By Tina R. McSwain
While many were in Atlanta, GA for Dragon*Con, I and a few of my team members were in West Virginia.
We left Charlotte around 11am, and stopped in Hillsville, VA about 2 hours
later. Hillsville has a huge Flea Market that lines both sides of the main road
for miles, and basically shuts down the town for the 3-day weekend of shopping.
After a sampling of “fair food” for lunch and a little bit of browsing, we got
back in the car and headed to Moundsville. We got to the West Virginia
Penitentiary around 10:30pm. We could not enter until 11pm.
We went into the “hot spots” of the facility…the “Sugar Shack”, the Hole, the
Cafeteria and Kitchen, the Wheel Gate, Maximum Security, the Infirmary, and the
Psychiatric Ward. Except for the BATS in the hole, it seemed rather quiet.
Nothing has changed, CAPS still has to meet the challenge in dealing with
nature. Unfortunately, we are becoming experts in dodging bats…………lol Photo,
audio, and video results are currently under review.
We left WV Pen a little after 5am. We then headed to Pt Pleasant, WV, which is
the site of the Mothman sighting. It was about a 2 hour drive. We had
reservations at the reportedly haunted, Historic Lowe Inn. We couldn’t get in
until 11am, so we had quite a bit of time to kill. Some of us walked around the
small town, photographed the statue of the Mothman, visited the site of the
memorial where the bridge once stood, and checked out a few of the local shops.
We had arrived just two weeks shy of the big Mothman Festival they have once a
year in September, usually during the middle of the month..
We finally got our room, and were all in the seating area of the Room 316. We
had left the door open, and I saw what appeared to be a girl go past the door.
We had requested two of the “haunted” rooms…312, 314, and 316. We had 316, and
312. That end of the hotel did not disappoint.
We investigated the lobby area first. Then, moved up to the 2nd floor. There
is a parlor with a seating area and a piano. This place was probably one of the
more active areas. We all got a sense of hair standing on end here. The hotel
owner reported the same sensation. We continued our hunt on the second floor,
then moved up to the third. Again, I thought I saw a girl move from left to
right across the hallway. We also checked out the ball room on the 4th floor.
It is now used for storage. There was a creepy Halloween prop there, and if you
didn’t know what it was, it would have surely caused one to jump…..lol We
finished our investigation around 1:30am.
We did meet a few of the other hotel guests. One couple knew of the hauntings
reported there and were glad a paranormal team had the “haunted rooms”. They
had actually asked for those rooms themselves. There was another couple in Room
314, the lady stopped us to tell us that she had been awakened by her bed being
shaken. It unnerved her to the point that she had gotten up to have a
cigarette.
We left the next morning. It rained all the way home and we got stuck in Fancy
Gap, VA in the fog. We arrived in Charlotte just in time for the tornado
warning……
