Ghosts come from history but also can be part of it. Over the years many inmates told guards they were really scared at night. Making Mansfield Reformatory ghosts different.
Said they’d wake to invisible hands grabbing at the bed sheets. Pulling them tight and loose as if a ghost was “tucking them in”.
Different inmates all over the jail saying the same thing. Some peeked over the side to see once loose sheets tucked nicely under the mattress.
Imagine that, the most violent men turned into scared boys.
The following are more written accounts of Mansfield experiences. In each I’ll give the source, the witness’s reported name and what happened.
Mansfield Reformatory Ghosts Defy Tour Guides
Reported to Graveaddiction.com in 2006. Carrie says…
“I just got back from visiting Mansfield and we had an experience in the cell marked with an “X”
“Taken back to the cell block after a tour, 9 of us and a guide heard something in the hallway. The guide went silent. Sounded like running and she yelled out, “running is not allowed!” thinking it was a guest. Then she saw no one was missing. A distant cell door slammed.
“As we left I noticed our guide, looking scared and soaked with sweat.”
Pushed on the Stairs
Also reported to Graveaddiction.com. Gina says…
“Our group was walking down metal stairs from the tower. My friend and I in the back with some high school students in front. I’m clumsy and held tight to friend’s hand and the railing. Someone slapped my back!
“I fell forward into my friend and over to the side of the railing, my arm clutched as my muscles pulled to a painful angle. Then down to a knee, I quickly spun to face my attacker. No one was there.”
Communication from the Dead
Proof you don’t always need a device like the Ouija Board. Reported to Ohio State Reformatory’s Facebook Page. Randy says…
“On my last visit to the Mansfield, my camera and recorder picked up some tapping on the walls of a jail cell. My friend and I thought it was Morse Code. My buddy was military and familiar with the code. He listened closely.
“It wasn’t Morse. We thought it a code developed by prisoners to communicate without the guards knowing. The ‘tapping noise’ was caught on our recorder just in that cell. No other time during our visit.”
And then there’s the most dreaded area known as, “The Hole”.
Voices in “The Hole” to Terrify Volunteers
It embodied suffering for 100 years. 20 pitch black basement cells on the sunniest day. Inmates forced down on roach infested floors. Starved with small portions of bread and water served every 3 days.
No surprise visitors entering The Hole feel sick. Also chills and the uneasy sense someone is watching from an empty cell. A few have seen glowing eyes.
Again from the GraveAddiction.com, In 2007 Michelle reported…
“I worked in Mansfield last year and was assigned to the Hole. Me and another girl in the empty space on opposite ends. We heard shuffling around in the hallway.
“[Thinking it was visitors who] didn’t know we were there. I looked over to the other girl and smiled as if to say ‘let’s scare them’. She smiled back.
“We jumped out and screamed. The hallway was empty. The shuffling gone.”
One reply on “Mansfield Reformatory Ghosts | A Collection of Stories”
Me and my friend’s family went to the Reformatory for their annual haunted house. While we were there, I felt a hand on my back, it felt like I had been scratched, but nobody was behind me… Once we walked out, I asked my friend to lift up my shirt and check my back… There were three 8-inch scratches down my back.
Also, the ballroom- we walked into the ballroom to wait for the rest of our group. I felt like I had seen that room, been in it… But this was my first time in the reformatory, and I had never seen pictures of the ballroom before. I had a reoccurring dream when I was 10-11 of that exact room. The one I had never been in.