About This Location
A Gothic-style state prison that operated from 1876 to 1995. During its 119-year history, the penitentiary housed notorious criminals, witnessed 94 executions by hanging and electrocution, 36 inmate murders, and multiple riots. Now open for tours and paranormal investigations.
The Ghost Story
The West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville operated for 119 years, from 1876 to 1995, and during that time it accumulated a body count that few American institutions can match: 998 documented deaths, 94 executions by hanging and electric chair, 36 inmate-on-inmate murders, and uncounted acts of brutality that occurred in cells, workshops, and the underground passages of a Gothic fortress that the Department of Justice once called 'the most violent institution in America.'
Construction began in 1866, and the prison was designed in the castellated Gothic style -- a deliberate choice to convey the power and permanence of the state's justice system. The stone walls, guard towers, and iron gates were built by convict labor, meaning the prison's first inmates literally constructed their own cage. The building sits directly across the street from the Grave Creek Mound, a 2,000-year-old Adena burial site, and this proximity to an ancient place of death has led paranormal researchers to theorize that the prison was cursed from its foundation.
The executions were conducted first by hanging and later by electric chair, a device the inmates themselves called 'Old Sparky.' Ninety-four men were put to death at Moundsville, their executions carried out in a death house that still stands within the prison walls. But the official executions were only part of the killing. Thirty-six inmates were murdered by fellow prisoners, and the most infamous of these deaths was that of R.D. Wall. Wall was serving a life sentence for rape when he was cornered in a basement work area. His attackers cut off his fingertips and then sliced open his throat. Wall's murder is particularly significant to paranormal investigators because his ghost is believed to be the Shadow Man -- one of the most photographed and documented prison ghosts in the world.
The Shadow Man was captured in a photograph taken by investigator Polly Gear in 2004, nearly a decade after the prison closed. At the end of a row of cellblocks, Gear's camera captured a dark, featureless figure standing in the corridor -- a shadow with human proportions but no distinguishable face or clothing. The image became one of the most widely circulated and debated paranormal photographs of the 21st century, and the Shadow Man has been reported by dozens of subsequent investigators who describe an intimidating dark presence that lurks in the cell blocks and basement areas.
Paranormal claims at the penitentiary stretch back to the 1930s, when night shift guards began reporting seeing inmates walking freely in the yard and in off-limits areas. When they investigated, the figures had vanished. Former inmates who served time at Moundsville have described being pushed down stairs by unseen forces, hearing screams from empty cells, and seeing apparitions of men they knew to be dead standing in the corridors. One former guard reported that working the night shift at the penitentiary meant accepting that you were not alone, regardless of the headcount.
The prison's most violent episode occurred on New Year's Day 1986, when inmates seized control of the facility in a bloody riot. Three inmates were tortured and killed during the uprising, and the violence cemented the penitentiary's reputation as a place where human suffering had reached a concentration that the walls could no longer contain.
Today the West Virginia Penitentiary operates as a museum and paranormal tourism destination, offering history tours, ghost tours, and overnight investigations. The prison was featured on numerous paranormal television shows and consistently ranks among the most haunted locations in America. Visitors who book overnight stays report being touched, scratched, and spoken to by entities they cannot see. The cell blocks, the death house, the basement where R.D. Wall was murdered -- all remain accessible, and all remain active. The prison closed in 1995, but the sentences that continue to be served within its walls appear to have no expiration date.
