Morgan County Jail Investigation

The Ghost Research Society was the first paranormal team to ever investigate Morgan County Jail on August 9, 2008!

The old Morgan County Jail is located at Washington and Mulberry in Martinsville, Indiana. Although it is no longer a working jail, it is being utilized to "house" Hummingbird Heaven (anything and everything having to do with hummingbirds) and Jailbird Antiques. This wasn't the first jail in Morgan County, but, in December of 1890, if was the fifth correctional facility to be utilized by Morgan County and considered to be a "model" jail of the latest style and containing all the modern improvements. The first jail was a small log structure built in 1824 which was destroyed by fire in 1826. A brick jail was constructed where the courthouse now stands. A third log structure was then built ten years later in the northeasterly portion of the town. The fourth jail was housed inside the Morgan County Courthouse starting between 1857 and 1859. During renovation of the court house, the original jail cell was discovered within the walls of the Treasurer's Office. It was decided to separate the correctional facility from the courthouse and the current remaining structure was completed in December of 1890. It was also built to hold forty inmates.

When the new jail was built in the 90s, Morgan County had decided to demolish the old structure . Morgan County Historic Preservation Society made every effort to avert the wrecking ball and today it is owned by MCHPS. It was also placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. In 1996, the preservation group decided to sell the jail. Many people looked at it and offered different ideas for its use. The building stood empty for ten years and was in a sad state. In July of 2001, the Board of the historic preservation group offered the building for lease to Hummingbird Heaven, Inc. of which Judy Krick and Tina Chafey are the owners.

Located at 100 W. Washington St., Martinsville, IN 46151

Hauntings: Reports of former inmates seem to hang around to haunt the former prison long after they have died. Shadowy figures, EVPs, strange noises and equipment fluctuations have been reported including during the Ghost Research Society investigation.

The Ghost Research Society investigated Morgan County Jail on August 9, 2008. Team members included: Stan Suho, Joey Tito, Joe Tito, Lisa Krick, Artie Schramm, Jim Piscopo, Matt Hucke, Dave Guss and Dale Kaczmarek.

POST-INVESTIGATION ANALYSIS AND MEMBER REPORTS:

Dave Guss: During walk through with Matt on first floor cell block outside wall near Stephen Judy's cell got a lot of hits with Tri-Field meter. Mark was asking the questions. But everything stopped when the team on second floor was running wires. Also on second floor was standing by Lisa's camera when Joey ran back down stairs to get another disc. Saw shadows going in and out cell that the girls were in doing EVPs. When they came out a shadow person followed them then disappeared. Also was with Matt, Nicole and J.P. on first floor near Judy's cell when Nicole was asking questions the Tri-Field meter was going up and down. But I got nothing on voice recorder, or night vision camera. One other thing when we were about to wrap up for the evening. Me, Matt and Jim P were leaving the second floor cell block. Going up these tight narrow stairs, felt like someone pushed me from behind thought it was Matt. But he was about four feet behind me, and said it wasn't him - we were bad mouthing the spirits at the end there - guess it didn't like it. Need to check this place out again maybe when it's empty - was kind of crowded on first floor cells, storage and things.

Matt Hucke: I did not feel afraid or uncomfortable or in the presence of an entity at any time during the activities at the jail. I had no feelings that any particular area was extraordinary.

After the initial full-team walk-through, I paired with Dave and we explored the first floor cell block. Dave had the Tri-Field Meter; I had a Nikon N90 camera with 18-35mm lens and SB-800 flash . All lights were off in the cell block, and illumination was provided by our hand-held pen lights (which were turned on only briefly, when needed), and through the cell block door, which was nearly shut but open only an inch or two. During this time I would take the occasional flash photo, though it was dark and I could not see to compose the shot well.

For the most part, the meter had only zero or one lamp lit through most of the cell block. Nothing unusual was detected in the multiple murderer Stephen Judy's cell (first cell on left). In the corridors along the outside walls, we had higher readings, first on the right, then on the left. The reading was highest, with about four lamps lit, along the left wall next to the third cell. This is the area that had steel rods on the wall, just above our heads, with shop merchandise (kites?) hanging on them.

Seeing these high readings, I joined Dave and began to interrogate the ghost with a series of rapid questions. Occasionally, the meter would peak - with all lamps briefly lit. In the first session, this peaked after I asked if the entity had been raped while in the prison. But repeating this question did not produce a similar response later. Asking whether the entity was a murderer, or was Stephen Judy, produced no response.

We were then interrupted by a cable fed through a pipe-hole from the cell block above. After assisting with the cable pull, we resumed questioning, this time joined by Nicole who had an audio recorder. I again led the interrogation, asking similar questions, this time pausing for a second or two after each to permit a reply. Asking whether the entity had murdered children provoked an "all-lamps" response; but this was again not repeatable.

During this EVP experiment, we could hear voices and footsteps of those in the second floor cell block that were setting up equipment. This may taint anything gathered by the recorder.

We then withdrew from the building to talk about the history of the jail. After returning, I immediately saw two white objects quickly move across the TV screen attached to the second floor central corridor camera. These objects appeared to be semi-transparent, rectangular, white, and less than one square foot in size. No one was in the cell blocks at the time.

Later, I returned to the first floor block with Dave, Jim, and Nicole, to repeat the EVP experiments. This failed, and no activity at all was observed. We tried again on the second floor, where I was intentionally rude to the entity (using such terms as "coward" and "child molester") to try to provoke a response, but nothing was seen or heard in this experiment either.

I had no lingering effects (except mild sleep deprivation) the next day, or since, and haven't had any memorable dreams.

Dale Kaczmarek: I got many very intense meter spikes on the Tri-Field Meter in the upper jail cells after the meter had settled down. These continued for awhile and were not caused by anything natural as later in the evening no meter readings were picked up at all. The rest of the upstairs was very quiet as far as EMF goes. I did see a large blob of white light travel down the upstairs jail hallway and towards the area where the meter spikes were picked up earlier. There was also evidence of footsteps heard by members in the downstairs jail cells when no one was upstairs at the time. My overall feeling was that the upper jail cells were indeed very active with a spirit's and then they simply left, leaving the area very quiet.

Lisa Krick: On initial walk through with Nicole, we found no temperature fluctuations, no EMF readings. However, we did experience dizziness and vertigo in several areas inside both women's cells, down the hallways of the juvenile section, and inside the cell in the far left hand corner of the juvenile section. There were also cold spots in that cell. But, when we'd use the temperature gauge, it showed steady at about 74 degrees. At the top of the stairs from the front entrance, I had tightness in my chest as well.

After we got all set up and heard the history on the jail, Nicole, Jennie and I headed upstairs to the juvenile section to spend time in the far left corner cell, where it is purported (though, not officially) that a boy hanged himself. There was a camera in that cell with us as well. We took a digital recorder, the K-II meter, and dowsing rods with us. As we were conducting our EVP session, the dowsing rods would cross when we asked yes/no questions. Then, they began to spin in circles, stop, and then spin in the other direction. However, every time we'd turn on the flashlight to see it more clearly, they'd come to a standstill. We went thru this experiment repeatedly, with the same result. Also, while we were conducting our EVP session, we heard the camera in the hallway shut off because the disk was full. We radioed for someone to come up and change it for us. Joey and Dave came up, realized we didn't have an extra disk upstairs, and Joey went back downstairs to retrieve a disk, while Dale stood beside the camera in the hallway, quietly listening to our EVP session. As we were talking, Dave noticed that there was a shadow hanging around down near the doorway of the cell we were in.

We ended the EVP session and walked out of the cell. We were told that the camera picked up a shadow which followed us out of the room, went back into the room, and then back out of the room, right behind us we, however, did not sense or see anything behind us.

My mom had brought her laptop computer with her so that she could work on it while we were conducting our investigation. Her computer malfunctioned and continued to malfunction for about an hour. We finally moved the computer into the kitchen area, uninstalled and reinstalled her program (which had been working fine at home) and it worked fine at that time.

The only other thing that I personally witnessed was when Dale, Joey and I were sitting in front of the computer monitor watching all the cameras and (with no one upstairs) a white form (not even a mist, really) about a foot tall and two feet long, walked right across the camera in the juvenile hallway in a leisurely manner. I couldn't believe my eyes, but both Dale and Joey saw it as well. At the time this happened, directly beneath that area in the men's cell area, Jim P, Dave, Matt, and Nicole were doing EVP sessions on the first floor and the guys were asking questions in a quite aggressive and demanding way perhaps this had something to do with it?

The last thing I have to report, which may or may not have anything to do with anything, but I�d like to get a read on everyone else the entire next day (Sunday) I had a splitting headache, Jennie had a splitting headache, and Joey had a splitting headache it'd be interesting to see how many others were feeling under the weather maybe as a result of taking away more with us that we thought.

Stan Suho: We started off with a walkthrough of the building. We were getting high readings on the Ion Static detector. This was on the second floor. This was unusual due to the high humidity that day. We set up G.E.I.S.T. on the second floor cell block. This was an area where Dale was getting high hits on the Tri Field meter. We used the standard G.E.I.S.T. setup with Ghost Cam and Ghost Mic. G.E.I.S.T. recorded an average number of hits on the Geiger Counter and Tri-Field meter. Also I tried to coordinate The Ghost Cam with what the group was seeing on the Video System. As usual, once we got set up and organized, the activity settled down and became quiet. My Ghost Mic recordings went well, although the cell block was a giant echo chamber.

Conclusion: There is nothing to report from G.E.I.S.T., however if we ever go back, I think I'll set up in the basement as this room was only lightly covered this trip.

Joey Tito: When setting up the night vision cameras on the 2nd floor in the cells I, Dale, Dad, Art and Lisa noticed the Tri-Field meter going crazy for no apparent reason. It was sitting stationary on a lip on one of the cell doors. I have never witnessed spikes like that before...Also noteworthy were the white mist that passed by the camera set up in the hallway where we had the strange Tri-Field meter spikes. Overall in my opinion it was a good investigation.