Lore - Episode 42: In the Bag

Episode Date: September 5, 2016

Most of our fears can be blamed on a deeper, more instinctive anxiety: we hate losing control. And no place on earth represents that sensation more viscerally than prison. Contrary to popular belief, though, not all prisons have been created equal. * * * Official Lore website: www.lorepodcast.com Extra member episodes: www.patreon.com/lorepodcast Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support

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Whether it's politics, religion, popular culture, or brand of coffee, everyone has a preference. For most people, their opinion is set in stone. It's an emotional choice. It's rooted in habit. It's safe and comforting. But some opinions are darker. For example, ask anyone you know what their greatest fear is, and you'll get a five-minute answer. Their pulse will race.

Heck, they might even shudder right there in front of you. No one wants to die, and no one likes to feel unsafe. And that means everyone has one big fear. Maybe it's the thought of being buried alive. Trapped inside a confining space while hundreds of pounds of dirt are shoveled on top of the only exit. Maybe it's the thought of drowning or being kidnapped. But here's the secret. Most big fears are really just all about the same thing.

Nearly all of them are about losing control. There are few places in modern culture that represent the loss of choice, the loss of freedom, and the loss of safety more than prison. It's a setting that fills us with dread and inspires hopelessness, but somehow also remains oddly attractive. Films like Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile and small screen hits like Oz or 60 Days In each stand as a testament to that obsession.

And rightly so. Prisons too many are a dark collection of pain, despair, guilt, and hatred. And while it might not be the same as physically being buried alive, it never fails to strike fear into even the strongest of hearts. But our modern prison system didn't start out that way. Instead, it was built on hope and opportunity and change. Like all good intentions, though, these goals have been worn down over time by the worst of human nature. Whatever hope and light they might have tried to bring into the world

has been washed away by horrible darkness. And no prison represents that evolution more accurately than Eastern State Penitentiary. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. The idea of prison has been around since the dawn of written language. Early legal codes dating back as far as 4,000 years listed punishment for illegal behavior. Back then, it was all about retaliation for wrongdoing. But imprisonment was just on the horizon.

The ancient Greeks dabbled with the notion of captivity. In Athens, the prison there was known as the Desmoterion, which meant the place of chains. I think you get the idea. It was the Romans, though, who took the concept of prison and turned it into an art form, and trust me, they pulled no punches. The Romans built prisons in the worst places imaginable. If it was unpleasant or nasty, it was perfect for holding criminals. They used basements, abandoned stone quarries, and even metal cages.

The infamous Mamerton prison in ancient Rome was literally built into the city's sewer system. Prisoners ate and slept among piles of wet, rancid human waste. With the advent of the castle in Europe, captivity moved inside the fortresses, becoming an extension of the crown. It was a display of power, in a sense. In order to encourage people to obey and respect the ruler of the land, they were taught to fear the power of those rulers.

And even then, prison was only sort of a purgatory, a waiting room for the final verdict. It was rarely the end itself. Prison, for centuries, was where criminals would await their trial, and in that way, it was oftentimes the most pleasant bit of the process. After their sentence was handed down, though, the punishment was intensely harsh, painful whipping, physical mutilation, branding with hot irons, and even public execution were all waiting for them just outside the walls of their cell.

But all of that changed in the 18th century. The Age of Enlightenment brought with it a new focus on rational thought, which led to a public outcry against violent punishment. Instead, people called for a new type of prison, one that would inspire moral reform and help criminals become better people. It sounded good on paper, and so many countries got behind the idea. The British Parliament passed the Penitentiary Act in 1779, introducing the concept of state prisons.

Prison populations in England had multiplied following their loss of the North American colonies, filling up quickly with traders and rebels. It's ironic when you think about it. Our own Declaration of Independence led to an increase of captivity and imprisonment back home across the Atlantic. One of the strongest voices for prison reform in the newly formed United States of America was Benjamin Franklin.

In 1787, while the Constitution was still being crafted in Philadelphia, Franklin was gathering others in his home nearby to discuss the poor conditions of the local prison known as Walnut Street Jail. Rather than individual cells, prisoners there were gathered into groups inside large pens. There was no segregation, so men and women, along with the young children, were all living in the same space. Inmates ran the spectrum from simple thieves to cold-blooded killers. It wasn't safe, and it was common for rape and violence to take place unchecked in there.

Those being held for trial were forced to buy their own food and water. Jailers would even sell heat in the winter. That's how bad it had become. So Franklin and his fellow reformers demanded change. There were immediate effects that changed much of the system there, but the biggest impact wouldn't be seen for another 40 years. After decades of campaigning, funding was finally approved for a new prison, but this building would have a different sort of name.

Today, when we hear the word penitentiary, we think of it as a generic term for a prison, but in the early 1800s, it carried a specific meaning. The root of the word is penitent, which means to be repentant, to seek change, and that's the attitude that this new prison was meant to embody. A building full of inmates who were no longer awaiting a violent end to their lives, but instead were improving themselves. On the outside, Eastern State was designed to look like a Gothic castle, intimidating, imposing, and impenetrable.

One look at the exterior and most people would throw away their life of crime. At least that was the theory. Inside, though, it was a different story. When inmate number one entered the building on October 25th of 1829, he was ushered into a state-of-the-art facility. Criminals were housed in private cells with shower baths and toilets. Central heating pipes ran throughout the building and into each cell, keeping the inmates warm in the winter.

The original cell blocks even included skylights. And this was a huge change. President Andrew Jackson, sitting in his office in the White House, didn't even have these luxuries. But that lack of modern amenities was offset by the freedom he enjoyed, which was more than we can say for the inmates of Eastern State. And it was only downhill from there. Central heating and individual toilets sounded like a fantastic idea,

but there were problems with them from the start. The plumbing that carried the hot water to each of the cells ran through tunnels that also housed the sewer pipes. As you can imagine, applying heat on a 24-7 basis to pipes that carry human waste was never a good idea. Because of this, the first few cell blocks that were constructed suffered from some offensive odors. Early doorways in the building were tiny,

requiring inmates to stoop low to pass through. And those doors didn't even open up into the hall inside the building. Instead, cell doors opened outward into tiny outdoor courtyards where each prisoner was encouraged to be active, to garden, or to meditate quietly. Separating each courtyard was a 10-foot wall, meant to discourage communication between the prisoners. All of this complexity was designed to create an atmosphere of isolation. The toilet system was built the way it was

because the prison staff needed to be able to remotely flush the toilets twice a week rather than give the inmates control over that. Plushing, you see, could be used as a method of communication. And for those rare moments when a prisoner was being moved through a cell block and could possibly be seen by other inmates, they always did so with a cloth bag over their head. Walking in on their first day, being moved from one block to another, even going out into their private yard,

each prisoner wore a cloth bag, sometimes with eye holes cut into it, to engender a deep feeling of isolation. And for a while, it worked. True to the stereotypes that we've come to expect from prison movies over the years, the Eastern State Penitentiary was no stranger to attempted breakouts. This became possible in part because of changes to the layout and flow of the prison itself. Doors were enlarged, access to internal hallways were opened up, and overcrowding put more than one inmate in each cell.

The first escape attempt was by inmate number 94, William Hamilton. He climbed out of a window in the warden's office, but was caught a short time later. In 1927, William Bishy, an inmate of 15 years, escaped with a friend. They managed to push a guard off one of the towers and then scale down the side before making a run for freedom. Bishy was pretty bold. He stayed on the run for seven years and eventually got a job in Syracuse, New York. What was the job, you might ask?

He worked as a crossing guard for the police department. Like I said, the man had guts. The most famous prison break, though, was Willie Sutton. He was probably the second most famous inmate in Eastern State's entire history, and I'll get to number one in a bit. But Willie, he was sort of a criminal celebrity. He'd been a bank robber before his time in Eastern State. They called him the Babe Ruth of bank robbing, Slick Willie, the Gentleman Bandit.

But of course, he got caught. He checked into Eastern State in 1934. During his 11 years stay, he tried escaping five times, but it was his last attempt that was an affair to remember. Sutton, along with 11 other men, dug a tunnel 12 feet down from cell number 68 and then another 100 feet straight out to breach the wall. They removed the dirt from their excavations just like Shawshank Redemption showed us, hiding it in their pockets and then dropping it in the yard.

The tunnels had ventilation and support beams. It was a production like no other. It took them months, but on April 3rd of 1945, all 12 men slipped into the tunnel and crawled to freedom. Some of the men actually evaded the authorities for a couple of months. Slick Willie, though, lasted about three minutes. There's a joke in there somewhere, I think. Over the century and a half at Eastern State Penitentiary was in operation. More than 100 prisoners managed to break out.

All but one were recaptured. I think we get it, though. People want to escape prison. It happens all over the world. Certainly, there are prisons with higher escape numbers, even here in the U.S. But why the rush to leave? The Eastern State, it turns out, was originally designed to house a maximum of 300 criminals. That was the 1830s and society was changing.

In the beginning, most of the inmates were horse thieves. By the 1920s, though, inmates were being sent in with darker crimes, rape, violence, even murder. As a result, numbers swelled to an astounding 2,000. That's nearly seven times the original capacity. With a shift in prisoner population came adjustments to the philosophy behind the penitentiary itself. Gone were the notions of hard work, solitude, and meditation. In the minds of those who ran the overcrowded prison, only one corrective method would actually work.

Torture. Aside from the straitjacket, which was often used as a way of containing unruly prisoners, one of the more frightening methods of punishment was a seat called, affectionately, the mad chair. It resembled an old dentist's chair, and prisoners would be strapped into it as tightly as possible. Left for days without food, there are rumors that extended time spent in the chair resulted in amputations. Some inmates found themselves placed in the hole, a small, confining cell that had been dug out of the foundation of the building. With only a tiny slot for food and air, prisoners in the hole would share their space with rats and insects for weeks at a time. There was no bathroom there, no contact with other humans, and no light to see by.

Then there was the room where inmates were taken during the winter. They would be stripped naked, plunged into a bath of cold water, and then strapped to the wall to freeze throughout the night. Oftentimes, the guards would return to find a layer of ice on the skin of the man being punished. But none of those methods could hold a candle to what was known as the iron gag. It's hard to describe with words, but stick with me, and I'll do my best. To reinforce the no talking policy, this punishment brought the consequences directly to the offender's mouth. An inmate's wrists would be chained behind their back with crude manacles, and then a short chain would be connected to the wrists. On the other end of that chain would be a small iron clamp, and that clamp was fastened to the tongue.

Talking, movement, or struggling would all result in the tongue being torn, and it was said that extreme blood loss even led to death in many cases. But as hard as it is to believe, some prisoners managed to rise above all of that. Some, in fact, managed to enjoy a fairly luxurious life inside Eastern State. Inside one of the seven cell blocks that radiated off the central hub was a string of cells known as Park Avenue. The inmates there enjoyed a bit more freedom, and none took advantage of that more than Al Capone. Today, Capone is remembered as a mob boss of near-mythic proportions, and Eastern State was his first experience with prison life. Just months after his men brutally murdered members of a rival gang in an event now referred to as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Capone was picked up in Philadelphia and convicted for carrying a concealed weapon.

For the eight months that spanned the summer of 1929 to the spring of 1930, Capone called Park Avenue his home. Here's what an article in a Philadelphia newspaper from August of 1929 had to say. The whole room was suffused in the glow of a desk lamp which stood on a polished desk. On the once grim walls of the penal chamber hung tasteful paintings, and the strains of a waltz were heard being emitted by a powerful cabinet radio receiver of handsome design and fine finish. Even with his better-than-average accommodations, Capone still complained, but it wasn't about the food or the room temperature. No, Capone, bold and brazen mob boss that he was, appears to have been haunted by the ghosts of his past.

Literally. One night shortly after arriving at Eastern State, Capone was heard screaming from his cell. It was an anger or disobedience that drove him to it, though. Capone was apparently scared. When asked, he told the guards that he just wanted Jimmy to leave him alone and go away. Jimmy was attacking him, it seems, and he wanted it to stop. At first, the guards and other inmates were confused. There was no one else in Capone's cell and no Jimmy on the cell block.

But then the dots were connected. Jimmy, they guessed, was really James Clark, one of the men killed by Capone's orders in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. And if that were true, then Capone was screaming because he felt that Jimmy had followed him into the prison just to torment him. Eastern State closed down in 1970, but was reopened in 1991 as a museum. Even without the inmates, something dark seems to have remained behind, and many who have stepped inside for a tour have come away with an experience that's hard to forget. The most common sighting occurs in one of the guard towers that watches over the building and its perimeter, where a ghostly figure has been seen by many people. Others have reported the sounds of footsteps in the prison hallways and laughter that echoes down through the cell blocks. Soft, mournful wails have been heard there as well.

In cell block 12, a shadowy figure has been seen darting from cell to cell, always noticed in the corner of the eye. Some have seen it rush away from a dark corner as a group of tourists pass by, while others have seen it move up or down a wall, like an enormous shadowy spider. A few years ago, a locksmith was called in to remove the lock on one of the original doors in cell block 4. After 140 years, it was understandably stubborn, and this man was brought in to help out. While there, though, he experienced something that haunts him to this day. The locksmith said that moments after he unlocked the cell, an unseen force rushed out and pressed him against the wall of the hallway. For what felt like an eternity, he was pinned there and couldn't move. Staring into the now-opened cell, his heart froze.

The walls inside, he said, were covered in faces, dozens and dozens of faces, their expressions writhing with agony and horror. Once free, the locksmith left, referring to the prison as a giant haunted house. He never set foot in the prison again. The Lockdown There's a lot to be debated in the world of prison reform. How inmates deserve to be treated. What role in prisonment should play in the overall realm of consequences and due process? We can even explore how motives and methods transform over time, under pressure, and through human brokenness.

It's a can of worms, and I don't have all the answers. But there's an overwhelming feeling of guilt in all of this. The prison reform that Eastern State represented, at least originally, was born out of a guilt for earlier, more barbaric methods. And each inmate, in their own way, was caught in a prison of their own personal guilt. It's easy to see how anyone trapped inside might feel remorse and want desperately to get out. Maybe Eastern State Penitentiary really is haunted. Maybe there are real ghosts that drift through the dark halls and shadows that move at the corner of our vision. Considering all of the horrific things that have taken place there over the years,

it seems only natural for there to be some sort of echo still present. Or maybe it's nothing more than madness. Some think it's crazy to believe that there are spirits roaming the halls of a prison, or any building, for that matter. It defies logic, it's unprovable. Jimmy never really haunted Al Capone, they say. The man was haunted by guilt, and nothing more. It's interesting to note that even after his release from Eastern State, Al Capone still complained of Jimmy's presence. Back in Chicago and living at the Lexington Hotel, he still screamed for Jimmy to leave him alone.

Screams would always bring his bodyguards running, and they would always find the man alone. Even though everyone else thought he was losing his mind, that his guilt was the only real ghost haunting him day and night, Capone looked for help elsewhere. He hired a psychic named Alice Britt to conduct a seance for him, and she begged Jimmy on Capone's behalf to leave the mob boss alone. And that, they hoped, was the end of it. One day, a few weeks after the seance, Capone's personal attendant, a man named Jaime Cornish, stepped into Capone's quarters to retrieve something.

When he entered the room, he immediately noticed a stranger standing near the window, facing out to look down on the street. He glanced around the room for other visitors. No one was supposed to be in Mr. Capone's room after all, and the intruder wouldn't need dealt with. Turning back to the man, Cornish called out for his attention, and then stopped. The man, whoever he was, had disappeared. This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Mankey. Lore is much more than a podcast. There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime television show was recently released.

Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place. www.theworldoflore.com-now And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi.

I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening. www.theworldoflore.com