Destination Fear

This is one of the top 10

Most violent correctional facilities.

You had to become animalistic to survive here.

There have been almost 1,000

Recorded deaths on the property.

If you antagonize something inside this prison,

Don't be surprised when it antagonizes you back.

- ****. - Holy ****.

Guys, get me out of here.

- I'm done talking. - I just heard a laugh.

You guys, I'm scared.

I'm all scratched up, bro.

If you die in this prison, you stay here.

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 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.

Right now, we are back in west virginia,

And I could see tanner and chelsea

In front of me right now.

They are on a pond in a paddleboat.

It looks like they're having fun.

Let's go say, "what's up, duck?"

We're over here chasing ducks. Meanwhile, dakota is like...

In a cemetery just sad.

It's nice to see them laughing

Because where we're going is not a laughing matter.

We are going to west virginia's oldest penitentiary.

This prison is known for its violence.

There have been almost 1,000 recorded deaths on the property.

They were killed by public hangings

And the use of the electric chair.

This prison was on the us department of justice's

Top 10 most violent correctional facilities.

With so much dark history,

This prison is known to be very, very haunted.

People have been pushed, attacked.

People have been scratched.

I'm just hoping that we can all make it through

And stay united as a team

Because we're not even close to done.

We spend too much time in this rv.

Yeah, it's just like a little jail cell

Just kind of hanging out in this little tiny spot.

What have you guys seen change in yourselves

Due to this crazy, crazy experiment we're trying?

I can't really sleep that well at night anymore,

Just, you know, nightmares, uncomfortable.

It's really interesting to watch your body

When you're by yourself go from confident

And calm to very nervous and kind of shaky.

This has been a very dark road trip,

So I have something that maybe can lift our spirits

A little bit to have a little fun.

- Nice. - I don't hear that enough.

- Yeah. - We're gonna have fun?

- Exactly. - We're gonna have fun.

Really quick, does anyone have

A fear of, like, heights or anything?

- Yes. - Okay, cool, let's go.

Every time, dakota says, "it'll be fun."

All right, so we are going to conquer

A different kind of fear,

Swinging 100 feet in the air.

You know there's a driveway that goes all the way up to this?

- Yeah, well, we're walking. - All right.

We want to do the giant swing.

Awesome, we can do that.

What the heck kind of swing is this?

I feel like this is gonna be really intense.

- Let's do it. - All right.

- Let's do it. - Let's freaking do it.

let's go put it on.

All right. Let's do it.

Where's the cord we have to pull so we don't get stuck up there?

Chels, we're not all harnessed in yet.

I don't care.

You guys ready to face our fears in a completely different way? Totes.

- Because I don't know if I am. - Let's do it.

I just assume you're ready for everything

Because you always make us do this stuff, it's your idea.

Okay.

If we go down, we're going down together.

I'm actually sweating.

Okay. That's good.

I don't feel good.

- Holy crap. - Okay.

All right, chelsea. Reach back, and pull the cord.

- I got it. - Pull the cord.

Gosh, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot.

Come on, chels.

- ****. - Holy ****.

That was way scarier...

Yeah, baby!

- We defeated the giant swing! - Do it again!

Somewhere out there is the crazy haunted location

That we're going to.

I'm not kidding.

I know exactly where it is, but I'm not gonna say.

I'm not gonna say any more.

I can give you guys a hint, though.

People have been reported to be actually

Burned by the spirits here. - What?

Not scratched, not pushed but physical, like,

Burns showing up on their bodies after spending nights.

- Weird. - Jeez, that's so freaky.

It's hard to imagine there is such a terrible place

In this beautiful area.

This one has a lot of potential to really screw us over.

Come on. You suck.

Inside of this packet right here,

I have all of the research

That I've done, very creepy stories about this location.

West virginia state penitentiary.

- I cried at the last prison. - I know.

A looming gothic stone structure,

The west virginia state penitentiary housed the state's

Most notorious and dangerous criminals.

The west virginia penitentiary opened in the year 1866,

And it was an operation for 129 years.

I was a guard here at the penitentiary nine years.

I was frightened here every day. I'll put it this way.

When I went to the new prison,

It was like walking in daycare center

Compared to what this was.

Also known as moundsville,

It sits directly across the street

From one of the country's largest and oldest

Native american burial mounds.

The prison walls echo with many stories of violence,

Torture, and death.

I believe the inmates thought that they were

Probably entering hell.

They knew they would probably never get out of here alive.

They've actually seen them being drug in here screaming

And crying because they knew the reputation of the place.

You had to become animalistic to survive here.

There was a guy in charge

Of the entire department of corrections

Said that he visited zoos that were much cleaner

And safer than the west virginia penitentiary.

Moundsville had 998 documented

Deaths between 1923 and 1995.

I'd say just about every section of this penitentiary,

There was probably a murder.

We had some of the most vengeful, violent,

Manipulative individuals incarcerated behind these walls.

All of the west virginia death row

Executions from 1899 to 1959

Were carried out at moundsville.

In total, 94 men were hung or electrocuted on-site.

- Yeah. - Jeez, dude.

They had old sparky, the electric chair there.

They had a noose.

In the 1880s, superintendent john e. Peck

Tortured inmates using the kicking jenny.

The inmate would be stripped and chained down.

An officer would take a 4-foot-long leather strap,

Soak it in vinegar and salt water,

And he would swing this until total exhaustion overtook him.

He told the deputy warden that he didn't think

They had been punished enough until they were near death,

Or he was tired, and this was not the inmates

Inflicting violence on other inmates.

This was the administration

Committing some of the most gruesome acts of violence

Against the inmates all in the name of punishment.

Over the course of 14 months,

Two inmates were murdered every month.

They started documenting the deaths later on.

For a while there, they didn't --

They have no documentation of these deaths.

Prisoners would die, and it would get, like,

Shoved under the rug.

Conditions inside the penitentiary were horrible,

Freezing temperatures in the winter,

Blazing high heat in the summer,

With temperatures reaching 120 degrees in the upper cellblocks.

And they had lice, roaches, rats,

All kind of things like that running around.

Inmates would wake up with rats

Sitting on their chest inside their cells

That had crawled up out of the sewers.

The state police saw that there were so many rats

That they started bringing in fishing poles