ROCK ISLAND PRISON
Location: Despite the name, Rock Island is actually a distant and remote property over Baffin Bay in Kennedy County, Texas twenty-five miles southeast of Kingsville and thirty miles south of Corpus Christi. It is not easily accessible by land because of the swamps and marsh but reached by boat along the Inter-Coast Waterway along the Padre Islands. The prison pier no longer exists which makes access to the location much more difficult.
Description Of Place: Rock Island Prison or Isla Dela Roca Penitentiary is located in a former Spanish fortress whose front facade still exists, but the remaining structure and grounds have been converted into four cell blocks and an underground network of tunnels. Each cell block had forty cells with running water and a separate shower area. It also had a private outside exercise yard contained by ten-foot tall brick walls topped in barbed wires with a secondary twelve-foot high chain-link fence and a tertiary electrified twelve-foot high fence on the perimeter, both of which were also topped in barbed wire. Solitary confinement and the gas chambers were located in the basement. Because of the isolation of the property, guards lived in housing barracks off the prison grounds with a separate cottage for the warden. Today, the location is in decrepit state, abandoned and left to the elements. The irony is that despite being remote and almost inaccessible, the property is littered with recent trash and graffiti.
Ghostly Manifestations: Rock Island Prison is believed to be the home of one of the worst in-house prison riots in American history. Although the location was chosen to make it potentially one of the most hardest prisons to escape from, it seems that it's the remoteness and distance from human civilization that made it the focal point for possibly the worst prison riot in human history. On March 13, 2006, guards radioed that the inmates were running loose and taking over the prison, but by time reinforcements arrived, it was now a rescue mission for survivors. The seventeen inmates who succeeded in escaping started traveling west for the closest highway over empty and desolate Federal property, part of which was swampland bordering empty brush land, but they were eventually found dead from causes ranging from snakebite, untreated wounds, sunstroke and malnutrition. Back at the prison, only one guard survived by hiding in the gas chamber.
"The land is reported to have been cursed long before the prison was built there." Father Miguel Sanchez is the vicar of the First Trinity Catholic Church in nearby Sarita. "Back when the Spanish first built the fort there, they felt the land was, for lack of a better word, possessed. They described dark forces that wandered among them and encouraged them to create acts of evil. One officer allegedly attacked and murdered his captain for no reason, and when he was executed, he claimed he couldn't stop himself. Another story claims that a lieutenant demanded he be baptized to stop the dreams telling him to kill his female bride. There is nothing you can say to me that won't convince there is no evil there."
Over the years, a bizarre urban legend has sprung up around the ghosts of the convicts here rising from the ground and murdering and mutilating teenage trespassers here. Tabloids like the "Weekly World News" or "The Sun" print stories of teenagers going out there looking for the ghosts and ending up dead, but the so-called victims' pictures in their articles are actually often obscure teenage actors and models or taken from high school year books, all of whom are still alive. The so-called hauntings are exaggerated or embellished in print or in TV shows like "Sinister Sites." However, there is a kernel of truth behind the tales.
"Isla Dela Roca is definitely haunted." Bryan Cruise is the field director for the Corpus Christi Ghost Hunters team who has been to the prison twice and is currently hoping for a third visit. "The most active areas of the prison are Cell Blocks 3, 4, the tool room and the laundry room. Cell Block 3 was the maximum security ward which also contains the closest access to the solitary confinement cells in the basement. Activity reported here has included unexplainable noises, doors that open and close by themselves and lights that turn on and off without any apparent cause. People hear disembodied voices moaning through the cell blocks, apparitions of former convicts wandering the halls, the sound of a cell door slamming shut when no one is around and so on.
Cruise passed on one such tale he found on the Internet about a witness who spotted a male figure clad in green convict garb walking by the accounting office in the pen around 10PM one night. No one else was supposed to be in the building, so the witness looked into the bathroom where the figure entered. No one was there. A moment later, the figure came out and walked back in the other direction, disappearing into the darkness of the hall.
Cell Block 4 was the area where the "snitches" and other prisoners held in protective custody were contained. Upon entering the cell block, there are marks on the floor where rioters used power tools to decapitate the snitches and several other inmates. Also visible are the outlines of scorch marks where other inmates were burned to death with propane cutting torches. Another inmate was hung from the upper tier of the cell block with sheets that had been tied together. His apparition has been reported seen hanging from the ceiling by several witnesses sneaking on the property since 2006. The activity reported here is similar to those reported in Cell Block 3. Most of the inmates who were murdered during the riot were killed in Cell Block 4. Cruise has testified to a sensation of being watched in there as well as feelings of an inexplicable stress attack standing in there.
"Rebecca Witherspoon is my team photographer, but we all carry cameras." Cruise adds. "She actually ascended to the second level to take photos and experienced a dizzy feeling up there. Now, she's not scared of heights, but she came very close to actually falling for no real reason at all."
The laundry was the site of several murders, although they all occurred before the riot of 2006. It is located in a labyrinth of corridors that lie underneath the prison. These corridors also link to the gas chamber, many mechanical rooms and the tool room where the inmates stole the propane torches and other tools that were used during the riots. Uneasy feelings and whispers are often reported down there as well as unusual human shaped shadows lurking in the halls. Brent Frasier and Joseph Hanks of the CCGH have photographed several of these shadows hunched in corners or followed them around through the corridors and cell blocks. They often disappear into thin air or fade away into nothing. One piece of footage from 2008 by an unidentified cameraman reportedly at the prison shows a large dark shape rising up out of the floor then descending out of view, but Cruise isn't sure this footage occurred at Rock Island as claimed. Instead, he believes it was taped at New Mexico State Penitentiary in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The warden's office is also considered to be one of the most active points of paranormal activity. Sections of blood-splattered walls were removed where he breathed his last, and yet, his ghost has been seen in front of the windows, despite the fact there is no floor there. Isla Dela Roca is not known to have had any female employees, and yet, a spectral white nurse is described as another abnormally active ghost. She was said to have been one of the first to be killed by an inmate while she was working here, and people visiting the infirmary will often hear strange sounds, experience equipment failure and see orbs drifting around the room. They may also experience drafts and feel cold spots in the room as they pass through.
"You can stand up there, and the sensation of a cold breeze can be felt going through you." Nicole Cameron is the assistant field director of the CCCP. "The place is old and drafty, and set several hundred feet from the shore, and yet this one hot afternoon, I felt what seemed to be a cold breeze pass through me like a freight train. I'm not sure what it was, but I think I felt the energies of the place going through me."
Another area that is said to have particularly strong energies is the area that was called the Hole. The Hole was what is more commonly known as solitary confinement. Prisoners who had committed an offense or had broken prison rules were sent here for punishment. There are reports that many an inmate was tortured and died within this small area of the prison while others took their lives. There are also rumors of inmates in there holding conversations with nonexistent people. Those who have gone into this area report feelings of overwhelming nausea and discomfort. Psychics attribute these feelings to the negative energies that linger in this area.
Other highly charged areas in the prison include the chapel and the library. Although there is no documentation, it is thought that the chapel was used as an early execution room. Numerous ghosts and misty beings have been sighted lingering in these spots. The mysterious nurse has been reported here as well.
Throughout the entire building strange noises and cold regions have been reported. Ghostly figures wander the halls. Voices, lights, footsteps and drafts are commonly reported. There is no electricity on, and the prison's power generator is corroded and worn, and yet, witnesses describe the equipment in the guard's control center crackling or coming on. Drafts and smells have been described.
In October 2009, the Collinsport Ghost Society received the following e-mail from Jason Harnois of Exeter, Rhode Island with an observation regarding one of our photos from Rock Island: "I've never been to Isla Dela Roca Penitentiary, but when I came across your story from Texas about the prison and looked at the closed cellblock photo you have...now, it might just be a trick of the light, or maybe there was just a lot of dust around your camera at the time, but when you look at the stairs to the right leading up, I could have sworn that I saw the faint outline of a body moving up the stairs. It looked like it was wearing a hood, so I couldn't see its face. It had its back turned away from the camera also, its right foot just lifting from the third step, and its left foot on the fourth step. Or maybe its heading downward. I see a tie or something. Also in the photo, to the left, a little bit above the brown, wooden door, I see a faint skull with a hood up, but I could see the eye sockets. Also another face, sort of in the middle, I can't see all of it because the brightness of the sun in the middle, but when the stairs stop on the second floor, a little to the left I can see two white eyes and that's about it. I can also see a few other faces, but I'm just too lazy to point them out."
History: The history of Isla Dela Roca Penitentiary begins in the middle to late Seventeenth Century. It was already a Spanish Fortress by 1645 which suggests it was built as early as 1610 or 1620, but this is unconfirmed. Historically, Spanish troops abandoned the location in 1845 to fight in the Mexican-American War, but locals claim it was actually abandoned much earlier than that, possibly as early as 1730 when the French started trafficking the Louisiana Territory.
The history of the prison actually begins in 1912 when the Department of Corrections seized the old fortress and began constructing a military prison to parallel Alcatraz in San Francisco, California. It was designed by John Ewing Herold to incorporate as much of the existing fortress with a now long gone access road from nearby Interstate 72 to deliver building supplies, but it wasn't finished until 1927 when the first inmates began arriving. The worst of the state were sent here along with illegal Mexicans, privateers and military prisoners. State of the art for the time, it was retrofitted in 1953 and modernized by 1973.
Only around a million and a half prisoners were ever kept here in its history, but it never had a successful escape although several tried. There were countless prisoners who died, either by their own hand, at the hands of guards or by other prisoners. The prison was also the site of eight known state executions carried out by the gas chambers.
The riot began in the late afternoon hours of Monday, March 13, 2006, when guards entered Cell Block 3 on the south side of the Prison. The door to the dormitory wasn't locked, in violation of prison security procedures. Neither was a hallway gate that led to the prison control room. DeJesus Delgado, a known drug-pusher and meth manufacturer, got into a screaming fit with Guard John Elias when shots suddenly ran out, killing Delgado almost immediately. Like a switch being turned on, inmates suddenly poured through the places. Gates to Cell Block 4 that were known to be previously locked were discovered open. Four guards were taken hostage during the first few minutes of the riot.
In all, there were fifteen guards on duty inside the prison that night, supervising more than 1,100 inmates who now rushed down the main corridor and broke the shatterproof glass at the control center. The guards on duty fled, leaving behind keys that could open most of the prison gates and doors. The inside of the prison became a nightmare of violence. Elias describes: "We had inmates killing guards, guards killing inmates, inmates killing inmates..." Fires were set. Inmates ripped out plumbing fixtures, flooding parts of the prison. Other inmates got into the infirmary and began taking drugs which either sedated them to be raped or murdered or fueled them into heightened homicidal rages. Inmates began using tools from the prison to gain access to Cellblock 1, which housed the "snitches" and inmates in protective segregation. The "snitches" met a horrible end. One was hung from the upper tier of the cellblock, another was decapitated. Several were burned alive or tortured with a blowtorch. The National Guard arrived at the Penitentiary from Corpus Christi sometime around 9PM that night and found the aftermath of a carnage that defied description. Bodies of guards and inmates, mostly mutilated and dismembered, filled the prison. Military helicopters shuttled the injured and partially alive to local hospitals from around National Guardsmen standing with their M-16s. It took a full week to catalog and identify the bodies and the missing. Besides Elias, seventeen inmates attempted the fifteen mile trek overland to the nearest town but none of them survived. Thirty-one men survived from the riot to be moved to other prisons, and Elias was the only guard to survive. The final report was that had the location not been so remote that the riot might have ended sooner. State officials blamed the carnage on the isolation and sensory deprivation environment. The final decision was that the prison did not deserve to be reopened in order to prevent another such spectacle from happening, although equipment, gear and weapons were removed and transported off the site for several years.
Since 2008, legal proprietorship of the prison has been acquired by Dallas businesswoman Shannon Dougherty. According to the tabloid "Tattletale Magazine," she was reportedly traveling to the prison to hold secret witchcraft rituals, but the lack of credibility in the magazine's tales over the years has not yet forced her to sue for libel. In truth, she's been scouting the prison property to investors and potential new owners. The final fate for the property is unresolved
Identity Of Ghosts: Of the seventeen who tried to escape, two of them have been identified as a white supremist named Oswald Leon Wilkes and a pedophile named Theodore Wayne Gacy. Many believe their ghosts haunt the site of the prison. Warden Brian Reynolds is another popular spirit; he was found barely alive when the National Guard swarmed the place, but he passed away en route to the hospital. He had forty-three stab wounds in him. As yet, there is no known identity for the ghostly nurse. It is known that Reynolds's step-daughter, Kate Portman, often assisted Dr. Hugo Chapman in the infirmary, but she was in Colorado at the time of the riot, and is now a practicing California physician. Dr. Chapman is also reputed to be one of the ghosts.
Investigations: Corpus Christi Ghost Hunters has had two night-time investigations at Rock Island under the supervision of Elliot Walsh from the Department of Corrections. On their first initial visit, the team had two unusual occurrences. The first occurred in Block 3 at the center of the riot when one of the cell doors opened on its own. They checked the control box only to discover that the fuses were missing, making any possibly of a mechanical failure very unlikely. The second occurred in the hospital ward after investigators registered a strong spike of 7 NT on the natural Trifield meter. This spike occurred at a time they believed they were hearing voices. Their photos taken before and after this event were completely normal and had nothing of interest in them, but during the spike and possible voices they captured what looked like a thin milky mist covering them that moved in strange directions. As noted, if it had been smoke, it would have moved as according their movements, but instead it congregated and followed the team through the cell block.
Their second visit occurred when a Kingsville Radio Station known as "The Edge" was accompanying the CCGH. On this trip, the team caught shadows in Block 4 and the basement around the medical ward. EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) was captured as well. They also used a device called an Ovilus that purportedly pulls voices out of the environment, allowing the ghosts to talk to the researchers.
Source/Comments: Death Row (aka Haunted Prison) (2006) - Activity based on Alcatraz in San Francisco, California, New Mexico State Penitentiary in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Mansfield State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio and West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville, West Virginia.
Sinister Sites from House of Bones (2010)