Pennhurst

Now,

which out of those three places, Madison, Fairfield, and Pennhurst, was the scariest for you?

I mean, I've had some scary moments at Madison.

I'd probably have to say Pennhurst, though, because we had so much happen at Pennhurst, specifically me.

Right when we got done with the tour with Jackie, we went down into the tunnels, and we were just standing there.

It was me and one other person, and we kept hearing walking.

Oh, my gosh.

That's so weird.

It's back in Hollywood, the next one I just shot.

And I just spent the weekend with the crew at Pennhurst.

It was crazy because that's Pennhurst Asylum in Pennsylvania.

Richard Lael, you just did something there.

It is crazy.

horror movie.

So Pennhurst is right outside of Philadelphia.

And so many asylums in this country have a similar story.

There was a time... hundreds of years ago, where if someone had a mental disability or physical deformity or physical disability, they sometimes were kept chained in your basement, attic, or barn because it was such an embarrassment.

And then this guy, Kirkbride, comes along and he starts building these beautiful campuses.

It looks like college campuses.

And the idea is let's put people with mental and physical disabilities in here, have them earn their own keep, grow their own food, make their own clothes not be a burden on the community and they started to thrive they were treated like human beings and everything was really going well and then the early 1900s comes along and the great depression comes along people are getting themselves committed just because it's a roof over your head and meals it gets overcrowded and the good and noble work that these buildings were doing they just weren't able to do it anymore because it was stretched too thin Pennhurst comes along in the early 1900s.

I think it was the Hospital for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic or whatever, which is obviously a dated name.

And when historians try to uncover the full scope of the tragedy, they find that the records for the 92 years it operated are either conveniently sealed by the state or were intentionally destroyed before the hospital closed.

We see the exact same pattern of cover-ups and horrors at places like Byberry in Philadelphia, Ganvers in Massachusetts, and Pennhurst in Pennsylvania.

At Byberry, the conditions were largely hidden from the public until a conscientious objector named Charles Lord, who was assigned to work there during WWII, smuggled a camera into the wards in 1946.

Those photos changed everything.

Showed us some really awesome footage they just got from a ghost hunt.

One of them was in, I want to say Pennhurst.

It was either Pennhurst or Waverly Hills.

It was one of those big...

Yeah, I can't remember which one, but it was really crazy.

So they have a little team meeting and go over the buildings, try to figure out where to start and what to investigate, because it's a huge thing to try and investigate an entire town thoroughly and help them get answers to what's going on.

I was wondering why there was two parts, and then I saw, oh, they're doing the whole damn town, so...

Even investigating a large building or somewhere like Pennhurst where there's multiple buildings at one location can be pretty daunting for even five to six people.

We've gone to, uh-

You've been to Pennhurst

...

Niagara Falls.

We've gone- We, we, Pennhurst? Yeah.

Pennhurst Asylum.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Yeah, I've traveled for some of these.

There are lots of examples of communities coming together, talking to their neighbors, getting to know each other, breaking bread together, and fighting against a proposed data center.

So in Pennhurst, Pennsylvania, which is in the Philly suburbs, they fought a 1.9 million square foot data center at what used to be the Pennhurst State School and Hospital.

And residents ultimately got the township to reject the proposal in May of 2026.

And that fight is interesting because it's fundamentally about what happens to a major piece of land and what kind of economic development belongs there.

You have Eastern State Penitentiary, which is one of the most haunted places in America with the old jail.

There is also Pennhurst, which I'm related to the owners of Pennhurst.

My sister's boyfriend's family owns the property.

There is also Gettysburg Prison.

My long-time lead investigator, Rick Warner, who was with me since 2021, he decided to go off and want to start his own paranormal investigation organization.

So we're rebuilding the Fan Detectives team.

I've elevated Melissa Ferrazano from assistant lead investigator to lead investigator, and I also brought back my former original team member Sasha who's going to be rejoining me and I also brought two new other people from the team so we're kind of in the process of rebuilding and retraining and in the future I'm hoping to be able to write a book definitely on the horizon in the next couple years about our experiences and our investigations so once I get the new team back up and running and you know we're going to be back up and going to all the Paracons like Pennhurst Paracon and also Gettysburg Battlefield Bash and ParaUnity We're going to be probably getting a book by 28 is what I'm looking at roughly.

So that way I'd like to get the new team back up and running and get everyone trained up and then get some investigations and experiences under a belt.