Come Meet the Devil-Moundsville Penitentiary

“Come Meet the Devil”
Moundsville Penitentiary
Moundsville, West Virginia

In Moundsville, West Virginia there is a gothic style prison by the name of Moundsville Penitentiary where for more than one hundred years it held society's worse. Countless suicides, death, and executions were just another day in the bird cage at the prison, but who could blame them? Was it their guilt of committing the crime or was it because this prison was no country club? The latter would be more suitable. Riots, stabbings, beheadings, and even a man being boiled in a pot until his skin peeled off was just some of the evil deeds that were brought on to the inmates. You have suicides, you have deaths, and all that negative energy are what makes a place a class A haunting.

The first thing you will notice is that Moundsville Penitentiary is large. The city literally grew up around this center, dark icon. Well over a thousand men found their final resting place inside the walls of this place. Some were hung in the gallows, some were electrocuted and found out why they called it “Old Sparky”, others were killed by their fellow inmates. Some of the inmates couldn’t take it though and killed themselves. This earned Moundsville the (dis)honor of being on the Department of Justice Top 10 Most Violent Correctional Facility’s list. Let’s find out why.

 (Travel Channel's hit show "Ghost Adventures" crew outside of the prison. Left to right is: Nick Groff, Aaron Goodwin, and Zak Bagans)  

On an episode of Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures, the crew of Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, and Aaron Goodwin take a tour with a former inmate of the prison who’s seen hard time and just about any type of cruelty that more than one average human being has ever seen in a life time or wants to for that matter. He recalls one story of when there was a riot in the mess hall where a rat (a tattletale in the prison) was put right into a pot of baked beans and an inmate stood on the lid so he could not get out. The pot got so hot that the meat peeled off the man’s bones. The tour continued, although the stomachs of everyone (viewers included) were twisted, the next part was a sad one for the former convict. They went to a friend of his who was murdered in the cell. The man knelt down next to the bed, putting his hand on it, and with tears said that he could remember what he was friend was screaming that night. “Don’t let me die…Don’t let me die!” And they killed him, but the friend, named Ray, killed five or six guys while he was in prison, but as the GA Crews guest tour guide said, “We was in prison, you had to do what you had to do.” 

Another former inmate is quite famous and still sticks around the prison. Only problem is he’s not alive, he’s very much dead. His name is R.D. Wall and he was killed in the bowls of the prison. While alive, he worked in the boiler room, keeping the boilers fired up and going, and also did some work in the tool room. Problem for Wall though was that he was known as a snitch. As we found out earlier in the article Moundsville inmates didn’t take too kindly to those types. They cut off their fingers with dull shivs and then they severed his head completely off. Wall died, but some say he’s still working the boilers and sometimes takes a casual stroll outside. He’s also reported to be connected to the first ghost sighting. In the 1930’s, the guards would spot an inmate walking outside by the wall at the maintenance area. The guards would sound the alarm that a prisoner was trying to escape, but when the guards got to where they saw the inmate, no one was there, and none of the inmates were missing from inside. His face has been spotted in the area where he got killed, just his face, and no body.

A shadow figure is seen walking the corridors of the prison and has even been photographed. Another scary story is that an older couple was seen walking inside the prison one day and he came out screaming that his head was on fire. When they observed closer they saw a cut on his head from side to side. The same man who saw the older gentleman’s cut on his head, also caught an EVP (or Electronic Voice Phenomena-”Spirit voices”) that said, “Come meet the devil.”

On the walls of this prison lie the etchings and testimonies of the inmates. Some that say, “Why Must Everything Die?”, “True Love is Suicide”, and “The Reaper is Watching You!” It looks like the reaper was watching and that you found out that everything does have a resting place and for some it’s inside the grey, decaying walls of Moundsville Penitentiary. Dare to come and meet the devil?

Resources:

Ghost Adventures Episode: "Moundsville Penitentiary"