As promised, we TRIED to get an episode on Creepy Butts, but the research proved TOO extensive! Instead, we ditched the theme, and dove into Spooky places that spoke to our souls, ESPECIALLY our resident PodLab Ghostie, Nicholas.Alaina brings us Forest Haven Asylum where she discusses its dark history, as well tales of inhabitants that never left. Ash transports us to the eighth gate to hell- Spider Gate Cemetery!If you’ve got Spooky place you'd like to recommend with a personal account- send it on over to [email protected] with “Spooky places” somewhere in the subject line- and if you share pictures- please let us know if we can share them with fellow weirdos! :)Stay in the know - wondery.fm/morbid-wondery.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What are the creepy things discussed in this episode?
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Lamont Jones is shattered when his cousin dies just weeks after entering prison. The official report says natural causes, but bruises and missing teeth tell a different story. Wondery presents Death County PA, a chilling true story of corruption and cover-ups. Follow Death County PA on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid.
This is morbid, and it is humid and swampy outside like it's fucking Florida or some shit. We haven't even been outside today, though. Yeah, but I was told by reputable sources. Yeah, but I know. Meaning my husband texted me and said, it's like Florida outside.
It's humid. No, he's a very reputable source. Well, the problem, it wasn't even fucking humid in Florida when we were there. So now we're back home and we have to deal with humidity. And guess what? Not good for my hair. Yeah, I don't like it. Not good for my hair that I blow dried this goddamn morning. One thing I am excited though. Thanks for caring.
I don't. Moving on. Wow. You guys know I don't love summer, but I've decided to get into it this year. Because? Because it's summerween and slasher summer. I'm trying to get in that vibe. It's going to be fun. And I'm excited for that. So I'm trying to like get in a different state of mind for summer because this is usually the time of the year when I say, fuck it.
I need fall more than I need oxygen. Wow. And it hurts. I want it so bad. No. Like I'm there now. Like, it's hurting me. I'm in pain right now. Literally May 2nd. Yeah, that's my favorite response is whenever I say that, somebody just goes, checks calendar. It's this date. And I say, no, I know that. That's what hurts is that it's not October.
She's going to square up right now.
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Chapter 2: What is the history of Forest Haven Asylum?
She said, as you wish.
Yeah, as you wish, Nicholas. So I'm going to... And then... As I got into the background of this place, and it's just a horrifying history, I found that Sam and Colby had gone to this place. Our bros. And explored it. So I watched that video because I wanted to see what that was about. And they experienced something crazy there. So I urge you to go look up there. their video about it.
But yeah, it's a very scary place. It was a very scary history. And again, this is going to be a little upsetting at times. This is not, it's like an institution. So that's not great. Mine will palate cleanse a bit. Yeah. So this is Forest Haven Asylum. It was opened in 1925. It was opened under a much more offensive but very of-the-time name.
So part of that was the district training school for... Something that I will not say now. It was named Forest Haven Asylum in 1963. That's better. That's when they changed it up.
I mean, still pretty shitty, but.
Yeah, and somehow it got shittier after that. So I don't know how that happened. Oh, it did? It was intended initially to treat children and young adults. Oh, damn. It was a really bad hotel. They were treating children and young adults in Laurel, Maryland, and it was serving the people of the District Columbia as well. It had a big range.
It was going to be taking in people who were deemed mentally ill at the time, like severely mentally ill, but later it went way far out of those – Parameters. Far enough to bring in kids and young adults that were just deemed not quote unquote normal by society or were just people that nobody wanted to deal with anymore. That's horrible.
There was also times when people were taken from their families against their family's will and put into this place. How did that happen? It was really bad. I mean, there was a time, and we'll get to it, that an orphanage closed nearby and 20 orphans were just written down in documentation as being mentally ill to be put into this place because they didn't have anywhere else to put them. Wow.
Holy shit. So completely, you know, like just like average kids happen to be orphans, don't have any illnesses that we could see. Right. We're just put in this place to be forgotten about. Yeah. So this is huge. This place is gigantic. It has 30 structures. It covers 250 acres. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere in a forest.
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Chapter 3: What happened to the residents at Forest Haven?
Well, he said he was forever haunted by the place and the sights that were seen, even from the outside there. So he said the place was inhumane. It was a very negative experience. And he told the Washington Examiner his most vivid memory of the place was seeing— and this is very upsetting, just so everyone knows— was seeing nude residents paraded outdoors to be hosed down by staff members.
Oh, my God. Yeah. You have to be demonic to do that to somebody. You have to be demonic. So a Washington Post article, there was a quote in there that said, workers here, because of frustration and lack of help, tend to abuse residents. Of all of our residents, I'd add, some 400 don't belong here. It's difficult. It is difficult. It was difficult.
That's not frustration or lack of help, though. That's lack of humanity. Exactly.
You can't claim overstimulation and frustration. Like, control yourself. Right. In many incidents, the facility is contributing to the handicap. So they're saying, like, a lot of times these people aren't coming in here with any issues. But they are creating issues while they're here. Right. Medical experiments were happening. They were putting them naked in freezing cold baths. What the fuck?
Which often caused the deaths. Some death certificates would say... Be quiet. Some death certificates would say they died from burns, which is awful. Tons of patients were crowded into padded rooms together and left for days with no food, nowhere to sit, nothing to do. They also utilized adult cribs where they would strap them in there and they wouldn't be able to leave. That's really sad.
There was also a morgue in the basement, obviously, because these places have to have one. That makes sense. But this one was like one that they could like expedite. If someone died, they would just rush them on down there and scoot them out to get buried with no one looking. And they were buried in unmarked graves in a big field right on the property. Mass graves. Like, tons.
That is so fucked up. Nothing. And it's very creepy now because if you look at, like, aerial shots of this place, or if you go there, which, by the way, you can't legally go there. You have to get permission to go there now. It's, like, a government area, and it's patrolled by security guards.
Okay.
Like...
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Chapter 4: What tragic stories emerged from Forest Haven?
It is. There's crazy... I mean, you go in here, supposedly, a lot of people hear screaming and groaning. Like people say legit people crying and begging for help out of rooms. And when they go... And this place is completely... Experiment. What the fuck? That's literally what was happening. Because of these, they would do medical experiments on these people. Yeah. And they're all.
And that's why they were screaming. You can hear that shit. People hear gurneys being pushed down the wall, like the squeaking of gurneys.
Something about, I literally just got goosebumps from that.
Ugh. Yep. I don't like it. People often hear the morgue door, because the morgue's in the basement, obviously. They hear the morgue door slam. Oh. And when they like no one else is in there. Just residual hauntings. And one of the things people really talk about is just the intense feeling of dread in that place. People say it's like sadness is something you can touch in there.
Like it is so depressing in this place. Like sadness has permeated every part of this place.
It's not the kind of place I would want to investigate.
It looks scary. Now I want to hear from people who have investigated this. I want to talk to them. I want to know what the feeling was here. Now a lot of people report feeling someone with very cold hands grab them or just touch them in the hallways, which also you always think of doctors having cold hands. That's like a thing. And it just makes me think of doctors and cold hands. I don't like it.
I don't like that. There's a clinical smell, like an antiseptic kind of smell that will sometimes happen. Like a hospital. Yeah, like a very hospital type smell or that like musty hospital smell, you know, like, yeah. EVPs from this place go crazy. I bet. I mean, it's like you look them up. Go ahead and look on YouTube and all that. There's tons of EVPs.
Um, charm city paranormal is one in particular. They did a really good, I've never, I haven't like watched any of their videos, so I know nothing about them. Uh, but I do know this one video I watched was very well put together and they did like a very deep dive on the history and stuff, which makes me think that they like really care about these places they go to. Yeah, of course.
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Chapter 5: How did Forest Haven's conditions deteriorate over time?
Right? That's, I mean, yeah. I mean, maybe like shit's tough. You're curious. Yeah. Well, first things first, the cemetery got its nickname, Spider Gates, if you can imagine, from its gates. From the gates. Yes. The design that repeats through each panel was actually designed to be sun rays done in kind of like an art deco style. But people think that they look like spiders more than anything else.
And I kind of agree if you look up a picture. Yeah, I think so too. Unfortunately, though, the original gates aren't actually even there anymore because they got stolen. Oh, shit. Which is fake as fuck. Who would steal those? No, I don't steal things.
I don't want those. I don't want those.
They're gorge.
They are. But don't steal. They're a cemetery gate. Exactly. Hollow ground. That's hollow ground.
That's fucked up. You don't steal from there.
Yeah, you can't do that.
Well, and the thing that sucks even more is that when they got replaced, people vandalized them and graffitied them so often that the Leicester Historical Society said, okay, fine, you don't get them anymore. And now they're safely storing the gates. They had them removed in, I think it was back in 2022. I was just going to say it was it must have been recent.
It was.
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Chapter 6: What are the hauntings associated with Forest Haven?
Well, you're not alone, girlfriend, because people do this so often that the area around his grave also has no grass.
Yeah, because it's just like trampled down.
Yeah, it's literally trampled down.
Damn.
There's also a river on the property that a lot of people think is the River Styx. Of course. Of course. Of course. That river comes from Greek mythology, if you didn't know. And actually, it's very interesting.
Oh, I love this, like, tale.
It's cool. Styx is not just a river, but a goddess. Yeah. Gets you a girl who could do...
both be a river and a goddess hello she was the daughter of ocean oceanus and was said to be given one-tenth of his water and that water became a portal to hell so that river being on this property pretty much lends itself to the fact that people think it's a portal or hell yeah to hell let's go i see what you did there hell yeah it's fucking metal
Hey, weirdos, if Ash and Elena's episode on Ken McElroy left you wondering how someone could become so cruel, manipulative and untouchable, you'll want to hear my psychological breakdown of this case on my podcast, Killer Psyche. I examined the twisted mindset behind McElroy's reign of terror, how he exploited fear, used charm as a weapon and turned an entire town into his victims.
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