American Horror Storys Madame LaLaurie

Anyone who has ever heard me tell ghost stories knows that the positively diabolical tale of Madame LaLaurie is my absolute favorite tale of ghoulish, ghostly, evil.  Madame LaLaurie makes most serial killers look like house pets and the mansion that stands as a rembrance of her cruelty is often called the most haunted house in the nation.  It is one of the few haunted locations that holds ghosts that have actually killed their victims (according to legend).

This is why I literally jumped for joy when I found out that my favorite television series, American Horror Story, will feature Kathy Bates playing Madame LaLaurie this year.  It really doesn't get much better than this.  Kathy Bates plays evil as deftly as any master and I can't wait to see her bring this iconic monster to life.  In order to celebrate, I've done a little history of Madame LaLaurie below.  American Horror Story premiers on FX at 10 pm October 9th.  I'm already there, in spirit.

 According to haunted New Orleans tours and Haunted America, the LaLaurie Mansion is the most haunted site in New Orleans. Sources say that the house is filled with tormented screams and terrifying wails. They describe chains rattling at night and the apparitions in chains wandering the halls. The house has been many things since the famous Delphine de LaLaurie abandoned it, but it hasn't been anything for as it has been quickly abandoned by every resident afterwards. Some stories indicate that the ghosts here are aggressive and that they have attacked residents with whips and some even claim that multiple deaths have resulted from the hellish, supernatural residents of 1140 Royal Street.

The history of this mansion can only be confirmed to a point. It is known that Delphine LaLaurie was a wealthy, socialite who resided until 1833. Many accounts from contemporaries show that Madam LaLaurie was uncommonly cruel and beastly to her slaves, even for a time when cruelty to slaves was somewhat common. Following a kitchen fire in the house in 1833, the remains of over 100 dead slaves were found. After this, the evidence becomes weaker. Many sources indicate that firefighters entering the house found a room in the house in which slaves had been tortured in the most gruesome ways. It is said that some slaves had been subjected to many unnecessary surgeries and had had their sex organs removed, mutilated, or sewn onto other slaves. Other slaves had their mouths sewn shut with feces in them and their intestines removed and nailed to the floor. The list of atrocities goes on and on and are so vile that I shutter to even write about them.

Whether the more gruesome elements of this story are true or not, it is true that LaLaurie was a beast and a serial killer and that reports continue that this house is tormented by constant ghosts and spirits. Anyone curious about this house will be easily appeased, as it is a regular part of all haunted New Orleans tours and the guides stories about the house are beyond chilling.  However,  the house's inability to maintain an owner still remains a problem.  Nicolas Cage bought the house in 2007 and it was foreclosed on in 2008.  The house is still vacant and owned by the bank.

The Fengdu Ghost City

The Fengdu Ghost City is located on the North end of the Yangthze River on Ming Mountain.   If you wander through this old Chinese City, you will cross a landscape of ghostly loss that is rarely seen in this world.   You can walk across The Bridge of Helplessness.  This is the bridge every soul must cross before it can enter the underworld.  You will find statues of the ghost king, the judge of hell, the drunkard ghost, and the the lustful ghost.  Every bend and turn of the road brings you to meet another building that would be found only in the land of the dead.  Every statue is a depitction of a ghost.  The Fengdu Ghost City is trully a ghost town..

Fengdu Ghost City got its name during the Han Dynasty when two officers came to Ming Mountain to practice toaist teachings.    On Ming Mountain, these officers sought immortality and accourding to legend, they eventually became the kings of hell.   During the Tang Dynasty a temple was built in this location to show life in hell.  The temple was meant to be horrifying.  It showed graphic depictions of the horrors that awaited those who did evil in hell.  Now, Fengdu is an entire city dedicated to Diyu, the underworld of Chinese mythology.

It isn't surprising that ghost stories linger in Fengdu.   It is said that Fengdu was a Taoist cemetery before it became the ghost city it is today.   Although the city bustles with tourists during the day, some believe it is crowded with ghosts after the night falls.   Fengdu is one of the creepiest places in the world on almost every list of creepy places I have seen.   It is certainly on my bucket list as one of the places I dream of going before I die.

The Most Haunted Asylums

 Mental Hospitals and Asylums seem to draw ghost stories the way a light on a dark night draws bugs.  Ghost stories cling to them like moss and collect over time until the dead patients wandering the halls  outnumber the living.   There is an irony to this.  These hospitals were built to be places of healing where the broken and lost could find sanctuary and solace, but these plans often go awry and accidents and apathy turn healing to hurt.  Tragedies linger in the shadows of these hospitals and collect like dust over time.  

I have worked at several asylums during my career as a psychologist and many times these places are not creepy.  They are places of healing and the staff fights the darkness with art therapy and recreational therapy and all the things mental health professionals do to make hospitals a place of healing.    However, sometimes the sad condition of the chronically mentally ill can’t be combated by these tools and bad things happen.  Things happen that are so bad, that evil seems to remain in the old hospitals.  It seeps into the foundations of the buildings and creeps up through the walls tainting everything inside.  Bad doctors and staff turn bad things into travesties and these hospitals become places of fear.  According to many, the ghosts cling to the emotions that are kept in the hospitals.   Across the nation, there are many hospitals that are considered to be haunted.   These hospitals have tragic histories and their stories can send chills down the spines of even the bravest souls.  Here are a few of my favorite haunted asylums:

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

This is considered by many to be the most haunted hospital in the United States.  This hospital was founded in Weston West Virginia in 1864 and was then called The Weston State Hospital.   The hospital had 250 beds and houses some of the sickest patients in the region.   Although the hospital was built to house only 250 patients, by 1950 overcrowding turned the hospital into something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nestand the building housed as many as 2500 sick souls.  Even Charles Manson spent some time at this notorious hospital.   The hospital witnessed all the worst of the early treatments for mental illness and frontal lobotomies and water shock treatment were the mainstays of early treatment here.  However, the worst tragedies occurred when the patients hurt each other.  There were several patient to patient killings here and one nurse vanished only to have her body discovered under the stairs two years later.  Death became common place at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.  In 1994, the hospital was considered unusable and it was close.   Those that have visited this hospital say that they hear phantom noises throughout the hospital.  They hear ghostly screams and wails.  Full body apparitions have been seen wandering the hallways and strange noises come from the darkness.

Bryce Hospital for the Insane

Alabama Hospital for the Insane was designed to be a refuge for the mentally ill. Its architecture was designed based on the ideas of Dorothea Dix and Thomas Story Kirkbride. It was meant to be moral architecture that would contribute to the healing process within the hospital The hospital opened in 1861 and for a while it held to the ideals of Dix and Kirkbride. The first superintendent, Peter Bryce, was an idealist and he had studied mental health in Europe. He believed that patients should be treated with respect kindness. He even abandoned the use of restraints. The hospital was later named for Bryce and it went on to be the model for progressive mental health care.

 Time quickly eroded Bryce' legacy, however. By 1967, there were more than 5200 patients residing in a facility that was never meant to hold that many. Observers described Bryce as a concentration camp and a model for human cruelty. In 1970, one patient named Wyatt started a class action law suit against the Alabama's other mental hospital, Searcy State Hospital. This lead to major change in the way the mentally ill were treated in Alabama. The number of beds was cut drastically and humane treatment of the mentally ill became an absolute necessity. The landmark Wyatt v. Strickney Case would change Bryce drastically. Old Bryce was the African American portion of Bryce Hospital and was notorious for being even crueler than its white counterpart. After Wyatt v. Strickey and desegregation, Old Bryce was shut down entirely and other buildings were used. The African American patients were integrated into the white population.

 Old Bryce still sits quietly deserted, however, as a reminder to the old days when patients were held like prisoners with no rights. It is covered in graffiti and has been vandalized many times. It’s even been set on fire. Trespassing is forbidden here, but the curious have reported seeing all manner of horrors coming out of the dark around Old Bryce. Lights flicker on an off in the building that has no electricity. Phones ring in rooms with no phones. Phantom lights drift from room to room. Furniture moves on its own and footsteps echo through the abandoned hallways. The living patients may be gone, but many believe Old Bryce is still filled with the ghosts of those who once suffered in its walls.

 Norwich State Hospital For The Mentally Insane

Norwich Hospital for The Mentally Insane was built in 1904 in Preston, Connecticut and is known for the dark ghosts that live inside of it.  The Norwich Hospital was designed to house the worst of the criminally insane patients in the state and, until 1971, it did just that.  It was home to murders, rapists, and other violent offenders.  The hospital is situated on 900 acres of woodland and is utterly isolated and crumbling.  This façade has added to the horror stories that have built up around the violent people that lived within the hospital and has created a collection of ghost stories so large they could fill a book.  Suicides and murders fill the history of Norwich Hospital and those who have died there never seem to leave.  Witnesses describe hearing screams in the darkness Faces appear out of nowhere and strange mists and lights are seen in the halls.

 Searcy State Hospital

 Searcy State Hospital is located in  the most Southern part of rural Alabama.  Prior to being a state hospital the old hospital has a long and dark history that is very difficult to find, but easy to see upon casual observation. The hospital is encased in long, chipped, white walls that seem as old as anything in the United States. From outside these walls, you can see a battered watchtower that gives testament to the fact that the hospital is in the same location as a 300 year old fort. The fort bears witness to American history and was originally a Spanish fort. It switched hands during the Louisiana Purchase and became a US fort. After the US took possession of the fort it was converted to a military arsenal and became known as the Mount Vernon Arsenal. The Arsenal switched hands again several times and was taken by the Confederates during the civil war only to be passed back over the United States again in 1862. From 1887 to 1894, The Arsenal became a Barracks and was used as a prison for the captured Apache people. The most famous of the Apache people to be held in these barracks was Geronimo. The infamous Aaron Burr was also held at this secluded prison at some point.
 
In 1900 the Barracks were transformed once again and the prison became a mental hospital. Searcy hospital was built as the African American mental hospital in Alabama. Conditions in the hospital were beyond questionable and at one time there were over 2000 patients in the crowded hospital and all were seen by one psychiatrist. All patients were expected to work in the fields.

The hospital was desegregated in 1969, but its history is all around it. The hospital is still used today, and although the residents live in new buildings, many tell stories of ghosts and devils that linger in the white walls and abandoned buildings that surround the new facilities. These stories are usually ignored, because the patients are crazy, but I’m not the only sane person who saw a few ghosts while they were working there.

Searcy served as the inspiration for my new novel, Circe. Its tragic history and haunted atmosphere serve as a backdrop to the chilling tale of a young intern slow decent into madness. If you would like to read more about Searcy, you can find my book at:

 www.amazon.com,    http://www.lachesispublishing.com/products.asp?cat=2

 

 

 

 

 

 

               

Visiting The Haunted Ohio State Reformatory

The Ohio State Reformatory is one of the most haunted places I have ever traveled to. It is considered to be one of the most haunted places in the nation. Even as you walk up to this old building, the cold seeps out of it and chills you to the bone. Inside the castle like structure, it was so cold I had to put my coat on. Outside it was lovely. This cold seems to come from more than the old stone. It seems to drift from the very core of the building where haunting and terrible histories clog the structure with sorrow and ghosts.

The Ohio State Reformatory is a thing of rare beauty. In the states, structures of such epic beauty are as uncommon as snow in the South. The reformatory was designed by architect Levi Tucker Scofield. His work was visionary. He had designed insane asylums and orphanages and penitentiaries all with the belief that beauty could bring peace to lost souls and help heal them. The original reformatory was build on progressive ideals. The philosophy was that by separating young men from hardened criminal and giving them the opportunity to grow while in prison they could become better people and would be less likely to continue in a life of crime upon their release. This idea actually worked for a time. Recidivism rates for those leaving reformatory were amazingly low. Almost 90% of those leaving never committed another crime. Later figures show recidivism as close to 60% returning to a life of crime, but when the Reformatory was built in 1896 it was a shinning ideal and a monument to the beauty of progressive philosophy.

As with many such things I have written about in the United States, these lovely turn of the century progressive ideals eroded with time. Finances became more important than people and The Ohio State Reformatory slowly became nothing more than a prison. Horror stories drifted out of the prison and became part of its mortar. Guards were murdered in solitary. One story told of a man who was put in solitary confinement with another man and killed him and hid him under the bed. Men were accidentally pushed over the five story cell block guard rail to their deaths. Men hung themselves. In 1933, overcrowding created more and more problems in the reformatory by 1986 The Council of Human dignity was in the process of completing a lawsuit to shut the reformatory down because of the “brutalizing and inhumane” conditions found in the walls of the once idealic reformatory.

I can’t even begin to describe all the hauntings and horrors that have been seen in the Ohio State Reformatory here. I was in the reformatory for a brief period of time and I could feel the history seeping out of the walls. Those that work in the reformatory embrace its history and believe that the building is made more beautiful by it. It whispers secrets and calls to others to come explore them. The beauty and uniqueness of the structure has called to many since its closing. The Shawshank Redemption, Airforce One, Tango and Cash, and many other movies have been filmed there. People come from all over to tour the facility. Tours run daily. Famous ghost hunting teams from all the big televisions shows have locked themselves in the reformatory to see its ghosts and they are not disappointed. The ghosts in the reformatory are thick.

My guide said that paranormal occurrences are common in the reformatory in almost ever section of the structure. Objects fly about on their own. Doors open and close and lights flickers. Strange shadows creep up on you from quiet corners. The stories from the reformatory are numerous. A Guard named Frank Hanger was injured and later died during an escape attempt from solitary. It is said that his ghost and the ghosts of those hung for his murder still linger in solitary. Clear EVPs from this section of the prison have captured the voices of all these men. The Warden’s quarters where the warden and his family used to live is said to be haunted by the ghost of a warden and his wife who were both mortally injured in the warden’s quarters. One employee described seeing four phantoms walk straight towards her and then vanish in the warden‘s quarters. Another saw an orb moving in the shadows in the warden’s quarters. Full body apparitions have been seen in the administration wing, the wardens quarters, and the east cell block.. People have described being punched, pushed and hit. The list goes on and on. There are so many ghost stories that Sherri Brake was able to fill an entire book with stories just from The Ohio State Reformatory. I won’t try to tell them all here, but I will say that if you are ever in Ohio the reformatory is worth the visit. Its ghostly beauty will stay with me for a long time and its ghosts have made believers out of the most hardened skeptics.