“TOWN OF THE LIVING DEAD – THE HAWKS NEST TUNNEL TRAGEDY” and More True Terrors! #WeirdDarkness

Listen to ““TOWN OF THE LIVING DEAD – THE HAWKS NEST TUNNEL TRAGEDY” and More True Terrors! #WeirdDarkness” on Spreaker.

IN THIS EPISODE: It was a tale that most considered simply gossip, or the town’s urban legend. The rich and powerful made sure it stayed a secret; but all secrets eventually come to light – especially those covered in racism, tragedy, and hundreds of deaths. It’s the truth behind the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel tragedy. (Town Of The Living Dead) *** A teenager shares his story of being abducted by aliens. You may dismiss it as a nightmare or sleep paralysis, but then how do you explain the injection marks on his body? (Tall Black Shiny Aliens) *** A Weirdo family member tells us why we should be cautious when we hear dogs howling. (When The Dogs Howl) *** Most stories about the men in black are of an aggressive nature, with victims being questioned by them, even threatened into remaining silent. But one man had a strange encounter where the MIB saved his life. (Helped By Four Men In Black) *** It’s always a bit scary sleeping in a new house that very first night. But sometimes, as one Weird Darkness fan discovered, there is reason to be frightened. (Whispers In The Night) *** They found the first body stuffed inside the church library’s closet. Then a second body turned up. I’ll share the creepy case of Theo Durrant – San Francisco’s “Jack the Ripper”. (Demon of the Belfry) *** Outside of Washington, D.C. lies an abandoned institution with a thoroughly disturbing past. (The Madness of Forest Haven Asylum)

SOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM THE EPISODE…
“Town of the Living Dead” by Troy Taylor: http://bit.ly/2W12NvE
“Demon of the Belfry” by Orrin Grey: http://bit.ly/2JJbsiO
“Tall, Black, Shiny Aliens” by RR: http://bit.ly/2VURTHJ
“The Madness of Forest Haven Asylum” by Gary Sweeney: http://bit.ly/32xCSOm
“When The Dogs Howl” by KJ – submitted directly to http://www.WeirdDarkness.com
“Whispers In The Night” by Zenovia Caldwell: http://bit.ly/2VUUQrN
“Helped By Four Men In Black”: http://bit.ly/2VURTHJ
Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library.

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“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” — John 12:46

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Originally aired: July 18, 2018

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:
DISCLAIMER: Ads heard during the podcast that are not in my voice are placed by third party agencies outside of my control and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself. *** Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised.

INTRODUCTION=====
The small community of Gauley Bridge, West Virginia looks like a picture postcard of small-town America. An old rusty railroad bridge stretches out over the water where the New River merges with the Gauley. Houses dot the steep hills and line the banks of the river. A few stores can be found along the town’s main street. A renovated old train station serves as the town hall. The speed limit is just 25 miles an hour through town. Children ride bicycles and play in the yards. People smile and say hello to one another as they pass on the sidewalks. A farmer’s market in the middle of town sells fresh vegetables in the summer and pumpkins and bales of straw in the fall. But on May 20, 1931, a local newspaper attempted to tell the secret that lies under the sunny surface of this little town – but publication of the story was stopped by a local judge. It’s a dark secret that has become a terrible memory of death, an almost forgotten horror of one of the worst industrial disasters in American history.
I’m Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness.

SHOW OPEN=====
Welcome, Weirdos – (I’m Darren Marlar and) this is Weird Darkness. Here you’ll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained.

Coming up in this episode…

A teenager shares his story of being abducted by aliens. You may dismiss it as a nightmare or sleep paralysis, but then how do you explain the injection marks on his body? (Tall Black Shiny Aliens)

A Weirdo family member tells us why we should be cautious when we hear dogs howling. (When The Dogs Howl)

Most stories about the men in black are of an aggressive nature, with victims being questioned by them, even threatened into remaining silent. But one man had a strange encounter where the MIB saved his life. (Helped By Four Men In Black)

It’s always a bit scary sleeping in a new house that very first night. But sometimes, as one Weird Darkness family member discovered, there is reason to be frightened. (Whispers In The Night)

They found the first body stuffed inside the church library’s closet. Then a second body turned up. I’ll share the creepy case of Theo Durrant – San Francisco’s “Jack the Ripper”. (Demon of the Belfry)

Outside of Washington, D.C. lies an abandoned institution with a thoroughly disturbing past. (The Misery of Forest Haven Asylum)

It was a tale that most considered simply gossip, or the town’s urban legend. The rich and powerful made sure it stayed a secret; but all secrets eventually come to light – especially those covered in racism, tragedy, and hundreds of deaths. It’s the truth behind the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel tragedy. (Town Of The Living Dead)

If you’re new here, welcome to the show! While you’re listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, to visit sponsors you hear about during the show, sign up for my newsletter, enter contests, connect with me on social media, listen to my other podcasts like “Retro Radio: Old Time Radio In The Dark”, “Church of the Undead” and a classic 1950’s sci-fi style podcast called “Auditory Anthology,” listen to FREE audiobooks I’ve narrated, plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you’re struggling with depression, dark thoughts, or addiction. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.

Now.. bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness!

STORY: “TOWN OF THE LIVING DEAD” (THE HAWK’S NEST TUNNEL TRAGEDY)=====
The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy. The disaster occurred during the years of the Great Depression, when times were hard and a man would do just about anything to feed his family. Taking advantage of this fact, powerful and wealthy men started a dangerous project that would claim the lives of an unknown number of men and cause the community of Gauley Bridge to become known as the “Town of the Living Dead.”
The Hawk’s Nest Disaster resulted from the construction of a tunnel through the mountain near Gauley Bridge. The three-mile-long passage was designed to divert water to an electrical power station by Union Carbide, the sponsor of the plan. However, the subcontractors on the job failed to follow standard safety precautions during the drilling operations, which ended with at least 764 dead workers. None of the companies involved were charged with criminal negligence.
Union Carbide (the company that would later be involved in the chemical explosion in Bhopal, India, in 1984) was formed in West Virginia by the merger of several companies in 1917. By the late 1920s, the company created the New Kanawha Power Co. in order to produce power that would be used in the production of ferro-metals, like aluminum, at a site below Gauley Bridge. The proposal required the damming of the New River just below Hawk’s Nest, a spectacular overlook on the river, and the construction of a three-mile tunnel through Gauley Mountain. This tunnel would carry the rushing water to electric generators downstream.
New Kanawha Power contracted with Rinehart & Dennis Co. of Charlottesville, Virginia, to build the tunnel and the dam. Tunneling began on March 31, 1930 and progressed at breakneck speed until it was completed in December 1931. No one knows for sure why the tunnel had to be completed at such a fast pace, but it was believed that uncertainly about the Federal Power Commission’s control over the New River was one of the reasons. If the project could be hurried through, the government would have little say over what could, or couldn’t, be done during the project. Management drove the workers hard to make sure that the tunnel was completed on time.
Finding workers in Depression-era Appalachia, where numerous coal mines had closed, was an easy task. Word spread through the region, and through the rural south, that jobs were available at Gauley Bridge. Men walked, drove and hopped freight trains to be first in line for the promised work. Rinehart & Dennis hired mostly black workers from outside West Virginia for the project. Reportedly, 75 percent of the 1,494 men who worked inside the tunnel as drillers and mockers – who removed rock debris – and their assistants were African-American. There were another 1,488 workers, also mostly black, who held jobs that involved tasks inside and outside the tunnel. The reasoning behind this is grim in hindsight – in the early 1930s, black workers were seen as “expendable.”
Workers labored on the tunnel project for ten hours a day, always under the watchful eyes of bosses who used guns and clubs to force ill or unwilling men to start each day’s work. Black workers were paid in company scrip instead of cash, always at lower rates than white workers. When they were dropped from the payroll, they were evicted from company housing, which consisted of overcrowded, segregated boxcars, and run out of town by the Fayette County Sheriff.
Neither Rinehart & Dennis, nor the Union Carbide engineers overseeing the projects, followed even minimal safety precautions during the drilling operations. Workers tunneled from 250 to 300 feet per week through 99 percent silica. Experts knew that miners who inhaled silica dust stood a good chance of contracting silicosis, a deadly lung ailment. But the company ordered that the workers use a dry drilling technique that would create more dust because this method was faster and cheaper. The high-velocity drills that bored cavities in the rock for the insertion of dynamite charges did not spray water on the stone, which was a standard technique to reduce dust. Air ventilation was inadequate. No measurement was taken of dust levels in the tunnel. Ventilators and masks were not issued to tunnel workers, but they were supplied to company executives during inspection tours of the project.
Not surprisingly, few workers stayed on the job for long. Sixty percent of the African-American migrant workers worked less than two months on the project. However, this was long enough to pay a deadly price for signing on at Hawk’s Nest.
The men emerged from the hole in the mountain each day with their dark skin covered by clouds of white dust. They looked like phantoms as they came out of the cloud-filled tunnel, blinking and coughing from the dust that filled their eyes and lungs. They began dying two months after they first entered the tunnel. Their deaths were painful. As the silica they inhaled created fibrous nodules in their lungs, their lungs grew stiff and the men found it harder and harder to breath. Eventually, they strangled to death, writhing and choking until they drew their last punishing gasp. It was reported that a man named Cecil Jones struggled so hard for breath that he kicked the wooden slats out of the baseboard of his bed before he died. Silicosis could not be cured, but doctors knew what it was. Rather than diagnose it, a company physician told tunnel workers that they had a new disease called “tunnelitis” and gave them worthless pills.
On May 20, 1931, the local newspaper, the Fayette Tribune, tried to break the story of the sick and dying tunnel workers and their unsafe working conditions, but a gag order issued by a local judge stopped publication. But even without the story, local residents knew something was wrong. Gauley Bridge was being dubbed with a nickname – “town of the living dead.” A Congressional report from February 4, 1936, described the scene: “The men got down so they had no flesh left on them at all. As they express it down there, the men got so they were all hide, bone and leaders, which means he is just skin and tendons and looks like a living skeleton.”
A problem arose as the black workers died. There was no “colored” burial ground in the area. Handley White, local funeral parlor owner in Summersville, located a field on his mother’s farm and was given a contract to open a burial ground on the Martha White farm in Summersville. Handley was paid $50 per body with the promise of “plenty of business.” Lieber Cutlp, a local resident and friend of White’s son, later recalled the days of the burials. White contacted him and asked if he wanted to make some extra money with his flatbed truck. Cutlp, anxious to make any extra money he could, quickly agreed. The dead workers were stacked in rows and strapped on the back of the flatbed truck, he remembered. More of the dead workers were arranged in an upright sitting position as if they were alive for their ride to their final resting place. For years rumors spread about workers buried in mass graves on the Martha White farm, but White family members deny this accusation.
Between July and December 1932, local attorneys filed dozens of lawsuits on behalf of workers who had suffered acute silicosis. The disease had wreaked havoc on the workers, ravaging their lungs and making them susceptible to secondary infections, such as tuberculosis. Silicosis had been recognized as an industrial disease in America since the early 1900s. The United States Bureau of Mines had published warnings in the 1920s about the dangers from it while using high-speed drills. Acute silicosis, from which death could occur within months of exposure, however, was not a recognized disease in 1930. West Virginia did not classify silicosis as an industrial disease at all and the state rejected worker’s compensation claims from men who claimed that they had contracted it at Hawk’s Nest.
When faced with more than 250 suits that sought more than $4 million in damages by the middle of 1933, Rinehart & Dennis settled out of court, agreeing to pay $130,000, half of which went to attorneys’ fees. In accepting these settlements, the plaintiff’s attorneys agreed not to file any further suits and to surrender all case records to the defendants. The contractor brokered two additional settlements based on subsequent suits and paid out $200,000 in awards and attorney fees. The average plaintiff received $400, while the defendant took possession of the damning evidence, including x-rays and medical records. Reports circulated that Rinehart & Dennis and Union Carbide bribed witnesses and tampered with juries during the trials prior to the settlements. Few records of the sick workers remains today, most were apparently purposely destroyed.
How many workers actually died in the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel? The real number will never be known. This is partly because Union Carbide wiped out the historical record and partly because most of the tunnel workers were dismissed at the end of 1931 and scattered throughout the South. Many of the men did not become sick until later, so their deaths never became a part of the official numbers.
It was also discovered at trial that the field at the Martha White farm was not the only burial ground for black workers. Apparently, Rinehart & Dennis had hired another local undertaker to dispose of the bodies of unclaimed workers and he had buried them in a field near Gauley Bridge. The location of this burial ground remained a mystery until 1972, when the West Virginia highway department stumbled onto 45 of these graves. Martin Cherniack, a medical doctor with a master’s degree in public health, attempted to reconstruct the epidemiology of the Hawk’s Nest tragedy. After painstaking historical research, his “conservative estimate” was that 746 men who worked in the tunnel had died from acute silicosis, which translated into a mortality rate of 63 percent. African-American workers made up 76 percent of the deaths.
The tragedy forced recognition of acute silicosis as an industrial hazard and a brief and ineffective congressional hearing in 1936, helped focus national attention on the condition. By 1937, all states had adopted laws recognizing the disease in some form – although West Virginia’s statute was worthless since it was written solely in the interest of corporations.
The Hawk’s Nest tragedy remains a haunting incident in American history today. Dismissed as a product of “mountain gossip” in the 1930s, it has come to be recognized as one of the nation’s worst industrial disasters and a chilling reminder of the fact that no man is ever expendable.

BREAK=====
Coming up… A Weirdo family member tells us why we should be cautious when we hear dogs howling.
And… they found the first body stuffed inside the church library’s closet. Then a second body turned up. I’ll share the creepy case of Theo Durrant – San Francisco’s “Jack the Ripper”.
Plus… a teenager shares his story of being abducted by aliens. You may dismiss it as a nightmare or sleep paralysis, but then how do you explain the injection marks on his body?
Also coming up… it’s always a bit scary sleeping in a new house that very first night. But sometimes, as one Weird Darkness family member discovered, there is reason to be frightened.
But first… Most stories about the men in black are of an aggressive nature, with victims being questioned by them, even threatened into remaining silent. But one man had a strange encounter where the MIB saved his life. That story is up next when Weird Darkness returns.

STORY: HELPED BY FOUR MEN IN BLACK=====
In 1980, on a late spring day, I was driving up to Oregon when I somehow got off on a logging road which was winding along a steep mountain. After a while, I noticed that the road was narrowing, and I was afraid to follow it any further. I decided to try and turn my car around, and drive back to Cave Junction, Oregon which was about 30 minutes away. As I was backing up the car, it went off of the road, and the rear end of the car was off the road and the car was tottering. I slowly got out, and was trying to figure out how to get my dogs out, which were in their kennel in the back of the car. If I tried to reach them, the car could tumble down the cliff. While I was trying to decide what to do, a big car pulled up, and 4 tall oriental men, with a strange orange skin tone, got out of the car. In spite of the 100+ degree heat of the day, they were all wearing black trench coats. I said ‘Hello’, and they did not reply. Without a word, they went to the front of my car, and picked it up, and sat it back in the road, facing the direction back to home. I do not think that even twice that number of humans could have lifted my car from the front end only and place it on the road. I do not remember how I got past their car, or they passed mine, as they were headed up the fire break road as I was originally as well. The after-thought of the encounter left me really scared, and as soon as I was back in town, I rented a hotel room and slept for a couple of days. Those weird men on the mountain saved our lives, but they still scared me.

STORY: WHEN THE DOGS HOWL=====
Do you believe that when the dogs howl, it is the sign of bad luck? I believe in it. When I was young, my mother had warned me about it, I just try to ignore it, that it was just coincidental. Like the time a tsunami hit our small island in 2009, after the dogs howled for a long time. You gotta experienced it to believe it.
One time in the summer of 2010, I was leaving my house to go over to my ex-boyfriend’s (whom i was dating during that time) place so that we could go to the movies together. He lives on the side of the island, so I had to walk to the bus stop. During my walk, I could hear the dogs howling in the distance, and I thought maybe it was because they heard the sirens of the ambulance. They had been howling quite awhile, and I knew maybe I should just go back home. But I’m going on a date, and it has been such a long time since I went on one. So I ignored it and hopped on the available bus that came.
I regretted going that day. Two dogs that were owned by my ex-boyfriend’s aunt attacked me, one at the front, and the other at my back. One almost tore my upper lip and tear-duct off, while the other sunk his teeth on my side.
The wound on my face healed, so you could barely see the scar under my eye. However, there’s a lump of scar tissue on my side that has shrunk a little bit. I don’t notice it much. But I’m sorta afraid of dogs now. I still find them adorable, but whenever I see one, my heartbeat beats faster than usual. And whenever I hear dogs howling for no reason, I choose to stay home, to stay safe.

STORY: DEMON OF THE BELFRY=====
Although William Henry Theodore Durrant was called Theo by friends, the handsome and well-liked Sunday School superintendent soon earned a more sinister nickname: “The Demon of the Belfry”.
Theo Durrant worked for the Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Francisco. On April 13th, 1895, members of the church were preparing for that Sunday’s Easter service when someone opened a closet in the church library and discovered the mutilated body of a young woman. She had been strangled to death and stabbed, her wrists cut so deeply that her hands had practically been severed from her body. Cloth from her undergarments had been stuffed down her throat with a stick, and later examinations revealed that she had probably been raped.
Initially, investigators expected the body to belong to 20-year-old Blanche Lamont, who had gone missing 10 days before, and who had last been seen entering Emmanuel Baptist Church in the company of Theo Durrant. However, the body proved to be that of 21-year-old Minnie Williams, also a member of the church’s congregation and a former romantic partner of Durrant’s. The night before, she had been seen in a heated discussion with Durrant. A passerby would later attest that Durrant’s “manner was not becoming to a gentleman.”
After the discovery of Minnie Williams’ body, a thorough search of the church was conducted, and the body of Blanche Lamont was found in the belfry. While Williams’ body had been mutilated and mostly clothed, this one was completely naked and almost serene, posed with the hands folded across the chest. Like Minnie Williams, Blanche Lamont had been strangled and likely raped.
Theo Durrant had courted both of these girls in the past–for a period, even at the same time. He and Minnie had been seeing each other for some time when he made an overtly sexual advance that worried Minnie. He met Blanche in 1894 and broke it off with Minnie for the new girl. Theo proposed to Blanche only a few months later. She thought he was joking, and later found out he had been engaged to another woman the whole time, cementing her decision to say no.
Thanks to his history, Theo immediately became the prime suspect in both murders, and police picked him up in short order. Around the same time, Blanche Lamont’s aunt, with whom she lived, received a package in the mail containing Blanche’s rings. The package bore the name George King, the church’s choir director, but when police showed the rings around local pawn shops, one of the pawnbrokers recognized them, and said that a man matching Durrant’s description had been in trying to sell them a few days before.
Throughout his trial and up to his death by hanging, Theo Durrant maintained his innocence in connection to both murders. However, the many eyewitnesses who saw him with each girl shortly before their deaths and Durrant’s easy access to the areas where he left the bodies made it easy for a verdict to be reached.
Indeed, Durrant’s case did not look good. According to SFGate, the accused was compared to “Jack the Ripper, the Marquis de Sade and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” throughout the trial. The jury found him guilty within five minutes of deliberations—though, by some accounts, they worried that the speed of their decision might appear to be too rapid, so they finished their cigars before returning to the courtroom and delivering the verdict.
Throughout the trial, people flocked to the courtroom, many of whom came to catch a glimpse of the “handsome killer.” One woman was dubbed the “Sweet Pea Girl” by the press, as every day she brought Durrant a bouquet of those same flowers. He is said to have sometimes worn one in his lapel.
During the trial and in its aftermath, a number of salacious stories surfaced relating to Durrant’s dark side–though whether they are true or not remains unknown. Some claimed that he frequented the brothels on Commercial Street, where, according to one account, he once brought a pigeon or a chicken and slit its throat during sex, letting the blood run over his and the sex worker’s bodies. Such acts certainly sound like the work of a “Demon of the Belfry.” Whether they are true or simply lurid exaggerations in the face of real-life brutality may never be known.

STORY: TALL, BLACK SHINY ALIENS=====
It was the summer of 1995 when I was 19-years-old, living in Culpepper, Virginia. I really didn’t see an alien space craft but I was abducted. It all started when I was sleeping in my bedroom. I was sleeping on my bed when I rolled over onto my left side. I opened my eyes and saw this alien looking down on me. The alien was smoke (black) colored skin, had shiny, black reflective eyes. It was tall and slender. When I looked into the eyes of the alien, I immediately froze. I was defenseless and had no control over my body. I couldn’t even move or speak. I tried to open my mouth and scream but I couldn’t. The alien took over my neurological system, which made it difficult for me to move. The only thing that I could do was watch in horror.
The alien then lifted their hand and I suddenly saw a bright flash of light that last for about a second. I was then on what appeared to be the craft. The room (inside the craft) was really bright. I saw 3 other aliens. They had me on a hard bed which was made out of some type of smooth stone. I then watched them inject a needle that had 3 smaller needles around it, inside my right bicep. I didn’t feel any pain but I was able to feel the coldness of the needle. After the injection, an alien came over to me, lifted his hand up and a bright flash of light fulfilled my eyes. I was then back in my house, laying on my bed. I got out of bed and went into the kitchen and turned on the light. There, I observed my right arm (bicep muscle) and I saw markings (red dots) where they had injected me with their needles.

STORY: WHISPERS IN THE NIGHT=====
About 8 years ago, my young son and I moved into a new house in a great neighborhood. A two story bi-level with 3 bedrooms and 3 bath. Our first home. We couldn’t be happier. Despite my joy, I’m always nervous the first night sleeping in a new place. The master bedroom had its own full bathroom. I’d left that door open before going to bed. I normally sleep on my back but there’s no window in the bathroom so it looks like a gaping hole of blackness which was mildly creeping me out. I watch a lot of horror movies and have quite the imagination so I roll over so I can’t see it.
As I’m lying there settling in, eyes closed preparing for sleep I suddenly hear a woman whisper in my ear. My eyes fly open and I’m looking around the room terrified. My heart is pounding so loud I can hear it in my ears. I’m too afraid to move. I lie there clutching the covers up to my chin trying to figure out what I just heard. I want to check on my son in the next room but I literally can’t move. Is someone in the house? I’m petrified with fear. I know I wasn’t dreaming. And what exactly did she say? I’m unsure and now I’m too afraid to sleep.
After what seems likes hours I’m too exhausted to remain awake and on guard. I finally start to relax when all of a sudden she whispers in my ear a second time. The panic starts all over again. No sleep for me that night. I never saw anything and to this day I still don’t know what she said. For the remaining time we lived in the house I never heard anything else. I don’t know if it was related but after that night I closed the bathroom door before going to bed.

BREAK=====
Up next on Weird Darkness… outside of Washington, D.C. lies an abandoned institution with a thoroughly disturbing past.

STORY: FOREST HAVEN ASYLUM=====
When Forest Haven Asylum opened in 1925, it was exactly that–a haven and refuge for those in need, surrounded by a lush forest. The asylum was open for mentally impaired individuals of any age, as part of an effort to ease the burden of supporting a disabled person. It was believed that if families surrendered their in-need relatives, they would flourish in an environment that was made to complement their specific, and often intensive, personal needs. The asylum was built in Laurel, Maryland, approximately 20 miles outside of Washington D.C., meant to minimize inmate exposure to the rush of city life.
Construction on an administration building began in 1938. Two years later, then-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt attended the dedication ceremony on March 8, 1940. The 30,000 square foot building boasted 38 hospital beds, 2 fracture beds, 18 cribs, an operating room, lab space, an x-ray room, a dentist’s office, and a psychiatrist’s laboratory.
The initial concept for Forest Haven included the cultivation of optimism. Mentally ill patients would not suffer the stigma of being viewed as irreparable, broken people but would instead reside peacefully among friends and dedicated caregivers. 22 buildings and 200 acres of woods guaranteed that Forest Haven would be more than an idea; it would be a vision of the future. Each building was known as a “cottage” and given a pleasant name, such as Magnolia, Pine, Oak, and Hawthorne. In addition, forward-thinking catapulted the asylum into a class of its own; patients would not simply stare into space between treatments, they would become part of a farming community. Eventually, Forest Haven’s residents milked cows and tended crops. They also received adequate exercise and time outside in nature.
And for a while, everything worked.
But soon, the facility would become more of a madhouse. By the 1950s, many of the asylum’s “state of the art” amenities were outdated. Financial problems prevented the kind of advancement needed to keep up with newer medical practices. Most of the extracurricular programs and recreational comforts were discontinued. A decade later, Forest Haven was no longer a utopian society, but a place of disposal for the troubled, the unwanted, and the misdiagnosed.
A surge in population forced staff to focus on maintaining order instead of rehabilitation. The problem continued to snowball to such an extent that many people who were not mentally challenged, but suffering other ailments (blindness, deafness, epilepsy, etc.) were thrown into the asylum and classified as slow or underdeveloped. And as Forest Haven became more and more understaffed, abuse began rippling through the system.
Benefits that had once been standard were significantly reduced; unqualified personnel filled the staffing void. This left many patients to wander the rooms and halls aimlessly and usually unattended. Some of the doctors were even declared incompetent by the state of Maryland.
By the 1970s, claims of abuse were rampant. It was determined that many of Forest Haven’s “patients” did not belong there or were not impaired enough to warrant institutionalization. Staff frustration mounted, causing some workers to lash out and beat the residents. Abuse claims eventually became deaths. An untold number of patients died at Forest Haven—figures are often spoken about in the hundreds. Often, the bodies of the deceased were whisked to a morgue in the basement before receiving a nameless burial on the grounds.
On February 23, 1976, a class action lawsuit was filed by the victims’ families. In the case, Evans, et al. vs. Washington, plaintiff Betty Evans swore before Judge Pratt that her daughter, Joy Evans, had been subjected to inhumane treatment. Some of that treatment had resulted in scratches, chipped teeth, cuts, bruises all over her body, and on one occasion, a raw, painful back, which stemmed from being restrained on urine-soaked bed sheets. Joy Evans died at Forest Haven in July 1976 at the age of 18.
Two years later, on June 14, 1978, the case between the plaintiffs and the city was settled. As part of the settlement, Forest Haven would be permanently closed, and its residents would be moved to community group homes. But in the meantime, they would receive proper “medical, dental, and health-related services.”
Soon, word came that many of Forest Haven’s deaths were likely being caused by aspiration pneumonia. The condition resulted from patients being fed while lying down, causing their epiglottis to malfunction and allowing food to drop into their lungs instead of their stomach, essentially choking them to death. Eight years after the settlement, Forest Haven was still open, although its population had been greatly decreased, to under 300 residents.
In July 1986, the District of Columbia Association of Retarded Citizens entered a proposal to train Forest Haven’s staff on proper feeding procedures. The proposal was rejected due to a lack of funds. A mixture of indifference and ignorance spread among the workers, and the problems continued in spite of the 1976 decree.
In the early morning hours of August 8, 1989, police were summoned to Forest Haven to investigate the presence of a dead body. When they arrived, they found 22-year old Arthur “Arkie” Harris lying on his right side in a fetal position. He was wearing only a hospital gown and white socks with red stripes. There was dried blood on his mouth. The investigation concluded that Harris had died from complications of aspiration pneumonia.
Between May 1989 and March 1991, the Justice Department had finally begun to track the deaths at Forest Haven, while the institution was in the process of closing. During that two-year period before the asylum finally shut down, at least 10 residents, including Harris, had died from aspiration pneumonia.
On October 14, 1991, Forest Haven’s doors were closed for good. The total death count will never be known, due in part to the quick practice of hauling bodies to the morgue and then burying them en masse outside. Before the asylum closed, the families of several former residents purchased a large granite headstone to memorialize those who died there. It sits in a field known as the Garden of Eternal Rest.
Today, only the remnants of Forest Haven are left. It is patrolled by a team of security guards to keep photographers and curiosity seekers from entering. It stands as a haunting reminder of its troubled history.

SHOW CLOSE=====
Thanks for listening (and be sure to stick around for the bloopers at the end)! If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do! You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren@weirddarkness.com. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find information on any of the sponsors you heard about during the show, find all of my social media, listen to FREE audiobooks I’ve narrated, sign up for the email newsletter, find other podcasts that I host including “Retro Radio: Old Time Radio In The Dark”, “Church of the Undead” and a classic 1950’s sci-fi style podcast called “Auditory Anthology”. Also on the site you can visit the store for Weird Darkness tee-shirts, mugs, and other merchandise… plus, it’s where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression, addiction, or thoughts of harming yourself or others. And if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell of your own, you can click on TELL YOUR STORY. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.

All stories on Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find links to the stories or the authors in the show notes.

“Town of the Living Dead” by Troy Taylor

“Demon of the Belfry” by Orrin Grey from The Line Up

“Tall, Black, Shiny Aliens” by RR at PhantomsAndMonsters.com

“The Misery of Forest Haven Asylum” by Gary Sweeney from The Line Up

“When The Dogs Howl” by KJ – submitted directly to Weird Darkness

“Whispers In The Night” by Zenovia Caldwell – submitted directly to Weird Darkness

“Helped By Four Men In Black” posted at PhantomsAndMonsters.com

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright, Weird Darkness.

Now that we’re coming out of the dark, I’ll leave you with a little light… “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” — Colossians 3:1-2

And a final thought… “You can forgive people without welcoming them back into your life. Accept their apology; but deny their access to you.”

I’m Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.

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