Travel Channel

I've finally been given some leway from the powers-that-be to share a few of the hauntings at the prison where I work. So here goes . . .

I guess I should start with the first ones first, but I need to lay a little bit of ground work:

The institution I work at is in Fort Worth, Texas and was originally a United States Public Health Service insane asylum and drug detox hospital for the military and merchant marine. Work began on it in 1935 and it was completed in 1937. I know a few of the old PHS staff who used to work there as early as the 1960's, and from what they've told me, it was a shop of horrors! The surgeons would perform electro-shock therapy, lobotomies and expermental surgery (cutting people open and seeing what they could find). Not a vacation spot to say the least. The Federal Bureau of Prisons took over the facility in 1971, and soon found various old 8mm film of many of the aforementioned proceedures being conducted. They also found several fluid-filled jars containing brains, hearts, eyeballs, etc. Sounds like a Frankenstein movie, doesn't it?

Now that I've laid some groundwork, here's my story:

Back in 1999, I'd been working there for a few years already, but I hadn't had any spectral encounters . . . yet. I'd heard a few stories from some of the older officers, but figured they were just that, stories. On this particular day I was working as the compound officer. Being the compound officer, I was responsible for checking the underground tunnel system on my shift (4pm to midnight). I was supposed to make sure inmates hadn't gotten out of their housing units and gotten into the tunnels to escape, fight or have . . . well . . . uh . . . s(e)x. Anyway, it was about 10:45 p.m.'ish, and I was walking through the tunnels and all of a sudden I heard the Buddy Holly song, "That'll Be The Day", playing throughout the tunnel system. I thought to myself, "I guess Cox (our communications specialist at the time) left the radio on in his office (he had an office in the tunnels). So, I went down to his office, but the music wasn't comming from there. Normally, the closer you get to the source of the music, the louder it'll be, right? Well, the music seemed to be the same volume throughout the entire tunnel system, so it didn't seem to be comming from the office. I didn't really know what to make of it, and it wasn't scary or anything, so I completed my tunnel check with some music to keep me entertained to boot. After I was finished, I reported what I heard to my shift lieutenant, who was an old crusty sort of guy. The lieutenant asked if I'd been drinking on the job. I said, "H(e)ll No!!!". He asked if I'd taken any medication during my shift and I had the same response to that question, as well. He said there was no way I could have heard music down there if Cox's radio was not on. I told him I know what I heard, and he just said, "Whatever".

The next night when it was time to do the tunnel check, I asked one of the other compound officers (we'll call her Linda) working that night if she'd come into the tunnels with me to be my witness if anything happened. I had to plead my case to Linda for a few minutes and convince her I was not going to try any "funny business". She finally agreed, and when we got down into the tunnels, what do you think happened? NO MUSIC! Everything was just perfect, nothing weird going on . . . until we got under Number 4 Building (one of the housing units). I was turned around, locking the grill (in prison, a door with bars on it is called a grill) behind us so we could proceed to the rec area, and "WHAM!!!". We hear a loud door slam shut in what was back then the inmate clothing room. We looked at each other and I asked Linda, "Did you hear that?". She just nodded her head with her eyes as big as silver dollars. Now, this was 11 p.m. and the clothing room staff had long been gone for the day, but I got on my handheld radio and called the control room officer and asked if any clothing room staff were in the institution. He told me no, there were none working at the time. He asked why I wanted to know, so I told him I heard a strange noise comming from the clothing room. He proceeded to give me the jeering ghost sounds, "wooooooo", and soon all of the other officers joined in .

I asked Linda if she wanted to check it out and she agreed. We checked the clothing room, but found nothing suspicious.

I realize this is not too spooky, compaired to some of the other stories posted on this site, but it was the first of many hauntings to happen to myself and my fellow officers. Trust me, the stories get better. I'll post those later when I have more time.

Later.

Did the song remain the same all the time, boss,or did the tune ever change?

Oh, BTW, I'm Baaaaa-aaaack.

Stupid changing of the guard, I just gave up and reregistered with a #2 in the name to get in.

Enjoyed your stories, Bossman. Keep them coming!

quote:

Originally posted by shutterhunter2:
Did the song remain the same all the time, boss,or did the tune ever change?

That's what I was wondering too, Newbie.

Was the song on a loop or something B-Man?
It kind of reminds me of the movie Christine, with the old fifties music and all.

quote:

Originally posted by shutterhunter2:
Did the song remain the same all the time, boss,or did the tune ever change?

That was one of the strangest things about the incident, sorry, I forgot to mention it. The song seemed to play over and over, like it was on some sort of replay mode. I originally thought it could have been a cd player, but the only place it could have been located was the communication tech's office, and it wasn't comming from there.

By the way, its become an initiation for the rookie officers to conduct a tunnel check alone at night. Most of them come from there looking pale, some are sweating and their skin is clammy to the touch with what I would call a "weirded-out" look on their face. Many of them don't want to talk about what happened while they were down there.

Shutter, glad to see you made it!

Ha, ha, shutter's a newbie, ha, ha.

quote:

Originally posted by bossman1603:
Ha, ha, shutter's a newbie, ha, ha.

Or you could say shutter's a virgin, LOL!!!


Great story bossman!!! Keep it come'n Love!!!

(Remember that song???)

>^..^<

Waaaa

I want my senior status back.

Looking at the rest of you I'm not the only one who had ro re-register.

Oh well, this makes the third time I've had to start anew.

Just for the record, First time in late Oct 2005 durring the first American showing of a Most Haunter Live. Only commented a few times and drifted off. Returned in June of 2006 because of a personal experience that renewed my interest here, couldn't remember name or password so registered as my true web persona. Now, because of the sale and the new and "Improved???" Travel Channel kept telling me that I didn't exist.

I had to REALLY work with mod_ben to be able to keep my original screen name, I really didn't want to change it, and it's the "principal" of the thing!!! Poor mod_ben is probably really tired of hearing from me, LOL!!!

I still don't like that I lost all my posting history, but oh well you can't win them all!!!


>^..^<

That is way cool bossman, too bad since it's a prison you can't take a camera in there to catch some ghosts.

quote:

Originally posted by ang74:
That is way cool bossman, too bad since it's a prison you can't take a camera in there to catch some ghosts.

Yeah, the Bureau has a policy of absolutely NO cameras on the prison grounds.

I have some more stories to tell, one about last night . . . yeah, I had another experience at work last night, but I'm DOG TIRED right now. I just got home from work and need to get some sleep. If my wife will let me have the computer tonight I'll post some more.

Good night, y'all.

Ok, I'm awake and rested now . . .

Another incident that happened a few months after the one in the tunnels with the music was as follows:

This particular night I was again working as the compound officer. It was about 10:45 p.m.'ish (same bat time, same bat channel), and I was walking around the compound searching the bushes near the chow hall looking for contraband the inmates might have stashed around those bushes. I was also killing time until 11:15 p.m. when I was supposed to bring the inmates who worked on the bakery shift to the chow hall so they could start baking the bread for the next day. Anyway, I had to use the restroom (when nature calls, you just gotta go), and the chow hall had the nearest restroom. I unlocked the front door, entered and locked the door behind me. There, I proceeded to the restroom. Once I was done with "my business", I walked toward the front door and heard what appeared to be someone moving tables around on the west side of the chow hall. I thought to myself it could have been rats running into the tables (there are several fields around the prison grounds and rats are quite common in prisons anyway). But then I heard footsteps, so I stopped and listened. The footsteps continued for a few seconds then stopped. I figured it was my echo, so I continued on toward the front door. Once I started walking toward the door, the strange footsteps continued, along with a "swishing" sound, not unlike that made when someone is walking while wearing corduroy pants. Well, I stopped and listened for a second, and the sound continued for about 15 seconds, then stopped. I thought to myself, "ok, rats don't wear shoes OR corduroy pants." Just then I heard a man cough. I know that sounds weird, but it was a distinct COUGH. Right then I KNEW someone was in there messing with me, so I picked up my handheld radio and called the reservation officer, who we'll call Reggie, to see where he was. He was supposed to be out with the perimeter patrol officer conducting the light check (see how many lights were out on the institution's high-mast light poles). Reggie answered and I could hear Robert, the perimeter patrol officer, talking in the background, so I knew it wasn't Reggie in the chow hall with me. I thought to myself, "I bet its the lieutenant." So, I picked up my flachlight and went searching for him. I called out, "Ok lieutenant, I know you're in here. You can come out now, its not funny anymore." No response. I checked EVERYWHERE in the chow hall, but couldn't find him. Just then, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I realized that whoever was in the chow hall with me wasn't Reggie, and probably wasn't the lieutenant, becasue he was so clumsy, I would've seen him by now, and there was no one else it could have been. Upon comming to that conclusion, I RAN to the front door. I probably looked like Barney Fife fumbling with my keys trying to unlock the door. Finally unlocking it, I rushed out and slammed it shut and relocked it. I tryed to regain my composure and conducted the food service inmate worker movement. Once that was done I briskly walked over to the lieutenant's office. I found him in the "property room", where we keep all contraband items confiscated from the inmate population. He had property all over the floor, out in the hallway, otherwise, it was EVERYWHERE, so, I figured he'd been there for awhile. I asked if he had been in the chow hall a few minutes ago. He responded, "No, bud." He was a giant redneck of a guy from Kentucky who called everybody "Bud". He could tell I was a bit shaken-up and asked what was wrong, so I told him what had happened. He just looked at me, and with a straight face said, "You know that chow hall's haunted, don't ya, bud? Everybody knows that." I waited for him to start laughing, because when this particular lieutenant was trying to mess with someone, be couldn't keep a straight face about it. He never started laughing . I asked, "You're serious about this?" He nodded his head yes. I said, "Well, that's the LAST time I go into the chow hall after dark alone." He told me to ask around to the various food service staff about their encounters . . . so I called one of the food service supervisors outside and asked what they had seen or heard before. The one I was talking to said that when he was in there alone he would sometimes hear phantom footsteps and hear what sounded like two or three people having a conversation in the dish-washing room. When he'd go check it out, he would never find anyone or anything that had caused it . . .

As for last night, actually, it was early this morning about 2:30 a.m. I was counting the inmates on one of the housing units in #4 Building (yes, the one that sits on top of the old clothing room) with an officer we'll call Joe. As I prepared to count this particular range (hallway to the civilians out there), I checked the restroom to see if any inmates were in there. I had to check each stall. Once cleared, I turned off the light. I did the same thing in the shower area, checking each stall. All the showerheads were turned off and the stalls were empty, so I turned off that light and began my count while Joe watched at the end of the range to make sure no inmates came from their rooms whil I was counting. I counted the inmates in that range and while I was walking back to where Joe was, I could see light shining trough the shower windows from the high-mast lights outside, spilling out onto the floor of the range where I was standing. Then I saw a large dark human-shaped form walk through that light from the shower area enterance over to the shower stalls. I stopped and made a gesture for Joe to come over to the shower area. I asked him if anyone had come over to the shower area, and he said no, they hadn't. I told him what just happened, so we turned on the lights and entered the shower area, checking each stall. Inside the third stall, the water was turned on . I turned and looked at Joe, who was wide-eyed and staring at me. He said, "Let's get the f**k out of these showers!" Needless to say, we got out of there pretty quickly and tried to complete the rest of the count as best we could. After we called in our count, Joe joked that at least he was a clean, hygienic ghost.

I'll post some more experiences later.

WOW Bossman!!! That is WILD!!!

That makes for good reading!!!

You may have to "see" the ghosts...but at least you don't have to "smell" them...LOL!!!


>^..^<

Hey Bossman.
I sure enjoy your stories. Wow you
have a lot of experiences. Then again
it would make sense considering you
work in a haunted prison. I am glad
that they gave you the go ahead to
share these stories with us. I was
just telling my husband about the dream
you shared with us. The one where they
were dumping the ashes out in the grass
or something like that. Anyways Thanks
for sharing your stories Bossman.

Here are a couple of stories about what happened in our prison hospital:

About three years ago, I was working the midnight to 8 a.m. shift in our prison hospital. On one particular night, I had just relieved the evening watch officer and was walking to my office to get ready for the first count of the shift. I hadn't even made it to my office when I saw an inmate walking down the hall past the nurse's station toward the elevator. Most of the inmates know they need to be out of the t.v. rooms by midnight and to be back in their assigned hospital rooms by that time to prepare for count. I told the inmate, "Hey, its count time. Go back to your room." The inmate continued to walk away from me, and went around the other side of the nurse's station. I knew he wasn't going to his room, because we were not using the rooms on that side of the hospital. I said, "Oh, h.e.l.l. no, you're not gonna walk away from me!", so I went around the other side of the nurse's station to cut him off. When I got around there, he was gone. I searched all the rooms on that side of the hospital, the t.v. rooms and even went upstairs on the elevator to see if he'd tried to go upstairs. I couldn't find him. I finally decided that maybe he'd gone back to his room, so I got the nurse and we began our count. We counted the inmates and all of them were where they were supposed to be. I noticed that not one of them matched the inmate I saw on the other side of the hospital, so I checked the photo's of all the inmates assigned to there, and again none of them matched the inmate I saw. I described the inmate to the nurse. I told her he was about 5'10", 170 lbs with medium dark hair. I never saw his face because he was walking away from me, but his skin tone made him appear to be hispanic, but he could have been white. She looked at me with wide eyes and said, "That was Inmate Hernandez, he died about two months ago!"

Another incident in our prison hospital happened about six to eight weeks later. I had to use the restroom, so I went upstairs to use the abandoned nurse's station's restroom because I didn't want to stink out the nurses by using their restroom, if you know what I mean .

I went up there and unlocked the nurse's station and entered, locking myself in. Then I locked myself inside the restroom. While I was "doing my thang ", someone came into the nurse's station. I never heard the door unlock, they just opened the door and walked in. I announced myself from inside the restroom, but got no response. I head someone walking around the nurse's station as if they were looking for something and I even heard what sounded like papers being shuffled and items moved from one counter to another. I again announced myself and again go no response. After a few minutes, I head whoever it was open the door and walk out. They never unlocked the door while leaving or locked the door behind them once they were gone. After I was done with my business, I walked out into the nurse's station and tried the door handle. It was locked. I unlocked it, walked out and relocked it back and went downstairs. I found the two shift nurses in the downstairs nurse's station. I asked which one had just been upstairs, and they looked at each other and back at me and said, "Neither one of us." I said, "Alright, quit playing with me. Which one of y'all came up there while I was in the restroom?" Again they looked at each other and gave me a weird look, saying, "Honest, we've been down here the whole time!" Then one of the nurses asked me, "You mean you actually USED the upstairs restroom? NO ONE uses that restroom anymore, especially on the late shift! Too many weird things happen up there!" They told me about a few times when they were using that particular restroom hearing people walk past the nurse's station, wheelchairs rolling past the door, people talking out in the hallway, etc.

Needless to say, I DON'T use that restroom anymore when I'm working in the hospital!

Is it still being used as a prison? If not I wanna go in there with ya around midnight!! hehe Would ya do it??

Love your stories Bossman! Is this still operating as a mental health facility or is it a incarceration facility?

I live in San Antonio. One day soon, Turtle, Deblovscats, kelsey and few more (bud's ) are going to do a Texas ghost hunt. We would love to see the buildings. On the freedom side of course!

Bossman, your stories are so good. You really need to consider publishing them.

quote:

Originally posted by goddessoftheghosties:
Is it still being used as a prison? If not I wanna go in there with ya around midnight!! hehe Would ya do it??

Sorry, goddess, you have to have a federal security clearance to get in, which means you have to be employed with the Bureau of Prisons or one of the other federal law enforcement agencies (F.B.I., D.E.A., U.S. Marshals, etc).

Yes, it is still being used as a federal prison.

Mooch, you can come into the parking lot and check things out, but make sure to conduct yourself in a non-suspecious manner or you'll be escorted off the property at gunpoint. It is an active federal prison, after all. We have to keep an eye out for terrorists and individuals trying to throw contraband over the fence.

Ang, when I retire, I'm planning on writing a book about my career and the ghost stories WILL be included.

Hey, I just remembered something that happened early in my career . . .

Way back in 1989 I was working for the Bosque (pronounced: boss-key) County Sheriff's Office. I was working as a jailer at the time. It was a regular "Mayberry"-type agency where we knew just about everyone in the county. In fact, there was only one officer per shift in the jail, it was so "Mayberry".

This is also one of my fist encounters with something that I would term paranormal in nature.

Anyway, here's the story:

One of our patrol deputies answered a call regarding this guy standing in the parking lot of the local hardware store in the town of Meridian, Texas. Once the deputy arrived, he subdued the suspect, and while searching him, found marijuana, thus arrested him for possession.

Once the deputy got him to the jail, he was processed and put in a single-man cell due to his apparent unstable mental issues. Almost immediately he stripped off his inmate cover-alls and got into the shower (all the cells had showers in them at that jail). It quickly got to the point that this guy was staying in the shower all day except for when he was eating or sleeping, so we started calling him "Aquaman", yes, like the superhero from the Super Friends cartoon show.

While he was in the shower he would rant about all kinds of things. Two of the most common rants he would say was that the drug dealers and the farmers in Texas were "in cahoots" to take over the world. The other thing he would rant about was he said he was an alien from another planet that had used up their water supply and he was sending the shower water to his space ship in orbit to take home for his people. Yeah, I know . . . sounds weird, doesn't it? Don't worry, it gets better. Anyway, since I was the only officer on the shift, I would go talk to Aquaman just to have something to do to pass the time. I would listen to his rants and every now and again insert a "you don't say", or a "well, I can see why you'd think that", thinking to myself, "what a kook!".

The sheriff and several of us officers were trying to find out from him if he had any nearby family who might be willing to come visit him, thinking it might calm him down. Well, our sheriff called around to some of the surrounding counties asking questions and when he talked to the Hamilton County Sheriff, he told our sheriff that he remembered the guy, saying, "Yeah, I remember that guy. He was in our jail for awhile. He was always in the shower and saying he was sending the water to his spaceship in orbit to take home to his people." The Hamilton County Sheriff said the guy's last family member had died just before that and that's when he went off the deep end. He said they really didn't have any charges to hold him on and the state hospital wasn't interested in taking him, so they let him go. I guess from there he wandered over into our county.

On one particular day, I was making my rounds in the jail and he stopped me, saying, "Sir, I just wanted to let you know I appreciate you taking time out of your shift to talk with me. Thank you for treating me like a human. The other officers never wanted to be bothered with me, but I think you're a good officer and I thank you for it. I just wanted to let you know I'm tired of living and I'm going to go ahead and die."

Well, after hearing all of the other nonsense he'd spilled out of his mouth the rest of the time he was in our jail, I didn't think much of what he had just told me, so I told him he was quite welcome and I thanked him for the compliment and finished out my shift without thinking too much about what he'd just told me.

The next day I arrived to work and talked to the day-shift sergeant when I got to the booking room. I could tell something was bothering him, so I asked what was wrong. He said, "Remember Aquaman?", and I said, "Of course", and he then said, "He's dead." I just stared at him, then after several seconds, I said, "Come on, Sarge, quit messing with me." He just stared at me and said, "I'm not playing with you, he's really dead. I found him on his bunk about noon and he was dead." I looked up, then down, then looked at the Sarge and told him my conversation with "Aquaman" the afternoon before. The sergeant turned as white as a piece of paper! He was silent for SEVERAL seconds, then asked if I was messing with his head. I told him I wasn't and that I was telling him the stone-cold truth. He looked at me and said, "Well, better get started on your affidavit this afternoon, because you know you're going to have to talk to the Texas Rangers about this."

I worked on my affidavit that evening and the next day a Texas Ranger from Waco arrived at our jail. I was called in early and interviewed by the Ranger for about two hours. After the interview he said, "Well, son, I don't think I would have acted any different if I had been in your shoes, especially after all that crazy stuff he'd already told y'all." I was cleared of any wrongdoing, and the Ranger sent the body to the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office for an autopsy. They looked him up and over, inside and out and ran every poison test they could run, but found NOTHING that could have killed him! The medical examiner determined that he must have willed himself to die.

Every time I remember that incident I get shivers up my spine .

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bossman1603,