Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.

Listener discretion is advised.

Many years ago, I was investigating one of America's most notorious haunted prisons, Eastern State Penitentiary. I was using a laser grid

down one of the corridors, and as I sat and waited, a shadow figure moved into the laser grid.

If a live person walks into the path of a laser, you see them, you see the pinpoint of the laser

on their person. But for some reason, when a shadow figure walks into the laser grid, the laser points disappear, leaving a perfect outline.

I have no idea why this happens, but it's why I enjoy using this piece of equipment so much.

So in this case, I watched for quite some time as this

shadow person walked in and out of my laser. I tried talking to them, tried calling out, but they

never seemed to even notice I was there. It made me wonder, who haunts prisons? Why on earth would anyone decide to stay here, assuming

they have some sort of free will? Well, let's discuss that and many other things, as we visit

another of America's very haunted prisons, the Brushy Mountain Penitentiary. I'm Amy Bruny,

and this is Haunted Road.

Picture a historic prison, one with dingy hallways lined with barred cells, a courtyard surrounded by a stone wall, and a constant pervasive threat of violence that hangs over the facility.

It's likely that the place you're imagining bears a striking resemblance to the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary.

It's a Gothic revival-style abandoned prison in Petros, Tennessee.

That's a small town of about 500 people, which sits roughly an

hour outside of Knoxville by car. The four-story building is topped with battlements and

laid out in the shape of a Celtic cross. Manhunt in the mountains, James Earl Ray and the

Brushy Mountain Prison breakout of 1977 described it as, quote,

looking like a castle from the Dark Ages.

The walls are scarred with graffiti, including tally marks left by inmates who had nothing to do

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