The Kentucky State Penitentiary sits there brooding
like something straight out of your worst dreams.
A dark, gothic fortress set in heavy and cold
beside the murky waters of the Cumberland River.
Its stone walls, weathered dark by time and trouble,
seem to whisper secrets to anybody fool enough
to listen. Folks say even from a distance you
can feel something ain't right. Like the very
air around it carries the pain and heartache
of all them who've suffered within. But inside
them walls, Lord Almighty, it's worse still.
Guards whisper stories to each other, quiet like,
about shadowy figures moving silently through
empty cells, whispers creeping out of nowhere,
voices of dead men mumbling their regrets deep
in the night. Doors slam shut on their own. Heavy
iron clangs ringing out loud enough to make your
heart jump clean into your throat, though ain't
nobody else around. This here's a place where
men done horrible things, lived short, miserable
lives and died forgotten. But some of them, well,
some just ain't never left. Their souls trapped,
restless and wandering, forever bound to roam
this castle on the Cumberland. looking for someone
to share their suffering. Welcome to Kentucky
Melodies Scary Stories from Kentucky, where we
spin yarns about ghostly haints, creepy hollers,
and spine -chilling legends from deep in the
hills. So grab a chair, dim them lights, and
let's dig into something spooky. Long, for they
ever thought to build that penitentiary, This
land was roamed by tribes who knew it like the
back of their own hands. Them native folks used
the Cumberland River like a road, traveling and
trading, hunting and fishing, and paying respect
to spirits that lived deep in the hollers and
hills. Elders spoke in whispers of ghostly guardians
that walked through the thick Kentucky wilderness,
ancient spirits given warnings. warnings that
weren't never meant to be ignored. But when settlers
came pushing westward, bringing their greed and
their guns, violence seeped into every crack
of this soil. Battles was fought, blood was spilled,
and grief soaked into the earth, leaving an invisible
mark so deep not even time could erase it. Folks
round here still reckon the land was cursed long
before the first stone of the penitentiary was
laid. Whether them dark spirits seeped up through
the ground to haunt the prison, or whether the
cruelty inside them stone walls drew something
wicked out of the earth itself, nobody rightly
knows. But what is known, what every soul who's
been near this place can tell you, is that death
Misery and darkness been tied to this spot for
longer and anyone cares to remember. The Kentucky
State Penitentiary, what folks around these parts
call the Castle on the Cumberland, opened up
way back in 1886. Folks say when they built it,
they carved them stones straight from the belly
of the Kentucky Hills, them big slabs of gray
limestone thick as a man's sins. built up like
some dark medieval fortress you'd hear about
in old stories from across the ocean. It weren't
just a prison, it was a tomb, designed especially
to keep the bad ones in and the rest of the world
out. Over the years, this grim castle held men
so mean, so rotten, they'd make your blood run
cold. Men who'd done butchered families, robbed
honest folk blind, and left a trail of misery
through the hollers and hills of Kentucky. When
they locked them iron gates shut behind you,
weren't much hope left, just hard labor from
sun up to sun down, sleeping on beds as cold
and unforgiven as a mountain winter and misery
so thick you could near taste it. Come 1911,
Kentucky decided hanging weren't the way no more,
said it was too cruel. Instead, they brung in
something new and just as frightful, an electric
chair right there inside the penitentiary walls.
Prisoners started calling that chair Old Sparky,
and it weren't long before she claimed her first
soul. Poor old Jim Buckner, just a boy at 18,
found guilty of killing, sat strapped to that
chair, shaking and sweating, till they flipped
that awful switch and sent him to meet his maker.
After that, over 160 men took that same final
journey in Old Sparky, their spirits still wandering
them dark halls, restless and waiting for someone
to hear their story. The prison walls ain't strangers
to Kentucky's darkest souls. Folks whose names
still send chills down your spine when whispered
round late -night fires. Men like James Jim Howard,
who was brazen enough to shoot down a sitting
governor back in 1900, strutted through these
halls as if he owned them, full of defiance till
the day he walked free. Then there was Monty
Tex Walters, mean as a rattlesnake and twice
as deadly, who stirred up a bloody riot in 1922.
Killing three guards before they finally shot
him dead right there in his tracks You reckon
you've heard of Robert Foley a monster among
men Foley left behind a trail of blood so long
you'd need a map to follow it six lives taken
without remorse his eyes colder than winter frost
and Michael st. Clair an outlaw who busted out
of jail in Oklahoma and set out on a killing
spree across state lines, leaving bodies in his
wake as if it was just another day's work. But
worst of all might have been Marco Alan Chapman,
whose crimes against innocent youngins were so
unspeakable, even he couldn't bear to live with
the memory. He chose death willingly, preferring
the final embrace of old Sparky to a lifetime
haunted by his evil deeds. These men, and countless
others just as vile, spent their last days staring
at stone walls, waiting on death to come knocking.
Some found peace in their final hours, quiet
as whispers. Others raged against the end, fighting
and cursing to the very last breath, their screams
echoing forever through the halls of this forsaken
fortress. Weren't long after them executions
started that the strange things began happening,
and it seems they ain't never stopped since.
Long before they unplugged old Sparky in 98,
guards and inmates alike knew something weren't
right behind them stone walls. Folks felt cold
spots so bitter it'd chill your bones even in
the heat of a Kentucky summer. Whispers floating
in from nowhere. Voices sounding mournful and
lost. More than a few said they felt ghostly
hands grabbing at their clothes, pulling and
pinching, like something from the dark trying
desperately to make itself known. That execution
chamber. Lord help you if you ever step foot
in there alone. Folks swear they can still hear
the buzzing and crackling of electricity from
Old Sparky. as if she ain't never done claiming
her share of souls. Others who've lingered too
long near that awful room have heard screams,
muffled and far off at first, but rising louder
until they're filling your ears. Screams of men
who died decades ago but ain't yet been laid
to rest. Death row ain't no better, neither.
Prisoners locked down, tied in their cells, talk
about shadowy figures standing over their beds
at night, watching them while they sleep, breathing
cold air down their necks. Some have woke up
hollering, finding scratches deep as a wildcat's
claws carved into their skin, marks left by things
you can't rightly see. But there's a spot worse
than any other, the third floor. Even the meanest,
toughest guards in the penitentiary avoid it
best they can. Patrol it alone. Ain't hardly
no one brave enough to do it. Them that try feel
a weight pressing down on them, like some wicked
thing just watching, waiting for the right moment.
It's said the third floor holds the darkest secrets,
secrets that have driven grown men to leave their
jobs, swearing never again to set foot in that
place of endless pain. Even with all the horrors
it's seen, Kentucky State Penitentiary still
stands, mighty and dreadful as ever, housing
the meanest, most dangerous fellers in the state.
Ain't no comfort to be found here and them hauntings.
They ain't never slowed down, neither. Every
now and again, folks brave enough to call themselves
paranormal investigators manage to talk their
way inside. When they come, They bring along
fancy gadgets to prove what everybody already
knows deep in their bones. That place is plumb
full of restless spirits. They've caught voices
whispering through their contraptions. Voices
saying things that'll send a shiver straight
down your spine. Please like help me and warnings
like get out. Sounding desperate and angry. Floating
through air that's thick with sorrow. Others,
using those strange infrared cameras, swear they've
seen shadowy shapes moving slow and deliberate
through empty hallways, shapes that ain't got
no right being there, dark figures wandering
with no explanation and disappearing as quick
as a blink, guards and prisoners alike, tough
men who ain't supposed to fear nothing, tell
tales of being shoved by invisible hands, scratched
by claws they can't see, and whispered to by
voices that don't belong to nobody living. But
the worst story in recent years comes from back
in 2017. A guard making his rounds late one night
saw what he reckoned was a prisoner standing
stock still at the far end of the hallway, staring
straight at him. When he hollered out, asking
what the inmate was doing, that figure just melted
away into thin air. leaving nothing but silence
and fear behind. After he gathered himself and
checked the cells, weren't nobody there at all.
Just empty space, silence, and something dark
watching from the shadows. Now, don't go getting
ideas about strolling inside that place like
it's some sort of haunted attraction you'd find
down the road. Unlike them old prisons elsewhere
that's been opened up for curious folk and thrill
seekers, the Kentucky State Penitentiary ain't
never stopped being a place of punishment, and
them gates stay locked tight as a preacher's
fist on Sunday. Ain't no tours, ain't no souvenirs,
and ain't nobody getting in unless they wear
a badge, got shackles around their ankles, or
somehow sweet talk their way into looking for
ghosts. But if you're mighty curious, if you're
brave enough or foolish enough, you can make
your way to Eddyville and get yourself a good
look from the outside. Just standing there, gazing
at the towering gray walls that look blacker
than coal in the moonlight, you might feel a
chill slide right down your spine. It's like
the place itself is staring back at you, watching,
knowing every secret you got. And if you listen
close, you might just swear you hear something
calling from beyond them cold stones, something
dark and restless, waiting for you to come a
little closer. The Kentucky State Penitentiary
ain't just some ordinary jail. It's a bone -chilling,
heartbreaking graveyard of souls, a place where
pain and death hang heavy as fog and the hollers.
Folks say some of the wickedest men who ever
walked the earth spent their last miserable breaths
inside them walls, living and dying, forgotten
by the world outside. Or so folks reckon. Because
if you find yourself standing outside them stone
walls on a still Kentucky night, you might catch
something drifting on the wind. Something that
sounds mighty like the last scream of a desperate
prisoner, echoing from somewhere deep inside.
It's a scream that don't never die, a spirit
trapped forever, walking the halls of that forsaken
fortress. And friend, if you do hear that scream,
best you don't look behind you. Cuz something,
something dark and restless, something waiting
all these years, might just be watching you,
waiting for you to turn around. Now, y 'all reckon
this place is truly haunted by them restless
souls? Or is it just folks imagining things on
account of all that history? Has anybody out
there ever felt something real strange or spooky
-like when passing by Eddyville? If and you got
kinfolk who've worked behind them walls, or maybe
spent a spell there yourself, what kind of tales
have they told? Do y 'all think places that've
seen that kind of suffering can ever find peace?
Or are they bound forever to them dark memories?
Come on now, don't be shy. Pull up a seat, pour
you some coffee, and share your thoughts down
yonder in them comments. I want to hear what
you think. If tonight's tale chilled you to the
bone, remember, this ain't the only dark holler
we'll be wandering through. Hit that subscribe
button and come on back to Kentucky Melody. Where
shadows got secrets, the hills whisper, and every
road leads somewhere you might not wanna go alone.
Cuz in Kentucky, friend, something's always watching.