St. Augustine, FL | July 2023
I had a chance to visit the beautiful city of St. Augustine. While there, I had the chance to explore the beautiful historic downtown- a definite recommendation, and visited both the Medieval Torture Museum and the Pirate Museum. I also had the chance to visit the Old Jail.
The Jail has been on a variety of TV shows-Kindred Spirits, and Ghost Hunters.
I pulled up to the Old Jail-it looks imposing, towering over me. (picture)
Fran and Giselle greet me as I walk up, at midnight. After everyone arrives, the investigation being capped at 12 people, Fran starts talking about ghosts, and who we might meet in there. It takes 30 minutes, then we enter the jail.
In the jail, we go over the equipment we can use-they offer Thermal imagers, SLS cameras, K2s, REM Pods, Spirit Boxes, a Music Box, and a Portal. While Fran is talking about the equipment, in the kitchen, I’m in the doorway, feeling like someone is watching me. Keep turning around, and see no one–all the humans are in the kitchen. I stare across the hallway into the other room, and as I feel a chill run through my spine, I see what appears to be a claw curl around the door, right above the doorway. Fran and Giselle call my attention back to them, asking what I saw-I don’t tell them, just tell them that we’re being watched. The tour splits in 2-half going upstairs to the second floor, the other staying down on the first floor.
I go to the second floor with Giselle, and the rest of the tour. We go upstairs, the first room we go to is the room at the very back-as soon as we walk in, we get a hit on the SLS Camera-someone is under the table. (video). Another one appears at the back of the room. After a little while, we moved into the Kids’ room- there is a Portal in the Kids Room. After that, we checked out the Guard Tower, then the Cell section-where the prisoners were held. While there, we start up the REM Pod and start getting activity immediately. I keep feeling like we’re being watched, and keep turning around-I eventually asked who normally hangs out in the cell I’m being called to and am told Elementals-types I don’t deal with. After that, we split off again-stay on the 2nd floor, but now we can investigate on our own.
I stay in the Cells alone for a few minutes- I can tell someone wants to talk to me, but am unable to figure out who it is. I do have my recorder going the whole time. After that, I walk into the Guard Tower-no energies, doesn’t feel like anyone is there, so I join the others in the Kid Room- I walk in, immediately announce that I am getting the name Carol or something similar, and find out later that one of the others had a name starting with the letter C. We had not gone around and introduced ourselves to each other yet. Again, the REM pod goes nuts, going off when we ask questions. (video)
This all happens in the first hour of the tour. At the end of the tour, we switch places-we go down and join Fran on the first floor. The second hour is just as active as the first one.
On the first floor, I go into the ladies cell section with one of the other girls and again the REM pod goes crazy-unfortunately, this time it doesn’t seem like it’s in response to our questions, but it goes off every time a guy walks into that section. We send someone to get a spirit box, and we try to connect with the spirit that way. Nothing seems to come through and we move on- to where the Infirmary, the Solitary, and the Death Row Cells are. We bring the Portal into the cell and have a full conversation with the ghosts there. (video).
After the ghosts say “Good Night”, activity slows down. We check the time-2:45 am-the tour is over at 3:00 am. No more voices, come through the Portal, however the REM pod on the other side of the cell keeps going off..and Frans’ flashlight, still in his pockets, turns on. (video).
The tour ends on a high note.