The
paranormal team in which I’m a member is Dusk 2 Dawn ParanormalInvestigations. We work regularly at the
1859 Jail in Independence Missouri doing pay to play paranormal investigations
and Ghost Tours in October. Most of the money we make goes to the Jackson
County Historical Society to preserve our beloved 1859 Jail. The portion we get
goes into a bank account and at the end of the year we decide on where to go
for a team trip. This year it was Waverly Hills Sanatorium!
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The front door of Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Image credit: G Gamble |
Four of us
arrived in Louisville on a Tuesday evening after a long drive from Kansas City.
We checked into our motel and crashed for the night. The next day the four remaining
team members got in around 4 p.m. so everyone rested up for the big night.
At 6 p.m. we
loaded our equipment up and headed for Texas Roadhouse for a team dinner. We
all ate and laughed and had a great time. Sadly, we found out that our founder
wouldn’t be able to attend the investigation due to health reasons. We all
hugged him and acknowledged that his health was more important and he would be missed, then we were off to our Waverly Hills Sanatorium investigation.
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The view of the back shows just how huge Waverly Hills Sanatorium really is. Image credit: G Gamble |
Waverly
Hills is on the bucket list of nearly every paranormal investigator in the
United States. Waverly Hills was originally a two-story structure designed for
up to 50 tuberculosis patients. This small sanitarium opened in 1910. However,
a tuberculosis epidemic broke out in many parts of Jefferson County Kentucky
and by 1924 construction began on the existing building. By 1926 Waverly Hills
was open for business and housed more than 400 patients. At the time it was
considered modern and perfectly equipped to help people with tuberculosis.
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This photo hangs on the wall in the gift shop. It shows patients on the terrace getting their fresh air. Image credit: G Gamble |
In the
1920’s doctors thought that rest and plenty of fresh air would cure tuberculosis.
Sadly, the only thing they got right was the realization that it is an airborne
disease so those diagnosed with it had to be isolated from the general public.
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One of the small bedrooms from the hallway. Our guide told us that they put two people in each of these rooms. They pulled the beds out onto the terrace so the patients could get fresh air. Image credit: G Gamble |
Once someone
went to Waverly Hills they became a permanent resident. Waverly had its own
vegetable gardens, farm animals, water treatment facility, and their own zip
code. Even though they knew how contagious tuberculosis is, visitors were
allowed to come see their friends and relatives then go back into the general
population. Many Waverly Hills patients lived there as long as ten years.
Waverly was
a tuberculosis facility until the discovery that a combination of streptomycin
and para-Aminosalicylic acid cured the disease in the 1960’s. Waverly was later
reopened in 1962 as a geriatric facility called Woodhaven Medical Services and
remained open until 1981.
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We walked around the building and were in awe of how big it is. Image credit: G Gamble |
Now Waverly
Hills Sanatorium is a historic site and is currently being renovated by the
owner. Our guide informed us that they hope to always have paranormal
investigations there even when the remodeling is done and Waverly can be opened
for other activities.
We arrived
at the gate around 7:30 p.m. The tour guide met us and told us to drive up to
the parking lot. As we drove up the driveway through the woods the huge sanatorium came into view. Wow! It is huge!
We followed our tour guide to the gift shop where we signed waiver forms
and purchased some tee shirts. Only one member of our team had been to Waverly
Hills before so we all opted to take the tour of the facility.
As our tour
guide prepared for the tour we all walked around the huge building. The
structure sits atop a hill surrounded by thick woods. The city of Louisville
also surrounds it so there are people in every direction.
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We had to stop at the front of the Sanatorium to take a group photo. Left to right is Cari, Adria, Jerry, me, Margie (in front), Erica (in back), and Stacey (in front). Image credit: J. Nichols |
As we went around the
building, we noticed that our voices echoed when we laughed. There are lots of
fences and barriers around the building to stop trespassers. The guide also has
many security cameras to watch the surrounding grounds. We were in awe of this huge building and so
anxious to investigate it!! Once we got back to the gift shop the tour guide,
Mel, took us into the sanatorium.
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The Waverly Hills Gift Shop is a large building. They have tee shirts for sale and many Sanatorium artifacts on display. Image credit: G Gamble |
We walked
through a door from the gift shop and went through a tunnel. Some stairs led us
to the first-floor lobby. There were paintings on the walls of skeletons and
ghouls which is part of a Halloween haunted house that Waverly does each year.
When we went up the stairs to the second floor we were shown a room that we
could use as base. This room had electric lights and electricity which came in handy
and we were very grateful for.
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The fifth floor of Waverly during our tour. This is the area where a nurse was found hanging from a light fixture in the 1930's. Image credit: G Gamble |
Mel took us
up to the fifth floor to start the tour and proceeded to tell us about the
nurse that was found hung in the 1930’s. Another nurse had fell or jumped to
her death around that same time. She laid her flashlight down on a windowsill
in the area of these events. While she talked the flashlight would dim, then
brighten, and ended up flashing like a strobe light. It did this all on its
own. Mel did not have control of the light and it was just an ordinary
flashlight. That was pretty cool! We
walked around the fifth floor out onto the roof where the children used to
play. The view was amazing and the hills of Kentucky are breathtaking. Apparently, the children were kept on one side
of the fifth floor while the adults with tuberculosis of the brain were housed on
the other side.
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The hallways at Waverly Hills Sanatorium seem to go on forever. Image credit: G Gamble |
We followed
Mel down the stairs to the fourth floor. Here the hallway has rooms on both
sides. On the side toward the back is a terrace. This terrace is open air. This
is where the patients were put for “treatment” to receive fresh air. Mel said
that patients were left there year-round and there are photos of patients lying
in bed on the terrace with snow on their feet. Mel said that the patient rooms
next to the terrace were where the patients that were doing well stayed. Once
someone was deemed too ill to survive they pulled their bed back across the
hall into a different room where the patient was left to die. Once the patient
died, personnel would move the body down the hall at night in an effort to be
discreet. They did not want to alert the other patients of a death. Deaths grew
to the volume of one per hour before Waverly Hills Sanitorium closed it
doors. All of this death apparently left
a mark on the fourth floor as it has the darkest hauntings. While we were
there, two of our team members were overcome with emotion and one member could
not stop crying. There definitely is a sadness that hangs in the air on the
fourth floor. Shadow figures have been
seen moving in and out of the doorways down the hall. The Creeper is the one shadow
that everyone is afraid of because it crawls on the ceiling and along the walls
as a dark shadow. We didn’t see the Creeper but we did see the shadow figures
in the hallway. Mel let us know that the fourth floor is where the darker
entities are.
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Our team touring the long hallways with our guide. Image credit: G Gamble |
At the end of the fourth-floor hallway was the operating room. Surgeries
done here were experimental at best and many people did not survive. While Mel
was telling us about the operating room I received a message from a very close
friend to call her. This close friend just happens to be the medium that works
with our team. When I called her, she told me that my Mother (who passed in
2015) popped in and told her that “Lucy will be their guide for tonight” then
my Mother left. My friend was frustrated that was the only information my
Mother gave her but she wanted to tell me right away. I thanked her then went back into the
operating room. I apologized for leaving and explained about my friend and told
everyone the message from my Mother. Mel looked at me and said “I can’t believe
you just said that!” Mel went on to explain that there is a child spirit there
named Lucy and she has communicated with many people. Mel said that Lucy was in
the body chute once and wanted some living people to take her back up to the fifth
floor with the rest of the children. I told her that my friend is spot on and
my Mother keeps track of me from the other side.
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The operating room on the fourth floor. This was taking during the investigation. Erica is on the left and Adria is on the right. Image credit: G Gamble |
She took us
down to the third floor where the atmosphere seemed lighter. This floor was set
up much like the fourth floor with the terraces, hallway and rooms on both
sides. She told us about a homeless man and his dog who had lived there years
ago. The owners at that time left him alone as he wasn’t hurting anything.
Tragically, a gang initiation brought several teenagers into the building where
they killed the man and his dog and threw them down an elevator shaft. Mel
showed us the room where the man stayed. We knew we had to investigate this area
later. While we were on the third floor, Erica said that she felt like she
walked through a giant cobweb and Stacey had a similar experience. Apparently,
the spirits wanted us to know they were there.
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The body chute is a long underground tunnel that slants down 45 degrees to an outside door. We sat here and watched the shadows moving at the end of the tunnel. It was mesmerizing! Image credit: S Allin |
The last
place Mel showed us was the tunnel known as the “body chute”. We followed her
downstairs and through a dark tunnel that slanted downward. We stopped at the
top of some stairs. There were stairs on one side of the tunnel and a concrete
slab on the other that slanted downward to the bottom of the chute. This was
where supplies were brought in when Waverly was in operation. Once people
started dying by the hour they used it as a death chute to remove the bodies.
Mel told us to turn off our flashlights and we did. “Now watch”, Mel said, so
we all stood still and looked toward the end of the tunnel. It wasn’t long
before our eyes adjusted to the darkness and we could see light moving around
at the end of the tunnel. This was a spot we would definitely come back to.
Mel took us
back to the gift shop and we gathered our equipment up and set it up in the
second-floor room with electricity. Mel locked us in and set the alarm. This
was for our safety to be sure someone else didn’t sneak into the building.
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Several team members at base preparing for the investigation. Image credit: G Gamble |
There were
outside sounds that we had to take into account during our investigation. Since
Waverly Hills has three floors where the windows are nonexistent these floors
are open to noise, birds, bats, and bugs. Apparently, cargo planes take a route
out of Louisville that goes directly over Waverly Hills Sanatorium because we
heard lots of planes go over. We could also hear some traffic outside not to
mention the trains that were going through the area. Reviewing my audio from
this investigation has been a challenge to say the least.
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Most of the activity on the fifth floor came from responses to questions by lighting up our K2s (EMF readers). Image credit: G Gamble |
It was
around 9:30 p.m. and we only had until 4 a.m. so instead of setting up cameras
and kinects we chose to use our handheld cameras and devices. We started off on
the fifth floor where the nurse was found hanging from a light fixture in the
1930’s. Our guide told us that they had gotten a lot of interaction using the
spirit box but when we tried it we didn’t get anything except a man saying “Hi”.
We got several hits on our K2s and kept
getting the name “Lisa” on the echovox. At one point a team member farted, we
all laughed, then the tempod went off. A moment later the echovox said “fart”. I
don’t know what the spirits thought of us but we were having a good time.
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Margie and Stacey on the fourth floor watching for Shadows. Image credit: G Gamble |
By midnight
we were on the fourth floor. We sat in total darkness to see if we could see
shadows in the ambient light coming through the windows. Several team members
saw some of these shadows moving down towards the end of the hallway. One of
the figures that was seen was white. Jerry, our team leader, placed a tempod in
the hallway and the spirits played with it turning the light and sound on and
off. They seemed to be playing a tune on it at times. During our session we
heard three gunshots outside. We watched a bat flying up and down the hallway
and a rogue lightening bug which at first, we thought was an anomaly but then
realized it was just a lightening bug.
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The session we had on the third floor was interesting. Here is a tempod that the spirits enjoyed playing with. The red light is from doing Facebook live. Image credit: G Gamble |
By 1:30 a.m.
we were on the third floor stationed outside the room where the homeless man and
his dog had lived. We were getting many K2 hits and responses to questions on
the tempod. I was getting K2 hits in an area about ten inches off the floor,
not above, or below, but in that ten-inch space. We wondered if it was the
spirit of the homeless man’s dog. Our echovox gave us several words repeatedly:
death, black, and kill. When we asked if Lucy was there the echovox answered
“Yeah”. After asking the question “How
did you die?” We received the words bled and kill. It was getting late and we
were all tired. Several team members, me included, got the giggles over Lord
knows what and we had a hard time stopping the laughter.
We moved
down the hallway toward a noise we heard and found some toy balls. We tried to
kick the balls around to get a response but it didn’t work. The echovox told us
to “Leave” and “Get Out”. Apparently, they didn’t appreciate our kicking skills.
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This is where bodies were kept before they went down into the body chute. Each member of our team (excluding me) climbed into the bottom shelf to see what would happen. Image credit: G Gamble |
It was
nearly 3 a.m. when we got down to the morgue. Everyone but me took a turn
laying on the bottom shelf of the cabinet that held the dead bodies. I wasn’t
going to get into a tight place where I couldn’t get out. Once in the
container, Stacey told the spirits they could whisper in her ear and then she suddenly
exclaimed “Shit!” and crawled out of there. “Something touched me!” Stacey
said. I think it freaked her out.
We headed
down toward the body chute as we wanted to check it out before we had to leave
at 4 a.m. My camera and recorder
batteries had died by then so all I had left was my cell phone. Luckily other
team members still had their equipment running.
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This photo of the body chute was taken with my cell phone because my camera died. This was probably the most interesting experience we had that night. Image credit: G Gamble |
We all went
down to the area in the body chute where the 45-degree angle begins to go down
toward the outside door. We sat on the stairs and concrete slab in total
darkness and silence. It wasn’t long before we could see the shadows moving at
the bottom of the tunnel. The light would appear at the upper right-hand corner
of the tunnel, then the lower left-hand corner. It moved back and forth as if
someone was stuck moving items from one place to another. The light would be
visible on the left then the right, it went up and down. It was completely
mesmerizing. We all sat in wonder watching these shadows. It was if they were
stuck in another dimension doing the same tasks in death as they did in life
and we could see it all. It was
something I will never forget.
We soon
realized our time was up so we went back to base and gathered up our equipment
and headed toward the gift shop where Mel was waiting for us. She had to turn
off the alarms and unlock the door so we could transfer our equipment from the
building to our cars. We thanked her for
the opportunity to investigate Waverly Hills Sanatorium and headed off for our
motel.
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The morning after in front of our motel. We were tired but very happy for getting the priviledge of investigating Waverly Hills. From left to right Erica, Jimmie, Stacey, me, in front Cari, Margie, and Adria. Jerry was cut out of the photo. Image credit: J Nichols |
The next day
we had a quick breakfast at the motel and headed back west to Kansas City. Our
Waverly Hills adventure had come to a close but not without giving us
incredible experiences and memories. It is a treat for a paranormal team to be
able to investigate a place as huge as Waverly Hills. We thoroughly enjoyed it
and once we review all our data we will be able to post what we caught on our
Facebook page. If you ever get a chance to even tour Waverly Hills Sanitarium,
do it! It’s an awesome place with an incredible history.
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