The original intention of the prison system was to isolate prisoners so that they can look into themselves and find God. But there was a lack of human contact which was enough to drive even a sane man into insanity.
Inside of each cell, the prisoners got a bunk, table, toilet and a Bible. They were cut off from humanity as there was no interaction between inmates or with the guards.The guards at Eastern State Penitentiary weren’t responsible for the continued wellbeing of their prisoners, which is why some truly blood-chilling punishments were conducted for those who broke the rules. They strapped prisoner into the chair with tightly bound leather straps, dunked in an ice-cold water bath than hung from the wall for the rest of the night, or they were locked in little hole for weeks with no light.
After the prison was closed in 1971, there were several stories about the prison being haunted by the ghosts and spirits of the long dead prisoners who went insane due to the excessive mental and physical torture they suffered.
Many stories about eerie sounds that have been heard by staff, guards, and prisoners as well as visitors which date back to the 1940s, making this one of the most haunted locations in the world.
One of the biggest paranormal incidences that occurred in the Eastern State Penitentiary was to a locksmith called Gary Johnson. He was working to restore Cell Block 4 by removing a 140-year-old lock from a locked cell door.
As he tried to open the cell door, he describes there being a powerful force that paralyzed him. He also stated that he felt an out-of-body moment when he was drawn towards the cell which was bursting with negative energy with hundreds of anguished faces and distorted forms appearing on the cell walls.
