen times resulting in some of our best footage believed to be paranormal. The Penitentiary, also called the Moundsville Prison due to the many Native American Indian burial grounds that can still be seen surrounding the area of the prison, operated from 1876-1995.

Its history includes a prison break in 1979 and one of the most famous prison riots in 1986. At the time of the riot, the prison was holding more than its quota of inmates at a headcount of 2,000 which caused a severe issue of overcrowding. The most renowned inmate that spent time in the WVSP is Charles Manson, and in the museum you can view one of the numerous letters Manson wrote to the prison superintendent years ago asking him to take Manson back from another prison and incarcerate him in Moundsville. Manson apparently had relatives living in the area and wanted to be closer to them while in prison. Currently the prison is open for day tours, night-time ghost hunting tours and is used as a training location for the local police department.

As any other abandoned and historical building that has walls surrounding so much anger, death, depression, sadness and illness, the WVSP maintains its own list of ghost stories. Some of what we experienced can be read below with the correlating photo. Please take time to view the photos in the album posted after the photo descriptions to see more within the walls of the Moundsville Prison!

The photo to the left is a storage room just outside the cafeteria. Though we were the only people in the room, and none of us were moving around, we heard clear shuffling and footsteps from within the room. After taking the photo, we noticed a strange anomaly on the floor, and after taking many pictures of the same spot, it only appeared in one photo. An enlarged photo of the anomaly can be seen below.

In the photo to the right, the cafeteria is located in the large rectangular building seen to the left. While standing in the middle of the cafeteria, Rebecca and Erica were conducting an EVP session, and undoubtedly heavy footsteps came toward us from the far end of the room. We were the only two people in the cafeteria, and the footsteps sounded as if they belonged to a large man wearing heavy boots. The closer they came to us, the louder and quicker we became. We then left the cafeteria, walked down the ramp and sat on the bench in this courtyard. Rebecca immediately took the photo to the right that demonstrates paranormal mist.

Again, we were the only two people sitting in this area when the picture was taken. It was not foggy outside, no one was smoking and no fires were lit in the area that would cost this smoke. The humidity was not the cause of this mist.

Below are two photos of the morgue within the main cellblock. After spending some time in the room, we sensed the ghost of a man walking toward us. Notice the orb in the doorway of the first, and closer (larger) to us in the second photo (right).

The doorway at the top of the stairs leading down to the maintenance "hole" which is located under the administrative part of the facility and the area known as Rat Row. One ghost story pertains to a guard that once stood watch at the top of the stairs leading down to the “hole”. No one seems to know who this guard is or what was the cause of his death, but visitors have reported seeing him carrying on with his duties to this day. Our experience of what we believe to be paranormal activity in this area is explained in the following paragraph. (See photo below left.)

To the right, a photo down the cell bock of the prison, showing one of the shower areas where prisoners were expected to shower openly and be watched by guards. In the cell block visitors experience the feeling of being touched, unexpected nausea, seeing people who "disappear", strange lights, mists that appear suddenly and disappear just as quickly, shuffling, footsteps and more.

It started and lasted the longest with the one on the left, then happened a few times to the one in the middle, then ended with a bit of a longer tapping episode, sounding just like if you take your finger and tape a microphone and the sound comes out the speakers. It was disappointing since we had no other forms of evidence, but it still struck us paranormal and rather peculiar based on the stories we were told of the “the guard to paces”.

We took photos and captured nothing, nothing on the video, but we did set up our voice recorder and microphones (three of them) along the top of the stairs. We sat there watching them to make sure wind didn’t blow, they didn’t fall over or people didn’t walk by; we had none of the above. When we played it back, the recorders captured Erica Shott (my sister) and me talking quietly in the background, but what is interesting is, starting from the left recorder, to the middle to the right, one at a time and in order (per the time recorded) there was distinct tapping on the microphones.

West Virginia State Penitentiary

Continue on to page two and read more about the ghosts of WVSP and see more pictures!