Ghost Hunt #2: The Jail of Horror

The “sibs” ambushed me at a nice dinner we were having at a steakhouse. Nicole, my youngest sister, smirked at me and announced, “We have a surprise for you.” I put the fork full of food in my mouth, my wide eyes staring at her, hoping for mercy. Her surprises usually meant work for me and I had no idea the next words out of her mouth would be, “We’re going on a ghost hunt.” I almost chocked on the food as a ridiculous smile spread across my face (while I was chewing my food). Did people do this in real life? I’m assuming they kept it as a “surprise” because I had actually refused to go to a fake haunted house with them. My nerves just couldn’t handle it. Once, as a kid, I agreed to go with my family into a haunted house in Wisconsin Dells of all places (the most sugary place on earth aside from Disneyland/world). However, when I stepped bravely in the door, there was a coffin with a wax dummy laying inside of it. That’s it. That’s all it took for me to run crying back outside to my mother and refuse to step foot into the haunted house, or any haunted house, since then.

Sure, I would regain composure and laugh about it later, but that would be later after my soul absorbed the mental and physical pain of sheer panic. How do you explain this to someone who hasn’t had an anxiety attack? They don’t understand that it is as real as the person who is suffering an asthma attack or even a heart attack, just with no physical or lasting scars other than exhaustion and aches/pains. That’s why so many people with anxiety attacks get rushed to the ER thinking it’s the physical thing only and not something that is attacking your nervous system and causing a physical melt down along with the mental one that is just beating your soul senseless. So, I sat there, shocked, staring at my siblings, trying to figure out what I was going to say to going on a ghost hunt of all things.

We parked in the turn around in front of the abandoned VA hospital and waited to be let in to the ghost hunt. There were about a dozen other people there with us. Just as the host came out to let us in, I spied a $5 bill folded up and lying on the ground. It had to be someone who was already there because this place was in the middle of nowhere and it wasn’t near the “rave” going on next door. I asked if anyone dropped it, and no one volunteered, the host said, “hey, it’s yours!” I looked at it and shook my head. I was creeped out and I didn’t want to touch the money–like it was a trap. I looked at my siblings and told them they could have it, but they shook their heads. The couple in front of us refused to pick it up too. It stayed there for all I know, or maybe one of the people who came later got it. It takes a ghost hunt for people to freak out over found money!

btw

The thing with the first ghost hunt is that I was more curious than I was creeped out. I wanted to know what we were going to do, what we would see, what the guides would be like, etc. We did some activity with the ghosts talking to us off and on through devices the guides had like a radio that would scan the air waves to try to pick up voices. There was a small machine that measured energy and we would ask the ghost to make the lights on it move for yes/no answers. Something did move the lights. I was standing on the top floor when something out of the blue hit my foot. I looked down and there was a pebble that hadn’t been there before. No one had been in front of me to throw the rock or disturb it enough to hit me with the type of force that it would take to make me feel it hit my shoe. The best part, though, was one of our guides, Andrew. He had this British accent that was “quite nice” and a gregarious personality that I was immediately drawn to. He had no inhibitions, and if he was scared, we all knew it. There was no pretense and I found him refreshing and a bit weird, but all of the guides were in their own ways. It’s a strange group and that’s why I liked them. They were open and honest, just being themselves. It’s refreshing to not have to wear a mask or pretend to be perfectly happy for a while.

The guides take amateur ghost hunters, like my siblings and myself, around to “activity” points and help us use the tools of the trade (which you can buy from the company that puts on the hunts for a low, low price). I didn’t realize this was a business let alone a real thing to do outside of Halloween. We went to the hospital just after Halloween 2020 and the jail in the summer of 2021. If one doesn’t mind traveling, ghost hunts are to be done all year round throughout this country, let alone the world. My favorite at the hospital were the dowsing rods (or I call them divining rods for some reason I can’t actually explain). I took them in my hands and spoke to them through my thoughts because we had a big group in the hospital and they were noisy. When I “thought” to them, they did what I asked them to do. I got a “yes” and “no” configuration and I asked them questions. It was better when I was alone. I went into a dilapidated shell that was a patient room and asked it questions. Was my deceased mother okay? Was my now deceased father okay? I got yeses both times. I asked if someone was in the room with me, and it answered yes, though I was physically alone. I asked if the person needed help, and it said yes. What did I do? Leave the room. What else was I supposed to do?

The amateur wanna-be professionals made up most of the other members of our group in the hospital. They had purchased their own equipment and were doing readings and filming on their own much of the time. They weren’t tolerating Andrew or us newbies; I and my siblings were really more interested in the history than the activity. I found the wanna-be hunters pretentious and I’m sure they found me bothersome as I wanted to go a bit slower and listen to the guide. They wanted free time. After a bit, we gave it to them and they went on their own. Bye, Felicia.

btw

I have Psoriatic Arthritis, a condition where my immune system attacks my joints and destroys them. Even with good medication, that night at the hospital with its 3 floors and large, long layout, my hips felt like they would break apart, my kneecaps were numb, and the sciatic crests (those humps of bone at your lower back) felt like I had melted metal sloshing around. It was about 4 hours of a tour and then we could have 2 more hours of free time. My sister, who also suffers from a painful condition with her backs and hips, had her walker that she could use for support and a chair and my brother doesn’t need it. He goes for hours-long bike rides and walks. They wanted to explore the large hospital, and I was ready to die. We had to go back to the hotel, and while I miserably licked my wounds, they lamented not being able to explore more.

So, no more surprise ghost hunts–they told me about #2 up front. The only surprise was that Richard wanted to go. He firmly stated he didn’t believe in the paranormal and thought I was a little looney because I did at least believe in residual energy. Nicole claims not to believe, but she’s cautious when it comes to approaching things that are “haunted.” Superstition, nerves, or belief? Who knows! He seems to like these micro-trips and being in the old buildings. Or maybe he thinks it’s funny that I’m nervous and will jump if I hear a noise. Either way, he and Nicole planned Ghost Hunt #2: Haunted Old Lavaca County Jail in downtown Hallettsville, TX.

• Ghost hunt #1: In the fall and it was dark when we arrived in Mineral Wells, TX.
• Ghost hunt #2: It was summer and light out as we arrived in quaint Hallettsville, TX. I was more interested in the antique stores than the Old Jail.
• Ghost hunt #1: The hotel was just as creepy as the old VA hospital. When I would go into the moldy hallway, I kept expecting to see twin girls standing at the end of the long hall, dressed from the 70s, holding hands, and staring silently at me as I figure out whether to run, ask them what the hell they were doing, or just go back into my room.
• Ghost hunt #2: The hotel was super cute and supposed to have a bunch of stray cats around. No cats, but it was cute and had cows next door. I approached the herd as they fed and lazed in the hot day and they looked at me like I would have looked at those twin girls.
• Ghost hunt #1: We drove into darkness and nothingness and came across an underground punk rock concert with excited, but altogether normal looking adults going to attend. Across the street was the abandoned and crumbling VA hospital.
• Ghost hunt #2: We drove into a rural downtown area that was cute but pretty sparse. The old county jail looked pretty much like the rest of the town.

I am ALWAYS the navigator because I’m the only one with any patience to set up the GPS, make sure it’s right, and help with directions. My brother and sister told me to take them to the Lavaca County Jail. I punched it in; it was only a few minutes away, circa downtown, like they said it would be. However, we rode through the mostly dead downtown area and headed west of where we were, just as my sister started giving me side-long glances. “Something’s not right,” she snapped as she was losing patience and we were getting closer to the time we were supposed to be at the Old Jail. “I’m following the GPS,” I sputtered as we turned onto a fairly new road just west of downtown and kept going until we hit a modern brick building that looked like a squashed fortress. It was the Lavaca County Jail.

Nicole glared at me. “This is the current jail! We’re supposed to go to the old one.” I couldn’t help but giggle. They had told me to take them to the jail, and I did. Why was she mad at me? Both Richard and she claimed they said the OLD jail, but I don’t remember it that way. I found the correct directions and we drove the couple of minutes back into town and found the deteriorating building behind the main street. I thought it was funny that we almost went to jail, but they didn’t. We squabbled over where to park Nicole’s beloved Subaru and finally made it to Ghost hunt #2: the Haunted Old Lavaca County Jail in Hallettsville, TX.

We argue all of the time when we’re together, Nicole, Richard and me, especially my older brother and my youngest sister. She’s a force of nature, much like a combination of Elfriede’s tiger heart and James’s narrow perception of the world. If Nicole isn’t getting things the way she imagines them to be, there’s going to be hell to pay. Richard lives in an analytical world with easy measurements and no nonsense. If it doesn’t compute or make sense to him, it shouldn’t exist or be brought to fruition. So, you have a personality that doesn’t like to compromise, and one that believes in logistics and practicality only. Uh-huh. Then there’s me; laid back and tired most of the time from having 3-4 jobs going at once with a mind that can go from 0-100 in 60 seconds flat, and then back down to 0 without warning. There we have the Nelson-Brown clan. I’m the “fixer” that just wants to make everything right without getting in the middle if I can help it. If only Nicole and Richard can see that their goals are the same, and that they just have different viewpoints. It’s the goal that matters. It takes a lot to get to that end point, though, when there are too many cooks in the kitchen.

btw

We entered through the carport to spy stray cats and even strayer looking caregivers for the Old Jail and ghost hunt guides. I liked that they had set out food for the mother cat and her kittens. The first thing I do when I see animals is approach and want to pet them, so I slowly approached mom and got to pet some cats–a win for me. They informed me that we could take one if we wanted since they were strays and needed a place to live. Nicole already has 3 cats and I have a dog that doesn’t like other animals, so I had to settle for petting them. They directed us to the house-like Old Jail for pizza and drinks.

For some reason, Nicole didn’t trust that they would have pizza (they did), so we had eaten at a nice Mexican restaurant before we left for the ghost hunt. So, when we entered the house/jail, it was to the kitchen with a bathroom right off to the side. There were pizza and drinks. To my immediate left was an old couch and someone sitting with a small dog next to her. Of course, I was ready to greet the dog when it showed its teeth and started growling at me. Calmly, I used a soft voice and said I was a friend and the dog miraculously calmed down, and I even got to pet her soon after. Her name is Alice and she belongs to the owner of Haunted Rooms that holds these tours all over the states. Doug, the owner, is a talker and has a Southern twang that I find so downright American and soothing. He had a soothing look, too, something of a seasoned History teacher that might also coach little league. And just like the teacher that loves to tell stories and ramble on, he’s a talker too. There are some who can’t stand silence, so he filled the time we had waiting for the whole group to arrive with his stories and nervous banter about ghost hunts.

I must admit I was worried seating would be scarce because these places are usually old and abandoned in some way, but we were able to sit in chairs they had set up for us (thank you!). Strangely, there was a blow up bed shoved into one corner that was made up well with blankets and a pillow. Was I in someone’s house? Who lived here? Apparently, the caretakers of the Old Jail, a bona fide haunted site and museum of sorts, lived there. She would talk of activity and things happening to her. Open-mouthed, I stared at her wondering who gets this type of job and why one would agree to LIVE in the haunted rooms?

On the bed was this beautiful young woman who seemed like Cleopatra in those paintings with the asp (minus the venomous snake): so removed from what is happening around her and majestic without trying to be, even with danger, death no less, so imminent. The creative, right brain in me ripped itself away from envy at her beauty and regality and noticed the tattoos, which I love to look at. Was that tattoo a…?–yes, it was. My sister later told me she thought the young woman had a satanic symbol inked onto her chest above her left breast, but I recognized it immediately. “You’re a fan of Supernatural?” I asked her shyly, trying not to look too long at her chest. I earned a smile and a solid, “Yes. I figured it can’t hurt to have it.” Meaning, what she had was a symbol to ward off evil that the Supernatural series brothers Sam and Dean had tattooed on their chests (and in some episodes carved right into their ribcages thanks to the angels). Lots of things that look satanic are not, like gargoyles (protectors), skulls (good luck symbols), and candles (used in spiritual and religious rituals). Like possession and the law, many people think their perception is what gives things meaning, when the object already had meaning(s) before one’s own notice and knowledge.

Our guide would turn out to be someone very opposite of Andrew (Ghost Hunt #1); Justin was laid back and by the book. I liked that he respected where he was and what he was doing. However, he wasn’t playful and his sense of humor seemed caged and only for those whom he knew well (and maybe trusted?). He was a good guide and I enjoyed playing Blackjack (hey, I won!) with him.

The first floor was benign though they claimed it was active. “Active” refers to ghost or at least unexplained activity. They don’t say haunted as much as active, though the name of the group is Haunted Rooms. It’s where the Sheriff lived with his sweet-looking wife. They dressed up the room as it would be in the Old West. However, the only thing that bothered me there was that the bed was way too low to the ground. We tried to entice the ghosts to play cards and talk to us in the front room, but they wouldn’t be swayed. The living people played and I won the whole pot, including chips to brothels and naked pictures of women. Hey, it was a jail, not a church. I even won some little bottles of booze that I couldn’t drink, and not just because I don’t drink by nature. Drinking is forbidden on ghost hunts. I’m not sure why; I guessed the companies that run these ghost hunts probably had drunken people trying to do the hunts and it wasn’t pretty. The whole point is being in the dark in dilapidated buildings with crazy staircases and trip hazards everywhere. Drunks would probably just hurt themselves. Also, hunters don’t take kindly to antagonizing the dead. It’s simply not done because nothing good happens afterwards.

Participants on ghost hunts sign a waiver that if one gets hurt there’s no suing the company that put on the ghost hunt. The guide had talked about some activity in the form of punches, scratches, pushes, etc. from supernatural beings. I was more worried about falling down old, steep stairs or tripping and flying over uneven ground. I had a rock thrown at me at the VA hospital, but it literally glanced off my foot and I only felt the pressure of the pebble, like someone had dropped it and not thrown it–or it had just bounced on my foot and landed nearby. This waiver is more business-like than it appears, but it’s a good “scare” at the beginning of tours.

btw

The office and the booking room looked like any typical administrator’s office and more like a nurse’s station than anything else. We saw a board that listed who was in the jail and other information about them like their charges. This seemed staged but it was fun to read the silly charges people had by their names. Everything is just so small and tight. My nerves were really bad because I had the “bad feeling” I told my sister about. But so far, we didn’t have any activity. At the hospital, the ghosts did communicate with us through some of the “toys” of the trade, but we were getting nothing. The energy in that place was thick and nasty, and I didn’t like it not because of the supernatural, but because it was claustrophobic and punitive in nature. It even seemed punitive for the workers. The Sheriff had to live there with his wife and kids? One was even killed there! The living quarters were sparse though nicely appointed. The office for the jail wasn’t very big at all and again seemed closed in and airless. It didn’t help that it was June in Texas. The oppressive heat just made it all worse.

Where were the cells? So far we’d been in someone’s diminutive home, but not a “jail”. It didn’t seem so. We took a break, where I immediately grabbed for some Oreos that Nicole shamed me into putting back because the rest of the group hadn’t had a chance to get to the snack room. After the break, I would get my wish to see actual cells, and little did I know how much it would creep me out. We went out to the rec yard in the dark (thank you, whoever invited Off spray because the mosquitoes were thick that night) where there was supposed to be copious amounts of activity, including the owner’s ghostly picture where he had someone take his picture while he stood alone only to have another face show up with his. The yard was bleak, dark, and dank, but ghost free. The only thing that chilled my soul was the thought that this small patch of earth was the last open space some human beings saw, criminal or no. A tall silver gate kept them in and the land seemed reckless and sad. It was only the punishment that I felt back there, the taste of the world that was bitter and salty.

After I got to eat a snack without shame in front of a fan for a little cool down, we went to the cells–the new ones they had built later. I was expecting a modern cellblock, but instead I got more of the cramped, stifling feeling as we left the main house to enter a newer building sitting next door that I hadn’t even noticed before. The building is unassuming and more modern-looking, less horror movie like, until you get inside. Right inside are the drunk-tanks, 8″ x 8″, if that, as steel monstrosities that are built with heavy iron doors. There are desks that I’m wider than (as Nicole quips, “I can’t fit at that desk!” I couldn’t either). The beds are steal bolted into the walls with dirty, thin mattresses on top (or more like mattress toppers as the skinny things couldn’t really be called a mattress by any stretch of the imagination). There are ancient toilets and showers in the cells that are steel blocks with dangling plumbing. There are cells built around the corners of each side of the drunk tanks. The drunk tanks are meant to be temporary to let someone cool off or sober up. The cells on the sides are for longer stays: one male and one female side. They look the same, with the thick, cement walls closing in on cells that are at the largest 10″ x 10″ and sleep 4 people with bunk beds screwed into the walls. There’s a rec cell that has a picnic table and a metal rectangle for a shower. The toilet is open for all to watch as it’s used. Justin and another guest went in to try to talk to the ghost and played cards there. I was too freaked out and claustrophobic to attempt much hunting here. We have energy detectors, but they kept going off for other reasons like cellphones. I saw another hunter had downloaded an EVP detector on her phone that could pick up all kinds of frequencies and catch “ghost talk.” I downloaded one and was using it in the cells. Justin had one, also. He kept getting religious things like “form halo”, “priest”, etc. I was getting readings like “church”, “save her”, “teacher”, etc.

I freaked out even more when I saw some reddish/brown liquid dripping down the walls by the de-lousing shower at the front of the jail. After I calmed down, I realized it had been raining very hard and it was just rust mixing with rain, and not decomposing human blood. One of the hunters almost sat in it trying to find a place to rest (no one wants to sit for too long in the cells).

“Can you imagine being stuck here waiting for a trial,” Nicole asked as we all were beginning to feel overwhelmed and “dirty.” The air is dirty, the surroundings are dirty–the thoughts you have…terrible. When we got out of that dank place I was grateful. We waited back in the house area to try to get some rest before the last part of the tour, the actual old jail. Alice had been alerting on something in an office behind the area we were sitting in and the owner wanted to experiment with leaving an open phone in there and seeing if we could catch voices or movement. One hunter called another and we left her phone in the office and closed the door. The owner made sure we could hear inside the room and we could. We waited for 10 minutes or so, but it was quiet. The ghosts were not feeling our group that night. After he opened the door and handed her back her phone, the owner continued to talk to us to avoid the silence. In the middle of a sentence, the light came on in the little office behind him. Startled, even he hesitated a brief second and looked over his shoulder to where there was now light. It was only the second thing that seemed paranormal that night.

The first paranormal thing happened in the first part of the tour when we were given energy detectors while still in the Sheriff’s house/office. These contraptions register spikes in output of energy. I noticed that I was getting spikes when my siblings and I were standing together. Justin was so intrigued that he told the owner we were getting hit after hit. Then another hunter behind us said her EVP box came up with the word, “middle.” Intuitively, I stuck my detector between all of us Nelson-Brown clan members, and it went off. Nicole did the same and so did hers. Justin and Doug, the owner, were impressed. Even Richard kind of jumped back as he was in the middle of our sibling semi-circle, right where the box was going off.

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The Old Jail Cells

Next to the bland Sheriff’s office was a set of steep, crooked stairs that lead up to a huge iron door. The old jail cells awaited us as we had seen what they considered modern shortly before this and that was dismal to say the least. What was upstairs? The caretaker made sure we knew that there was no climate control in this Texas town’s jail. No. Climate. Control. No heat, no air…how did they survive? The way she put it, it didn’t matter much if they did or didn’t. There was always a creek to throw them into. Carefully, we all trekked up the steep stairs, with a huge steel bar door about 3/4 of the way up. The second floor has a short hallway that leads to crumbling cells along one side of the wall, and tiny cell blocks with benches in the middle on the other side. The opposite wall has a huge open space. The cells were slightly bigger here, but no less confining and gross. They didn’t go up to the ceiling, so they really looked like concrete boxes some giant had set down. The cells on the left reminded me of the VA hospital’s rooms; they were more than abandoned, they seemed purposely destroyed. The movie Silent Hill had scenes like that, when the rather normal looking, deserted town would just start melting and cracking apart when the evil would come. Combine the logic of age and no care, with the ruin of evil and consequences, and you have the old jail in Hallettsville.

I took some pictures and ventured into the big stone cages they call cells with sturdy iron doors crisscrossed with bars (see pics at the beginning). It was downright medieval. No beds or desks here. It was stiflingly hot, muggy and sickening up there. The cells brought no activity, just nerves sizzling as I grew more and more claustrophobic. I have never been sensitive to small spaces before; I actually like confined spaces. One can see what’s coming and going. No surprises and I never liked them. In this space, though, I felt tight, worried and angry. No air moving and a mind that went blank. I’m not used to spacing out so much, as usually my mind is racing.

Backing out of the cells, something furry and small passed in front of me and I almost leapt out of my skin. What was Alice, the owner’s dog, doing up here? I’d heard him say she wasn’t allowed in this area. Rules didn’t seem to make a difference to her or any of these guides and hunters. Doug said she can’t have human food, but I saw someone give her some pizza. Not only was she in the jail part, her small, long body had somehow made it up the steep stairs and managed to scare me but good. She stayed with us while the hunters tried to summon ghosts that didn’t seem to want to cooperate, and Nicole and I took a break in the rec area that was nothing more than a picnic table between tight cells. She never alerted on anything up there. Still, she got a lot of love and attention. She tried to coax my sister into petting her and even went under and through the walker Nicole was using to sit on. Thanks to my dog, Juno, Nicole is afraid of dogs, even those as small and cute as Alice is. Juno had bitten her during a Thanksgiving at my house.

When it came time to take a break before free time to explore, I was surprised to see I wasn’t the only one of our clan that was ready to breakdown. Like I do a multitude of times, I was willing to hide my exhaustion and pain (from the heat and Psoriatic Arthritis) and let my siblings have their free time to use the equipment and explore without the guide or at least with the guide but where we call the shots. Most guests had left and I was waiting for Richard to accept the free time, but instead he wearily declined and I was soon petting stray kittens, with one terrified of me, before heading to Nicole’s car and the GPS to head down the street to our hotel. It was literally down the street and we still got turned around and had to find our way back.

Ghost Hunt #1: I didn’t know what to expect and so having any of the experience was new and delightful. While I wasn’t planning on another hunt, #2 showed me something different and it was more enlightening than it was frightening. Oppression comes in many forms. Is oppression a human instinct as much as noticing differences? It sure seems that humans will find something and someone to hold to judgment and to oppress if not suppress, a lighter but still heavy form of punishment. I’m certainly not into sympathizing with criminals and believing that they shouldn’t be locked up if they did the crime. However, locking people up into small cages designed to deprive one of stimulation and the slightest bit of comfort isn’t something we would do to animals. People have done some heinous crimes where I’m not so sure they deserve to live amongst anyone, but incarceration needs to be viewed as punitive but humane, as designed in the Constitution. It’s punishment enough to be segregated; trust me, I know. It’s something to think about when an old jail is haunted due to the number of murders that the Sheriff and deputies did only to throw the bodies in the creek out back, and the suicides and the murders inmates did, and so on. It’s a place of horror, just not necessarily because of spirits.