Death Walker - Third Season

[MUSIC - JAY URBAN, "STRANGE THINGS"]

NICK GROFF (VOICEOVER): The city of Bryan,

Ohio was founded in 1840 and earned the nickname

of Foundation City due to having a network

of underground springs.

There's a theory suggesting that if paranormal activity is

believed to be electrical in nature and water

is an electrical conductor, water can

conduct paranormal activity.

The theory behind water being an energy conductor seems probable

due to many of the historical properties

all throughout the city of Bryan have

been experiencing some sort of paranormal activity.

One of those haunted locations is

the old Williams County Jail.

This 153-year-old building was constructed in 1868.

And it replaced the original log Williams County Jail that

once stood two blocks away.

Reports of this jail being haunted

were posted in the town newspaper

immediately after it was opened in 1868.

Guards and other workers reported seeing a shadow

person roaming the halls.

The shadow figure was believed to be the ghost of Andrew

Tyler, the first and only man to ever be hanged in Bryan, Ohio.

Andrew was a traveling fortune teller,

who was convicted of murdering a boy named David Champ.

For unknown reasons, Andrew Tyler's spirit has seemed

to have relocated to this jail.

Another infamous inmate believed to be haunting this jail

is a man named James Robert Engle.

In 1946, James Engle would stab librarian Emily Abernathy

multiple times in the basement of the public library located

just two blocks away from the jail.

James Engle revealed in his testimony,

she was his initial target, and he planned

to kill, dissect her body, nail parts of it

to fences and buildings, and bring her head to town to place

it on top of the flagpole.

He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment

before being released on parole and living out his remaining

years right here in Bryan.

Today, the cells here have not seen an inmate for many years

as the building ceased operating as a jail back in the 1990s.

Intense emotional energy is said to be left behind

from the many former inmates, riots,

and perhaps, the unknown brutal acts of violence.

For the past few years, the building

has been vacant into open for public

paranormal investigations.

People and investigators have frequently reported witnessing

the most paranormal activity occurring

in and near the separation cells,

also known as solitary confinement.

A heavy supernatural energy is said to make people

feel dizzy and mentally off.

People have even reported being touched inside the jail cells.

There are also reports of spirit voices, seen shadow figures,

temperature changes, and even heavy doors

moving by themselves.

I will conduct a unique experiment using

various paranormal gear to better determine

if the spirits of Andrew Tyler and James Engle

are actually residing in this jail today.

This building really, is quite iconic to Bryan

because it was a jail and used as a jail for so many years.

It opened in 1868, and it served as a jail

clear until 1990, when they built

a regional jail to replace it.

But it has gone through so many renovations.

Although the structure itself is the original building,

it has an entire brick veneer on the outside.

The decorative brick at the top of the building

has since been removed.

The interior is almost totally renovated.

But just to serve as a jail for 130 years

is really a pretty amazing history for any building.

And it was used by the government for many years

after that as the County Safety building

and our Williams County Sheriff's headquarters.

We experience a few specific entities

here fairly frequently.

One of them is who we believe to be James Robert Engle.

Another one that we experience frequently

is a man by the name of Mark.

We don't really know who he is or what year he was in.

But he's always in the segregation

or separation cells.

And then we always seem to get a little girl.

We don't know who she is, but you

hear a little girl playing frequently

in the middle of the night.

I think that she's the Sheriff's daughter at some point.

But we really have no idea.

Really, the range of people who have been held here,

the emotional energy that this building must contain

has to be really something.

And I think that is what is behind the different reports

of hauntings.

A couple of times, in particular, upstairs, we

were in the main hallway, and there's a doorway,

another room that we were...

I kept getting drawn in there.

I walked in there and just felt a weird presence.

I walked out.

And then I just felt like I was getting called

back in there for some reason.

I was getting drawn back into that room.

And once I walked into there, right through the doorway,

it was just like I walked through a giant spiderweb.

I mean, it just had that whole sensation over my entire body

from head to toe.

It just like a big cobweb came over me.

Definitely had some EVPs, very weird experience,

cold chills as soon as I walked through there.

When this building first opened in 1868, immediately,

there were reports of hauntings here.

The newspaper accounts of the days,

papers tell of this, shadows mainly,

are what they would see.

They would be floating around.

People would see things out of the corner of their eye.

And the rumors were that it was Andrew Tyler because that was

the same apparition, the same haunting, same reports

they were getting in the old log jail

that this building replaced.

And I find that ironic really, that newspaper

accounts are seemingly all that survives of that haunting.

I've never heard any folklore or anything else.

And that's kind of talks about the times

that you really don't see haunting

reports so much in the newspapers today,

especially a new building.

And people have also reported being touched in the building,

is another fairly common thing that I have heard.

As a matter of fact, one group I was with,

a woman felt her hair brushed and felt she was

touched in one of the cells.

Actually, I believe it might be the one we're in right here.

There was a lady facing me.

And two of us facing the hallway.

And we were doing the spirit box session.

And through the hallway, you could

see there was something darker than dark that just blocked out

all light for a few seconds and then moved

on right down the hallway.

Very cold, chill experience there.

It was very heavy up there there.

There was especially, every now and then,

you will hear a door move.

These doors are heavy, the jail doors.

We were setting down here one night.

And all of a sudden, you could just hear a door move.

I know people have seen many shadow figures passing through.

Voices, you can hear voices call out.

You can hear a whistle every now and then.

There will be whistles upstairs, down here,

downstairs, like I said, the doors

moving, just a heavy walking.

One night, we were down here, and there was definitely...

there was three of us in this room here.

Three of us saw a shadow pass right by the door.

We all looked at each other.

We were the only three in here.

Keys jingling, bangs on the metal bars,

I mean anything that you can think of, you name it,

it's been happening here.

What they call kind of separation cells,

a lot of people just have a dread, a heavy feeling

up there, because upstairs, there's

even writing on the walls from prisoners,

when they were up there, saying they want their mom,

they miss their family, they're sorry what they did.

You walk up there in that little hallway, just

a heavy overwhelming, heavy sadness up there.

We've actually had multiple people scratched

while we've been here.

There was one event I did, where we

had at least two people leave with scratches on their backs.

There was one person that ended up getting sick.

They had to leave the investigation early.

They ended up throwing up outside.

One of the craziest things I remember

to this day, the last person that was walking out the door,

once they crossed the threshold into that doorway out,

we all hear a very loud, like something heavy

was thrown at them.

And we all walked in, and we found

this metal O-ring on the floor.

And I actually have it downstairs.

But it was pretty heavy.

It's like we didn't know where it came from.

But it was some...

I mean, it was thrown from the interrogation room

to the exit area.

So I mean, that was significant.

If you can imagine William Ainslie, who

killed his own parents, was caught

trying to get out of town, what he must have gone through three

months here awaiting legal proceedings