Haunted · Panoply

The Man Who Upset a Ghost

November 28, 2017·31 min·2 clips

Albert Pierpoint held the world record for the fastest execution — 7.5 seconds from entering the cell to trapdoor — but American GIs at Shepton Mallet were made to stand on the gallows for seven to eight minutes before being hanged.

1. 'Haunted,' hosted by Danny Robbins, explores one person's ghost story per episode in forensic detail; episode six focuses on Paul, a site manager at Shepton Mallet Prison in Somerset. 2. Danny Robbins is the host and writer; Hayley Stevens, a paranormal researcher and former ghost hunter turned sceptic, accompanies him as a critical observer. 3. The episode asks how Paul was physically injured by a ghost — specifically, by a man who died in 1943 — and whether a rational explanation exists. 4. Shepton Mallet was the UK's oldest prison, built in 1610, and served as an American military prison in World War II where 18 GIs were executed, many of them Black or Hispanic, after summary trials based on unreliable evidence. 5. Paul describes the C wing where four officers in 1967 refused night duty after experiencing a whispering wind and seeing a woman in a white wedding dress — a condemned woman who reportedly died of a broken heart the night before her own execution. 6. Ghost hunting group Haunted Happenings runs paid overnight events at the prison; approximately 40 people, including many couples, paid to attend the night Robbins visited. 7. Ghost hunter Phil from Haunted Happenings describes seeing shadows in doorways that appeared to be people standing there but completely black. 8. Hayley predicts beforehand that participants will hear knocking, see things from corners of their eyes, feel their coats tugged, and that the collective pressure for something to happen will shape how events are interpreted. 9. Inside the condemned man's cell, Paul reveals that a bookcase was deliberately placed in front of the hidden gallows so prisoners would not know what was behind it until the moment of execution. 10. Paul explains that executioner Albert Pierpoint held a record of 7.5 seconds from entering the condemned man's cell to opening the trapdoor, but was forced to make American GIs stand on the gallows for seven to eight minutes during military executions. 11. Paul recounts that on August 19th, at his 3 o'clock tour, he told the story of GI Davis — a soldier who shot one woman dead and raped another, and who wet himself and said 'Oh my God, I'm going to die' when the gallows were revealed — and at that exact moment felt a searing burn on his left hand. 12. Paul describes the wound as resembling a cigarette being put out on his skin, with a black mark at the centre; the scar is still visible during the recording several months later. 13. Paul's wife Nikki, described as 'ever the sceptic,' confirms she knows when Paul is lying and believes he was genuinely frightened and serious about the injury. 14. Hayley suggests that Paul may have had the burn already and only consciously noticed it when he was in a room associated with a chain-smoking executed GI, arguing that context shapes how we connect memories. 15. A Ouija board session in the hanging shed appears to contact a five-year-old child spirit who moves the glass toward participant Claire; Hayley explains this as idiomotor responses, citing a study where blindfolded participants moved the planchette according to the old board shape after it had been secretly replaced. 16. Claire says she has previously heard a child giggling in her house and is unsettled but not frightened by the apparent contact, finding it intriguing rather than threatening. 17. The episode's tone moves between atmospheric horror narration and dry sceptical analysis, with Robbins serving as an emotionally responsive middle ground between Paul's earnest belief and Hayley's rigorous doubt. 18. A surprise moment comes when Paul reveals a fake hanging body with a blood-splattered sheet in the lower room of the hanging shed, which he insists was leftover from Halloween and not staged for the visit. 19. Listeners drawn to the gap between wanting to believe and being unable to dismiss rational explanations will find the episode satisfying. 20. Those seeking definitive proof of the paranormal either way will find the episode deliberately inconclusive.

As heard by us

An execution chamber, a ghost claim, and history heavy enough to make the room itself feel haunted.

The story settles into an execution chamber and lets the room do the haunting. Paul guides the listener past the vanished cell door, the spy hole, the bookcase that hid the gallows, and the prison routine built to make death quick and out of sight.

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Why you'd press play

You want a ghost story that begins in a prison execution chamber.

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