Old City Jail
Haunted Places- 2,303 views
- 21 Jan 2021
Built in 1802 and operational for nearly 140 years, the Old City Jail in Charleston, South Carolina saw the deaths of over fourteen thousand people — and some of them, like ten-year-old Alonzo Small, are thought to still inhabit the imposing stone fortress.
Due to the graphic nature of this haunted place, listener discretion is advised this episode includes discussions of slavery, murder, torture and harm against minors. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Samuel smeared stucco over the last unfinished patch of wall and paused, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He hated this work. It was hot and muggy. The supervisors gave them little to no water or breaks. Plus, the land had once been a potter's field, a place to bury the unknown.
Dead, the builder said, and laughed every time they dug up the graves for the foundation. But every time Samuel saw a shard of bone in the dirt, he shuttered. The jail he was building was supposed to look like a castle, but it didn't have any elegance. It exuded power and cruelty. This place wasn't a castle. It was a fortress. Samuel stepped into the shade of the front archway, trying to escape the heat. But as he leaned back against the column, he heard a woman's wail echoing through the building.
Samuel throws the jail wasn't far from being ready for prisoners, there wasn't supposed to be anyone in there, but the cries continued, a chill swept through him. He worried maybe someone had become trapped inside during construction that they needed help. He pushed the iron door open and stepped inside the cries that were coming from a door at the end of the hall. Samuel inched closer like he'd been set out to some invisible track. Then he turned the doorknob, but suddenly it came off and he was holding it in his hand.
Just then the door opened and the screams stopped. He was staring into the face of the new warden. The warden demanded to know what he was doing there, then glanced at the door and Samuel's hand. He swore at him, then accused him of theft. It was against the law to steal building property, he said. Samuel, trying to explain that he thought someone needed his help. The doorknob had just fallen off, but the warden wasn't interested.
Samuel could see the cruelty in his eyes. This was a man who wanted to cause pain.
The warden smiled and said it looked like the new city jail had just found its first inmate.
And if the warden was lucky, maybe its first execution to. Welcome to Haunted Places, a Spotify original from podcast, I'm Greg Pulsing. Every Thursday, I take you to the scariest, eeriest, most haunted real places on Earth. You can find episodes of Haunted Places and all other Spotify originals from podcast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts and every Tuesday, make sure to check out urban legends. These special episodes of Haunted Places are available exclusively on Spotify this week.
Join me on a supernatural journey to the Old City jail in Charleston, South Carolina, a foreboding fortress that was once the site of over 14000 deaths. And discover why to this day, it's haunted. Coming up, we'll meet the ghosts of the Old City jail. The southern tip of the Charleston Peninsula is seemingly picture perfect, oleander and magnolia trees line the shady green streets.
Locals ride bikes along the shoreline and neighbors greet each other from the branches of their pastel clapboard homes.
It's a charming neighborhood except for one building, the Old City Jail, one of the most sickeningly inhumane prisons in the history of the United States. The jail looks more like it belongs in medieval times than the city of Charleston.
It's gray and castle, like a low stone wall, surrounds its overgrown yard and the narrow windows are boarded up.
But the land itself has a shadowy history, one that was dark long before the structure was even built. Starting in 1737, it was the site of a powder magazine for the storage of gunpowder. During this time, the land was used to bury those who couldn't be buried in a churchyard.
The enslaved, the impoverished sex workers and the condemned were all buried there.
And when the jail was finally built in 1882, the same groups of people were jailed there and often hung sometimes for crimes as trivial as petty theft. In the early eighteen hundreds, executions were a spectator sport. Hangings drew large crowds, most jeering at the last moments of the lives of the accused. But there were always a few in the crowd who stayed quiet. They knew to be careful about what they said because the dead were always listening.
Susan and Margaret stood in a small private room on the second floor of the jail, waiting for the execution to begin. The warden was Margaret's cousin, so they'd gotten their very own viewing area. He'd suggested they come watch the event away from the filth of the crowd, which Suzannah was grateful for.
But this room was far from clean. The walls were black from years of dirt, and even holding a perfumed handkerchief in front of one's nose could not block the damp, almost rotten stench. Truthfully, Susannah hadn't wanted to come at all. She thought the whole thing was rather gauche. Such affairs weren't meant for ladies of good breeding, but Margaret had insisted that she would not want to miss the historic event. A killer like Lavinia Fisher came along once in a lifetime.
The chance to see her hanged was just as rare. Susanna hadn't read any of the articles about Lavinia.
She hadn't needed to.
Her story was all anyone could talk about. John and Lavinia Fisher had owned in in about six miles outside of Charleston. They were a popular couple with a pleasant façade, as legend has it. When rich guests visited the inn, Lavinia would sweetly offer them a cup of tea to take up to bed. What they didn't know was that the tea was laced with deadly oleander. John would then rob the guests and in case the poison didn't finish the job, stabbed them to death to dispose of the bodies.
Some said the beds in the inn were elaborately rigged. When Lavinia pulled the lever, the bottom dropped out and the guest was dumped into the cellar. Supposedly, the authorities had found hundreds of corpses in the in the basement. Susanna shivered. She didn't know why they'd even bothered by the trial. They could have just gone straight to the hanging.
A hush fell over the crowd below them.
Lavinia had arrived. Susanna and Margaret march through the open window as she got out of the carriage and mounted the steps of the gallows. Suzanne had heard talk of Lavinia's great beauty, but this woman looked barely human.
Her long, dark hair hung and greasy clumps around her hollow face. The only clean thing about her was a simple white shift. Covering her emaciated form, Margaret whispered that the robe was Lavinia's wedding dress. Supposedly, Lavinia had heard it was against the law to hang a married woman. She thought the dress might win her a pardon.
Susanna thought it looked less like a wedding dress and more like some kind of sacrificial robe. But then some did have strange taste. But even through all the filth and degradation, there was something familiar about the woman's face. And when Lavinia smiled chillingly at the crowd, Susanna suddenly remembered why she recognized her. It had been years ago Susanna had been traveling to her country estate.
When she began to feel woozy from the rocking carriage, she asked her driver to stop at a small in for a quick break. And that's when she saw Lavinia. She was standing in the painted door frame, her long, dark hair tumbling over her shoulders. She greeted Susanna with a charming smile and offered her a glass of whiskey.
Susanna said that ladies don't drink whiskey, Lavenia. Had winked, threaded her arm through Susannah's and said they did when there was no one around to see, normally Suzannah would be offended by this kind of familiarity.
But there was something so charming about the young woman, especially for a poor country girl. She almost didn't mind. But still, she turned it down and went out her way back at the jail.
Susanna watched the scene below the jail window, stunned.
She could not believe that she had met Lavinia at that horrific in and how close she had been from meeting a gruesome fate in the phishers cellar, Susannah's hands began to shake. Margaret looked at her concerned and asked if she was all right. But soon their attention was whipped back to the gallows as the crowd below them gasped as the executioners slipped the noose over her neck. She turned to address her audience. She said if anyone had a message for hell and they should let her know now and she'd deliver it for them, a shocked silence swept over the crowd.
Lavinia gave a smiley smile and looked around as if waiting for an answer. Susanna wondered why she'd said that. What was she trying to imply? Was she saying that the people in the crowd were wicked enough to have a message for hell?
But no response came? Lavinia shrugged. Then she turned on her heel and ran to the front of the platform. She paused for a moment, suspended at the edge.
Finally, she left off her white dress, plumed out around her as she fell, hitting the end of the rope with a snap. Then there was only the sound of the gallows creaking and the crowd cheering.
Not long after, the warden knocked at the door and entered the room, followed by a man with an orange beard, Susannah didn't recognize he was young, with cropped hair and a serious expression. He didn't say a word. She wondered if he was one of the guards. He wasn't wearing a uniform, but who else could he be without introducing him? The warden asked the girls if they'd like to see the dead woman's cell. Margaret gasped. She was eager to have a peek, but Susanna beg their pardon.
She would much rather wait for them here, just seeing the execution had been crass enough. So Margaret and the warden left and Susanna walked to the window to gaze down to the gallows.
Just then she heard a voice behind her. Susanna spun around and saw a young man was still in the room. He asked her a curious question. Did she know that Lavinia was innocent? So now I have nervously. There was something a bit off about the man. Susanna said she couldn't have been innocent. They didn't hang innocent women. The man shook his head. He said again that Lavinia was innocent. Sure, Lavinia thieved taking what she needed to get by and she wasn't above a sock in the jaw if a man deserved it, but she was innocent in the ways that mattered.
She'd never killed anything more than a chicken or two.
Growing nervous, Susanna took a step toward the door. There was a look in his eyes that she didn't like a look of rage. She told him she didn't really know Lavinia story, that she'd been dragged there by her friend, but he only gave her a cold smile. Susanna took another step. The man then asked if she liked to watch people die, if she thought it was funny. Susannah's heart raced. If she could get past the man and to the door, maybe she could slam it shut and lock him in.
But he seemed to read her mind. He told her to go ahead and try it. He wouldn't stop her from leaving.
So Susanna took another step toward the door. Her hands were shaking. Sweat trickled down her face. Was this a trick? Was he going to grab her?
As soon as she got close to him, she kept her eyes on the man. Maybe he just wanted to scare her. She took one more step, put her hand on the doorknob and turned it. The door swung open and she froze in terror.
Standing in front of her was a woman in a white gown, the same woman she'd seen die ten minutes ago. Only now her head hung from her shoulders like a rose with a broken stem. Susannah's heart stopped. Lavinia stepped into the room. She put her hand on the man's back and said her husband was right. All she'd done was robbed a couple of old men. If Susanna read the papers instead of listening to rumors, she might have known that back then, Lavinia said she thought everyone had the right to live, but not anymore.
Even the innocent died to. She said Susannah began to scream, but the sound was cut off as Lavenia reached out and wrapped her hands around Susannah's neck, asking if she'd like to have that glass of whiskey.
The legend of John and Lavinia Fisher is one of the most infamous to come out of Charleston Old City jail. The Fishers did own an in six miles outside of town, but they didn't kill their guests. Instead, they were part of a gang of highwaymen responsible for a number of thefts in the area in the winter of 1819. The couple was arrested and hung for robbing a traveler named John Peoples, of course, the citizens of Charleston. We're not going to let facts get in the way of a good story.
It didn't take long for rumors to turn Lavenia into an evil mastermind. Stories about Lavinia Fisher ranged from simple tales of poisoning to complicated plots involving rig beds and a corpse filled cellar.
Another of the outrageous rumors had to do with the white robe she wore to her hanging. People claimed that Lavinia went to her execution in her wedding dress after her death. The rumors turned into ghost stories.
It was said that Lavinia was seen wandering the prison in her white wedding dress the day she was executed. And visitors to the Charleston Old City jail will often leave the building with scratches on their arms, her legs, supposedly Lavinia's mark. But of all these rumors, there is only one that holds any truth. Just before Lavinia was hung, she turned to the reverend who asked her to repent.
She told him and everyone else she didn't want their words of salvation, but if they had a message for hell, she'd carry it. We may never know why Lavinia said what she did. Perhaps it was a joke or a condemnation of the bloodthirsty crowd. But whatever it was, it seemed that any messages were permanently delayed. Lavinia never made it to hell. She still hasn't left the Old City jail. Coming up, a 10 year old child becomes a victim of the old jail's cruelty.
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Now back to the story for the thousands of people who were imprisoned there, the Charleston Old City jail was a terrifying pit of despair.
The rooms were overcrowded and crawling with vermin. It was said that you could smell the prison from blocks away. Some inmates were hardened criminals, but many did time only for crimes as minor as pickpocketing. Even worse, some of the inmates were children. Imprisoned parents often couldn't find anyone on the outside to care for their sons or daughters, so they were forced to bring their children with them. And occasionally women gave birth and were forced to rear their infants within the walls of the prison.
But there were also children who were locked up as punishment for a crime because the first juvenile court wasn't opened until 1899.
For much of U.S. history, minors over the age of seven were tried as adults. One of these unlucky few was a 10 year old boy named Alonzo Small.
Alonzo lay on the floor of his filthy cell, staring up at a stain on the ceiling. At first, the stain hadn't looked like much of anything, but the more he stared at it, the clearer it became. It was a trolley. He could make out the windows, the door and even the raised roof on the very top. He knew that train well. It was the same one that had ruined his life, and it had happened only a month ago.
It was a warm afternoon and Alonzo met up on Market Street with his two best friends, Patrick and Francis. Patrick and Francis were different from Alonzo, but they were pals all the same. Both boys had parents and comfortable homes, but they never met. Alonzo feel bad about not having a family or house when they were together. They just had fun. That afternoon, Alonzo wanted to play hoops and stick, but Patrick suggested they sneak into the old trolley barn.
The idea made Alonzo nervous. No one was supposed to be in the barn, but he went along with it anyway.
He knew if anyone discovered them there, Patrick and Francis would protect him. Kids with families never got in trouble. It's something he'd learned early on when Alonzo was with them. He felt like he was a kid with a family, too. They snuck in through a loose board in the back as they made their way through the rows of out of service cars. Alonzo's pulse quickened. They looked strange. Sitting there are all empty. There was something kind of spooky about them.
But Patrick ran up into one of the cars and pretended to drive it like there was nothing wrong at all.
Francis pushed him aside and insisted that he should get a chance to drive, not wanting to be left out. Alonzo climbed aboard too, and wandered over to the board of levers and buttons. He pressed a few and then reached out for a big red lever. Alonzo knew he'd made a mistake. The moment he pulled it, the lever swung toward him. When he tried to put it back in place, he found it was stuck, his stomach clenched in fear.
The trolley car was beginning to move. Alonzo kept trying to push the lever again, but it wouldn't budge. He put his whole weight against it, but it was too late. He had started something terrible.
The car picked up speed as it rolled toward the door of the barn. The train crashed through the barn door, raining splinters of wood over the windows. Patrick and Francis screamed as it barreled down the road, people jumping out of its path. A horse and cart barely made it. When he spotted a second trolley car headed straight toward them, his heart stopped. He yelled for Patrick and Francis to get to the back of the car. He tugged frantically at the lever, but it wouldn't move.
Alonzo ran to the steering wheel and yanked it to the left.
But it was too late. With the sickening crunch of metal, the two cars collided. Alonzo felt a searing pain in his leg, and then everything went black.
When he woke up, Alonzo was lying in a hospital bed with shackles on his arms. Both of his legs were gone. He looked up to see Patrick standing beside his bed. Patrick took his hand. Alonzo had never seen his friend look so sad. In a quiet voice, Patrick told him that he tried to tell the police it was his fault, but they wanted to pin the accident on Alonzo, and his parents wouldn't let him fight it. As Patrick spoke, Francis entered the room with a wheelchair.
It was made of fine cherrywood with slim, elegant wheels. Unlike Alonso, Francis still had his legs. He wheeled over to Patrick's side. They wanted Alonzo to know that they would always stand by his side. Alonzo felt his eyes brimming with tears.
He looked up at his friends and told them that for the first time in his life, he knew what it was like to have a family. The trial was quick. It wasn't just that Alonzo had been the one to pull the lever that set the trolley in motion. The train had killed an innocent bystander that day. The people of Charleston needed someone to take the fall. Who better than a parentless vagrant? When Alonzo arrived at the prison, he was greeted by a burly guard with a thick black beard.
The man noticed Alonzo was holding his nose. He asked if Alonzo thought the prison smelled bad. Alonzo shook his head, but it was too late. The guard was already angry. He seized Alonzo by the hair and began cutting off chunks with a pair of rusty scissors. Then he brought out a panel of clear liquid with a bitter smell to it. Alonzo started to struggle. The man smiled and said some strong lies. Soap was good for killing vermin.
Without warning, he dumped it over Alonzo's head. The liquid singed his flesh and. In his eyes, he screamed out in pain and a burning bitter taste flooded his mouth when the guard doused Alonzo again with a bucket of freezing water, the cold liquid was almost a relief. Afterward, the bearded guard brought Alonzo to a cell.
But when he tried to push him through the door, his wheelchair was too wide to fit. Alonzo looked up at the guard. He said there must be another cell with a wider door. He needed his chair to guard, just laughed. He said it was not up to the prisoners to decide which cell they got. The guard pushed Alonzo into the cell and took his chair down the hall. Alonzo crawled to a corner. He'd always been a tough kid.
He knew that crying made him look vulnerable and vulnerable boys got beat up. But that day, for the first time since the accident, he curled up into a ball and began to cry.
Alonzo spent the next few weeks laying in a corner and staring up at the ceiling.
And as the days passed, he never heard from Patrick or Francis, and soon he realized he may never again. When the guards came with food and water, his cellmates ate with fury. But Alonzo ignored them. He didn't feel hungry anymore. His body was covered with infected sores. He had lice and rat bites. But after a while, he stopped noticing the discomfort. For weeks, he sat propped up against a wall, feeling nothing at all.
Sometimes he would sleep, but mostly he remained trapped in a state between sleeping and waking.
A long time passed that way. Then one day, something changed. Alonzo awoke with more energy than usual and then noticed that his cell door was open.
He turned to one of the other prisoners and tapped him on the shoulder, asking what had happened. But the man shook him off. Alonzo crawled to the door and poked his head out into the hall. There was not a guard in sight. He started to tell the other prisoners to follow him. But when he turned back to the cell, he saw something that made his stomach drop. A figure was sitting slumped in his corner. At first, he barely recognized his own body as Alonzo hadn't seen a mirror in a long time.
He was so thin you could see all the veins and tendons in his arms. The source had spread so wide that there was barely a single patch of unblemished skin on him. Flies had already begun to buzz around his eyes. Alonzo suddenly felt faint. He needed to get out of this room. He turned away and started down the hall, surprised that he could move so quickly. But he stopped when he reached a corridor. Sitting in the middle of the hall was his wheelchair.
Alonzo's heart leapt. He crawled to it and hoisted himself up, running his hands over the polished wood. For the first time in a while, he felt like a human being happy even he leaned back and enjoyed the comfort of the molded wooden seat.
Just then, he heard keys jingling coming from the black bearded guard who'd poured light his head and taken away his chair. But the man didn't seem to see a man. So instead the guard approached the chair and made to sit down in it. This whole time, Alonzo realized the guard had been using the chair for himself. Alonzo's head buzzed with rage as the guards backside came toward him.
He was seized with a sudden impulse.
He pushed the guard hard and the man went sprawling face first onto the floor. Alonzo chuckled darkly. The man stood up his eyes wide and his breath heavy. He was scared. Alonzo took advantage of the moment and reached out to grab his keys. The guard spun around trying to see what had happened, then spotted them at the chair. When he reached down to grab them, Alonzo made his move. He stabbed one of the keys into the man's thigh and watched a red stain spread on his clothes.
The guard looked at his leg in terror, but Alonzo smiled. This was his chair. Nobody but him would ever sit in it again. In 1913, a boy named Alonzo Small snuck into a trolley barn with some friends to play. When one of the trolleys was accidentally put in motion, it broke free of the barn and hit another moving trolley, wounding several and killing a bystander. Alonzo was convicted of first degree murder and imprisoned at the Old City jail.
A month later, he died. He was ten years old. Alonzo's ghost is said to haunt an old wheelchair that sits just outside death row. Visitors regularly report strange things happening around the chair. It will turn suddenly or a footplate will move as though it is being pushed down. Not only that, but dust collects on the chair as though it is settling around the back side of a human occupant. Perhaps the most unsettling of all tour guides occasionally noticed that small children will approach the chair and start speaking when asked who they were talking to, the children always have the same answer.
They were talking to the little boy sitting in the wheelchair. Coming up, the spirits of the jail take their revenge. Now back to the story. The Old City jail executed its last victim in 1911, but the prison itself wasn't fully decommissioned until 28 years later. In 1939, for a time, the jail sat empty. In the 1970s, it was turned into a museum.
Then in the 1990s, it was sold to an architectural school that used it to teach students about the restoration of old buildings. What was once a terrible prison became a place of learning, but it is said that the voices of those who died there still echo through the dark stone halls.
Though the purpose of the Old City jail might have changed, its history remains the same. Despite her surly glances, Fred led his teenage daughter toward the old crumbling jail and opened the gate. She claimed she hadn't wanted to come on this tour, but she needed to. They needed to. Frank and his daughter Lily, hadn't been getting along as of late. Her mother said it was just regular teenage stuff. But Frank knew Lily had always been a little rebellious when she was little.
It was simple things. She liked to ask questions and talk back, but these days she'd go off with friends and he had no idea where she was. For all he knew, she was doing drugs or had joined a gang. That's why he'd reached out to his friend at the architecture school to ask if he could take a look around the jail with his kids. He wanted to show Lily that she lived in a world where people who didn't respect the law got what was coming to them.
She put up quite the fight, but when he finally promised her she could go see some band called Rage Against the Machine, she finally agreed to go. Frank stepped into the dark entrance of the jail outside. It was hot and humid, but inside was almost unbearable and it stunk. He felt like he'd been wrapped in a wall blanket soaked with sewer water. He could see that Lily felt it, too. She looked uncomfortable and more irritated than usual.
But Frank smiled through the discomfort he had teaching to do when they entered a large, windowless room with stone floors and ceilings. He explained that this was where the jail held debtors petty thieves and ladies of the night. His architect friend had told him that he glanced at Lily. He could tell she was biting her tongue, wanting to tell him to call them sex workers. But as far as he was concerned, his 16 year old didn't get to tell him what words to use as they made their way to a spiral staircase in a nearby turret.
Lily was silent behind him, but as they climbed the stairs, Frank heard a sound coming from the landing above. At first, he thought it might be the wind. But the closer he got, the more it sounded like whispers. He turned behind them and asked Lily if she'd heard it, too, but she just shook her head and suggested he was getting senile. Frank ignored the sound and his daughter's biting comment and led her into another large room at the top of the stairs.
It held 10 large boxes large enough for a person to stand in, and each one had small holes at eye level. These were the solitary confinement cells, he explained. For the worst of people with the defiant glint in her eye, Lily said she'd read about this. People in solitary confinement were forced to stand for days at a time they couldn't leave to eat, drink or even relieve themselves. She called it inhumane. Frank wanted to argue with Lily.
He wanted to say that bad guys were put here for everyone's safety. But as he started to speak, he heard that same sound again. This time it was clearer. It was like a chorus of voices calling out from very far away. He rubbed his temples and wondered if he was getting dehydrated. Lily was looking at him. Frank just grumbled something about public safety and left the room. They arrived and the crumbling landing of the third floor. Frank guided Lily into a scorching, hot, windowless hallway with heavy iron doors along both sides.
Death row the ultimate punishment. But as soon as they started down the corridor, he felt the moist heat intensify. It was like the irritation he'd been feeling got worse with every floor. He had a whole speech prepared about how real justice requires people to suffer for their wrongdoing. But as soon as he started speaking, he heard those voices again. Frank muttered something about bad guys who deserve to die. Lily let out a derisive snort. Her round face was getting very red, and he could tell that the heat was getting to her, too.
But her voice dripped with sarcasm.
She said that she was sure everyone who was executed in this jail deserved to die.
Frank crossed his arms. They'd had this argument before, he said. Maybe innocent people occasionally got the death penalty. But mostly it was people who did terrible things, people who really deserved it. Lily asked if he thought that the men who were executed for the color of their skin deserved it. Frank started to sputter, wanting to tell her she was young and didn't understand certain things. But his head was suddenly pounding.
He knelt down to the old stone floor. He could hear Lily distantly asking if he was OK. Frank shook his head.
He told Lily to go find someone. He leaned back against the wall and listen to her rush down the stairs as Lily got father.
Away, the voices started getting louder. It was like a group of people were coming down the hallway toward him. They were screaming in agony. Men, women and even children were all crying out in horror.
His heart started pounding. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew he had to get away from the voices.
He staggered down the hall toward a padlocked door at the end when he reached it. Frank tugged at the lock and it clicked open. He flung it off the door and ran into the room.
Everything went quiet. Frank breathed a sigh of relief. Then he looked up and his whole body went cold.
The room was filled with men, women and children smiling at him. A woman in a white dress stepped forward. Then a little boy without legs shut the door behind him. Frank felt a beat of sweat trickled down his forehead. The padlock clicked. The woman gave him a charming smile. She said they'd heard what he said, that everyone killed in this prison was a murderer who deserved to die.
But he was wrong.
She pointed to one man and said he'd never killed anyone. Next, she pointed to a woman that had only stolen a penny, then a man who'd done nothing but talk back to his master. Finally, she pointed to Frank. Her charming smile turned into a malicious grin. She told him he should be more careful about what he says. Frank Fros then felt a burning hand clothes around his arm.
He looked around to see the boy without legs. The boy smiled. Then he produced a long, sharp piece of metal. He said none of them had been killers when they were alive. But being dead, well, that will change a person, though.
The Old City jail was part of the Charleston architectural school for many years, ordinary people could pay to tour the prison and hear about its gruesome history. Guests, teachers and students who have walked its halls have all reported ghost encounters. Some of the experiences are harmless visions of long dead inmates, and many are as simple as the unexplained movement of an object. But a few accounts involved tourists getting violently pushed and even becoming physically ill. It would seem the spirits that haunt the prison do not take kindly to visitors today.
There is no longer an architectural school at the Old City Jail, but tours are still given at the jail, and as long as the building still stands, it will remain a stark reminder that the cruelties and injustice of the Middle Ages have followed us into the 19th and 20th centuries. Inhumane prisons, economic inequality and false imprisonment have transformed from the decrees of kings and queens and into the laws of a government. The lives that were lost within the walls of the Old City jail were the victims of those injustices.
Maybe their ghosts torment tourists because they're fueled by rage. Maybe it's revenge or envy for the living. Or perhaps there are some who won't rest until they know there are no innocent people who suffer the same fate. So until that happens, you might want to be careful about what you say in their domain. Thanks again for tuning into haunted places. We'll be back on Thursday, but the new episode and don't forget to come back on Tuesday for our Urban Legends series available only on Spotify.
You can find more episodes of Haunted Places and all other Spotify originals from podcast for free on Spotify. I'll see you next time. Haunted Place. This is a Spotify original from podcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, Sound Design by Nick Johnson with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Isabella Way. This episode of Haunted Places was written by Zoe Lewis. Lewis with writing assistance by Alex Garland, fact checking by Adriana Romero and research by Adriana Gomez and Mikki Taylor.
I'm Greg Polson. Fact fiction fame discovered the real story behind one of history's most formidable families in the Spotify or Digital Fun podcast, The Kennedys. Remember, you can binge all 12 episodes starting on Tuesday, January 19th. Listen free and exclusively on Spotify. Hi, it's Vanessa again. Before you go, don't forget to check out the new Parkhurst Limited series. Criminal couples from apocalyptic cult leaders to bank robbing bandits to married mafiosos. These couples give new meaning to till death do us part.
Enjoy two part episodes every Monday starting February 1st. Follow criminal couples free and exclusively on Spotify.