Folsom Prison:
Prisoners Eternally
Singing the Blues
We read about Johnny Cash and his haunts. The singer knew something about tragedy and how just a few tragic moments can echo across eternity. He wrote about it. He sang about. And some say he lived it.
One of Cash’s most haunting songs is “Folsom Prison Blues,” about an inmate who was forced to live the rest of his life with regret over his decision to commit a heinous act. According to stories that have trickled out of the infamous prison, the regret that some unlucky inmates have felt over their dark deeds during this life doesn’t end in the prison morgue; their sentence of regret and anguish has turned from a life sentence into an afterlife sentence.
Guards and former inmates say that the facility is awash in phantom appearances and mysterious sounds; relics, they believe, of a long list of deaths that occurred there. Approximately ninety-three prisoners were executed at Folsom. That number doesn’t include the ones that died of natural—and not-so natural—causes, nor does it include the guards who were murdered or died there.
One of the places where you’ll hear stories of Folsom’s paranormal side is at the prison museum. James Brown, a manager at the museum at the time, told the Folsom Telegraph that while he never saw a ghost there when he was a corrections officer—he’s since retired—he believes in ghosts and has heard lots of stories about the ghosts that haunt Folsom.
“As a young man, I had a few experiences that convinced me (ghosts) exist,” he told the newspaper. “I believe in them … but I let them be and they leave me alone. Maybe that’s why I never had experiences while I worked at the prison.”
Brown said that because the prison is full of tragedy, it makes sense that the place is haunted, which is why he keeps looking for ghost stories.
“I’ve heard that places filled with tragedy and violence can be haunted,” Brown said. “This is a prison—you have tragedy and violence in prisons. So, I asked about stories and listened.”
One of the ghosts, according to Brown, is the spirit of a corrections officer who died when a prison riot broke out during a Thanksgiving meal. Prisoners didn’t kill the guard—he died of a heart attack while under severe duress manning the front gate. Another guard, however, was stabbed to death in the melee. There is a debate as to who the ghost guard really is, but he’s known simply as the Folsom phantom. (Some say that because the ghost is seen at the gate, it’s the guard who had the heart attack—not the one who was stabbed—that can’t seem to escape his prison watch.)
In either case, witnesses have seen him—usually on foggy nights—at the front gate of the prison, a shadowy figure that stands watch over the prison and walks slowly along the gate. Those who caught sight of the apparition say they immediately realize that he’s not a guard, at least any sort of human guard. They say the ghostly guard has a human shape, but is almost see-through. More like a mist, than a man, they say.
Another infamous supernatural encounter occurred late one night. The story goes like this: in what had been an otherwise uneventful evening, the guards had settled into their normal routine, except for prison guards, there’s no such thing as a normal routine. When things are exceptionally calm and quiet, that’s when the guards get wary. That night, they had a reason to be anxious. The story that’s been handed down over the years was that a couple of guards noticed a person walking down the corridor—and no one was supposed to be in that part of the prison. It must be an inmate, the guards immediately surmised.
They called out for the inmate to halt. But the figure disregarded the order and continued to walk down the corridor at a decent clip and vanished.
Fearing that a prisoner was escaping, the guards jumped into action. They gave chase to the figure walking down the hall and put the prison on high alert.
However, the man had just vanished. The guards sent to apprehend the escaping convict reported back that there was no trace of anyone down the long, dark, dank corridor.
And the tale gets weirder. Quickly, the guards ordered a headcount. After the headcount, the guards were mystified to discover that no one—not an inmate or a guard—was missing. Whoever was running down the corridor, it turns out, wasn’t on any list of inmates or employees.
There are more tales of Folsom weirdness. While the whole prison appears to be haunted, certain spots are more active than others, according to Brown. The hospital is one of those primo places to witness the paranormal, he adds. Obviously, quite a few prisoners died in the hospital from natural causes. But it had a worse reputation. Brown said many of the murders that occurred in Folsom happened in the hospital. This may be one reason the hospital has become the institution’s supernatural epicenter with dozens of apparitions and poltergeist-type activity being reported there.
Besides the hospital, ghosts also haunt the prison morgue. (Shocking, I know.) The row of jail cells that make up death row are allegedly haunted by the spirits of the prisoners that met their end by execution in the prison, too.
The prison, at least at this writing, is still in operation. It continues to be a place of punishment and—hopefully—reclamation for the lost souls who by either bad fate or bad decisions ended in the institution.
Oh, wait, did you think I was talking about the living inmates?