It has stood in the middle of Moundsville for the past 144 years and was operated as a high-security state prison for 65 of them, and the former West Virginia Penitentiary has remained a popular destination for those in search of stuck souls.
There were executions here, murders, too, and many more of the prisoners passed away after spending decades behind these bars for committing the most gruesome crimes on the outside. Some were serial murderers, others rapists and pedophiles and cop killers, and they were sent to Moundsville because the facility had a certain reputation for relentless rule enforcement by the guards, the warden, and the inmates, too.
North Hall housed the most dangerous prisoners, and South Hall was home for a population of the bank robbers, gangsters, drug dealers, and repeat thieves. Make no mistake – those convicts killed each other, too – and based on the number of discovered shanks currently displayed on the gift shop’s wall, intimidation shifted to action frequently.
It was hard time in overcrowded conditions, and there were no soft surfaces on the inside of the penitentiary, either. At times, tensions boiled resulting in jail breaks and outright riots. In November 1979, cop killer Ronald Williams led a group of 15 prisoners out the front door and before vanishing for 18 months, he murdered State Trooper Philip Kesner with a revolver he swiped from a guard on his way to temporary freedom.
And then it was on New Year’s Day 1986, when the “Avengers” took control of the prison after taking hostages and handcuffing them with their own handcuffs. Gross conditions inside the prison provoked prisoner outrage, but after two days former W.Va. Gov. Arch Moore met with inmate leadership and established new standards and ordered the construction of a new cafeteria afterward.
Charles Manson wished to be incarcerated here, and mob boss Pauly “No Legs” Hankish was, and many other notorious perverts, sleazeballs, and butchers, and those are a few of the stories told these days by Tina Conner, a tour guide for one of the most haunted former prisons in the world.
It’s Not the Building Settling
If a visitor sits along in a jail cell or along a hallway wall at the bottom of the housing tiers, it is likely they will hear something completely unscripted. There are no choreographed gimmicks during the tours conducted by Conner and the other guides, and when the prison is opened up for paranormal overnighters, many of them do not stay all that long.
“I had heard it had a very violent past before I started working here, but I didn’t truly understand how violent until I was researching the history to become a tour guide,” Conner explained. “ The prison was the site of 94 executions with 85 by hanging and 9 by electrocution. The documented death count totals 998 from 1920 to 1995.
“From 1866 to 1920, the death count is estimated at 500,” she continued. “The penitentiary was shut down on March 27, 1995, because of a violation of the 8th amendment and was deemed to be cruel and unusual punishment.”
Conner herself had her own doubts about the stories she heard about ghosts inside the prison because, well, she had not experienced anything she could not explain. Since June, though, Conner’s opinion has flipped.
“I believed that there was a possibility of paranormal activity, but since I started working at the prison, there are too many instances to deny the paranormal,” she insisted. “There are times when I become frightened at work, and that’s why I have become extremely interested in these paranormal experiences. I have yet to feel threatened in any way because it seems like the spirits just want to be acknowledged.
“Working as a tour guide at the West Virginia Penitentiary is by far the best job I’ve ever had,” Conner said. “I love to learn new information about the prison’s history, and I get to meet wonderful people from all over the world who come to visit the penitentiary. Plus, I am surrounded by the best coworkers who also have a passion for history and the paranormal.”
A Pinched Buttocks
The month of November will complete the prison’s tourism season until it begins again in April 2021 because there is no longer heat inside the structure that covers 10 acres in the middle of Moundsville. Tuesday through Friday, tours will be conducted at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m., and guides will be available on the hour Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m.
Everyone 9 years old and up must wear face coverings while inside the facility, adults are charged $14, seniors $11, and children six to 16 pay $8.
Each guest is warned of the possibilities, and yes, at times, it can get pretty personal.
“The first time I experienced something paranormal was my second day on the job. I was cleaning in the gift shop and turned around to see the face of a man looking at me through a window in the door leading to the non-contact visitation room,” Cross admitted. “I completely froze where I was standing. In that moment because I was completely terrified, but I was also intrigued by what I had just seen.
“Later, that same day, I was talking with a customer who had called himself a ‘skeptic’ when it comes to the paranormal,” she said. “About one minute later, the customer, myself and another employee heard the sound of handcuffs clicking as if they were being placed on someone’s wrists.”
Sounds like footsteps and conversations and slammed cell doors are common on the inside, but what really brings it home for many visitors are the occasions when they literally feel touched.
“The customers on my tours have also experienced many paranormal occurrences. Many people have shared with me the pictures of shadow men they have caught and other strange images caught within pictures,” Conner said. “Customers also have reported arms or ankles being grabbed, cell doors shaking or banging in front of them, feeling very cold spots in certain rooms, having their own name whispered in their ear.
“One lady on one of my night tours a week or so ago was pinched on her rear end,” she reported. “Some customers are excited to have a paranormal experience, but others become extremely uncomfortable, and some even decide to end their tour early.”
They Boo Back
Every single person who pays the price of admission wants something when he or she enters that first hallway of the former penitentiary. A scream of anguish; an angry slam of a cell door; a distant moan of misery; something.
Conner believes the more visitors tease and taunt, the more interaction that takes place.
“The spirits at the West Virginia Penitentiary seem to become more active when someone is trying to communicate with them. Just recently, the door to the front entrance during the prison’s operation was opening and closing by itself while I was talking to my tour group,” she described. “My entire group had witnessed the door behind me open, shut, and open again.
“After tours were over for the day, I had to walk back through the prison to close doors and turn off lights. I asked two other employees to walk through with me because it had been so active in the building that day. When we reached the door that had been opening on its own, it was now shut even though the last time I came through it was open,” she said. “An employee standing beside me asked out loud if someone could open the door, and it immediately opened.”
The construction of the prison took nine years and cost under $400,000, and it included two blocks of cells, a chapel, a recreation area, the warden’s residence, an infirmary, a kitchen, and the cafeteria, and Conner said some areas are more spiritually active than others.
“Many of the employees at the West Virginia Penitentiary believe that the Infirmary/pysch ward is the most haunted location,” she said. “There is activity almost every time we enter in there. However, some would argue that indoor recreation room is the most uncomfortable location to be in.
“It was often unwatched by the officers because it was very dangerous for them to enter on their own, and because of that, there were many fights, robberies, and assaults that took place,” Conner explained. “The inmates nicknamed it the ‘Sugar Shack,’ but it was not a sweet place to be.”
Different Each Day
During the past five months, Conner has realized there are no guarantees when it comes to the spirits who, for whatever reasons, have remained inside these sandstone walls since their shackled entry.
But there is no exact time when the shadows will show or where the phantoms will appear inside the prison’s frightening framework.
“In my opinion, the activity at the penitentiary seems to be different from day to day. Some people believe that spirits often relive events over and over again, but the penitentiary seems to have different occurrences every day,” Conner said. “The level of activity seems to change as well. Some days the place is very quiet and not much happens, but other days it seems as though the activity doesn’t seem to stop.
“The location that has activity seems to change as well,” she explained. “Some days the cell blocks are very active, and other days the gift shop has the most activity.”
Despite hours upon hours of research, though, Conner, her co-workers, the tour takers, the investigators, and filming crew members have yet to firmly identify the sauntering souls nor why they have persisted to reside along Jefferson Avenue.
Except, perhaps, for one of them.
“Some people speculate about who our ‘Shadowman’ is; some believe it is a correctional officer; some believe it is a murdered inmate; and others believe it may be someone who was part of the Native American tribe buried in the Grave Creek Mound right across the street,” Conner offered. “One spirit we are sure still resides in the penitentiary is William ‘Red’ Snyder.
“He was the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood gang and was stabbed 37 times by another member of the AB who was his good friend,” she added. “He passed away inside of his cell below his bunk. We are led to believe that ‘Red’ is still there because of the voice recordings we catch in and around his cell. ‘Red’ had a very recognizable smoker voice which has been caught on recording devices many times.”
