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Episode 29: Yuma Territorial Prison
86 Plays1 year ago
Happy Monday Guys!
Today Lana tells Ellie the spooky history of Yuma Territorial Prison, in Yuma Arizona.
*Editing Note* The Prison held 3,069 Prisoners NOT 369... Lana can't read
SOURCES:
https://slhshistory.weebly.com/uploads/5/7/5/8/57584359/women_of_ytp.pdf
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Transcript
Introduction and Catch Up
00:00:04
Speaker
Hey guys, I'm Lana. And I'm Ellie. And welcome to Scared But Curious. Happy Monday! Happy Monday! How are you doing? Um, I'm doing pretty good. That's good. Nothing. Actually, I've...
Personal Challenges and Solutions
00:00:28
Speaker
Okay, so like, we've been batch filming. So we took a break so that I could, you know, go to the bathroom. But I was realizing it's been a month since my accident. Like, as of the 14th. Hey. Yeah.
00:00:46
Speaker
Yay! It has been, oh my god, it has been a month since I was dumped. Look at that. Yay! We made it. Look at that. It does get better. It does. You just get better at it. Yay! We both had our own heels to do. Mine was just emotional.
00:01:15
Speaker
And mine was just a cool and emotional because I don't want to drive anymore. So still looking for a car, but you know. She's literally covering up her toy with a blanket. She's like, I'm going to save you, Fuleto. You go stay with you.
00:01:39
Speaker
Look at her, the way she looked at Pooka, she's like, okay, wait, no, she can still
Transition to Spooky Theme
00:01:44
Speaker
see it. Okay, let's try over here instead, you know? She's like, actually, I'm just gonna lay down with it. Yeah. Yeah, I'll just stay with it. I'll keep it right here.
00:01:55
Speaker
I know she wants it. I know she wants it. Trust me. I want it so bad. So I know she wants it so bad. Yeah. Because every time she wants something, I want it. So that means that's how she feels about my stuffs. It's like, no.
00:02:11
Speaker
You're just a puppy, and she can't even drink water without you going, whoa, whoa. What are you doing? How dare you? How dare you? Let me check. Let me drink the water first, okay? Okay. Okay. Let me know your story. I'm here for it. I'm getting situated. Let's go. And I'll mute myself so I don't outburst shit as much. Okay.
00:02:37
Speaker
Well, luckily, this is a spooky one. So it's not a true crime. You won't have to worry about, you know, being like, what in the hell? Getting heated. Yeah, getting me out questioning humanity for a bit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you might question humanity a little bit because what we're talking about today is a prison. So well, shit.
00:03:02
Speaker
And the one we're going to talk about today is Yuma prison. Yuma? Yeah. Why does it sound like that's a vegetable or something? I feel like Yuma should be like the name of a fruit or a vegetable or something. Oh, you know, that might be or I'm thinking like Yukon. I don't know what I'm doing. Nevermind.
00:03:24
Speaker
So yeah today we're going to talk about Yuma prison and I'd heard about like a lot of haunted prisons before but I'd never actually heard of the Yuma prison. Which apparently like you said the the Duma was notoriously haunted. This one is also apparently notoriously haunted. Can I just acknowledge the fact that I did a Duma and you're doing Yuma?
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, so Arizona had a huge crime problem and
History of Yuma Prison
00:04:05
Speaker
this is even before they were a state This is just they're just a territory at this point and they're already having problems you know, so they asked the government and they're like hey, but will you uh
00:04:18
Speaker
will you help us build a prison? Because we have none. We have jails, but we don't have a huge prison. We need one bigger. We need a bigger jail. Because we have 65 saloons, but no, I'm just kidding. One sale. I still will never, I will never not be befuddled, completely bamboozled at the fact of 65 saloons and one jail. One jail.
00:04:48
Speaker
Not even a prison, a jail. Yeah, so it's like the size of like a studio apartment. Yeah, pretty much. With like, wow. So they asked the government for help to build this prison. And the government was like, nah, you're fine. No, I think you're okay.
00:05:09
Speaker
And yeah, so after a little bit of talking and coercing, I guess. You're like, can you please help us make a prison because we need something to house all the criminals in our area? And they're like, no, thank you. But thanks for the offer. It's like, no, that's OK. They're like, no, how about some more saloons, though? Yeah, I really like those saloons. Maybe a brothel. Let's try a brothel.
00:05:38
Speaker
so the the the territory kind of talked over you know talked it over with the government and they're like hey please and they're like fine fine fine fine we'll build you a prison we'll make it cheap here's 25 grand which is yes a lot of money but um it was really only enough money for the materials
00:06:02
Speaker
Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up. 25 grand in when? 18 what? In like 1870s. Okay, I'm gonna do some quick researches because 25 grand right now is like nothing. And I have a feeling it's gonna be a little bit more, but still nothing. Hold on. But still nothing, because if you think about it, it's an entire prison. It's not like a house, you know? So...
00:06:31
Speaker
Like I said, it was technically only enough for the materials. So the prison used the prisoners to build it. And they decided that, you know, the prisoners can even build their own cells, which I'm like, it's kind of like building your own grave a little bit.
00:06:51
Speaker
Okay, but like think about this for a second. Think about this. The one thing that's supposed to keep them in, you're gonna let them build? Like, it's gonna be good or anything? I was thinking the same thing. Like, would they sabotage the integrity? Like... I was thinking the same thing. I was like, wait a second. Like, they could say... Are we just... Are we just those type of people who were like, ooh, I'm gonna... I know exactly what I'm gonna do. I don't know which cell I'm gonna get, so every single cell is gonna have a weak spot right here. Uh-huh.
00:07:20
Speaker
Like, I don't- Uh-huh. Well, actually, so, um, later on, you'll actually learn that, like, this is a pretty formidable prison.
Infamous Inmates and their Stories
00:07:32
Speaker
Sorry. Um, you wanna know the equivalents of 25 grand in 1876? Huh. $720,000. Oh, $720,647. Wow.
00:07:47
Speaker
That's not, I don't know what the cost of a prison is, if I'm completely honest with you. I don't know, but it still seems. But I feel like that's like a lot. Huh, the more you know. I agree, yeah. So not to make it any more confusing, but it was sitting looking over, it was sitting on a bluff.
00:08:09
Speaker
So it was really high up there looking over the Colorado River. The Yuma Territorial Prison was actually a pretty imposing structure. It had a wall around the entire prison.
00:08:23
Speaker
and gates that looked like it was straight out of a medieval castle. It literally looked like a fort. Okay, I'm sorry that I said I didn't know what this was. I completely know exactly what this prison is now. I just looked it up because I was like, I should probably know what she's talking about. So I'm going to do a quick search. And now I'm looking at it. And oh my God, I know exactly what this is.
00:08:49
Speaker
Yes. Get ready, guys. Get fucking ready. Okay. Yeah. Whoa. Sorry, Squeaks. So Yuma Union Prison, or the Territorial Prison, opened on July 1st, 1876. And for the next 33 years there, there were 369 prisoners.
00:09:10
Speaker
Nice. I'm five. Uh, I made the face and you said nice. So I think both of us, like they couldn't see me. That's why I didn't say nice, but you said nice. And I was like, so like I said, 3,069 prisoners were there for crimes that ranged from mayhem
00:09:34
Speaker
forgery, fraud, selling liquor to Indians, that was a quote, seduction, and polygamy. Hold on. What do you mean seduction? Like sex work? I don't know. That's all it said.
00:09:58
Speaker
That was just one of the past times. Yeah, apparently. But yeah, and then another one which I think is hilarious is polygamy. And yes, it was by the Mormons and murder. And out of the 3,069 prisoners that called Yuma home, 29 of them were women. Some notable prisoners were Frank Buckskin Leslie
00:10:26
Speaker
And he was something. He got his nickname from the buckskin jacket. No shit. And according to Wikipedia, he became famous in Tombstone, Arizona for killing two men in self-defense. And after he killed the two men. But you said self-defense, right? Just making sure I heard that? Yes. Okay, carry on.
00:10:56
Speaker
And after he killed the two men, he married the widow of one of the victims. Oh, so I think I have some motive. And he married her after eight days after killing her husband.
00:11:16
Speaker
Um, was she willing? That's a key component. Is she willing? I don't know. Um, okay. Well, you know, she was, maybe she was for the first part of it, but they got divorced. Oh, man. Well, after the divorce,
00:11:34
Speaker
Leslie would later shoot and kill a woman that he lived with at his ranch while drunk. Wow drunk. Okay, so there was that the reason because he was drunk or what is Oh, no, it was it was because of jealousy. Oh, so he was jealous. So he shot her. That's a reasonable recipe. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yep.
00:11:59
Speaker
And so he would end up getting life in prison, but only served six years. Welcome. I get it. I was going to say like I get it. Life expectancy wasn't that long back then, but I feel like it was more than six fucking years. What is what? Yep. Another guy.
00:12:20
Speaker
was William, or Bill, Downing. He was a train robber in the Wild West era and killed a man named William Tanner. And William and William, William and Bill, they had some beef already over Downing, over Bill, being kind of a shady character.
00:12:47
Speaker
And I don't actually know if the murder is what got Bill Downing into Yuma or if it was another crime, but I just read that he was in Yuma for a period of time. And fun fact, Downing was so unpopular that even his fellow gang members didn't even like him. Bro.
00:13:12
Speaker
You know you're doing something wrong when the other bad people are like, ooh, I don't like him. He's bad. I don't like he's weird. And so the last one that I'll mention was a woman and her name was Pearl Heart, which I don't know why but that sounds like that sounds fake.
00:13:31
Speaker
That's what I was just saying. That sounds fake. Yeah. So she and her boyfriend robbed a stagecoach and her boyfriend got 30 years for it. But you know, the man that killed a woman out of jealousy only got six, but I digress. Why do they hate us so much? Mm hmm.
00:13:54
Speaker
But she used, Pearl used some sort of sob story about her sick mom and she was able to charm the jury into letting her off completely. Yeah, completely. The judge- She should do some acting classes, damn. I know. The judge was so furious that he arrested her again. Like literally the day he arrested her again for stealing the driver of the stage coach's gun.
00:14:23
Speaker
He was like, I need to get you on fucking something. Okay, but like, did she though? Did she? She did. She was part of this. Like, she wasn't just some innocent bystander. She legit helped. I understand. But it's like, like, when he's like, Oh, no, you grabbed the stagecoach's gun. But it's like, but did she do it then? Like, did she act? Are you just like randomly grabbing at something that she did at one point? No, she did.
00:14:50
Speaker
Oh, okay. And so because she grabbed the stage, she stole the stagecoaches, the driver's gun, she was given five years, but ended up only serving three. And the boyfriend who was given 30 years, yeah, he only served a year and three months because he successfully escaped.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't actually know. He helped build the prison. You know someone that built it. That's what it is.
00:15:24
Speaker
Well, I actually don't know if he was in Yuma. I don't know if they got transferred to different prisons. All I know is that he escaped from prison and that he lived as a runaway for the rest of his life. I mean, that life may have been only two years, but I don't know when he died. All I know is about Pearl because she's actually served in Yuma. Yeah, so I don't know if he served in Yuma or not, but
00:15:48
Speaker
Pearl would actually go on to be very popular in the prison. She would get like love notes all the time. She would get like fan mail. She would actually say that after her prison sentence, she wanted to be an actress, like you said, and that she was gonna go to... I'd take classes from her.
00:16:14
Speaker
And that, yep, exactly. And so she would say that like, oh, I'm gonna go to California and be an actress or whatever it was. But that didn't happen. She would actually end up married and settled down with a pretty respectable rancher. She lived a long life with this dude. And yep.
00:16:40
Speaker
And people actually credit her that like stagecoach robbery to the last stagecoat robbery stagecoach robbery in the US Wow So this man made an honest woman out of the last one with that. Yep
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I was like, really weird that they, yeah, they credit her to being the last stagecoach robber. Like, that's kind of cool. So anyway, back to the prison. So in 1882, they put in a big guard tower in the middle of the prison,
Prison Life and Escapes
00:17:12
Speaker
because maybe that guy did escape from Yuma, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, we can't have that anymore.
00:17:21
Speaker
Maybe you're right. And it was big enough that the guards could have a view of the entire prison. And Yuma Prison was after this was seen as like escape proof, pretty much. According to legend, no one ever escaped from the prison. So maybe that guy didn't? I don't know. I don't know. No one will ever know who escaped, how he escaped from whatever prison. I don't know.
00:17:49
Speaker
um they just didn't keep track like they do nowadays man yeah apparently they're like oh man oh ken yeah oh no he's gone okay sounds good i'll mark him off tardy they call out the names say say here when you're here okay when i say your name okay thomas yeah uh no he he went out for he went out for a couple drinks with his buddies okay tardy
00:18:19
Speaker
It's hard. We went for some cigarettes. It's been three years though. Oh, he just looked my dad. No, my dad told my mom he was leaving. Communication is key, really.
00:18:40
Speaker
It really is a game changer. Oh my god, I want to keep that in so bad so my mom hears that. Like I said, according to legend, no one ever escaped from this prison. But that doesn't mean a lot of people didn't try. And actually, one person tried to escape on the train taking him to prison.
00:19:05
Speaker
But he was actually killed and pronounced dead on arrival to the prison. He didn't even make it to the prison for him to die. Bro, what the fuck happened? That's all I could, I literally tried to research what the fuck happened. I don't know. He pissed someone off. I'm so sorry if you can hear the door squeaking. I'm so sorry if you can hear that door squeaking, but
00:19:35
Speaker
But yeah, I tried to look it up. And I have no idea what happened. I think he died technically from trying to escape. I think he got shot and killed. But that's what I think. I'm not actually sure.
00:19:48
Speaker
So at the time of the, when the prison first started, the prison was for the, like I said, for the time, was actually humanely run. Warden F.S. Ingalls and his wife actually did a lot of really good for the prisoners. They, when the prisoners weren't working, like I said, they did a lot of manual labor, but when they weren't working, the prisoners actually had a library that they could read at
00:20:17
Speaker
and would be encouraged to do creative things that were offered at the prison, like blacksmithing, carpentry, tailoring, I don't know, and shoemaking. Or they could take classes that were taught by the warden's wife, Medora Ingalls, which like, man, I really wish that they, like, I don't know, I just love that instead of like how prisons are now, where it's just kind of
00:20:48
Speaker
set them and forget them. They are more, it's more of like actually rehabilitating them and not just putting them as a house. They're seeing them as humans. Humans, exactly. Yeah, they're, they're human beings that have made mistakes. And there's possibilities that maybe offering these things can give them a purpose that's outside of the functionality that they know.
00:21:15
Speaker
Exactly and especially with like teaching them a skill teaching them a trade that they can then say hey I have this trade now I can actually make an honest living. So this next part I don't know if it was during the Ingalls time or the next warden named Thomas Gates
00:21:34
Speaker
But, and Thomas Gates' philosophy, the next warden, his philosophy was kind of firm but fair, kind of what you need, honestly, of like, we're gonna be strict, but we're gonna be fair about it. But for the not so good prisoners, whenever they were punished, they would be sent to what they called, what the prisoners called, the snake den. And no one really knows if it was called the snake den
00:22:03
Speaker
because the snakes found a way into the den, into this hole, or if the guards put the snakes there for punishment. Oh, were they poisonous or just annoying? I'm not quite sure, but from what I've heard, if the snakes found their way in, I'm guessing they were poisonous, but it wasn't also just snakes. It would be snakes, it would be scorpions, it would be
00:22:31
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm guessing they weren't all friendly snakes. I've heard things of like people dying in the quote snake den from the elements or from snakes, I'm guessing. Because if a scorpion gets in there, well, you're fucked. There's nowhere to go. So if the guards weren't putting snakes in the snake den,
00:22:57
Speaker
They were stripping you down to your underwear and putting you in the snake den. So you were in the hot-ass desert or the cold-ass desert at night in nothing but your underwear.
00:23:13
Speaker
in a 10 square foot room. So it's this tiny little 10 foot box, pretty much. And you're in your underwear in the elements because it's rock. Yeah, because this is like essentially carved out from the rock that's there, right? Yeah, that's okay. Exactly.
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah. And there was only a tiny little vent for daylight. That's the only source of light that you got. And so at nighttime, it's completely dark. Oh, they got a sunroof in those 10 by 10 stars. You can see the nice stars at night. So nice of them.
00:23:52
Speaker
They would be fed once a day with a meal consisting of old bread and water. So, you know, living the life. They can see and the old bread is just some penicillin because of the mold. It's fine. Exactly. Exactly. And but, you know, if the inmate was there for an attempted escape, they would get the added bonus of a ball and chain locked to each ankle. Both? Both ankles. You know, you can still move with one.
00:24:21
Speaker
It's drab. Oh, man, that either by the time that sorry, my dog is jumping onto the bed behind me. By the time if he actually makes it to any of his destinations, if that thing gets off of him, he's gonna be so fast. He's gonna ripped legs, dude. So that sounds like an awful punishment.
00:24:42
Speaker
This is okay, so this is why I kind of think that the Snake Den was under this guy's management because in 1886, under the new management of the Warden Thomas Gates, a riot occurred when seven inmates tried to escape. They seized guns and took the Warden hostage, like and tried to use him as like a body shield. Yeah.
00:25:08
Speaker
you can't see your face but considering like it started off so nice and now we're here. Okay. That's why we have nice things if the snake den was used as his thing is that and that's kind of like why they
00:25:24
Speaker
I would have rioted so hard if there was a snake then developed in my prison that I was stuck at.
Closure and Reuse of Yuma Prison
00:25:36
Speaker
The warden, Thomas Gates, was completely calm. So the warden, Thomas Gates, was completely calm and he actually told his officers to shoot and to not worry about hitting him. What in the past of suicide is going on right now?
00:25:54
Speaker
That's not healthy. He needs. Okay. All right. So, like I said, the guards began to shoot and one of the inmates holding Warden Gates stabbed him in the back. Bro.
00:26:10
Speaker
That's fucked up. I mean, he really must have pissed them off. I mean, I don't know who this guy is, but I'm just thinking like, that was personal. Yeah. And so by the end of the riot, four inmates were dead and one were wounded. And so with any prison, you would expect a lot of death.
00:26:33
Speaker
whether that's by the hands of the guards or inmate on inmate violence or other means, you know, like a riot. Scorpion snakes, you know? Yeah, exactly. So Yuma is no different. There are a documented 111 deaths.
00:26:56
Speaker
for its entirety of operation? 111. So for 33 years. 33. That seems like high for 33 years. That seems like a little high. So actually. Your chair is screaming for WD-40 right now. I know my chair. Literally, my chair was like, bitch, I'm going to put you in the snake den. God damn it. Seriously. Yeah, I've been meaning to WD-40 it. And am I ADHD? I think it's. Fuck yeah.
00:27:26
Speaker
the most, most of these deaths were actually not caused by violence. A lot of these, some of them were, but most of these were actually from an outbreak of tuberculosis. That's unfortunately better than I guess if there was like that much violence where people are dying. So I'm like, okay, tuberculosis consumption that was going rogue back then. So I get it.
00:27:53
Speaker
exactly but that also means that there is a huge cemetery there and it is filled to the brim and like we were just talking about the prison was only open for 33 years
00:28:06
Speaker
That was kind of due to overcrowding. They kind of decided like, yeah, it's getting a little crowded in here. So in 1909, the prisoners were moved to the bigger and newer Arizona State Prison because now the government is willing to pay for a prison now that it's a state, but I digress. And so in 1910, the Yuma Territorial Prison
00:28:33
Speaker
was converted to Yuma Union High School when the high school's original building burnt down. That, yeah, because that's out of all of the buildings that I would have picked as options.
00:28:50
Speaker
public library, anything. I would have gone for the prison for school. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, the high school we went to was actually made by a person that built prisons. Yes. So I didn't know that. But yeah, I'm just, there was how many people that died? There's a cemetery at this prison that
00:29:12
Speaker
Okay, carry on. So when the Yuma football team won a game against Phoenix, the Phoenix team called the Yuma team criminals, and the Yuma liked it so much that they became the Yuma criminals, or the Krims for short.
00:29:33
Speaker
Okay, that's kind of funny, though. I like it. I love it. I love it. So their mascot is actually a guy that looks like a hardened criminal. And they're like merch shop for the school is called the cell or the cell block. Okay, they're running with it. I like it. I love it. It's great. And so the school moved from the Yuma prison in 1914.
00:30:01
Speaker
but the Yuma Union High School still is in operation today. It's just in a different building. I totally fucking forgot that this is like early 1900s. Like I, for some reason was like picturing modern day high schoolers. And I was like, oh my God. I did the same thing when I was writing this. So like when I was just sitting there like, wow, they did that? And I'm like, oh wait, you said 19 what? 14? Like that's a,
00:30:28
Speaker
Okay, they didn't have buildings just everywhere. It makes a little bit more sense now. Yeah, but also, no, I still think it's great that Yuma High School to this day in 2023-2024 time is are still called the criminals. The criminals? I mean, it's not think about how many hornets you know, or how many like Oh, I know, right?
00:30:51
Speaker
warriors or yeah warrior dogs yeah think of all exactly like i can think of so many schools that had all of that so i'm like how many do you know that are criminals that's
00:31:03
Speaker
Exactly. I still think it's great that even 100 years later and they didn't even, they don't even, they're not even in the prison anymore. They're like, yeah, we're the criminals. I think it's great. Back then it made sense. So after the high school, the county hospital utilized the prison from 1914 until 1923.
00:31:25
Speaker
which that means that there was even more death. In 1924, the Southern Pacific Railroad demolished one third of Prison Hill, as they called it, to make way for some new tracks. And homeless people riding the trains in the 1920s and the 1930s actually stayed in some of the cells.
00:31:50
Speaker
and homeless families during the Great Depression actually lived in the cells because it was free housing, pretty much. Wow. If only we would do something like that with all of our abandoned buildings and the housing crisis in America. Crazy. Wow. Wow. Crazy. Bananas. But I digress. All right. Are you ready for the ghost activity?
00:32:20
Speaker
I actually know exactly what ghost activity went down at this place. I thought you were going to say, I actually am not ready for the ghost activity. I actually hate ghosts. Well, depends on how you look at that. So as you can guess, the Snake Den, quote unquote, is the most haunted place in the prison.
Ghostly Legends and Hauntings
00:32:45
Speaker
It's open for visitors to
00:32:50
Speaker
How many people died in the snake den? Yeah. Yeah. People can go in. People can explore in there. People say that there are a lot of feelings of dread and unease and all that jazz. And they say that you can hear chains rattling in there and blood curdling screams and cries for mercy coming from the snake den.
00:33:18
Speaker
Yeah, and weirdly, the most reported ghost in the snake den is of a little girl. Okay, wait, hold on, hold on, hold, time out, wait, wait, hmm.
00:33:31
Speaker
are we thinking that this is maybe like an accumulation of the dark and twisties going on in there? Or is this like a legitimate little child? Like, how is there a child in a prison? Yeah. So, well, one of my one of a lot of people think that it used to she's from when the the prison used to house people during the depression. And that maybe she died. Oh, yeah.
00:33:54
Speaker
That would, duh, I completely forgot, I just don't think in prison. Or it's a dark thing pretending to be a little girl. I don't know. I don't know, but I thought the same thing you did. Could you imagine though, dying at a place in the Depression and then ending up stuck in the snake den of a prison or having to stay in a snake den of a prison? Yeah, that is, ugh.
00:34:23
Speaker
And then according to PhoenixGhost.com, a writer for Arizona Highways magazine tried to recreate the experience in the snake den. So she only had bread and water and wanted to spend 48 hours in the snake den, which is how long the prisoners would usually be locked in there for.
00:34:45
Speaker
And apparently she only made it 37 hours before she started screaming for someone to let her out. And she just kept screaming saying she wasn't alone in there. Okay. I mean, she, she made it for a good chunk of time. Like that's pretty good. You made it for longer than 24 hours. That's crazy. Yeah. But, um,
00:35:09
Speaker
I guess probably being, it was a woman? Yeah, that'd probably be, I don't know if I'd wanna be a woman trapped in that. Yeah, a prison, yeah. I mean, there were women that were there, but I just don't feel like, you know, yeah. Yeah. So besides the snake den, there's another cell that's considered haunted, and that is cell 14.
00:35:39
Speaker
and it said that an inmate- Wait, I think I know who this is. Okay, carry on because I wanna see if you know, if this is the story I'm thinking of, I wanna see if you know the parts that I found when I was doing research in the past on it. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay, so go on, go on, go on. Go on, go on, go on. So an inmate,
00:36:10
Speaker
I'm gonna before, you might need to edit that out at the beginning. We might need to redo this one because I want to make sure that I'm thinking of the correct prison because unfortunately, a lot of them look similar, but I'm pretty sure the fucking same. It literally looks like it's creepy. It was a woman who
00:36:33
Speaker
was in the prison. She had died in the prison but they think that she died because she was like she had gotten pregnant by a guard or someone there like and she died there but she's like a descendant of someone who regularly went there and like they they like communicated it was very weird and I remember watching it and I was like whoa what what the fuck and like I think her name was like Elena
00:37:02
Speaker
or something like that. Because I remember saying like, oh, it's almost my name. Oh no, wait a sec. It was Elena Estrada. Oh my God. Look at me go. I'm actually really proud of myself. Okay. Elena Estrada was sentenced to seven years for manslaughter when she stabbed her unfaithful lover, then cut open his chest, pulled out his heart and threw the bloody mass into his face.
00:37:31
Speaker
That's why I remembered that story. That's insane. Yeah. Cause I was like, Oh shit. And she's known to haunt that place. Like she communicates like, yeah. So another cell that's considered haunted is cell 14. And the story is, is that an inmate named Jack Ryan stayed in the cell.
00:37:54
Speaker
And he was in Yuma for rape. What a dick. I know. I mean, I'm just glad that they actually got him in on rape, especially back in the freaking 1800s. No kidding. So both guards and prisoners hated him.
00:38:14
Speaker
And Jack Ryan would actually end up committing suicide in his cell, which that's fine. Fine with me. Because I mean, yeah, because you suck really bad. Yeah. But and I don't I don't know if it's because he was hated, or if he just had was he? Yeah, either way, at least he's gone. Yep. Yep.
00:38:38
Speaker
So visitors say that his cell is unusually cold even when it's the middle of summer and that people get chills and they feel like they're not alone. I would almost want to go into that cell because you're in the middle of Arizona and it's like 115.
00:38:57
Speaker
I'd like specifically go into that cell and be like, bro, I am dying. Can you cool it down just a little bit? I just need a quick little chill and we're good. This is good for something. Right? I don't like what you did, but can you just cool the room down real quick? That's all I ask. Thank you. Thank you. It's the least you can fucking do. Thanks.
00:39:22
Speaker
There are other reports that throughout the prison, people can hear a female screaming in multiple areas too. It's not like in a specific cell or anything like that just throughout the whole prison.
00:39:36
Speaker
I don't like that because I think I specifically remember like, oh, I don't remember what it was a ghost show and I don't remember which one. But they, it may have been but I think it may have been a different because I think there's another one that went there. Okay. I could be confusing them. I just I don't want to commit to any of them because I don't know.
00:39:58
Speaker
But there was a loud scream that they caught. So much so that I was like, okay, never going there. I would literally pee my pants. I would be out of there faster than the scream would finish. I'd start hearing it and be gone. It's like, fuck that shit, I'm out.
00:40:22
Speaker
Okay, I get it. It's yours. You can have it. You can have it. That's fine. That's fine. I don't want it anymore. Another ghost. His name is Johnny, and he is said to reside in the gift shop.
00:40:35
Speaker
out of all places. I wonder if it was something else when he was there. It had to have been. It had to. Could you imagine? I just realized after I fucking said that. Could you imagine? I mean, I don't know what kind of gifts they have there. Maybe there's some deadly ones, but I feel like it was something else. God damn.
00:40:58
Speaker
I'm just thinking like a random thing. I'm thinking like you visit your inmate friend or family or whatever and I was like, okay, now go visit the shop. Yeah. You got to go see uncle Johnny.
00:41:11
Speaker
Yep. He's in the gift shop. Yeah. He's in the gift shop now. He's in the gift shop now. Like he's okay. He can pick out one thing from the prison gift shop. I'm just thinking like, is he an inmate or just a guy? The sources I read said that
00:41:32
Speaker
They think he's an inmate because of just how he acts, because he will mess with the cash register, but he moves the coins around, but he only leaves the bills alone. I don't know if it was like, oh, I'm not allowed to touch that because that's what I got in prison for, or in flight. I'll do the change, but I'm not touching that. Yeah. Or is he old enough?
00:42:03
Speaker
I'm like, is he an old enough spirit to where it was before paper money? So he doesn't even realize that that's money. And that's what it is once the shiny. Give me the shiny. Me, same. Depending on how old he is, I would it would make sense. He'd go for the coins and not the paper because what is it?
00:42:24
Speaker
And if you can't read, then what are you looking at? Exactly. You don't know what, yeah. He's like, what the fuck is this? I just want this. He just grabs all the pennies. I'm just like, you find a floating quarter. Oh God, fuck that. And then I read, there's also, fuck, what's the word? Reports. Jesus Christ, let me start that over again.
00:42:52
Speaker
And then, like I said, there's also reports of the graveyard being haunted. Of course, there I couldn't find any like, particular stories from the graveyard. I just, you know, people say that they see like apparitions and stuff like that in the graveyard of like inmates just walking around.
00:43:13
Speaker
And I'm like, well, yeah, when, you know, you died a horrible death, one in prison and two, because of TV stuck there. Yeah. Yeah. Like, could you like, you were supposed to only be there for like this long of a sentence. And now you're there forever. Forever. And again, again, it's not even like half the time. It's not even like inmate on inmate violence. It's just you got sick and you died.
00:43:37
Speaker
Yeah, because you're stuck next to the guy who's got tuberculosis. Yep, exactly. Oh, that's a bummer. Yeah, so Yuma was actually voted second in the top haunted places by us today, along with Trans Allegheny, sure. Let's go. Let's get ax house and the Queen Mary that also. Yeah.
00:44:02
Speaker
Okay, all of those, yeah. That's a solid picking that is there. I know, that's why I was like, okay. Because it was like, if it was like, I don't know, the Winchester house, and like, stuff like that, I'd be like, eh.
00:44:15
Speaker
Okay, thanks. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, we have a lunatic asylum, Trans-Elegheny, a house, right? The Veliska Axe murder house. Yeah. And the Queen Anne is a boat. So they really have like a wide variety. That's not a Queen Anne, that's a Queen Mary. Yeah, exactly. That's what I definitely meant to say. I don't know.
00:44:33
Speaker
Where Queen Anne came from. Queen Anne is a lot of things. There's like Queen Anne's lace, the flower, Queen Anne's collar, like a neckline. Queen Anne is used in a lot of names. So yes, I knew what you meant, but I was like, that's not right. That's not the right one. Wrong Queen.
00:44:58
Speaker
But it's still a boat. Queen Mary is a boat. Yeah, so they actually have a pretty good selection. Selection, thank you. That's the word I was looking for. But yeah.
Reflections on Arizona's History
00:45:12
Speaker
And so that is the story of Yuma Prison. Spooky. I kind of love the fact that I knew something about the prison that you didn't know. Yeah. And I mean, I didn't know about like Johnny in the gift shop and Jack Ryan and that piece of crap dying. But I just remember that story because that woman like
00:45:43
Speaker
Okay, if there is not a bigger epitome of do not fuck with a Latina. Literally. I don't know what is. Exactly. She straight up cut this motherfuckers heart out and threw it in his face. I do it. This is what you get for fucking me ever. Just kidding. Just kidding. And my husband, that's a joke.
00:46:10
Speaker
Andrew goes missing. God damn it. But yeah, thank you so much for that story. Like thank you for
00:46:23
Speaker
There was just a lot of information in that and I really thank you for that story. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Also thank you for your story that I wrote, but I'll edit that out. I'm so glad that.
00:46:40
Speaker
Sometimes it's just a hard day. I did my little twist on it. Exactly. Like you wrote it. Nope, but that's fine. But also, sometimes it'd be like that. I'm like, don't worry, I got you. You got you. Yeah, I did that with... I actually don't remember. I don't remember what story it was.
00:47:03
Speaker
uh twin bridges twin bridges was it one other one and i don't remember it was twin bridges okay and the domes of constant grande that's why i was like the other arizona one you yeah you stuck in arizona girl i i i mean i would love to visit arizona literally yeah there's so much fucking history like things you don't even realize like like um yeah
00:47:29
Speaker
I don't know. There's just a lot of history in Arizona that you don't really realize happens. Like big, big pieces of history happen in Arizona. Yeah. And where's the Mojave desert? It's in Arizona. Yeah. Okay. So that's the one that has 48 freaking ghost towns. Yeah.
00:47:51
Speaker
The one I'm looking at now. Oh, yeah, that's the other thing. Another another freaking case I'm looking into that fucking has is in Arizona. I need to get the fuck out of Arizona. You just Arizona is a good time. We might need to break it up a little bit, though. Yeah, literally. Oh, but the next case, the next or not the next case, but the next story, though,
00:48:13
Speaker
Oh, I'm so excited for you to hear about it because it is okay, I'm excited for you to hear about it, but it's also really fucking sad. So maybe come in with a with a good feel good case. So you know, without you even saying that I think I know exactly what feel good case I'm going to tell because it's more informational.
00:48:35
Speaker
It's got some spooky uki, but it makes you feel good. It's good. Oh, good. I love informational things, as you know, as we do this fucking podcast. Yeah, as we do research all the frickin time. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Who fucking knew? Not me. All right. And so but with that being said, I think there's only one last thing to say. Yep. Yep. SBC out. SBC out.
00:49:07
Speaker
All right. Thank you so much for listening. And remember to follow us on Instagram at Scared But Curious Pod. And we have a Twitter. Follow us at Scared Curious on Twitter X and join our Scared But Curious Facebook group. And if you're listening on Spotify, please rate us. Five stars, please. And if there are any stories or cases you would love to hear us cover or anything you don't hear enough about, please don't hesitate. Email us at Scared But Curious Pod at gmail.com.