Old Denton Jail

The ghost of Wish Sheppard, executed in 1915, left a handprint on his cell wall that three sheriffs tried to cover with paint, plaster, and concrete. It bled through every time. Staff and inmates at the Caroline County Jail still call him Shep, and he knocks on pillars when you talk to him.

Paint, plaster, cement. Three different sheriffs tried three different materials to cover the handprint Wish Sheppard left on his cell wall the day of his execution. Every time, the print bled through.

Aloysius "Wish" Sheppard was nineteen years old when he was arrested in July 1915 for the assault of fourteen-year-old Mildred Clark in Federalsburg. He confessed, then recanted, claiming guards had threatened to hand him over to a mob if he didn't cooperate. His mother later told reporters that Wish and Mildred had been friends who "spent time together." It didn't matter. Caroline County hadn't executed anyone since Shelby Jump in 1829, but they were going to execute Wish Sheppard.

The night before the hanging on August 26, 1915, two Black preachers (Rev. J.H. Fitchett and Rev. F.T. Johnson) and four women held religious services in his cell, singing and praying until morning. The original plan was to hang him inside a barn with limited witnesses, but the mob threatened to burn the barn down, so Sheriff James Temple moved the gallows to an open slope behind the jail along the Choptank River. He built wooden fencing to block the view. It didn't work. Hundreds showed up anyway, climbing balconies, hanging from trees, floating in boats on the river. A Baltimore photographer sold commemorative postcards: one showing Wish on the scaffold, another showing the empty gallows with rope. His mother secretly claimed the body with help from county officials to prevent desecration. He was buried in an unmarked grave.

The handprint appeared on the wall of his cell after they took him out. According to legend, he gripped the doorway resisting his final walk to the gallows, though eyewitnesses from the day dispute this, describing him as calm and composed. Either way, the print stuck. Sheriff Temple painted over it. It came back. Sheriff William Andrews tried paint and plaster. It came back. His son, Sheriff Louis Andrews, poured concrete over the spot. It came back. During renovations in the 1980s, workers gave up and simply walled over the entire cell. Years later, kitchen remodelers tore into what they assumed was a normal wall and found "a wall behind a wall with a door in the middle," the original cell door, and the handprint right where it had always been.

Staff and inmates started calling the ghost "Shep" around the 1940s. The Caroline County Jail (officially the Caroline County Jail and Sheriff's House, built 1906-1907 in Colonial Revival style, that elegant granite building overlooking the Choptank) has been actively haunted since then according to every sheriff and warden who's worked there.

The control room catches most of it. Guards hear phantom footsteps climbing the spiral steel staircase, rush to check, find nobody. A black spot once appeared on the security monitors, grew toward the camera, filled the entire screen, then vanished. Officers have seen shadows walking the hallways and "a man in black with what looked like a top hat."

The most alarming report came from Warden Charles Andrew: dispatchers in the 911 office saw a pair of glowing red eyes staring at them through an internal window. They identified the face as Wish Sheppard's.

Inmates had their own stories. One prisoner claimed the ghost attacked him, leaving visible scratches despite his cell being locked from the outside. A woman named Annie Thomas complained repeatedly about chains dragging up and down the metal steps at night. Some inmates reported watches going missing, then turning up broken outside the jail.

File cabinets slam in empty rooms. Security alarms trigger with no cause. Books fall off shelves in sequence, like dominoes. The elevator runs on its own in the early morning hours, doors opening to empty cars visible on the security monitors. A bell rang from the secured prison yard during an evening meeting when no one could possibly access it.

Staff have learned to live with Shep. One worker calls out "Wish, if that's you, let me know" and gets responsive knocking on the pillars. Lieutenant Brown put it simply: "Shep was treated badly all his life. He's just stuck here, reminding us to be nice to one another." The warden agreed: "Shep is just there. He isn't angry or up to something. He just lets us know that he's there."

Most of the activity happens between 2 and 3 AM.

The jail sits near the Courthouse Green, where three men were dragged from this same building and lynched by mobs: David Thomas in 1854, Jim Wilson in 1862, and Marshall E. Price in 1895. That's four violent deaths connected to one building. Shep's handprint is the only one that stayed on the wall, but he's probably not the only one who left a mark.