Pauly Jail
October 6-7, 2024 | 6pm — 8am
The Claims | Equipment and Setup | The Investigation | Our Results
Bullock County Jail, known as Pauly Jail, is no stranger to those interested in the paranormal. Whether you’re just passing through on the way to one of Alabama’s larger cities, or taking a tour of Union Springs' other haunted sights, Pauly Jail is sure to turn heads. Built in 1897, it's one of Alabama’s oldest surviving structures and served as a replacement for the previous Bullock County Jail of 1868.
Pauly Jail was built under the supervision of J. A. Youngblood and named after the Pauly Jail Building Company, which was a well-known contractor at the time for steel-built jails. The building is three stories tall and includes a main cell block eight cells, two cells isolated from the main cell block, a separate room for the women's cells, and a trap door located on the third floor purportedly used for hangings. The trap door was operated by a correctional officer pulling a lever, and hanged inmates were dropped into the second floor where other prisoners would see. However, there is conflicting evidence as to whether this trapdoor was used at all, with some sources claiming that it was used twice, while others claim it was never used at all.
In 2004, the jail was refurbished for use in “Heaven’s Fall,”
an independent film that was released in 2006. The film was based on the real life Scottsboro Boys case, where nine
Black boys were accused of rape by two women in 1931. The film set is still set up today in what was the deputies' quarters on the first
floor. Today, the jail has been renovated further and is now a historic museum for Union Springs, AL. The Tourism Board
of Bullock County offers free tours and demonstrations of the museum, and even offers investigations to paranormal groups.
The Claims
The activity at Pauly Jail seems to stem from a handful of the former prisoners who died in there, whether from execution
or other causes. While there is no defined number of deaths in the jail, three names are associated with deaths on the property and may
account for some of the activity visitors claim to have experienced — J.W. Mann, Aberdeen Johnson,
and Willie Upshaw (in particular, Upshaw's killer).
Willie Upshaw was the jail’s first prisoner. Some sources say that Upshaw escaped the prison and was murdered soon after his escape. Once his murderer was arrested and incarcerated at Pauly Jail, they supposedly committed suicide by hanging in their cell. There is a claim that you can hear “swinging” sounds from the cell that allegedly housed Upshaw’s murderer. There are also claims of an apparition of a prisoner with a noose around their neck on the third floor of the building.
Aberdeen Johnson was a local Black man who arrested and accused of assaulting a white woman. Following a supposed altercation with the sheriff, Johnson was forcibly dragged outside of the jail by a mob and lynched. He was hanged in a tree outside and shot over 150 times. There are claims of Johnson's apparition wandering around the property, although it is unclear if he is tied to a specific place on the property like Upshaw.
Lastly, J.W. Mann was arrested and placed in Pauly Jail on Christmas Eve in 1960. Allegedly, he fell asleep smoking in his bed and died in the resulting fire. Claims suggest that the apparition of Mann appears every Christmas in his cell.
In addition to the claims surrounding the documented individuals above, visitors claim to have experienced cold spots, the sounds of footsteps, disembodied voices, and shadows. There is even one account of a violent encounter with one of the jail's spirits. According to The Haunting of Alabama by Alan Brown, a former Bullock County Sheriff was trying to antagonize a spirit and was subsequently hit in the back of the head. Allegedly, there was a dime-sized red mark on the back of his neck with some blood. Interestingly, according to Lewis Powell IV of Southern Spirit Guide, when the Alabama Paranormal Research Team investigated a series of Union Springs properties in 2009, Pauly Jail was the only property that did not exhibit any paranormal activity.
Equipment and Setup
After our initial walkthrough, we determined there were really only two sections of the jail where it would be worth setting out any
equipment: the 2nd floor cell block and the 3rd floor cell block. Given that both cell blocks were a single metal structure inside a single 2-story
echoy room and only had eight cells altogether, the potential for hearing any loud sounds (such as knocks, doors moving, footsteps, etc.) was strong
from either floor. As such, it was a relatively light setup, and we would mostly just shift between the two floors throughout the evening. With the
exception of our XLS camera, the equipment we used was just hauled upstairs and downstairs as needed.
For the bulk of the investigation, we used our Olympus WS-852 voice recorder, our set of illuminated catball toys, our REM Pod, and our SB7 spirit box for conducting Estes Method sessions. Our EMF Meter also saw a bit of use in validating the lack of power to the building, but otherwise wasn't used as an investigative tool in this instance. Additionally, we had the Spirit Talker and Necrometer smartphone apps running the whole time — our thoughts on these apps has been expressed previously, but for the sake of experimentation, it was worth having them run in the background. We used them to get discussions started and moving, but tended to ignore them more often than not.
Since the only claim of any sort of apparition that was inside the jail that didn't coincide with a specific schedule was that of Willie Upshaw's
killer on the 3rd floor, we decided to set up our XLS camera in the doorway leading to the 3rd floor cell block. This angle would
point straight into the cell block and be able to capture anyone roaming around inside the central corridor. However, we haven't paid for the full
screen recording software so our recording time is limited to 10 minutes, so our solution was to setup our video camera to watch the XLS's screen.
And to keep both running for a while, we had both cameras plugged into our Jackery Explorer 500 camping battery. This battery has
proved to be an invaluable addition to our kit on our investigations, and it really pulled its own weight here.
The Investigation
While our methodology was mostly the same as our previous efforts, this investigation differed with regard to our documentation — this time around we filmed everything with the intent of presenting the investigation in its entirety on YouTube. Naturally, a heaping amount of boring chit chat and staring into the darkness was cut out for time, but all of our key moments are captured here for your viewing pleasure. So in lieu of our standard writeup, here is our full investigation of Pauly Jail —Enjoy!
Note: While all our previous videos are on our YouTube page, until now we've really only used YouTube for storing the videos and for ease of sharing them. This video, however, is our first attempt at any sort of long format, episode-style presentation. Videography and editing of this sort is pretty new to us, so please allow us some grace as we learn new equipment and figure things out.
In summary, our night at Pauly Jail was mostly quiet with a few notable moments of minor activity. But don't let that paint a poor picture of our night, the activity we manage to capture really made the trip worthwhile as investigators. Excitingly, our REM Pod was set off for the first time on this investigation, and we had some activity with the catballs and some interesting and cohesive Estes Method sessions. Additionally, this time around we introduced some trigger objects in the form of some prison currency, and it seemed to have had a positive effect on our investigation.
All that being said, and like any other investigator will tell you, the real work came during evidence review. Even under the best conditions, there's so much activity that can happen that you just don't see or hear, and that's where your video footage and audio recordings play a critical role. While reviewing everything for this investigation, we found several instances of sounds we didn't hear in the moment, including an incredible disembodied voice toward the beginning of the evening. While it would have been extra exciting to hear it in the moment, it's still pretty shocking to hear that kind of thing loud and clear in your headphones after the fact.
The post-investigation review is especially critical for our voice recorder findings. We have pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that we just can't hear much on the Olympus WS-852's speaker, even at full volume. AudioMass has proved to be a powerful tool for us in cleaning up our audio recordings. We were able to discover an EVP hidden in our audio that, when cross-referenced with the corresponding video footage, reveals a potentially intelligent response.
Our Results
Pauly Jail certainly had the potential for being as quiet as it was for the Alabama Paranormal Research Team back in 2009. Many of the claims appear to have the unfortunate characteristics of being spooky ghost stories instead of more preferable objective reporting. However, we are happy to say that we left Pauly Jail having captured an unexpected amount of activity:
- Several instances of audible bangs, knocks, and taps
- An incredible disembodied voice captured on camera audio
- Minor REM Pod activity
- Catball activity throughout the night
- Possible intelligent EVP caught on voice recorder
- Possible intelligent responses during Estes Method sessions
We would like to thank the Tourism Board of Union Springs for making this opportunity available to us and other paranormal research teams. A lot of historical societies and civic groups are often unwelcoming of paranormal groups for one reason or another, so finding one that is open to this kind of work is really heartwarming to say the least. We'd also like to thank our point of contact, Barbara, for so kindly facilitating our visit.
by David Reimer, posted October 26, 2024
with History and Claims by Olivia LaRose
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