Destination Fear

The final stop will be a place that requires us to use

Everything that we've learned up until this point.

If there are energies that linger,

That would be a place.

I am not staying here.

I just saw a place

We wouldn't put our dog for the weekend.

Do you want us to leave? "yes."

It is known as a hotbed of paranormal activity.

Staff would remove all the teeth of patients,

Throw them across the room, and beat them.

What was that?

I've heard growls and scary screams.

Dude, what the ****!

I feel like we're being taunted.

My name is dakota laden.

I am a documentary filmmaker. For the past few years,

I've been investigating the paranormal with zak bagans

And the "ghost adventures" crew.

Dakota laden. Welcome, buddy.

I grew up in a house where paranormal activity

Terrorized my entire family.

It has gripped my sister and my childhood best friend

And me ever since,

So I had an idea,

A psychological experiment

Where I would test how terror affects the human mind,

What it reveals about our true selves,

And just how much that a person can withstand.

To understand the paranormal,

First we need to overcome our fear.

I'm leading us on a road trip to explore

The most haunted abandoned locations in all of america.

Each night, we'll separate and sleep alone.

The catch is I'm the only one who knows where we're going.

We are on our way to pennsylvania.

We're heading to a location that myself

And tanner have actually been to before.

Four years ago, this place really affected us

And it has stayed with us ever since.

What was that?

This was an institution for pennsylvania's mentally

And physically disabled persons.

What ended up happening to the residents

Was nothing short of torture.

They weren't getting the care that they needed.

Due to the patient abuse,

It is known as a hotbed of paranormal activity.

I selected this to be our final stop

Because this will be a place that requires us to use

Everything that we've learned up until this point.

It's easy to get scared,

But we have to remember to be respectful

And just really remember what happened there.

We're at the finish line.

We almost there. We almost did it.

And I didn't think I could do it.

I really didn't think I could do it.

This has been such an intense,

Intense road trip, and we're not even done.

I realized that every single person

Reacts to fear differently. - Yeah.

Tanner gets really protective and you stand up to it.

Hello? Who is there?

I don't want to see you guys getting hurt.

Dakota, you-

I just yell, "shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up."

Stop. Please stop making noises.

Then alex tries to make sense of the situation like,

"why did this happen?"

Okay, so that sounded like another cell door shutting.

Are you trying to get my attention?

Hello?

Then there's me that just screams.

Guys, I'm scared!

If something creepy happens and it's a scary situation,

One scream out of your mouth

And it's game over for all of us.

That's so scary when you scream.

Yeah, I get way more scared when chelsea screams.

Yeah. They're the worst.

We're about, like, 20 minutes from a campground

Where we can make a fire.

Let's have s'mores, have some fun,

And then eventually once we're settled in

And the fire's roaring, I can give you guys the packet.

Way to ruin it already.

I'm just the bearer of bad news this whole trip.

I just realized it's the bearer of bad news,

Not the bear of bad news.

Bearer. I literally have these things --

Is this for real?

...That I've learned my whole life

And I've just never questioned them,

And that was one of them.

What's another one?

The ghost is clear, and it's the coast is clear.

The ghost is clear? That's actually hilarious.

All right. Let's see here.

How do we set up a fire? It's been a minute.

I like the lincoln log technique.

Get deep in there.

- Yes. - Yeah, look at that.

We got fire. This is nice, tanner.

Without you, we wouldn't have had a fire.

Thank you, tanner. Wow. Thank you, guys.

And without me, we wouldn't have had this terrible,

Terrible road trip to hell.

Are you going to tell us --

Yeah. Literally, yeah. ...Why we're here or not?

When are we going? When are we going to find out?

I thought we were having fun. I want to know.

Okay. I'm going to go get the packet. I'll be right back.

Why would he pick a place that will end on this note?

What we've experienced, what we've gone through

Is all leading up to being able to handle this location.

All right. I got the packet right here.

This is it. This is our last packet read.

So, I've done a lot of research about this location,

And there are many people

Who have some very terrifying claims.

Chelsea, do you want to start us?

Let's do it. You ready?

Not really.

Pennhurst! Pennhurst state school?

No way.

Me and tanner got to experience pennhurst four years ago,

And I think this is the perfect place for us to go back,

Especially for our last stop.

This is the one location that gave me nightmares

For months straight.

Literally known as the shame of pennsylvania,

Pennhurst state school

Is one of the most frightening places in the united states.

Hidden away deep in the woods of spring city, pennsylvania,

Pennhurst sits a sprawling campus of 30 buildings

Spread across 1,400 acres.

It was its own self-sufficient community,

Cut off from the outside world.

During its 80-year run,

Nearly 10,500 patients were treated at pennhurst,

Most of them horribly.

My first job out of college

Was to do this research of facilities

That supported people with developmental disabilities.

The first one I picked was pennhurst,

And I drove home crying.

I just saw a place with more than 3,000 people

Where we wouldn't put our dog for the weekend.

When pennhurst first opened in 1908,

It housed the deaf, blind, mute,

And low-iq'd persons from across pennsylvania;

But as the years went by,

It eventually housed criminals and orphans too.

It didn't matter how old you were.

If you did not fit in society, you were dumped here.

Right away from 1908 onward,

Pennhurst began a long climb of overcrowding,

Which never ended until closure.

By the 1960s,

Pennhurst housed 2,791 people, 900 over capacity.

Overwhelmed parents would drop off their children for treatment

And never return,

Making them wards of the state.

Children that came into pennhurst

Probably experienced extreme nervousness.

I guarantee they were frightened.

I think most deeply of a friend of mine who said,

"I went out there. My mother and sisters drove me,

And it was big and it was scary.

I was terrified, and I never stopped being terrified."

Due to the lack of funding,

There were severe human right violations

And mistreatment of patients.

It's something about human nature, I think.

When you put people into an isolated

Setting in a situation

Where other people have power over them

And they can hide what's happening, bad things happen.

Patients were chained to their adult-sized cribs

In seclusion rooms when the staff was overwhelmed.

Staff would remove all the teeth of patients who bit,

And it happened so often visitors

Would find teeth in the tunnels.

They took out patients' teeth?

This place is absolutely horrible.

Staff members would rape patients,

Throw them across the room, and beat them.

Don't even want to comment on that. That's just disgusting.

Nasty residents would attack other patients

With broom handles or worse.

When you're overcrowded

And your beds are six inches apart

And you're an adolescent, there's 50 of you in one room,

What do you suppose happens?

Anything you can think of when it comes to horrible stuff,

They were the first ones to do it.

In 1968, reporter bill baldini did a five-night news piece,

"suffer the little children."

Bill baldini walking in showed