Jessica Penot's Blog, page 7

Buy My Terrifying Horror Novel for .99 This week!

Please read on for an excerpt from a terrifying thriller -- or go straight to the book in the Kindle Store while it's just 99 cents!
  Have you entered today'sbrand new Kindle Fire Giveaway? Enter here for your chance to win!   Kindle Nation Shorts
a free reader's service from Kindle Nation Daily

January 25, 2017

An excerpt from Jessica Penot's
CIRCE "...gloriously haunting...great read!"

A chilling novel of madness and murder from writer and psychologist Jessica Penot is disturbing and delighting readers.

"...will leave you wanting to crawl under the covers and hide!"

An internship at a mysterious psychiatric hospital in Alabama threatens to destroy everything Dr. David Black holds dear -- his wife, his family, even his very sanity.
 "...absolutely amazing...an exciting journey."
Don't miss CIRCE while it's 67% off! Heading home to Alabama seems like the right thing to do in this Kindle Nation excerpt from
CIRCEby Jessica Penot
Special Kindle Price: 99 cents!
(reduced from $2.99 for a limited time only) Here's the set-up:
When Dr. David Black takes an internship at a very old psychiatric hospital back home in Alabama, he vows two things—that he will be a better husband to his beautiful and loving wife Pria, and that he will stop cheating on her.

Then his enigmatic supervisor Dr. Cassie Allen, a self-proclaimed witch with ties to the underworld, begins to draw him into her darkness. David finds it hard to resist her wicked sensuality, but even harder to resist her evil pull.

As strange and violent deaths pile up left and right, David realizes that Cassie’s psychotic behavior is connected to the mysterious hospital itself. There a demonic force threatens to destroy everything that David holds dear—his wife, his family, even his very sanity. an excerpt from CIRCE by Jessica PenotCopyright © 2017 by Jessica Penot and published here with her permission Chapter 1   When monster meets monster, one monster must give way, and that monster will never be me. Tennessee Williams
 Kano – Opening   The road to Circe is little more than a path through the swamps. The pavement recedes silently into the mind of the traveler, and the swamps themselves seem to take the land. The land is thick and overgrown and the undergrowth reaches up for you, suffocating you with its moist, green fingers. The water is still, muddied by insects and the remnants of life. Alligators hide beneath the water's tall grass. They wait quietly. You can barely see them in the daylight. The institution crawls out of this murky soil, as if planted there by nature herself. It sits, waiting quietly. Its white walls lean awkwardly into the soft, damp earth. From a distance the old watchtower can be seen. It’s crooked and battered. Despite its years of constant use, no one has bothered to repair the older parts of the institution. They remain quiet and dull, listening to the voices of the madmen within them. Cassie once told me that ancient and angry spirits guarded the fort. They were the keepers of the institution. They were its patients and its doctors. I never believed her. I rarely believed anything she said. But I always listened. I watched her pale lips bob up and down and wondered at all the strange philosophies that drifted out of her mind. Cassie became Circe for me. Not the lonely witch who seduced Ulysses, but the place. She became cool stone and marble. A fantasy with the power of a haunted house or a lost dream. “Circe” is what we called the place. It was actually named after some long dead man with gray whiskers and a propensity for racism. Dr. Clement Richard Clark had enough vision to turn an abandoned fort into an institution and Circe carried his name. With a little bit of an Alabama slur, C.R.C. always came out Circe and throughout my childhood I thought the hospital was named Circe. After I took my first mythology class, I figured they named it after the mythological enchantress. As an adult, despite my knowledge, it seemed more appropriate that the hospital be called Circe. Circe always seemed to have some power over us. It had a power over all of those who lived and worked there, whether they knew it or not. The first time we saw its crooked and chipped walls it carried an unnamed mystery. It was foggy that first day. It’s often foggy in the swamps of Southern Alabama. The air was thick and hot and we drove to Circe because it was our future. Our rite of passage. We would no longer be graduate students after we left this place. We would be psychologists. Healers of the mind and soul. We were to become the modern witch doctors. So the mystery with which I perceived Circe on that foggy morning came as much from my own psyche as from any of the fog that encased it, but it had that effect on all of us. All of the interns were daunted by the future it held for us. The buildings were hidden at first. Hidden behind the veil. All we could see of the place was the parking lot, wrapped in 12-foot fences and barbed wire. It was ugly, as parking lots always are. In front of it, perched on a mailbox, there was an azure peacock. Its tail feathers were spread widely, exposing all of its extravagant beauty. It gazed out at us, through the fog, as if it was guarding the stark parking lot. It was out of place. A fish in the desert. At first, I thought it was some plastic bauble set up to decorate something hideous, but then it moved. It drew breath and walked away and we all laughed. We laughed at the absurdity of the creature itself. The white walls of Circe crept out in front of us as if they belonged to the swamp. These high, impregnable walls had once withstood weeks of cannon fire, and now they entombed the mentally ill. Three doors allowed entry into the hospital. A beautiful and ornate arch opened up into the main court from the picturesque visitor’s parking lot. All around this entrance there were beautiful things. An old fountain spat rust-filled water into the sticky air. Flowers lined the walkway. Huge oaks lined the gardens. All this beauty and splendor also encased the second entrance to Circe. That door opened up into the main office, which was rumored to have held Geronimo on his trail of tears. The old building had once been a prison and an armory. Now it was decorated with pictures of pink daisies and happy children. Plump secretaries sat behind cool desks smiling happily at visitors on the same floors where countless Indians had marched to their demise. The last entry into the fort was hidden. A tiny door had been built into the walls of the fort forty years ago to allow the staff to go directly from the dreary staff lot into the main hospital. Buildings from long ago peppered the square within the wall. The large watchtower in the center of the fort used for vocational rehabilitation had existed for as long as anyone could remember. It rose out of the earth like a monolith, taller than anything around it. It could be seen from miles away. It was a fading testament to the French occupiers who had been there before. There was another building, old and dark, built out of red brick and crowned with a cupola, which loomed near the front of Circe. This dilapidated structure had been constructed during the Victorian period. Huge, ornate, and beautiful, its dark windows looked out onto the square. Motionlessness engulfed the building. Cassie told me that this building was constructed at the turn of the century. It had been abandoned not because it was structurally unsound, as I was to be told, but because people were too afraid of its dark history. The modern facilities didn’t fit in with the rest of the fort. Their architecture stood out as a monument to 1950’s postmodernism in all of its glory. They were faded and tattered, but these antiquated buildings housed all of the patients of Circe. Cassie avoided the first of them. She described the admissions unit as a processing center for the mad where the acutely mentally ill would stay until a better place was found for them. On the other side of the tower lurked Cassie’s building. It looked exactly like the admissions unit, but the chronic ward hid in the back of the hospital, alone in an empty field. The patients who lived here were too far from reality to ever hope to find a way back. To me, when I think back, it all began there. My voyage. My journey. When I close my eyes it is all I can see, staring back at me through the mist. But I had a life before that place and my story does not begin within its walls. It begins with my wife. My beautiful wife. I often ask myself now, "Who was I?" I wonder at the kind of man I had been. I had been empty. Empty and hungry. Always searching for something out of reach. I went into psychology because it happened upon me. My father had been a psychologist, and I excelled in the subject. I did wonderfully in math and I did wonderfully on my Graduate Record Exams. I was competitive enough to get into the best Clinical Psychology programs in the nation. I chose to go to the North because I wanted to see a new world. I took my wife with me knowing she despised the North. I took her with me, knowing how much she wanted to stay in Alabama. She cried when we packed the U-Haul and she cried when we drove away, but she never blamed me for the next four years. She never blamed me for Detroit. Circe made my wife jubilant at first. The night I told her my internship was going to be there, I was finishing my dissertation early. I had built off someone else's research. This made it much easier for me to produce an excellent dissertation in less time. I was working on the conclusion of my dissertation that Christmas Eve. We did not go home that year. We couldn’t afford it. Pria, my wife, had been supporting us both. She had supported me financially and emotionally. She snuck up behind me that night, and wrapped her arms around me. "Merry Christmas," she whispered. "Is it Christmas?" I asked. I did not turn to face her, although now I wish I had. I wish I could remember the curve of her cheek illuminated by the computer screen. I wish I could see the line of her body, with the Christmas lights she had so painstakingly put up glowing behind her perfect black hair. But I kept on typing. I kept on working and I never looked back. "Yes," she said. There was such sadness in her voice. "Can we open our presents?" "Go get everything set up," I muttered. "I'll be in after I enter this last set of numbers." Pria was a mixture of perfect paradoxes. Her mother was from Northern India and her father had been born and raised in Mobile, Alabama. Instead of compromising on faith, her mother had tried to raise her Muslim and her father had tried to raise her Baptist. Pria believed in both and neither. She could talk about Christ and Mohammed in the same sentence. She would mouth devotion to make her parents happy, but she clung only to the rituals that she found the most interesting. She would fast for Ramadan (mostly because it helped her lose weight), and then celebrate Christmas with a vengeance, manger scenes and all. Her personality was as dichotomous as her faith. She was brilliant, but could be banal. She was all parts of woman: independent and unyielding, but needing and compromising. She was addicted to modern culture, but constantly seeking her mother’s traditions. She would wear the most stylish modern clothes, only to turn around and wear a sari the next day. She was all things to me and I adored her. After I finished my work, I followed her into the living room of our tiny apartment. She was smiling brightly. My wife was a beautiful woman. She had a tiny waist and large hips and chest. Her skin was dark and so were her eyes. I called her my fertility goddess. She used to get mad at me for that. She said that meant I thought she was fat. But I never thought that. Her skin was smooth and soft, and was never puckered with cellulite or excessive fat. Her curves gave her a sexuality that glowed from her whenever she moved. The mix of ethnicity in her was perfect. I sat down beside the tree with her. "You only get coal this year, you know," I said. "I think it’s you who gets the coal this year. Working all the time and neglecting your poor wife." I leaned over and kissed her. "I would never neglect you. How could I?" "My other lover says that you neglect me." "Other lover? Are you saying that you’re sleeping with another man?" "Not just one," she teased. "Ten beautiful men who hang on my every word. And all of them promise that they'll take me back to Alabama for New Years." I became serious. I always took her seriously. "I'm sorry about this." "Nothing to be sorry about." She smiled as she cried. "I knew what I was getting into when I married you. You never lied to me and I'll never regret it." She kissed me and I forgot about my dissertation. She had that power. "Open your first present from me then," I said. "Which one should I open?" "The small one." She shook the little box before she opened it. She tore into the silver paper like a child. Her hands quaked as she unfolded the small scrap of paper inside the box and as soon as she read the scrap she laughed almost hysterically. The laughter melted into tears and she threw her arms around my neck. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I basked in the warmth of my success. "Are you sure?" she asked. "I mean, you can have any internship you want. You could go to one of the best internships in the country." "I don't want that. I know you think I can't, but I know how sad you've been. You hate this place." "Oh no. I love it. I love the yellow snow and the black ice. I love the smell and I love the fact that I'm terrified to walk the dog after 5:00 p.m. What's not to like?" "Always joking," I said with a wry grin. "My humor is what has kept me alive these last four years." "It hasn't been that bad?" "Not that bad. I had you and I have a few friends. I'm just homesick and I hate the cold." "Well, to Pintlala, Alabama we go then." I said with a grimace "It wouldn't have been my first choice, but it is still closer to home than before." "There aren't too many internships available in Alabama." "I know. I'm not complaining at all. Have you ever been to Pintlala?" "No. I've been to Mobile. That's about as close as you can get and not end up on dirt roads." She laughed. "Sweet home Alabama." I hugged her. "Aren't you going to open the rest of your presents?" I asked. "I don't need to. This is all I want. We'll only be a few miles away from Mom and Dad and Sally and Rachel and all of our friends. It'll be good for you too, you know. You’ll never have to have my icy feet on your belly again." "Somehow I doubt that. Your feet will be cold when it is 90 degrees. Your feet are always cold." "That's not fair. My feet get warm." "I can't think of when." That was a good Christmas. She was happy. I had made her happy. I had made her glow and that was all that mattered. I did not want to return to Alabama. We were going home and I was ambivalent about this; I had been content in Detroit. I found its stark landscape alluring and I loved the way the steam rose from the manholes in the winter. I liked the silence with which the general population moved through life. Never greeting one another. Afraid to make eye contact on the street. They were all separate and estranged. They never asked questions or cared what you did or whom you did it with.       At home, everyone smiled and asked you how your day was going. They hugged you when they didn't know you and talked about you when they didn't care. It didn't matter. It was just a place, like any other. ... Continued...

Download the entire book now to continue reading on Kindle!
CIRCEby Jessica Penot
Special Kindle Price: 99 cents!
(reduced from $2.99 for a limited time only) Email: newsletter@kindlenationdaily.com  Please Whitelist our sending email address to make sure you don't miss our free newsletter: newsletter@kindlenationdaily.com About the author:
Jessica Penot
  Jessica Penot is a writer and psychologist who often considers leaving the more traditional field of psychology for the less conventional para side of it. Jessica loves a good ghost story and all things dark and beautiful. She lives in Alabama with her family. One more
for Kindle by
Jessica Penot
  The Accidental Witch 4 stars - 66 reviews
$2.99 Copyright © 2017 Kindle Nation Daily/Windwalker Media, All rights reserved. unsubscribe from this list   update subscription preferences 

7 Terrifying Stories from Notorious American Asylums by Harry Parsons

Danvers State Hospital – Period Photograph Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Sadly, dignified and effective treatment for the mentally ill hasn’t always been the American standard. In fact, many insane asylums were notorious for subjecting patients to procedures that would today be considered sketchy and unethical, at best. All things considered, it’s understandable that old asylums in general often come attached to rumors that they’re haunted or otherwise unsettling.
However, some asylums have earned a higher degree of notoriety than others, and with good reason. The following are just a few of the many that make a hypothetical stay at American Horror Story: Asylum’s Briarcliff Manor sound like a walk in the park.
1.      Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum – Weston, West Virginia
The situation that eventually developed within the walls of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum started out as a result of drastic overcrowding. It was originally built to house a hard maximum of 250 patients. However, by the year 1949, there were well over 2000 patients living there, instead.
An eventual investigation conducted by The Charleston Gazette uncovered absolutely abominable conditions. Among the horrors discovered were extreme neglect in regards to hundreds of the patients, patients locked in cages, and procedures like lobotomies being performed with such inappropriate tools as ice picks. Unsurprisingly, the Trans-Allegheny saw tens of thousands of deaths before it finally closed in the 1990s. However, thrill seekers can still visit and even stay overnight if they are so inclined.
2.      Topeka State Hospital – Topeka, Kansas
Topeka State Hospital is just one of the many hospitals that saw patients being subjected to unspeakable cruelty with the intent to “cure” them of their ailments. However, there was a lot of abuse that went on there, as well. Many patients were raped and otherwise physically abused. Some were left permanently restrained with leather straps to the point where their skin began to grow over the restraints themselves.
The staff at this hospital was especially notorious for castrating a high number of the patients under care there. It started just after state law greenlit castration as an acceptable treatment for the hopelessly or criminally insane in 1931 – to the tune of 54 castrations. This is especially troubling when you consider the fact that quite of few of the hospital’s patients came attached to unknown identities and conditions.
3.      Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital – Morris Plains, New Jersey
Greystone started out with the intention to provide the mentally ill with a proper sanctuary and truly therapeutic treatment. However, it wasn’t long before overcrowding became a massive issue, as it was for many asylums. Greystone was built to house up to 1600 people, but at one point housed closer to 2500, instead.
What’s more, Greystone is another asylum that chose to implement sketchy, controversial treatment options in the past to treat multiple illnesses. Examples include but are not limited to electroshock therapy for the treatment of PTSD, insulin shock therapy, and more. The hospital is also connected to many stories of rape, mysterious death, suicide, and even the escape of a rapist.
Greystone is still in operation today, although the notorious practices are no longer in use there. Also, the state of New Jersey is currently planning to replace it with a smaller facility.
4.      Bloomingdale Insane Asylum – Morningside Heights, New York City
Today, the building that was once home to Bloomingdale Insane Asylum is Columbia University’s Buell Hall. However, it was once used to house (and rehabilitate) mentally ill patients of all types.
As you might guess, there were some unsavory practices at work, many of which were officially exposed by a journalist named Julius Chambers in the late 19th century. (He had himself committed to Bloomingdale for ten days.) Among other things, Chambers talked of patients being choked, kicked, hit, and otherwise abused until they bled freely. He also spoke of patients being driven to suicide (or close to it) by the sheer cruelty on the part of the staff.
Thankfully, his work yielded positive results. Not only were twelve of Bloomingdale’s patients released (as they were not insane), but the book he wrote about his experiences – A Mad World and Its People – paved the way for badly needed reforms as far as how the mentally ill are treated in America.
5.      Byberry Mental Hospital – Byberry, Pennsylvania
In operation from 1907 all the way to 1987, Byberry was described as containing wards reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps by one Charlie Lord, a former staff member at the hospital. Lord eventually took it upon himself to expose the conditions there with 36 grayscale photographs – images that would eventually be published by Life in 1946.
Among the circumstances documented by the photos were filthy living conditions that found many patients sleeping in their own bodily waste. Hundreds were allowed to roam the halls of the facility completely naked. Thankfully, this exposure led to not only the eventual closure of the facility, but also far-reaching reform as far as the conditions associated with mental health facilities.
6.      Danvers State Hospital – Danvers, Massachusetts
Danvers State Hospital is one of the many defunct mental institutions rumored to be heavily haunted by malicious spirits, and it’s not hard to understand why. To begin with, it was built on the very grounds that saw the notorious Salem Witch Trials centuries ago. It was also a place that saw unspeakable acts of human cruelty committed.
Patients were confined using straitjackets and uncomfortable leather restraints. They were also subjected to treatments considered today to be cruel and inhumane, including but not limited to lobotomies and electroshock therapy. The hospital was even used to shoot a horror film dealing with demonic infestation in asylums – Session 9.
7.      Overbrook Insane Asylum – Cedar Grove, New Jersey
At first glance, the building known as Overbrook Insane Asylum appears to be a beautiful, house-like building. However, like many notorious asylums, it saw untold horrors being committed within its walls.
To begin with, the patients were neglected to a horrifying extent. The year 1917 saw a total of 24 patients being allowed to freeze to death in their beds. The small facility also would become dangerously overcrowded after World War II and see nearly 150 patients go missing. Overbrook is another asylum said to be very haunted today. It was used as the set for the screen adaptation for Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke.

Ghostly Book Review: The Awakening by Sara Brooke

The Awakening by Sara Brooke is a paranormal romance that was given to me by my publisher.  It was the first romance I have read with a ghost as the romantic lead and that made it engaging.
Sara Redmane is a likeable woman.  She is a quiet, bookish girl who prefers to live in the worlds that exist in the pages of a novel to the real world.  Sara’s life is turned upside down when she goes to visit her friend Bobbie Trillo in Georgia.  Sara is immediately confronted by the visage of a strange man staring at her from a window that should be empty.  Sara tries to explain her vision away, but it becomes impossible to ignore the ghosts of Trillo House when they come to her that night.   Ms. Brooke’s novel unfolds from here delicately intertwining romance and mystery.  Ghosts and spirits thrive in Georgia and Sara is forced to confront both in her friend’s family house. 
The most engaging ghost in this story is the ghost of a mysterious and darkly handsome man who Sara feels herself drawn towards.  This ghost warns Sara that danger is lurking around every corner of the Trillo family house and that an evil is trying to destroy the Trillo family.   Sara is determined to save the family from this evil.

Ms. Brooke’s writing style is clear and steady as she guides  the reader deeper into the mystery at the heart of the haunted Trillo house.  Ms. Brooke’s novel is a little more romance driven than I usually read as I usually prefer ghosts and demons to true love, but the book is engaging and the romance is passionate.  I enjoyed this book immensely and would definitely suggest it for anyone who loves paranormal romance.

REAL Ghosts: Caught on Film

Watching ghost videos on youtube is like sifting though a series of April Fools jokes searching for something that isn't a joke.  Most of them seem to be false or doctored in some way.  I enjoy watching them, but I am always very skeptical because it is so easy to alter photographs and video footage.  I would like to pay homage to one of my favorite youtube ghost compilations today, however,  This one is by Nuke Norway.  Enjoy!

Sharon's Ghost

A friend told me this story a long time ago.  The details have been obscured by my flawed memory but her emotions remain vivid.    She was terrified by the events she described to me.  I can't remember the specific roads she named or the city she lived in, but I remember the story and the look of horror that filled her face as she told her tale.



 My friend, Sharon, was a counselor where I worked.  She was older than most people that worked at the clinic with me.  Her hair was short and she wasn't a woman who was prone to dressing herself up or making herself any grander than she actually was.  Sharon was down to earth and there was an openness about her that was rare in any professional.  She told people the details of her personal life without much hesitation.  On first meeting her, she told me about her failed marriage and her troubled childhood.  She was an open book.

The only thing she was reluctant to talk about was this ghost story.  It terrified her and took her nine months to open up and trust me enough to tell me the details of the ghost that haunted her for two years.  After her marriage dissolved, Sharon found herself struggling financially and she had to move into an old house that had been in her family for generations.  It wasn't large or fancy.  The plumbing didn't work right and there was water damage, but she had a roof over her head and that was enough.  She would have been happy if she hadn't known the house's history.  She remembered stories of her great aunt who had lived and died in the house.  Her great aunt hadn't been a pleasant woman.  She had been the kind of country, southern woman who most people steered clear of.  She had some Native American blood and people in the small town she was from thought that she would curse them if they crossed her. 

Sharon was not happy about moving into her house.  Her great aunt had been creepy to say the least.   At first, Sharon ignored the noises that crept through her aunt's old  house.  She tried to ignore the noises and attributed them to old plumbing and leaky pipes.  When Sharon first heard a child crying at night, she thought it was her daughter.  She checked on her daughter all the time. She thought that she was crying and going back to sleep.  There was no reason to worry.  However, when her daughter began complaining about the crying in the night Sharon began to get worried.  She grew even more worried when her boyfriend complained about the crying when no one was home. 

Things got worse from here.  Shadows crept up on her when she was sleeping.  The crying grew worse and worse.  There was a cold spot in the middle of the house.  Something pulled her hair while she was sleeping.  Terror consumed her every moment.  She began asking more questions about her aunt and what had happened in the house.  Legends swirled around her aunt like smoke. Her aunt was a bad woman.  People said she had a disagreement with a little girl and the little girl had gone missing. 

Sharon began looking for a new place to live.   Just before they moved, Sharon went under the house to check the ever leaking plumbing and what she found sent her from the house without even packing her thing.  Buried in the mud beneath her house, was the skeleton of a little girl.     Sharon left the house and never went back.

Sharon hasn't told many people this story.  It is hard for even to repeat it.  She still fears her great aunt, even in death, even now that she has moved and the ghosts are gone.  

The House of the King of the Sun

There is a house at the end of the street in our neighborhood.  Most people don't know it exists.  It is hidden behind tall grass and old trees and has been abandoned for years.  It sits quietly in the shadows behind a black fence.  We wouldn't have known of its existence if it weren't for a fire four or five years ago.  The house caught on fire and fire trucks and sirens made us look for their origins.    The house had burnt a little.

Tonight, some friends and I went exploring.  We don't know much about the house.  One of my friends knew the builder of our neighborhood.  She claims that the house was owned by a man from India who abandoned it and moved to Europe.  The inside of the house tells a different tale.  The house is huge.  The front room has a strange mural on the ceiling with King of the Sun written on it in French.   Two identical rooms sit on either side of the front room.  Both rooms have massive fireplaces.  There is a dual staircase and the upstairs is chilling.  It is littered with children's toys and the center rooms of the second floor look like a daycare.  The doors are cut in half and there is a sink and mini kitchen for preparing food and changing diapers  The daycare rooms are lined with cute sayings for children like "daydream". Everything is rotten and decayed.  The windows are broken and vines are creeping in through the boarded up windows.  There is a master suite with a large fireplace and several other bedrooms.   One of the other bedrooms is slightly unnverving.  The dropdown attic is open in the closet and children's toys are spilled out in a mass on the floor.  In the attic, boxes of children's toys sit surrounded by children's clothing.

I have no idea about the real story of this house, but I can't help but feel it has something to do with a family that lost a child and just left.  The man who owned the house has been gone for over a decade but the house is now condemned.   He just left the house filled with children's toys and clothing and when you walk upstairs into that nursery, you know he left something else behind.  Something not quite alive.

GUEST BLOGGER AMY LANE: 4 Spine-Chilling Unsolved Occult Murders That Will Have You Sleeping With the Lights On

4 Spine-Chilling Unsolved Occult Murders That Will Have You Sleeping With The Lights OnBY AMY LANE

The detached bungalow stood eerily still as two deputy sheriffs approached the Pensacola residence, late on the night of July 31st. Neighbors had described the family that lived inside as ‘reclusive’. But when 47-year-old, Richard Thomas Smith, failed to show up at work, his coworkers became concerned.

As officers approached the door, there was no sign of forced entry. But upon entering the Deerfield Drive residence, they came across a scene straight out of a horror movie.

The bodies of Richard Smith, his 49-year-old brother John Williams Smith, and his elderly mother, Voncile Smith had been brutally butchered. They had been attacked with a claw hammer, and their throats had been slashed. According to the police, the positioning of the bodies and unreleased details from the crime scene led them to believe that the murders were related to the occult.

“Initial research has led us to believe that there was a potential that it was a ritualistic killing… The elements of the case are odd at best.” said Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan. "It is witchcraft, I'll say that right now," he added.

Although police claim to have a person of interest as a potential suspect, no arrests have been made. The talk of occult murders and witchcraft has Escambia County understandably rattled.

This isn’t the first time that crimes with links to the occult have taken place. Scarier still, some of them are still steeped in mystery. We explore some of the creepiest unsolved crimes with links to the occult.

Leroy Carter Jr.In 1981, a 24-year-old man was murdered in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. He had been decapitated, with a chicken stuffed inside his corpse. A detective who was familiar with the occult believed that it was a ritual murder, related to the voodoo like practice of Palo Mayombe. She theorized that, if correct, the head would return to the same location in 42 days. Fellow officers scoffed at her claims, but sure enough, 42-days-later the head turned up at the scene of the murder. They never caught the killer.

West Memphis Threehttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e0/West_Memphis_Three_Mugshot.jpg

In West Memphis, Arkansas, the butchered bodies of three local boys were found on the banks of a creek. The positioning and mutilation of the bodies lead the police to believe that it was part of a satanic ritual. Authorities and townsfolk quickly turned their attention on three local teenagers, who liked to wear black and listen to heavy metal music. The teenagers were quickly accused of murder, found guilty, and sentenced to death. But there was no evidence to indicate that they were responsible. After they were found guilty, new DNA evidence disproved their involvement with the murders and they were freed after 18 years in prison. The real killer was never found.


Elisa Lam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TjVBpyTeZM

What really happened to Elisa Lam? We’ll never know. We don’t even know the real cause of death. But the circumstances around the case are so scary, that the upcoming season of American Horror Story: Hotel is based around it.

21-year-old, Elisa Lam came to Los Angeles in 2013. She chose to stay at the infamous Cecil Hotel.

The history of the hotel had always been ominous. Since the hotel opened in 1927, it had been a central figure in dozens of ghost stories, with guests claiming to see paranormal activity inside the walls of the strange hotel. But who cares about ghosts when real life monsters live there too?

Satanist and serial killer, Richard Ramirez lived at the hotel while he terrorized the streets of Los Angeles in the mid eighties. It’s believed he murdered 13 people while staying at the hotel. Austrian serial killer, Jack Unterweger, also stayed at the hotel in 1991. He murdered three prostitutes during his stay. The serial killers weren’t the only stain on the Cecil Hotel’s history. During the 50s and 60s, it was a notorious suicide hotspot.Caption: Alleged photograph of a ghost at the Cecil Hotel, taken by a guesthttp://resources0.news.com.au/images/2014/01/30/1226813/849900-f00779a2-894b-11e3-92e1-07d47f226b83.jpg


But nothing in the history of the Cecil Hotel was as terrifying as the incident that occurred in 2013. You might have thought it was an urban legend. Think again.

In February 2013, guests at the Cecil Hotel started to complain that the water tasted rotten. The color was off, and the smell was repulsive. A hotel employee went to investigate the water tank stationed on the roof. After climbing up a ladder, and removing the heavy door leading to the tank, he discovered why the water tasted so bad. The body of Elisa Lam had been decomposing in the water tower for 19 days. She was found naked, with her belongings floating beside her and covered in a ‘sand-like substance.’ There was no suicide note.

The door to the roof was locked and alarmed, raising questions about how she could get on the roof in the first place. Additionally, you needed a ladder and a strong arm to climb the tank and get inside. There was no ladder on the scene, and Elisa was 5.5ft and weighed only 121 lbs.

If you’re already feeling creeped out, don’t keep reading.

The case went viral after elevator footage from the hotel was released. It was the last time Elisa Lam would be seen alive. In the video, the elevator appears to malfunction and Elisa starts to act strange. At one point she peers around the corner as if someone is chasing her, and she hides from an entity that is never revealed.

As a final nail in the totally creepy coffin, Elisa’s phone was never recovered. But her Tumblr account mysteriously started to post images up to six months after she died. Images, like this one, which was retrieved from her Tumblr account:

http://40.media.tumblr.com/e2ef98139879188fd47041c797ed5e98/tumblr_mh0jq7IpED1qzbcgoo1_500.jpg

Experts believe that she had set up her Tumblr posts automatically before her death. But it’s still creepy as hell. After postponing the official cause of death several times, it was officially ruled as an accident. That’s one freaky accident. We think we’ll avoid that hotel at all costs.

The Black Dahliahttp://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/02/03/article-2272640-174FCEE2000005DC-291_634x772.jpg

On a brisk January morning in 1947, a local resident called Betty Bersinger walked through a vacant lot in Leimert Park, Los Angeles. She spotted what at first appeared be a discarded store mannequin. As Betty got closer, it became clear that she had stumbled upon one of the most horrific murders of the 20th Century. Actress, Elizabeth Short, had been murdered. All of the blood from her body had been drained, and she had been completely severed at the waist. The killer had carved a smile on her face, and mutilated the body. Her cadaver had been arranged in such a way that led police to speculate that it was a ritual killing of some sort.

The killer’s identity was never discovered, although he contacted police to send some of Short’s belongings such as an address book.

Police never discovered what happened to Elizabeth, or how she had spent the week before her death where she appeared to drop off the radar. But they did have a tip as to where she was seen last. It was none other than the Cecil Hotel.

Do you think these unsolved crimes have roots in the occult, or is it just a coincidence?

The Ten Most Haunted Asylums

Mental Hospitals and Asylums seem to draw ghost stories the way a light on a dark night draws bugs.  Ghost stories cling to them like moss and collect over time until the dead patients wandering the halls outnumber the living.   There is an irony to this.  These hospitals were built to be places of healing where the broken and lost could find sanctuary and solace, but these plans often go awry and accidents and apathy turn healing to hurt.  Tragedies linger in the shadows of these hospitals and collect like dust over time.

I have worked at several asylums during my career as a counselor and many times these places are not creepy.  They are places of healing and the staff fights the darkness with art therapy and recreational therapy and all the things mental health professionals do to make hospitals a place of healing.    However, sometimes the sad condition of the chronically mentally ill can’t be combated by these tools and bad things happen.  Things happen that are so bad, that evil seems to remain in the old hospitals.  It seeps into the foundations of the buildings and creeps up through the walls tainting everything inside.  Bad doctors and staff turn bad things into travesties and these hospitals become places of fear.  According to many, the ghosts cling to the emotions that are kept in the hospitals.   Across the nation, there are many hospitals that are considered to be haunted.   These hospitals have tragic histories and their stories can send chills down the spines of even the bravest souls.  Here are a few of my favorite haunted asylums:

1. Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

This is considered by many to be the most haunted hospital in the United States.  This hospital was founded in Weston West Virginia in 1864 and was then called The Weston State Hospital.   The hospital had 250 beds and houses some of the sickest patients in the region.   Although the hospital was built to house only 250 patients, by 1950 overcrowding turned the hospital into something out of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the building housed as many as 2500 sick souls.  Even Charles Manson spent some time at this notorious hospital.   The hospital witnessed all the worst of the early treatments for mental illness and frontal lobotomies and water shock treatment were the mainstays of early treatment here.  However, the worst tragedies occurred when the patients hurt each other.  There were several patient to patient killings here and one nurse vanished only to have her body discovered under the stairs two years later.  Death became common place at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.  In 1994, the hospital was considered unusable and it was close.   Those that have visited this hospital say that they hear phantom noises throughout the hospital.  They hear ghostly screams and wails.  Full body apparitions have been seen wandering the hallways and strange noises come from the darkness.

2. Bryce Hospital for the Insane

Alabama Hospital for the Insane was designed to be a refuge for the mentally ill. Its architecture was designed based on the ideas of Dorothea Dix and Thomas Story Kirkbride. It was meant to be moral architecture that would contribute to the healing process within the hospital. The hospital opened in 1861 and for a while it held to the ideals of Dix and Kirkbride. The first superintendent, Peter Bryce, was an idealist and he had studied mental health in Europe. He believed that patients should be treated with respect kindness. He even abandoned the use of restraints. The hospital was later named for Bryce and it went on to be the model for progressive mental health care.
 Time quickly eroded Bryce' legacy, however. By 1967, there were more than 5200 patients residing in a facility that was never meant to hold that many. Observers described Bryce as a concentration camp and a model for human cruelty. In 1970, one patient named Wyatt started a class action law suit against the Alabama's other mental hospital, Searcy State Hospital. This lead to major change in the way the mentally ill were treated in Alabama. The number of beds was cut drastically and humane treatment of the mentally ill became an absolute necessity. The landmark Wyatt v. Stickney Case would change Bryce drastically. The lawsuit was brought on by a patient and set minimum standards of care of inpatient populations and would improve the treatment of the mentally ill drastically over time (http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2375)

Old Bryce was the African American portion of Bryce Hospital and was notorious for being even crueler than its white counterpart. After Wyatt v. Stickey and desegregation, Old Bryce was shut down entirely and other buildings were used. The African American patients were integrated into the white population.

Old Bryce still sits quietly deserted, however, as a reminder to the old days when patients were held like prisoners with no rights. It is covered in graffiti and has been vandalized many times. It’s even been set on fire. Trespassing is forbidden here, but the curious have reported seeing all manner of horrors coming out of the dark around Old Bryce. Lights flicker on an off in the building that has no electricity. Phones ring in rooms with no phones. Phantom lights drift from room to room. Furniture moves on its own and footsteps echo through the abandoned hallways. The living patients may be gone, but many believe Old Bryce is still filled with the ghosts of those who once suffered in its walls.

3.  Norwich State Hospital for the Mentally Insane

Norwich Hospital for The Mentally Insane was built in 1904 in Preston, Connecticut and is known for the dark ghosts that live inside of it.  The Norwich Hospital was designed to house the worst of the criminally insane patients in the state and, until 1971, it did just that.  It was home to murders, rapists, and other violent offenders.  The hospital is situated on 900 acres of woodland and is utterly isolated and crumbling.  This façade has added to the horror stories that have built up around the violent people that lived within the hospital and has created a collection of ghost stories so large they could fill a book.  Suicides and murders fill the history of Norwich Hospital and those who have died there never seem to leave.  Witnesses describe hearing screams in the darkness Faces appear out of nowhere and strange mists and lights are seen in the halls.

4. Searcy State Hospital

Searcy State Hospital is located in the most Southern part of rural Alabama.  Prior to being a state hospital the old hospital has a long and dark history that is very difficult to find, but easy to see upon casual observation. The hospital is encased in long, chipped, white walls that seem as old as anything in the United States. From outside these walls, you can see a battered watchtower that gives testament to the fact that the hospital is in the same location as a 300 year old fort. The fort bears witness to American history and was originally a Spanish fort. It switched hands during the Louisiana Purchase and became a US fort. After the US took possession of the fort it was converted to a military arsenal and became known as the Mount Vernon Arsenal. The Arsenal switched hands again several times and was taken by the Confederates during the civil war only to be passed back over the United States again in 1862. From 1887 to 1894, The Arsenal became a Barracks and was used as a prison for the captured Apache people. The most famous of the Apache people to be held in these barracks was Geronimo. The infamous Aaron Burr was also held at this secluded prison at some point.

In 1900 the Barracks were transformed once again and the prison became a mental hospital. Searcy hospital was built as the African American mental hospital in Alabama. Conditions in the hospital were beyond questionable and at one time there were over 2000 patients in the crowded hospital and all were seen by one psychiatrist. All patients were expected to work in the fields.

The hospital was desegregated in 1969, but its history is all around it. The hospital is still used today, and although the residents live in new buildings, many tell stories of ghosts and devils that linger in the white walls and abandoned buildings that surround the new facilities. These stories are usually ignored, because the patients are crazy, but I’m not the only sane person who saw a few ghosts while they were working there.
Searcy served as the inspiration for my new novel, Circe. Its tragic history and haunted atmosphere serve as a backdrop to the chilling tale of a young intern slow decent into madness. If you would like to read more about Searcy, you can find my book at:
  http://www.lachesispublishing.com/products.asp?cat=2

5.  Rolling Hills Asylum

Rolling Hills Asylum in East Bethany, New York, is one of the most haunting asylums in America. In 1827 it opened its doors  and was known as the Genessee County Poor Farm.  It provided housing for all manner of lost souls.  The poor, the blind and the mad were all kept here.  In the 1950's it was turned into the Old County Home and Infirmary. The property has had many owner since then.  It was an antique mall for a while and was finally bought by the Carlson's.  The Carlson's were the first to really describe the paranormal activity in Rolling Hills. The Carlson’s describe strange phenomena, with reports of disembodied voices, doors slamming and being held shut, footsteps, shadowy figures, and misty apparitions.

6. Pennhurst Asylum

Pennhurst Asylum had a long history of patient abuse and neglect.  The sorrows in the hospital had built up like a mountain on its steps.  Stories tell of patients that were chained up and children that were caged in cribs.  There are even rumors of patients being murdered here.

Pennhurst opened its doors in 1908 and was called The State School for the Mentally and Physically Handicapped.  At one time, it housed more that 10,000 patients that were poorly cared for and abused.  In 1986, the hospital was shut down due to allegations of patient mistreatment, but the ghosts of those who were hurt here seem to find no justice in this closure.   Stories of the haunting here include moving objects, hostile voices,  and ghosts pushing and touching those that dare enter Pennhurst's haunted halls.

7.  Danvers State Hospital

Danvers State Hospital was another asylum built with the best intentions and structured based on the theories of Thomas Story Kirkbride.  Like Bryce Hospital, Kirkbride's theories of compassion and advocacy only lasted a brief period of time in Danvers State Hospital and the hospital eventually succumbed to overcrowding and rampant patient abuse.

Danvers State Hospital is located in Massachusetts and served as the inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft's famous Arkham Asylum which eventually inspired the asylum in Batman. The building was used in the movie Session 9 and served as the inspiration for the game Painkiller.

By 1939,  Danvers housed 2,360 patients and was so crowded that patients were known to die and their bodies would go unnoticed for days.  Electroshock therapy was used as a means of regular punishment and a way to control the patients and treatment was lost in the need to keep the patient population under control.  Danvers was known as the birthplace of the prefrontal lobotomy and numerous patients had a small pick shoved up through their eye socket in this hellish procedure that severed the frontal portion of their brain.

Danvers was closed in 1992 and most of the hospital is gone now.  But the cemeteries, tunnels, and remains of this institution that inspired some of the darkest asylums in modern fiction still remain host to haunting stories.

8.  The Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry

Byberry was started as a small work camp for the mentally ill.  In 1936, the hospital was turned over to the state and named The Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry.  Like all of the hospitals on this list, conditions here gradually declined until they became deplorable and horrific.  Patient abuse and neglect were standard of care.  Photos documenting care at this hospital showed patients kept naked in hallways lined with feces.

In his 1948 book, The Shame of the States, Albert Deutsch described the horrid conditions he observed:

"As I passed through some of Byberry's wards, I was reminded of the pictures of the Nazi concentration camps. I entered a building swarming with naked humans herded like cattle and treated with less concern, pervaded by a fetid odor so heavy, so nauseating, that the stench seemed to have almost a physical existence of its own."


The hospital was closed in 1987 and eventually demolished, but the miles of tunnels that were built beneath the facility remain and stories of the horrific haunting in these tunnels will send chills down your spine.  On account says the ghost of a man with a knife still takes victims in these tunnels.

9.  Wernersville State Hospital

Wernersville State Hospital in Pennsylvania has a less horrific history than many of its predecessors.  However,  the ghost that is said to roam its hall is so terrifying room has to be made for it on the list.  The ghost of a headless orderly who died there is said to wander its halls.  Wernersville is still home to 185 patients and despite its ghost stories, is said to take good care of its patients.

10.   Peoria State Hospital

Peoria State Hospital has gone by many names.   The hospital was completed in 1902 and was then called The Illinois Hospital for the Incurably Insane.  It is also know as Bartonville State Hospital.   This haunting asylum was built based on a cottage system plan and had 33 buildings, a store, a power station and a community utility building.   More buildings were added over time and the grounds currently consist of 47 buildings.  The ghost that is said to haunt Peoria is named Manuel A. Bookbinder.  He is commonly called Old Book.  He is a patient who worked burying all the patients that died in the hospital until his own death.  According to local lore,  he cried for all the deceased he burred and that upon his own death over one hundred witnesses saw him crying at his funeral by an elm tree.  It is said his weeping can still be heard today.

True Shoals Ghost Stories: Volume 3

Come join me celebrate the release of Debra Glasses next book tonight!    https://www.facebook.com/268513400528/photos/gm.1448329208806968/10155840145815529/?type=1

A Personal Post on Finding Time to Write.

I have been slow in writing on my blog lately, but I am getting ready to start writing weekly again.  I recently went through many comments on my old blog posts and published them.  I wanted to thank everyone for their wonderful comments that have augmented my stories and often added new light to the research I have done.  Your input is very appreciated.  Everyone's continued following of my blog despite my not finding time to write like I used to is also appreciated!

My slowness has been largely due to my focus on my day job.  I have taken a break from writing to open my own practice. You can learn more about it at:

http://treeoflifebehavioral.com

I have been focusing on helping the community and giving back to others by opening a clinic that offers psychological, counseling, and medication management on a sliding scale basis so everyone has the opportunity to get the mental health care they need.  We even offer sessions over Skype.  Although this has been a long time dream of mine, it has essentially stopped my writing on this blog and in general.

However, the many amazing comments that I have gotten recently and the fact that my book, The Accidental Witch made the Kindle Best Seller List have encouraged by to find a way to juggle my clinic and my passion for writing and ghost stories.  Finding time to write has been my greatest struggle lately, but as I have also found much of my inspiration in other amazing writers.  I have been inspired to follow in their footsteps and prioritize writing and this blog.  I hope to hear more comments as I return to regular blogging!