Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised. It was three or four AM, and I was leaving what had been a very long and fruitful paranormal investigation. The building we'd been investigating was massive, falling apart in some places, and had some of the most haunting history of any place I'd ever been. It wasn't my first time here, and it wouldn't be my last, but somehow this moment
felt different. As another investigator and I were walking the long, dark halls to make our way out of the building, I felt like I was being watched and was that another set of footsteps behind us? I tried to shake away my apprehension and focus on the prize, my comfortable hotel room bed waiting for exhausted me, But as we kept walking, I couldn't shake the feeling, the feeling like the Boogeyman was about to reach out of the darkness and grab my shoulder. It was then that my friend
and I stopped and looked at each other. He said, I feel like we're being followed. I felt it too, of course, and told him so. We craned our necks and stared behind us nothing, but I said loudly, I'm sorry you can't come with us, but we'll be back. We won't forget you. As we backed out of our parking spot a few moments later, and the headlights flickered across the rows of old windows and worn out brick in front of us, I knew, I knew that someone
very much not alive was watching us from inside. Join me, my friends as we head to West Virginia and visit the trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. I'm Amy Brunei, and this is Haunted Road. The town of Weston, West Virginia, is a small community of about four thousand people, but in spite of its modest size, it's historically been on the
cutting edge of technology and development. According to William M. Adler's entry on Weston in the West Virginia Encyclopedia, the community adopted telephones and electric lights in the eighteen nineties. Around the turn of the century, it displayed its well through paved streets, grand manners, a railroad stop, and public schools for both white and black residents. All of this affluence was thanks to one institution, the trans Alleghany Lunatic Asylum.
It's a stately, massive medical facility that combines Gothic and Tudor revival flourishes. If you approach it via the tree lined circular driveway, you'll pass a babbling blue fountain that lies right in front of the two hundred foot tall clock tower. As grandioseays, the exterior is, the inside feels creepy and oppressive. The trans Alleghany Lunatic Asylum doesn't operate anymore. It's a tourist destination and with good costs. As the
facilities haven't been maintained. Visitors can walk down crumbling hallways where sky blue paint peals to reveal the grimy gray walls. Underneath debris litters the slate colored floors, But beneath the decay and warped molding you might see hints of the hospital's former grandeur. Formerly known as the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane, the Western State Hospital, and Weston Hospital, the trans Alleghany Lunatic Asylum was first conceived in the
mid nineteenth century. The designers followed something called the Kirkbride Plan, a philosophy that emphasized empathy kindness and patient comforts. Adheerins thought mental health facilities should be airy, spacious, sunlit, and well staffed. At first, the trans Alleghany Lunatic Asylum seemed like a fulfillment of this vision when it opened its doors in eighteen sixty four. The massive blue sandstone building featured multiple wards and a three hundred acre grounds where
residents could walk and relax. According to Kim Jack's Western State Hospital, patients had access to card games and pool tables, while staff organized on site dances and horse drawn carriage rides. Over the next few decades, the facilities only expanded. New wings were built with two and a half foot thick walls engraved with images of people and animals. In the twentieth century, they added a kitchen, a laundry, more residences,
and additional medical facilities. The Transallgating Lunatic Asylum's our history page says that today the facility is the largest hand cut stone masonry building in North America, and it's purportedly the second largest in the world, next to the Kremlin. The hospital's glory didn't last for long. The structures weren't well maintained, and it was only matter of time before, paint peeled and walls crumbled worst the trans Alleghany Lunatic
Asylum was becoming dangerously overcrowded. At one point, it housed seven hundred seventeen patients, even though it had only been designed to accommodate two hundred and fifty, and this wasn't even its peak. The population only swelled in the years that followed. Although the hospital kept building new wings to accommodate the growing need, they couldn't keep up with demand, and they continued admitting new residents they could not properly
care for. In early nineteen forty nine, a journalist named Charles Armentrout visited the hospital and wrote a report on what he found there. He described the facilities as stench filled with evil odors that assailed the nostrils. In one room, he saw a pair of two by fours had been slid under a sagging ceiling to prevent it from caving in. Another residential building had been condemned a full five years before, but it was still operating by the nineteen fifties, when
the patients numbered in the thousands. The resident to staff ratio was roughly two hundred fifty to one. The employees were stretched thin, as were resources. In turn, the patient care almost certainly suffered. Most residents didn't even receive proper headstones when they died on the premises. Many were buried in one of the trans Alleghany Lunatic Asylum's three graveyards.
As reported by Kim Jackson's Western State Hospital, when people were interred, their only grave marker was a plaque with a number on it. The staff maintained a database so they could track which number corresponded to which deceased patient. However, these plaques were eventually removed. Jack speculates it might have been to make lawn care easier. Thousands of graves are now unmarked, other than the marble monuments that were erected
near each graveyard's entrance in the nineteen nineties. Given the lack of proper staffing and resources, it was a matter of time before the packed facility would become the site of a disaster. On October third, nineteen thirty five, some time before ten forty five am, a fire ignited in the south wings Ward six attic. The building housed six hundred residents, give or take, and when firefighters arrived on the scene, the first priority was getting all the occupants
to safety. They thought they evacuated all the patients, but they were wrong. It was all too easy to lose track of a resident given the overcrowded conditions and the confusion of the evacuation. One patient was still asleep in the attic when the bell woke the other residence. By the time he awakened, the blaze roared between him and the exit. There was no avenue for escape except through
the windows. Luckily, someone saw the trapped resident. The firefighters retrieved the ladder, and the chief climbed it to rescue the patient, only to encounter another challenge. The Transallaghany Lunatic Asylum had previously installed iron bars on every window. This was to prevent patients from jumping. Now those grates that were supposed to keep the patient safe had imprisoned one
of them in a burning building. Amazingly, the resident managed to bend the iron bars enough that he could squeeze through the gap between them. Perhaps the heat of the fire was enough to make the metal pliable, or maybe the grates were already in disrepair. Either way, the patient miraculously escaped the blaze, and no one was killed. In the inferno, but there have been other instances of bloodshed
at the trans Alleghany Lunatic Asylum. The first recorded murder at the hospital happened in January of eighteen seventy seven. According to Teresa's Haunted History of the tri State by Teresa Racer, one resident came to believe that God wanted him to kill a fellow patient. He followed the apparently divine command by taking a bed slat and beating the other resident to death. One local paper described the violence by saying his head had been mashed into a jelly.
More violence followed homicides. The staff was probably stretched too thin to prevent. Another deadly beating occurred in eighteen eighty one, a strangling in nineteen sixty three, and a stabbing in nineteen seventy two. In nineteen eighty seven, two patients conspired to kill a kindly forty nine year old mute man named Dean Methanie, who was a resident at the facility. They hanged him with a bedsheet, then, according to Kim Jackson's Western State Hospital, they put the metal leg of
the bed through his head. When authorities discovered the crime scene, the culprits reportedly claimed that a ghost was to blame for the murder, while the perpetrators were deemed unfit to stand trial. There may have been something to their claims about a ghost. Since Dean Methanie's violent death, visitors have experienced weird phenomena in his bedroom. People say they felt an invisible presence giving them a hug. Some see their flashlights turn on and off on their own, and ghost
hunters have picked up EVP in his quarters. It's thought to be Methany himself. While he was unable to speak aloud in life, he seemingly has found a way to communicate in death. Some believe one of Methanie's killers also haunts the asylum. The spirit called Big Jim lingers on the third floor, along with another specter called Elizabeth, a former nurse. Beyond that, the massive hospital, with a facade that spans almost a quarter mile, has several rooms and
wards with a generally creepy feeling to them. The fourth floor began as staff residence and then was converted into a ward for patients with substance use disorders. Its doors won't open and stick even when there's nothing obstructing them. One visitor says they once heard pounding on the other side of the door and got the impression that someone didn't want them to come in. This floor is also
said to be home to a ghost named Jacob. Investigators have claimed they captured an audio recording of Jacob's searching for a beer. Visitors have seen shadows in the morgue throughout the facility. Figures are sometimes seen standing in the corners of rooms. Furniture, including rocky chairs and doors, moves on its own. Some sniff the lingering scent of tobacco or perfume. Others say they feel someone touching or scratching them,
even when there's no one nearby. In hallways that should be empty, guests report hearing whispered words or laughter, or gurney wheels, squeaking. Unexplained lights flicker in the distance, while passers through find themselves suddenly chilled in cold spots. In ward f which began as a woman's ward and was converted into housing for the most violent patients, tourists hear footsteps and empty hallways, and crushing feelings of grief wash over them. A ghost named Jack is said to lurk
in the kitchen. He's sometimes joined by the specter of a little person, and reports suggest Jack is protective of his companion. He'll lash out if he thinks anyone is mocking his friend, but he's kind to children and pretty women. The most famous specter at the trans Alleghany Lunatic Asylum might be a ghost known as Lily. Lily is a nine year old girl who in some reports wears a nightgown wore a white dress. No one knows exactly how the young child ended up at the old mental hospital.
One story, which is almost certainly false, tells of a woman who checked into the facility after surviving a sexual assault. She became pregnant and gave birth, only for her child to be stillborn. According to this legend, the baby's ghost continued to age until she became the spirit of a nine year old girl. Other accounts say Lily died of pneumonia at the facility around nineteen twenty. People who have visited the hospital say they sometimes feel a childlike hand
grasp theirs, or they hear a little girl giggling. If you put out a gift gum or a piece of candy, then leave the room, you may return to find it has been moved. A historian named Shelley Bailey witnessed this first hand. She told her story on the TV show Ghost Hunters. Sounds familiar. It was later covered in Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and The Haunting Enigma of Lily by Eric Olsen. According to his reporting, Shelley left out a box of crackerjacks. She later heard the box being opened
and a crunching noise. Then an EVP recording captured the words thank you for the snacks. In ward four, There's a room full of toys just for Lily to play with. She seems fond of a jewelry box with a dancing ballerina inside. It sometimes plays on its own. Some guests have also rolled a ball across the room, only for it to return. They believe Lily is playing with them. By all accounts, Lily's ghosts doesn't seem malicious. In fact, the many spirits who lurk at Trans Alleghany seem friendly
or at least indifferent to visitors. It's striking given the hospital's dark history. In addition to the murders and the brutal conditions due to overcrowding, this facility was the site of many barbaric mental health treatments. Here, people were subjected to transorbital lobotomies, electroh treatment, insulin shock therapy, and hydrotherapy involving ice cold water. According to Jim Barnes's Washington Post article in West Virginia, a moving, respectful tour of the
trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. But if the ghosts bear a grudge for their suffering, it doesn't come across in the haunting. Up next, we will be talking with someone who's very familiar with the asylum's hauntings. Brandy Butcher, the paranormal events coordinator at Trans Alleghany. She's been there for over a decade and she has some fascinating theories and stories to share. That's coming up after the break. I am now joined by Brandy Butcher, who is the paranormal event manager at
Trans Alleghany, and she's been there for quite a while. White, Brandy, that is correct.
I've been there almost ten years now.
That's amazing. You know. I have been fortunate enough that I have investigated there quite a few time over the years. I've been there a few times with ghost hunters. I went back there with paranormal lockdown and it never disappoints like there was always a ton of activity. So is that why you found yourself there?
Yes, yes it is.
Now did you start in the capacity of paranormal event manager? How did you kind of come to this position that you're in now?
Now?
I started as a paranormal tour guide and I would help god guests through on our two hour nighttime tours and then our overnight investigations, and you know, help guests investigate find their comfort zone within the asylum.
Which, as you know, can be kind of tricky.
To do, is finding a comfort zone in there. And then I have just kind of worked my way up over the years.
It's a very intimidating building when you come up to it, like it's just it looks like a very scary place, and when you step inside, there's different dynamics depending on where you are in the building. I feel like like sometimes it feels very comforting and peaceful, and then other times you define feel like someone is like over your shoulder and they want you to leave. Has that been your experience?
Oh?
Absolutely, Like you said, there are so many different dynamics. There's so much, you know, different types of history, so many different types of history within the asylum besides just you know, the hospital itself. So yeah, you you know, it depends on where you're at on you know, the emotions in the feelings you're going to experience.
I liked how it seems well. Last time I was there, I mean, I'm trying to remember when it was. I think it was probably about ten years ago. I do feel like at that time there was I felt like there was a lot of exhibits in history being displayed that gave a really good kind of background of what went on there in a very respectful way too. And I feel like there was also I don't know if that's still there, but there was a lot of art
displayed by past patients. There is that still in that big hallway.
It is not in that hallway now, but we do still have our patient art museum room. We REDOI at our museum rooms, so it's a little more time. It's easier to follow timeline wise to see the history of the asylum.
Now.
Our layout is so that you can go from the beginning, you know, the rooms start with all the way back to some of the Civil War history that we have on the property and then goes up until the later years of the asylum before it closed. So now you can kind of walk the timeline of the asylum. And we do still have a patient art gallery within the museum rooms.
That's great, that's really fascinating. So what do you tell people when you're about to take people in there for panormal investigation? What is kind of the pep talk that you give them before you go inside.
We usually like to tell people, you know, try to stay calm, definitely not to feed the building with your fear. I do believe that, you know, the more intimidated you go in, the more you know raveled you may get throughout the experience.
Open mind.
Respect is a major thing with the asylum. The spirits and their respect goes a very, very long way. It's very different than investigating a prison or a lot of other locations.
When you're in a.
Former hospital, especially a former asylum, so respect goes a long ways. And you know, if you give the building respect a lot of the time, even if you have a scary experience, it hopefully or usually isn't something aggressive. It's just you know, maybe, like you said, something that doesn't want you in its in its space.
Yeah, you know, It's funny. When we went back there with Panormal Lockdown, they remembered us, so we actually got an EVP of them saying Adam's name. Do you find that they kind of that the spirits start to recognize people that are there more often and start to kind of develop like relationships with them or kinships with them.
Oh. Absolutely.
I thought that was a really really cool piece of evidence that you guys captured on that. I found that quite interesting because the building does remember, and especially if you go in, you know, in a respectful manner, the way you guys have and the way we do as employees, and you know, we expect our guests to they absolutely will remember. And yeah, they remember us as employees. Obviously, I've been there a long time, so they like to
mimic me. They have said my name through spirit boks and things like that throughout the building, and it definitely has you know, the building has a memory.
So yeah, I mean I feel like some of these spirits are getting more respect in death and they might have in life, you know, the way that investigators are going in there now, and so I could see them opening up a bit more over time.
Yeah, it does matter, and you know, I've had a lot of teams come in and tell me that, you know, going in with a respectful approach makes a huge difference in their level of activity. And you know, if one thing that we like to practice at the asylum is that if we don't learn from our past, we're doomed to repeat it. So even though the history, you know, isn't the prettiest, we have to teach people about what
it was like for these patients. And you know how far the treatments and you know, health care has come for mental illnesses compared to back then.
So absolutely that's so important. Kind of going through the asylum, it's very large. You can get lost in there very easily. What is kind of like the most common type of paranormal activity that people experience there?
I would say the most frequent activity or the reports are being followed, especially if you're, like you said, if you might get confused turned around and you're trying to find your way out, maybe walking through a ward or a hallway by yourself, the most frequent report is that someone was following you out of that ward. Has happened to myself many many times over the years, So that's probably our most common is they do like to follow us, watch what we're doing here, what we're saying.
So that is so interesting that you say that, because I talked about it in the first half. But when Adam and I left one night from filming there, we were both like, we walked all the way down this long hallway, went out the back door, and we were walking toward our rental car, and both of us just stopped and looked at each other and we were like, there's someone following us. Like we just we felt it.
And I remember we turned around and we were like, hey, you know, much respect to you, but we will be back tomorrow, but you know, you can't come with us. I don't know if they ever follow people home, but it certainly felt like, yeah, feeling like someone's like right behind you. And that's so funny because he and I talk about that to this day. We bring it up in lectures and everything. And I had no idea that it was such a frequent report there.
Oh yeah, it happens to me quite often. When I'm locking up at night.
I'll walk down through certain areas to lock up, you know, while the guides or my other staff are out in the lobby or in our break room, and yeah, I often will hear some either footsteps or like you said, I'll get that feeling like someone's following me. And a lot of us also practice you know, the hey, we'll be back, we'll see you next time, we'll bring you whatever you need. If maybe they, you know, bribed us for some cigarettes or something like that during a session.
And yeah, we've never had any problems with anything following us home. It's always just a matter of following us down the hallways, maybe around the property.
So yeah, and they might not have even followed us home. It was almost like we were being escorted, like you know, like maybe they were just kind of seeing us out or something. But we both the fact that we both felt it at the same time was so wild, and we haven't had that happen since. Oh wow, okay, so we've got that. And then obviously, like you were saying,
those footsteps, which I experienced there firsthand quite a bit. Actually, you know, it's interesting when you're in there and you know, you know, it's a very controlled environment.
You know.
I think people they have this idea that when TV shows are filming, there's this huge crew or something, but
paranormal TV not a lot of budget there. Most of our crews are very small, smaller than the paranormal teams that go in a lot of the time, and you know where everyone is, you know what they're doing, and so it's pretty wild to be in there, which is like you know, you like me and Adam and then maybe like a camera operator and a sound person and you're hearing clear life like loud footsteps down at the other end of the hallway, or you hear doors closed
like that. Just does that happen constantly there?
It does.
We just had a filming a couple of nights ago, actually, and I was the only staff member there with you know, the crew, Like you said, very small crew, and yeah, we while just while we were doing our walkthrough, we were hearing doorknobs rattling, one of the doors closed. We were hearing footsteps following us and even murmuring or talking as we were walking through. And once they went to investigate and I was, you know, out of the way so they could do their investigation.
I was constantly hearing things. I do. I hear things all the time.
When I'm in the breakroom or the lobby by myself, I will hear doors start to open or creak footsteps even, like I said, whispers sometimes, so they like to keep an eye on what's going on.
For sure.
That's really wild to think about. I one of the most interesting experiences that I had there actually was I can't remember what floor was. I feel like it was one of the upper floors. I think it was the floor where the bed incident happened, if I remember correctly.
Maybe the violent Men's Ward on the third floor.
Yes, And so I remember standing back and just watching shadow figures down at the very end of the hallway. One actually ran all the way across the hallway. But then you would also see them kind of looking out at us as well, like almost like they're wondering what we're doing. Do you see shadow figures there? Often we do.
We have what we call our peekaboo shadows that do kind of like what you were just saying. They'll kind of peek out, look down the hallway at us maybe
and then pull back into the room. We do have a shadow figure that we encounter in that violent Men's Ward, that probably the same one you encountered, and it's usually seen crossing either the width of the hallway or the length of it, and then especially up on the fourth floor in one of the wards, we always see a shadow figure walking back and forth in one of the
windows up there. He's almost always there. I think there's probably only a handful of occasions over the years where I didn't see him when I was up in that area.
So is this something that you see from outside as well? Do people report seeing people in the building when no one is inside the building supposedly no one living anyway?
Now, we have had reports, of course, there's never been anything, you know, never been anybody in there when someone's checked. But most of the time we encounter it from inside. But we have the occasion where, you know, we go over even after lock up and myself and a guide are walking we know that the team is.
Out of the building.
We're just walking through making sure everything's secure, and hear footsteps in the ward above us. Go upstairs to check make sure that nobody you know who was accidentally being locked in with us, and sure enough, there was nobody left in the building, The cars were gone, you know, nobody in the parking lot, and absolutely nobody in that ward where we would hear very heavy footsteps directly above us.
Do you ever feel like they're kind of into the investigations, like they're starting to kind of feel like a part of this and they want to assist in some way, Like I got that vibe there weirdly, just like they got kind of excited about it, like this is just you know what they could help with in some fashion.
Oh yeah, absolutely, And they're they're especially funny about the
film crews and the film teams that come in. Just the other night, I had kind of forewarned the team, you know, I said, when we start moving to the upper floors, make sure you have some backup battery power things like that so you're not having to run up and down the stairs for you know, for the batteries, because the upper floors inventorious for draining batteries rapidly quick And sure enough, by the time we hit the third floor center section we started having It was a brand
new camera. They said they were having all kinds of problems with it, just draining battery, not recording. I've personally had one of the areas wipe out part of my SD card on my camera, so I'd mentioned that to them prior. And we got up there and we were missing large sections of our walkthrough the building had apparently just decided that wasn't going to record. So so yeah,
they definitely participate. I think that they find humor in, you know, kind of messing with us in that way a lot of the time.
So they're like, that wasn't good enough, you guys need to shoot that again. Yeah, so let's help you with them. That's too funny. I see. I felt I feel like they're just so interactive and you know, and I feel like that just might be part two part of like how they lived there too. You know, it was just I imagine there were probably many activities for patients and things, but I think there was also probably a point, especially when they were overcrowded, that.
They were bored.
You know, there was not a lot going on. They were locked in rooms, there were you know, they those were times where they just nothing exciting was happening, you know, and that's probably why they reverted. There was some really violent incidents at that time because there just weren't enough people on staff to take care of them. But it also makes me wonder if now they kind of are finding this attention enjoyable in some way or and maybe
that's even keeping them there too. Maybe there's a reason why they're staying like they're they're enjoying it.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And we've asked, you know, many times in many different areas, why are you still here?
Or you know, do you want to leave?
And most of the time we get the answers around, you know, something similar to that's their home. It's always been their home, and they have no desire to leave, you know, like you were saying, that's that's all they ever knew. So for a lot of them, they don't even I don't think they know where they would even go to leave at this point, and this was their home.
This is where they're comfortable. And like you did say, absolutely, I'm sure that boredom was a you know, major factor and a lot of the things that went on and in some of the wards in the dayroom areas, you can see the carvings in the windowsills where they would watch the ball games that would take place on the front lawn, like the baseball games, and you can see the march where they would keep score from carving that into the windows sell and you can still see that
to this day. So that right there was you know, something they would do to pass the time, because, like you said, it could get boring.
I'm sure.
Yeah, I've found just in other asylums from similar time periods that I've investigated. You know, eventually they close, but then there are those residents that are still there, and I mean in some cases by the time they closed, they're very rehabbed, not the patients per se, but just the procedures that were going on. But they're just not.
There wasn't need for like these massive structures anymore. So you have these patients there that suddenly end up in nursing homes and things like that, very different environments than what they're accustomed to. And they missed the asylums, they missed where they had been that whole time, and so you know, I could see some of them being, you know, afraid to see what's next. I'm sure a lot of them were in a very vulnerable state in life as
it was. Now, have you ever been able to get specific names through investigating and then actually trace them to like a resident who was actually there at some point and find out their story or anything like that.
We do have a few spirits that we communicate with that have been documented as patients of the asylum. One of them is down on the first floor and his name is Jacob, and he was around twenty eight years old and he believed that staff were hiding beer from him when he was alive, so we do still get
interaction from him. We found historical documents that he was an actual patient, and we have, you know, a handful, but the most difficult thing is finding the records of you know, there are still a lot of privacy laws because we were open all the way up until nineteen ninety four, so there's a lot of stuff we can't access, and the stuff that we can sometimes that's very difficult to locate and trace back. We get so many names through our investigations, and a lot of times it's just
a first name. We hardly ever get a last name or a surname. So that makes it a little bit trickier because even with Jacob, and if we had never got the name, got his last name, got Iyres from a session, we probably never could have narrowed it down to you know, this specific Jacob because that would have
been a very common name. So it makes it tricky when you get the same name in different areas because we don't always know if that is maybe the same spirit just following us through the building, or if that could be a different spirit that had the same name.
So now, forgive me. I sometimes get my haunted asylums confused because I've been to so many. But is there a building up behind the main building of some sort? Am I remembering that correctly? Yes?
We have three?
Actually, Oh okay, good, because I feel like I went in there and it was pretty run down. I don't know that the public, I mean maybe back then. Maybe maybe it's been fixed since or people can go in
there now, but it was very wet. I remember flooded, and I remember coming across actual patient records still, and I feel like that was part of the evidence we captured, was that some of them moved on their own on camera, because I had kind of flipped through them and I was reading names, trying to see if there was anyone there that was familiar with these people or were them, you know, And then I think we got on camera one of those sheets actually moving on its own, which was pretty crazy.
Yeah, And if I'm remembering correctly, I believe that you guys were in our ci building are criminally insane building when that happened and I think that you guys were also in medical center. My stuff also runs together, so I apologize as well. But yeah, the medical center, it does. It can get a little bit of standing water on
the first floor. But we did also have medical records in criminally insane building, so I'm thinking that you guys got to check both of those out maybe, And I do remember that that was another really awesome piece of evidence that you guys captured.
Yeah, yeah, it was, you know, I just I think we just really went in there just being very conversational and friendly and trying to be understanding, and that really seemed to make a difference.
You know.
I think it's really easy to go into those places, especially when you're first investigating and it's a novelty. You know, it's easy to go in and kind of you know, try to get scared or try to like kind of make light of it or joke around about it. But then when you really think like who you're talking to potentially and who you know and treating them accordingly, you get so much more interaction and hopefully interaction that can help them or make them feel better in some way.
Absolutely a perfect example of that, and it's one of the buildings that is very limited access. It's accessible on photography tours because there's a phenomenal staircase in there that we feature on our photography tours and we have it featured on our flashlight tours last season and this coming season as well, simply because we were trying to find new areas to introduce guests to and let them see.
And the second oldest building on the property is the women's auxiliary building, and as most people know, the majority of patients were females, so that was, you know, one of the first necessities was an additional building for female patients,
and that makes it the second oldest building on the property. Myself, my other manager at the time, and two of my veteran guides had went in there to investigate to see if we could get some kind of evidence that, you know, we could feature on our tours, something we could tell our guests about the paranormal activity in that building because
it's so untouched, especially when it comes to investigations. And we went in there one night and it started out very very slow, but as we kind of between the four of us were trying to get you know, some kind of interaction from them somebody had mentioned, you know, that we were sorry for what had happened to them in their time there, and how you know, we imagine as women that you know, we we're appreciative of the rights that we have as women now, but how you know,
we have so many freedoms that they didn't. And it immediately started increasing our activity to the point of where we asked them if they wanted like a manicure kit, like a kit that had some makeup and some hair crawlers, things like that that you know, would make them feel better about themselves maybe, and the equipment we were using just went absolutely It was the most intense interaction I've
ever seen. The guide that was actually downstairs at the time heard a female woman whisper his name in his ear. He immediately came back upstairs because it shook him a little bit. He wasn't expecting it. And the more we tried to just relate and kind of help the spirits
of this building, the better our activity got. So yeah, I mean, there's definitely a big difference in you know, like we said before, asylums versus prisons and kind of trying to get on their level and offer them help and give them respect That goes a long long way with the buildings.
That's great. I know, it's so interesting how they do have this fascination and sometimes with physical objects that you can bring them like I can't imagine they can actually use them, but they ask for them. I don't know how any of that works, obviously, but it is interesting that there are certain objects that they get very excited about, and I think that's I don't know, that's a super interesting story. So on that note, I love kind of just stressing that that respectful side of things. What if
people want to come visit? It sounds like you do all kinds of tours, which I love. I love that you do photography tours because it is a very photogenic building. So what if people want to visit, how do they go about doing that?
Especially for our paranormal stuff and our photography tours. Then you can get on our website transale any Lunatic Asylum dot com, talawv dot com, and you can book any of our overnight stuff. We have all kinds of events coming up for October. Our photography tours we run one per season winter, spring, summer, and fall, so we have one more coming up this year. And then we will resume those next season. Our daytime tours are going to
go all the way until the beginning of November. Those are first come, first serve, So if you want to get into the history, and we also offer a daytime paranormal tour, you can just show up at the Asylum Tuesday through Sunday or our days that we're open, and you know, just go into the lobby, pick your tour, you know, get your ticket, and then you also get access to all of our new museum rooms, which are
absolutely fascinating. There were some beautiful displays, some amazing artifacts that we have housed in there that people can check out. And if you have any questions, you're welcome to call our office and you know, our secretary would be happy to answer any questions that you don't find answers to you on the website or I may not have touched on here.
That's great, and you know, I want to stress to people paranormal activity doesn't just happen at night, So you got and I can vouch for that building. You know, the Asylum in particular, things happen at all hours of the day, so visit whenever you can make time. So I really do appreciate you taking the time, Brandy. It's kind of kind of a walkdownlaying from me. I hadn't realized how long it had been since i'd been there, so clearly I need to get back soon.
You didn't come back and see us, I'd love to meet you in persons, Yeah, that'd be great.
Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time.
Thank you. Amy.
If there's one lesson to take away from the trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, it's that even the best laid plans don't always work out how you hope they will. The original founders designed the hospital in the hopes that it would be a peaceful, picturesque place for recovery. Instead, thousands of people suffered and sometimes died within its walls, and their specters linger to this day. Perhaps we can hope these spirits found a piece in death that they were
missing in life. I'm Amy Brunei and this was haunted road. Are you tired of the same old vacation destinations and cookie cutter experiences? Do you crave a sense of mystery, wonder and adventure that can't be found in ordinary travel brochures? Do you listen to this podcast and think I'd like to visit that spooky place, Well that's why I started Strange Escapes, a paranormal based travel company that takes you
to some of the most haunted locations in the world. Frankly, it's my excuse to combine all of my favorite things, which is ghosts, beautiful hotels, food and wine, and other weirdos like me. To be honest, If that sounds right up your alley and you want to learn more, then visit Strange Escapes dot travel and hopefully you can join us sometime. Also. To keep up on all of my upcoming projects and appearances, head to amybrune dot com. I have some really great things in the works and I
don't want you to miss it. Thanks. Haunted Roadies. Haunted road is hosted and written by me Amy Bruney, with additional research by Taylor Haggerdorn and Cassandra de Alba. This show is edited and produced by Rima al Kali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Menke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Haunted Road is a production of iHeartRadio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Menkey. Learn more about this show over at grimanmild dot com, and for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.