Show Notes
For more than a century, the West Virginia Penitentiary at Moundsville held thousands of prisoners behind the walls of a Gothic stone fortress. Ninety-four men were executed there. Riots left inmates dead. Conditions became so brutal that West Virginia's highest court eventually ordered the prison closed.
Today, Moundsville is better known for something else: ghosts. Visitors report shadowy figures following them through cellblocks and basements, while one famous apparition has been linked to the murder of an inmate named R.D. Wall. But when you compare the legends with the historical record, some details begin to change—including a murder that ghost stories have placed in the wrong year for decades.
Tonight, we explore the history, violence, legends, and ghosts of the West Virginia Penitentiary.
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