1859 JACKSON COUNTY JAIL MUSEUM

INVESTIGATION ALBUM - Part 2 (of 2)


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All of the photos in the Investigation Albums (parts 1 and 2) are captured from the video we taped during the actual investigation. They aren't of as high a quality as the images taken with our film and digital cameras and larger versions of them are not available, but they give a good feel for what it was like to be there. Browse through...and read what interests you.

In the picture on the left, Lindsey Gaston is explaining that some historians believe this door mounted between the 1859 jail building and the 1903 jail expansion was part of the original iron floor of the 1859 jail. The original floor was made of banded iron so that jailers could see both levels of the jail regardless of their location within the building. Its believed that when the original floor was replaced with a solid floor, portions of the banded floor were used for other purposes (such as this door.)
The floors and walls of the 1st floor of the 1859 Jail are cold and clammy. Even though the jail is above ground, the thick limestone blocks it was constructed from give it the atmosphere, humidity, and chill of a basement deep below ground. The floor and walls are stained a variety of colors by nearly 150 years of wear and tear. And the iron doors clearly show their age as well. The hinges and door were installed as the limestone bricks were laid, and were built right into the stone structure. It is impossible to lift or removed the doors from their hinges, short of cutting them free with a torch.
The fact the iron doors and hinges were built right into the very structure of the building is the reason that despite the jail building being used for a factory and other businesses over the years, the doors remain.

In the picture on the left, Edward is examining the posh interior of the Frank James cell. Due to Frank's popularity, he was treated more as a guest at the 1859 jail than as a prisoner.
Here Edward and Stew listen to Lindsey tell a few more details about the hangings that took place in the jail. It was very strange standing in the very spot over which a number of people had dangled until they were dead. Putting paranormal hauntings aside, it is hard to imagine that pain and suffering on that scale would not leave some sort of mark on a location. At the very least a certain dark atmosphere. But, feelings and "atmosphere" are seemingly impossible to quantify scientifically.
The stairway in the 1903 jail expansion building was incredible to look at. See the Photos section of this investigation report for more than a few photos of it. People often report the unexplained smell of tobacco in this stairwell and Lindsey was actually "pushed" on this stairwell by something unseen during his first month working at the museum. Mike Cross brings a very skeptical and grounded approach to paranormal investigations, and it was interesting to watch him react to smelling "an ashtray" smell in the stairwell. That's Mike on the left entering the stairway.
In the picture on the right, all of the Ghost Vigil investigators had completed their walk-through of the 1st floor cells and had told me if they had any "feelings" about which one was the "haunted" cell. See the Strange Events section of this investigation report for the results of this experiment. With everyone gathered, we made choices about where to set up the stationary cameras and began our vigils within the building.
This is what the 1st floor of the 1859 Jail looks like when all the lights are turned off. The only light here is a very dim glow from an adjoining room and the IR light coming from a stationary camera. We focused one of the stationary cameras on this corner of the Jail Hallway because of a tall dark shadowy shape that was reportedly seen in this area two weeks prior to our investigation by Lindsey and another paranormal investigation group.
The cell this iron door leads to is labeled Cell #1 on our investigation maps, and it is the western-most cell on the south side of the 1st floor. According to some, this is the "haunted" cell. Other sources suggest that Cell #2, the center cell on the south side of the 1st floor, is the "haunted" cell. For the purposes of this investigation we focused on Cell #1 based on Lindsey's advice and the shadowy shape reportedly seen coming from this cell just two weeks earlier. On a future investigation, we may focus on both Cell #1 and Cell #2.
This image is from the inside of Cell #1, looking out through the open cell door. For the first round of vigils, Mike took the Master Bedroom, Edward and Valerie went to the North Bedroom, Shawn and Dave sat in the 1903 jail expansion stairwell, while Stew, Chris and I set up in the 1st floor of the 1859 Jail. At first we split up and all sat in the pitch black in different cells waiting for whatever might happen.
Chris had gotten some strange feelings about Cell #2, so he had chosen that cell for his vigil. I was curious about the black shadowy shape that had reportedly come out of Cell #1 two weeks earlier, so I wanted to do my vigil in that cell. The picture on the right is me during this individual vigil.
Its amazing the tricks your eyes play on you when are sitting in the darkness. You are sitting alone in an ancient jail cell, with decades and decades of suffering to its credit, and your eyes are flicking left and right trying to focus in on something...anything...in the darkness. The mind and your imagination are powerful tools, and the darkness becomes a canvas upon which to embellish even the slightest impressions and sensory input.
Doing vigils alone is completely different than doing vigils with a partner. It adds to the psychological impact of the environment when you are alone. After about 15 minutes, Stew, Chris, and I sat down together in Cell #1 and shut both of the cell's iron doors behind us. It was amazing how my anxiety levels dropped once there were other investigators in the cell with me. This didn't stop some interesting things from happening though. See the Contact in Cell #1 section of our investigation report for more details.
  After an hour or so, all of the investigators rotated vigil locations. Shawn, Dave, and Mike went to the 1859 Jail, while Stew, Chris, Lindsey, and I went to the Master Bedroom. During our vigil on the 2nd floor of the Marshall's House, we discussed paranormal theory and more details about the activity that had reportedly taken place at the museum. The picture on the left is of Lindsey telling us more interesting stories....
On the right, Stew is lit from his right (your left) by the IR glow of the stationary camera in the Master Bedroom. Stew is placing a digital recorder on the antique bed in an an attempt to record an EVP (electronic voice phenomenon). Of all our investigators, its Stewart and Shawn that are most focused on gathering and analyzing EVP evidence.
  This is Chris sitting on the floor of the Master Bedroom during the vigil there. During our vigil we continued to hear creaking and popping noises from the hallway and the stairway leading to the 2nd floor of the Marshall's House. Of course the Marshall's House is nearly 150 years old, and buildings that old make noises. Lots of noises. So from a scientific standpoint those sorts of noises just don't mean a lot. But that doesn't diminish their impact on you when you are sitting in the dark in a reportedly "haunted" room.
In a third rotation of vigils, Stew and I convinced Lindsey to return with us to Cell #1 on the 1st floor of the 1859 Jail. Just two weeks before Lindsey had seen a 6'6" black shadowy shape exit this same cell, cross the Jail Hallway and enter Cell #4. The light in this picture is invisible IR light...as we were sitting in complete darkness with the inner iron door closed behind us. Not to speak for Lindsey, but I had the impression he was pretty anxious when we first sat down in the cell.  
Stew and Lindsey both noticed that whatever low light was backlighting the banded iron door was causing our eyes to play tricks. Once they pointed it out to me I could see it as well. Though the light level behind the iron door was not actually changing, it appeared to fade away...and then become brighter...and then fade away, again and again over time. This goes along with a theory we've been discussing about investigator's eyes playing tricks on them in darkness and near darkness.
After sitting in the darkness of Cell #1 for 40-45 minutes, we all noticed that the atmosphere in the cell was not negative at all. It actually felt pretty comfortable sitting in there. The difference between our first vigil of the night in Cell #1 and this last vigil was amazing. Over the course of the night the feeling in the cell went from one of intense anxiety to relative comfort. I commented to Stew and Lindsey that if felt like, "we owned the cell."  
At the end of the investigation we all returned to our base of operations back in the Kitchen. We went over some of the anecdotal experiences that had taken place that night. In the picture on the left, Chris is laughing about an incident earlier in the night when he accidentally stumbled across Dave in a stairwell without knowing another investigator was in the area. Chris about jumped out of his skin when he saw a dimly lit human form in front of him through the bars at the top of the stairway! (But it was just Dave).
On the right Stew is beginning to pack up the DVR, monitor, and stationary camera cords. Though this is the first time Stew brought this system along, I can already tell that being able to monitor so many locations at once is going to become indispensable to our investigations. We'll look back and wonder how we ever managed to conduct an investigation without the stationary cameras along. We owe Stew a huge thanks for building the system.  
Shawn and Dave worked together quite a bit on this investigation. They did a vigil in the 1903 jail expansion stairwell and in Cell #1. See the Possible EVP section of this investigation report for more details on their time in the Stairwell and see the Contact in Cell #1 section for more details regarding their time in Cell #1. Shawn looks exhausted in the picture....
While everyone was packing up their gear in the Kitchen, I went back towards the 1859 Jail for one last look. To get there, I had to go back through the Breezeway between the Marshall's House and the 1859 Jail building. Something about this area of the location bothered me. It was very likely just the atmosphere and psychology of the area. You can pick some of that up just looking at the photo on the right.  
This is the museum space in the 1st floor of the 1903 jail expansion with all the lights off except one. Lindsey and I returned here at the end of the night to see if the tall shadowy shape seen by Lindsey and the other paranormal investigation group two weeks before could have been caused by the investigators themselves. This light was just outside the doorway leading to the 1st floor of the 1859 jail where the tall shadowy shape was seen. Lindsey and I tried to recreate a shadow at the other end of the room in every way possible.
But the single light in the 1903 jail expansion cast an extremely indirect light into the jail area. The light was so indirect, that the most we could accomplish was to cause the light coming into the jail to dim slightly. We were unable to cause even the slightest hint of a shadowy shape on the other end of the Jail Hallway. Unable to recreate the phenomenon experienced two weeks before, Lindsey and I headed back to the Kitchen.  
This is Dave, Shawn, and Mike as we were about to leave. The 1859 Jackson County Jail Museum investigation had been eventful one. As a group we walked away with several personal experiences we had trouble explaining, well over a hundred film and digital photographs, and hours of video and audio tape. Lindsey was an amazing host...and we hope to get a chance to return and perform a follow-up investigation at the 1859 Jail.
Click here for Investigation Album Part 1 (of 2)

And check out the sections of this investigation report listed under the category of "Analysis" for detailed discussions and analysis of the evidence we gathered during this investigation...

-Mark Stinson


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