Death Walker - Third Season

The city known as Williamson is

situated along the Tug Fork River in the southern region of West Virginia.

The dark hills that surround Williamson have witnessed

several acts of bloodshed throughout the past 160 years.

The most infamous event is the blood feud

between the Hatfields and McCoys that began in 1863

and would ultimately claim the lives of 60 people.

The Hatfields' and McCoys' families

suffered 13 deaths until the fighting stopped in 1891.

It wasn't until 2003 when both the Hatfields

and McCoys finally signed a truce that officially ended the feud.

During the winter of 1927,

a massive fire destroyed the original hospital structure

that was located in the downtown district of Williamson.

Luckily, all of the patients managed to escape with their lives.

The four-storey hospital

that overlooks the city of Williamson today

would go on to serve the Tug Valley area for the next 60 years.

The facility housed 32 private patient rooms.

The second floor contained a maternity ward

which included a delivery room,

a nursery and two private rooms for mothers

while the fourth floor included two operating rooms.

The emergency room was located in the basement

while the first floor was home to the ICU.

Tragedy would strike during the winter months of 1956

when a passenger train derailed and crashed into Cedar West Virginia.

The engineer was killed.

All 23 individuals involved in the crash

were brought to the Williamson Memorial Hospital.

Perhaps one of the more infamous events happened in July 1962

when a man named Moses Blackburn

was arguing with his wife outside of a downtown restaurant.

A Williamson police officer approached the couple

to diffuse the situation

when Blackburn instantly pulled his pistol

and shot the officer in the head.

A shootout ensued with the other Williamson police officers

before Moses was eventually captured

and taken to the Williamson hospital

to treat a gunshot wound to his right arm.

Days later, in an attempt to kill himself,

Blackburn would leap out of the hospital's third floor window.

As fate would have it, the fall didn't kill him.

Blackburn suffered in the hospital for weeks before he would die

by drowning on his own fluids caused by an abscess in his lungs.

There were stories leading up to the suicide attempt

that Blackburn was plagued with nightmares

about someone coming to get him in his hospital room.

I wonder if Blackburn was being haunted by the spirit

of the officer he killed.

Both men were taken to the hospital and treated by the same doctors.

One of them was already dead upon arrival.

The Williamson Memorial Hospital

closed in 1988 when a more modernised facility was constructed up the hill.

For the next 30 years,

the old hospital building would be used as offices and storage.

Tonya Webb is one of the owners of the old hospital today

and purchased it with the hopes to save

and share the history and paranormal visitors from all around the world.

Since 2018,

visitors to the old Williamson Memorial Hospital often mentioned

hearing disembodied voices coming from unoccupied patient rooms.

Several encounters of strange events and apparition sightings were told

and are still being experienced by the guests today.

One story of a nurse who once worked

and died within the hospital,

her spirit is frequently seen by hospital employees

and even a construction worker who saw her on the fourth floor.

The construction worker refused to go back to the fourth floor

during the buildings renovations.

Another unexplainable encounter

of a floating nurse is witnessed in the basement area.

The Williamson police department has responded many times to calls

from folks inside the building only to find all entry points secured.

People on the outside of the building that live around

the downtown area of Williamson often report lights coming on and off

and seeing shadow figures moving past the windows

of now vacant patient rooms.

During the paranormal tour that took place in 2018,

a tour guide became physically ill in the x-ray room.

I have found in my research over the years

that old vacant medical facilities are the connection point

between life and death.

The place into which people enter this world but also exit it.

My paranormal investigation is taking place on March 3, 2022

which is the 94th anniversary of the day it opened.

I will try to find out if Blackburn's vicious act of killing

a local police officer has condemned his spirit

to forever haunt the halls of the old Williamson Memorial Hospital.

I was actually born in this hospital in 1973.

I lost two grandparents that I never met in this hospital.

So for me,

it's a very special place with a lot of energy.

Trying to save a little bit of my history

as well as my town's history as well.

A lot of energy on different floors captured so many things

over the years.

You can imagine a hospital that will be 94 years old,

so many things happened here and so many deaths as well as life.

Born here.

Just so many emotions that I don't even know how to put into words.

Everything except that little light fixture's original

from when they installed this back in 1928.

This is awesome.

The elevator folks that helped us repair it

and get it back said at the time when they did this,

it was very modern because it had automatic buttons.

Not the stick or an operator, a man who will take you to floor to floor.

It eliminated labour.

Welcome to the fourth floor.

I'm Charlie Hatfield, the mayor of Williamson

and a lot of history here.

Personally my history is, I started here in 1962.

I was fortunate to be born here.

They did a wonderful service to this community

by establishing this hospital.

So this hospital was a key factor bringing the community together.

A lot of people don't see it but in hospitals,

there is so much ancillary services brought in to a hospital.

It has its own economic impact.

I was not born in the hospital but my sister was

and I remember visiting the hospital when she was born.

I'm very drawn to the third floor.

There's just something about the third floor.

I feel some type of energy when I go up there.

I feel like there are kids up on the third floor in particular.

Maybe that's why I want to go up there.

I'm a retired teacher and maybe

that's why am drawn up there, I don't know.

Between 1928 and probably through the years

that the hospital functioned as a hospital from '88 to 2014,

I would estimate probably thousands of deaths

that occurred in this place.

Anywhere ranging from young children

to elderly people to soldiers to anything that you can imagine.

There have been numerous paranormal accounts on every floor just about.

Anything from shadow figures

to people being touched to people having their legs scratched

as they walk out of a room to hearing voices.

Anywhere from a male's voice to children's voices.

Even piano music playing at certain times in certain rooms.

We've had several encounters of people

that have claimed they have had an encounter with nurses

that used to work here

as well as patients that were former patients of the hospital.

Very emotional, very much they felt

like they were still looking for someone

or trying to find someone

and couldn't so they were trying to seek answers.

I know. You turned around.

She hasn't moved.

She didn't move.

I've lost an uncle here.

He had a terrible fall and died here back in '77.

You just don't forget those things

and they become chapters in your life

where you turn the page and it gets you to another place.

This hospital is a landmark

but it's also a benchmark and I'm sure,

if it's done that for my lifetime,

there's an unusual sense about where you were born

and where you have lost loved ones over your lifetime.

I think there's something about that.

That's why we have historical places we save.

I remember one story that took place up on the fourth floor

that someone saw a full body apparition peek around the door

and one of the people were so scared,

he went out to his car and stayed in his car the rest of the night.

Shadow figures, talk about seeing full body apparitions.

I feel like there's intelligent spirits here

and it's very possible that they move things.

I heard a male's voice just clear as day on the second floor.

I'm not sure who it was. All they said was "Hey."

I don't know if they thought I was a nurse

or if they thought I was a patient or they just wanted to talk.

I went from room to room trying to find them

and I couldn't engage but it made the hairs stand up on my arm.

That was the first time that I think really showed me

that this building has stories that it still has left to tell

and there are people still here wanting to tell them.

We were in a basement. It was in the middle of the day.

It was like noon and a beautiful day and we were inside securing a window

and we heard a series of two doors shut very loudly.

The same floor your own but we are both kind of rattled.

I use the expression my goosebumps had goosebumps.

You can't help but go through here,

any of these five floors and you feel there is a presence I think.

The most popular apparitions I believe

that has been captured here and stories

that we continue to get from people over multiple generations

is who we refer to lovingly as the nurse that never clocked out.

There have been numerous stories

of people seeing images of her entering the building.

We've had women tell us that she was

a lady that worked in the ER

and also in labour and delivery

and she would be seen trying to help mothers.

One particular lady reached out to me

and told me that she was in labour