Lore - Episode 210: Breaking Down

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

Everything falls apart. But that’s a horrifying truth when applied to one specific location in Ohio. Because failure can often lead to tragedy. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com Access premium content! ———————— ©2022 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.   To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [e-mail], or visit our listing here.

The heading on the Change.org petition page said it all. Let people drink the red liquid from the dark sarcophagus. And even if you know exactly what that's a reference to, I want to tell you about every disgusting detail. Because, well, why not? Back in 2018, archaeologists announced the discovery of a large sarcophagus inside a 2,000-year-old tomb in Alexandria, Egypt, crafted of black granite weighing in at a massive 66,000 pounds, and being completely sealed, you can bet this discovery captured

the attention of a lot of people. But the moment they opened it up, that excitement seemingly took over the internet. Why? Because inside, along with the remains of the sarcophagus's original owner, scientists found a mysterious red liquid. And of course, the biggest question on everyone's mind was, what exactly is that red stuff? There were wild theories, of course. Red mercury used to preserve the body, or a mysterious Egyptian elixir of life, which

is where cries for someone to taste it came from, including that Change.org petition, one by the way that over 36,000 people signed. But the truth ended up being a lot less sexy than elixir of life. The red liquid was sewage. It seems that even though the sarcophagus was unopened and buried 16 feet below the surface, all of those barriers eventually gave way and allowed local sewage to seep in at least once over the centuries. And it's a lesson we can all learn something from.

Whether they are layers of stone, the bone and sinew of our bodies, or humanity's best intentions, everything eventually breaks down. Call it entropy, call it decay, call it whatever you want, but the truth none of us can run from is that everything around us will eventually fall apart. And sometimes the results are more than a little haunting. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. Every plot of land has a story to tell. Often it has to do with what stood there long ago and how that was erased in favor of the

thing we see today. In some ways, that's our story today. And others, not so much. It was just a plot of land for a very long time. Being in northern Ohio, the land had belonged to the local communities of Native Americans for centuries, but the arrival of white settlers in the earliest parts of the 19th century created a tug of war over who was going to keep it. During the War of 1812, American troops and settlers sent wave after wave of attacks against

the Native people of the area, and they responded in kind. Communities were lost on both sides of the conflict, and for a while, it must have seemed like hell on Earth. And it didn't immediately get better, either. In fact, as new communities were built, their lack of sanitation led to a slew of diseases like dysentery and cholera. Child mortality was incredibly high, and many mothers died in labor. But people kept moving forward, kept trying, and kept holding onto their plans.

Then the Civil War arrived. This and counties all over the country started to gather supplies and bring together their troops in preparation for the conflict ahead. There in northern Ohio, there were a lot of disparate militia groups that needed rounded up and brought under one banner. And that meant that they also needed a place to live and to train. The answer was a plot of land in Mansfield that would officially be named Camp Bartley after a former governor who had been born there in town.

But most people just called it by the more obvious name of Camp Mansfield. It was a training ground, a gathering point, and a waiting room, waiting to be called to action to be needed elsewhere to march off to face mortal danger. While they waited, though, danger found them. All those different people gathered from miles around brought their own collection of illnesses with them. Smallpox, typhoid, scurvy, make yourself a board with the names of all sorts of 19th-century illnesses on it and just throw a dart.

Chances are good you'll hit one that they suffered through. The end of the war didn't bring an end to their trouble, though. Ohio as a state started to notice that they had more and more young men being sent to prison. These were men in a sort of middle ground, not quite young enough to fit into the juvenile correction centers that communities used, and definitely not the sort of hardened criminal that one might associate with prison. There were some who believed that these men, most of them young, first-time offenders,

needed a chance to make things right, to improve themselves, to reform. So they proposed a new kind of prison that would aim for that lofty goal, a place where young criminals could unlearn their bad behavior and replace it with skills they could build a life around. On paper, it was a solid idea. Everyone's made mistakes, after all, and everyone deserves a second chance. It took a while to make things happen, though. Everyone needed to be passed, which took place in 1884, and funds then needed to be raised.

But even before all of that took place, they needed a plan to present to the powers that be. So they hired an architect by the name of Levi Schofield, known throughout Ohio for his impressive state mental health facilities. What Schofield drafted was a plan for an imposing building complex, something that would send a clear message to everyone inside and out that the facility was strong and professional and ready to accomplish things. Technically, it was designed in what's called the Richard Zonian-Romanesque style, but all

you need to know is that it looks like a medieval castle. Like a lot of buildings at the time, there were two wings that branched off the central structure, and each wing was four stories tall, with a total of 1,200 cells between all of them. The whole place is roughly 250,000 square feet, so you can imagine that imposing feeling everyone there must have felt. The doors opened in September of 1896, but the work on the facility hadn't been finished at that point.

Instead, those first 150 inmates were all put to work. Their job? Dig and install the sewer system for their own prison. And between that and a few other projects, it would take 14 more years before everything was completed. For the young men who were sent there, life was modeled after a particular prison method known as the Auburn system. Think of old-time prison scenes in the movies, where inmates are dressed in black and white

striped uniforms, get locked in their own cells at night, and walk in lockstep with their feet chained together. That's the Auburn system. And that was the plan. Bring in new inmates who were young and impressionable, give them 18 months to change their ways and learn new skills, and then return them back to society. For a lot of those men, it worked, too. They picked up trades like bricklaying, furniture building, farming, and even printmaking.

Obviously, a lot of them stuck around longer than planned, and most of the inmates were far from happy to be there at all. But what I've spelled out for you was the goal, the plan, the way things were supposed to be. But as is so often the case, plans are meant to be broken. The biggest clue can be found outside. Proof that life, even inside the carefully planned facility of the Ohio State Reformatory,

was far from perfect. It's a graveyard, one with more than 200 individual headstones. Now it's not unusual for most prisons to have a cemetery, but considering how short a stay inmates were expected to remain there, and the complete lack of any executions, it does make one wonder what led to all those deaths. And the biggest category is one we've already covered. Illness Whenever large groups of people get together, they share things, you know, conversations, interests, unexpected connections, and sickness.

For the inmates of the Ohio State Reformatory, the biggest name on that list was tuberculosis, a bacterial infection that mostly takes up residence inside a person's lungs. The worst thing about tuberculosis, apart from the whole dying thing, of course, was that for most people, they didn't know that they were sick until it was too late. They would spend weeks coughing and spreading the disease to others. And in a closed-up, tight quarters sort of place like a prison, I think you can see how that wouldn't be a good thing. So a good number of the graves outside can be blamed on TB and other illnesses like it.

But sometimes it was the experience of imprisonment itself that took lives. Over the years the Reformatory operated, a number of inmates took their own lives, sometimes in horrific ways. The first on record from May of 1909 was Marshall Miller, who was only 19 years old at the time. According to the newspaper article from that week, it was believed that the shame of being there drove him to do it. In 1916, Anthony Michalduk took his own life by leaping from the top of one of the cell blocks.

The 60-foot drop didn't kill him instantly though, but the resulting injuries proved fatal. But another young man, 24-year-old Harold Sykes, died by suicide after he arrived in 1973 to begin a 10-year sentence. But the most horrific, and in some ways legendary, of deaths was that of 22-year-old James Lockhart. On January 30th of 1960, he stayed in his cell while the rest of the block went to dinner. While they were gone, he doused himself and his cell with lighter fluid and set everything on fire. By the time the guards arrived to put out the flames, he had covered himself with a

burning mattress, and they couldn't reach him. One of the reasons historians believe the morale was so low inside Ohio State Reformatory was the solitary confinement area in the bowels of the facility, affectionately known as the hole. In fact, a number of suicides took place inside those tiny one-man cells. They are tragic stories, men driven to hopelessness by the oppressive conditions who ultimately broke down under the pressure. Like most prisons, there were a few escape attempts too.

In fact, one of them started inside the hole. It seems that a visitor brought a small handsaw and a few other handy tools to one of the inmates there, a guy named Merrill Chandler, and he let himself and a few others out along the way. In the resulting violence, a guard named Frank Hanger was killed, Chandler and three others were tried in Frank's murder, and two of them were sentenced to death. One last tragic story needs to be mentioned. Along with the prison blocks, there were administrative rooms and the apartments for the prison warden,

and in November of 1950, death arrived inside that safe residential space. Helen Glacky was the wife of the warden at the time, Arthur Glacky, though he is often referred to as the superintendent as well, which seemed to be interchangeable terms for folks back then. On the night of November 5th, around 10 p.m., Helen went into a closet to track down a box of jewelry. Maybe she was setting out her clothing for the next day and wanted a necklace to match it all, or perhaps she was putting something away.

But in the process, she came across Arthur's loaded 38 revolver. Picking it up so that she wouldn't accidentally knock it off the shelf, she kept up her search while holding the gun. When she found the jewelry box and reached for it, her other hand slipped and the revolver fell to the floor. The impact caused the weapon to fire, and while the shot had anywhere to travel, it found her chest, piercing her left lung and ending her life. Arthur wouldn't last much longer at the reformatory.

In 1959, at the age of just 56, he too experienced chest pain, this time in the form of a heart attack while working in his office. Both rushed him to the hospital, but he was dead by the time they arrived. It wasn't what Helen and Arthur Glacky had planned, I'm sure, but as was true of so much around the Ohio State Reformatory, plans are often nothing more than temporary structures. Time and tragedy will always wear down our expectations. But sometimes, if the stories are true, they leave something else behind. The shadows of the past.

The stories of hauntings predate the prison, if you can believe it. Typically, when you encounter a place like the Ohio State Reformatory, all of the legends and tales of unusual activity and unexplainable experiences are set within the building's walls. But that's not entirely the case here. It seems that long before the structure was a twinkle in the eye of architect Levi Schofield, there were stories. It's rumored that at least one of the Civil War soldiers stationed there at Camp Mansfield

had to be discharged from service and admitted to a mental health facility because they claimed to see mysterious figures around the camp. Rumors reported disembodied voices, cold whispers that raked across their skin like a winter wind. Whether or not the rumors are true, no one can say, I'll let you make up your own mind about that. And then there's the early days of the prison. It seems that a lot of the land it's built on was purchased from one family, Mr. and

Mrs. Wise and their daughter Phoebe. And even after they sold most of their property off and the walls went up, they remained in their family home, despite the fact that it sat right across the road from their new neighbors. Legends have a way of captivating people, and it became pretty easy for people to assume that the Wise family had become wealthy from the sale of their land. So decades later, in December of 1891, three men set out to see if the stories were true. By that time, the parents had passed away, and only Phoebe Wise was left living in the house alone like a hermit, but that didn't mean those men would have an easy time.

Yes, they broke in, and yes, they tied her up so they could search the house, but they failed to find anything of value that might prove the legend. And not only that, but after they were gone, Phoebe untied herself, tracked down the authorities to report the crime, and became an instant celebrity in the process. Sadly, that sort of fame led to a number of stalkers, mostly men who were obsessed with marrying her. One man even went as far as to break into her house to propose, but he found Phoebe waiting for him with a gun in her hand.

It's said that the guy demanded, marry me or shoot me, and that Phoebe happily shot him dead. The resulting court case found her not guilty. Inside the prison, though, there's a bit less delight. The superintendent's quarters, where Helen Gladke accidentally shot herself to death, is rumored to be the home of unexplainable voices and the occasional whiff of rosewater perfume. A few have even claimed to hear a man and woman talking to each other, sometimes even

arguing. There's a room inside the prison that's known to many as the chair room, due to the fact that there's nothing inside it but a single chair. A number of people have reported the presence of some dark spirit there, which seems to focus its efforts on keeping that chair in its place. One man, Michael Humphrey, a former inmate who worked in the building later as a tour guide, claimed that he even challenged the ghost once by threatening to remove the chair and burn it, only to have one of the people in his tour group knocked to the floor by

an invisible blow. Then there's the room where James Lockhart burned himself to death, cell number 13. Over the years since the prison shut down, many investigators have passed through this area and always seem to report mysterious voices that show up on audio recordings. Some have felt a dark oppressive atmosphere there, and a few have even reported physical touches as if whoever or whatever still resides there is striking out in anger. And finally, there's the hole. If you're the sort of person that believes traumatic experiences and horrible tragedies

can actually leave a mark on a place like an invisible stain, then this area is for you. Visitors to the hole have noticed a lot of the typical signs of unusual activity, like cold spots and darkening of their mood. But along with that, some have heard voices when no one else is around, perhaps the cries of desperate men echoing up from the past. Sometimes they are murmurs or bits of conversation, and sometimes they are screams. And fans of the television show Ghost Adventures may remember a visit to the hole that resulted

in something a bit more interactive. One of the tour guides who was interviewed for that episode described a lot of the expected things, like the presence of some dark force in the room and the echo of disembodied footsteps. But at one point, he felt as if the invisible entity in the room had stepped right in front of him, so he decided to make a stand. I'm not afraid of you, he spoke into the silence, hoping it would push the spirits away. Instead, after a few heartbeats and held breath, a sound echoed back. It was a voice, and the single word it uttered could be taken as either agreement or a challenge.

All it said was outstanding. The Ohio State Reformatory is no longer in operation. It went through the sort of life cycles that we've come to expect from similar social experiments. It worked as designed for a while, and then, sometime around the 1930s, things there started to break down. The facility became incredibly overcrowded, with more than 2,200 inmates in a space designed for half that number.

Lack of space led to more failures in the care for the human lives inside, and by the late 1970s, a coalition known as the Council for Human Dignity filed a lawsuit to fix it. They wanted, in a sense, to reform the Reformatory. It took a few years, but that lawsuit was resolved, and by December of 1990, everyone inside had been moved to other, more modern facilities. It had operated for nearly a century, seeing over 150,000 young men spend time there. Most left to move on with their lives, but a good number of them, sadly, met tragedy instead. The prison hasn't faded away, though, and believe it or not, most people today have

seen it, although not without knowing what they are looking at. After all, it's hard to beat that imposing castle-like facade, so whenever it's been necessary to find a place that practically exudes that old-time prison experience, Ohio State Reformatory usually makes the list. Scenes from the movie Air Force One were filmed there, as were several television shows. There have even been a few music videos shot there from artists like Godsmack and Lil Wayne, but the most memorable appearance of the old prison is perhaps the most on point. If the very first inmates there were known for constructing the prison's sewer system,

then it's more than ironic that most of our memories of the place, again, without being aware of them at all, are related to that part of the building's infrastructure. Because it's in the prison's most memorable turn on the silver screen that we got to see a desperate and determined inmate literally crawl through that sewer on his way to freedom. The movie? Oh, I'm sure you already know what it is by now. It's the film adaptation of A Short Story by Stephen King. The Shawshank Redemption.

Some of the darkest legends often come from the most painful events, and it's inside prisons that we frequently find tales that are so tragic they live on in one form or another. We hope that today's tour through the walls of the Ohio State Reformatory has helped you understand one more of those unique locations. Without a doubt, the place is haunted. Whether that's by literal ghosts or just the shadows of a tragic past, I'll leave that up to you.

But one of the deadliest tragedies in the prison's history didn't even take place inside its formidable walls. And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you all about it. This episode of Lore was made possible by Casper. Experience better sleep with the award-winning comforts of Casper. Casper's most popular mattress, the Casper Original Hybrid mattress, is the one that started it all. It's engineered for cool, comfortable sleep.

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And when you're ready to launch it, be sure to use the offer code LORE at checkout to save 10%. Squarespace, build something beautiful. It was supposed to be a new beginning. Romer to John had both served time at Ohio State Reformatory, but by 1948 they were both out on parole. Not that they were ready to let go, though. In fact, it seemed like there were quite a few grudges being held between the two of

them. I will pretend to understand their experience inside prison, and I always try my best to avoid assumption, but it's also human nature that desire for clarity, for answers. So I want to believe that their treatment there was less about reform and more about abuse. Honestly, whenever a prison system breaks down, that's the typical path. So it's a safe guess. Which is why, after a lot of get-togethers where the pair of men shared their frustrations and personal horror stories, they both expressed that sort of desert island idea of what if.

Given the chance, would either of them get revenge? Would they return like for like? And if so, how? And that's why on July 20th of 1948, the two men headed out looking for one of their former guards, a man named Red Phillips. The trouble was, Red wasn't home, and they were both already wound up and ready to follow through on their plans. So they fell back to the next best name on their list, John Nibel, the superintendent

of the prison's farm. Later on, Robert would tell the authorities that Nibel had frequently forced him and others to work in the fields under the blazing sun, usually with clubs in their hands. Memories of those hard 110-degree days were difficult to forget. When they knocked on the door, Nibel answered. Robert told the older man that his car had broken down and asked if he could use the phone to call for help. Once led inside, Robert's partner John followed him.

In the confusion of people entering the door, Robert pulled out a gun and aimed it at Nibel. John went to see if anyone else was home and found Nibel's wife and 22-year-old daughter upstairs and quickly brought them both down. While three of them were forced to leave the house at gunpoint, climb into the car and strip naked. Then after a short drive to the outskirts of town, they pulled over and dragged them out. It was another dry, dusty field, and I'm willing to bet that the soil was still warm from the

hot summer sun earlier in the day. And while I can't find a reason in the records, I'd be willing to wager that there was a connection in Robert's mind to the suffering in the field under the club of Nibel and the suffering he was about to deliver at a similar location. The only silver lining I can point out is that Robert Daniels and John West didn't draw the experience out. Nibel was shot almost as soon as they arrived, right in front of his family, and his wife and daughter followed a moment later.

And then the two killers went on the run, hoping to escape not only the local authorities, but leave the state of Ohio far behind. The trouble was, they weren't subtle about it. Four more lives would be taken by the pair of men before they found themselves stopped at a police roadblock two days later on July 23rd. But despite their stolen truck being loaded with all sorts of weapons, only John West stepped out of the vehicle to open fire on the authorities. He was killed a moment later.

Robert Daniels, for his part, claimed to be asleep during the shootout, but put up quite the act of bravado in the coming days under police custody. He was all bluster and swagger and confident defiance, fully admitting to all the murders and even taking credit for planning the whole crime spree. But bravado is never bulletproof. And after a very public trial and a guilty verdict, his act started to crumble. It was too late, though. The public saw him as a vicious, cold-blooded killer who would do it again in a heartbeat

if he were set free and they cried out for his execution. In fact, according to one of the local papers at the time, at least four nearby counties threw their hats in the ring to be considered as a host for Robert's final moments. On January 3rd of 1949, Robert Daniels met with a priest one last time, and it said that all of his bravado was gone by then. When he died, it wasn't with a fist clenched in defiance. It was with a crucifix in one hand and a rosary in the other. It seems that in the face of death, even the strongest facade has a way of crumbling, breaking

down to nothing more than ruins. This episode of lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Sam Alberti and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think

you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi.

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