Alcatraz Haunted

Alcatraz has found a renewed interest in it as of late thanks to various television shows and books being written about the best-known prison in the United States. Alcatraz (Spanish for island of pelicans) is on an island near San Francisco Bay and was considered an inescapable prison so all of the worst of the prison system were sent here.

Not only was Alcatraz supposedly inescapable the prison was notorious for its brutality. Executions were carried out in the prison via electric chair or hanging and prisoners who broke the rules were placed in solitary confinement which were cells with no light whatsoever entering Them and never left in these prison cells sometimes for months at a time. Many prisoners were said to have gone mad from the solitary confinement and reportedly suffered from hallucinations claiming to see all of the people of died on the rock. Perhaps what prison officials labeled as hallucinations were actually prisoners seeing actual ghosts.Alcatraz prison haunted

Alcatraz prison is actually very old, in fact, it was first built during the American Civil War. Back then, however the prison was called “The Citadel” and was a war camp. Many prisoners back in those days suffered unspeakable horrors from wartime torture methods. Years later after the war the Citadel collapsed but years later Alcatraz prison was actually built on top of the citadels ruins with the underground structures and tunnel systems still in place.

Probably the most famous inmate to ever serve time at Alcatraz was Al Capone. Capone arrived at Alcatraz in the late 1930s to serve time for tax fraud. Many of the prisoners Alcatraz were from rival gangs of Capone’s so he opted to not ever go into the yard instead spent his time practicing the banjo in the prison showers.

Al Capone AlcatrazLater in life before his death Capone said that he was routinely kept awake at night by ghosts inside the prison. According to Capone, the ghost that haunted him the most was that of Myles O’Bannion and Irish rival gang member who Capone himself had killed. The paranormal activity reportedly persisted throughout Capone’s time at the prison causing the mobster to become very paranoid after lights out.

Al Capone was playing in the prison band one day and a trumpet player made a comment about Al Capone’s fall from luxury which evolved into a fight in which Al Capone broke his banjo over the trumpet players head. This fight led to Capone being placed in solitary confinement for a week and during that in total darkness Al Capone began to develop dementia. Over time Al Capone would end up spending his life forgetting about all the things in his life.

Upon his release Capone was refused entry into the Chicago gang that he had made and gang members went as far as to start calling now Capone "As Nutty as a Fruitcake". Capone and of spending the rest of his days in a large house in the countryside and he died before the end of the second world war.

To this day people who tour the showers at Alcatraz claim they can hear music coming from the showers and the sounds get louder late at night. Could it be that the ghost of Al Capone comes back to the place where he enjoyed the music he made? After all, he was the only prisoner allowed to play an instrument in the showers while the other prisoners were out in the yard.Al Capone mug shot

However, Al Capone is nowhere near being the most unstable ghost to walk Alcatraz in the afterlife. That title goes to Jim Cooks a prisoner from back in the time when the prison was called The Citadel. He was a soldier during the Civil War who file for the North and was a shell-shocked cannibalistic murderer. During the war, one of Cooks close friends in battle was killed so Cook went to his generals house and murder him and his entire family. Cook gruesomely tour each body apart and left pieces of his victims scoured across the house and some even in his belly.

Cooks admitted to the killings and was sentenced to serve time at The Citadel. Upon his arrival, he was taken to one of the underground complexes and tortured. The gruesome torture Cooks was subjected to eventually took his life. Prison guards over a two-week period slowly cut Cooks into pieces starting with his fingers and toes. They would cut a few bits off every day then they would cauterized the wounds so that he would make it to the next day's torture.the citadel

The insane ghost of Jim Cook now haunts the underground part of The Citadel/Alcatraz. His ghost is probably the most violent one anyone will encounter on the island and he allegedly even drove a few inmates to their death causing them to become insane and kill themselves. As a result of Jim Cook’s ghost, most of the prison guards and prisoners would not enter the underground citadel complex. In fact, even to this day nearly every tour guide and park official at Alcatraz refuses to enter the underground part of the prison out of fear of Jim Cooks.

If you decide to take a tour of Alcatraz keep a lookout for any ghosts that may be lurking about and an ear out for anything out of place. With all the violence that went on inside of this prison and the amount of people who died or lost their minds here your bound to see something paranormal. Keep it spooky and let us know about your visit to Alcatraz or any other haunted location for that matter.