Eastern State Penitentiary
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Eastern was the very first location that I pitched to the producers of FEAR.  At first they were not very interested, they had just done West Virginia State Prison and wanted something different.  However, it didn't take me long to change their minds.  Eastern has a long history of violence, mental illness, cruelty and hauntings.  

The prison was opened in 1829.  It was operated by the Quakers, a strict religious group that ran the prison with an iron hand.  The inmates were brought into the prison wearing hoods (kind of like our FEAR contestants).  They were allowed absolutely no contact with the other prisoners.  They were kept in solitary confinement for the duration of their sentence, no matter how many years that might be.  The prisoners were not allowed to have visitors, sing, whistle, speak to anyone except the guards, or read anything except the bible.  

The harsh mental conditions were compounded by torture.  The slightest infraction would result in months kept naked in cells without windows, no heat, no blankets.  Philadelphia can be really cold.  Sometimes they would chain a naked inmate outside in the winter and douse them periodically with cold water, then watch it freeze on the body of the prisoner.  Then there was the iron gag, a five inch piece of metal that the guards inserted over the inmate's tongue.  A chain was connected from the gag to the cuffed hands of the prisoner.  This was left on for hours, causing at least one death.

The first thing I noticed when I arrived at Eastern was how foreboding the structure is.  It looks like a medieval castle, glaringly ominous.  The second thing I noticed was the religious symbolism.  There are crosses made out of stone, iron, crosses on bars, gates, crosses everywhere.  There goes the theory that crosses keep ghosts at bay.  

The crew of FEAR started experiencing phenomena immediately.  One of our camera guys was almost hit by a large block of stone that fell off the top of a wall.  We had technical difficulties immediately as well.  Our computers shut down repeatedly.  Lights would go out over and over again, batteries lasted a fraction of their normal life.  

One of the hotspots of the prison was cellblock 12.  The cellblocks radiate off a main room like spokes on a wheel, so you can enter all the hallways to them from a main room.  I investigated every single cellblock before grudgingly checking out #12.  I have to admit , I was scared to enter that cellblock.  But finally I did.  It was late at night and very dark.  I made my way up the stairs, and walked down one side of the narrow cellblock.  You know that feeling you get when you know something is watching you, and its not real happy?  Well, whatever was watching me felt like it wanted to slit my throat.  I made my way down one side, then started back up the other.  I was about half-way down when something pulled my hair - hard.  I stopped, thinking my hair was caught on something but there was nothing there.  I didn't even snap a photograph, I just hurried down the block then down the stairs.  Some big, bad ghost hunter I am.

Later that week a crew member was pushed down the stairs in that cellblock.  He swears that he could feel the hands on his back.

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