BEHIND THE LENS: TWO DAYS IN OHIO’S HAUNTED PRISONS A Cameraman’s Account from the Mock and Roll Production
Film crews spend long hours in unusual places. Abandoned buildings, remote locations, and structures that most people only visit during daylight hours with a tour guide. You learn to work in these spaces without thinking too much about their history, their atmosphere, their former occupants.
But sometimes, those former occupants make themselves known.
In 2015, I worked as B camera operator on a film production called Mock and Roll, shooting at two historic Ohio prisons: the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield and the Belmont County Jail in St. Clairsville. Both locations are known for their dark histories. Both are reportedly haunted.
I wasn’t there looking for ghosts. I was there to do a job.
The ghosts, it seemed, had other plans.
DAY ONE: THE OHIO STATE REFORMATORY
The Ohio State Reformatory is an imposing Gothic structure – the kind of building that looks haunted even in broad daylight. Built in 1886 and operational until 1990, it housed over 155,000 inmates during its 94-year history. The place is most famous now for serving as Shawshank State Prison in The Shawshank Redemption, but its real history is far darker than any fiction.
We were filming in the main cellblock, set up on a walkway that runs between two blocks of cells, about halfway down. The architecture creates a strange acoustic effect – sounds echo and distort, making it difficult to tell where they originate. The atmosphere is oppressive even without knowing the history of violence, suicides, and despair that soaked into those stone walls over nearly a century.
We were running through a scene when both cameras died simultaneously.
At first, it was just a technical frustration. Cameras fail. Batteries die. But as we checked the equipment, reality set in: both batteries had been fully charged. Both cameras went down at exactly the same moment.
We were standing in a walkway suspended between hundreds of cells where men had lived, suffered, and died. The cellblock stretched above and below us, creating a corridor of iron and stone that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
The simultaneous failure felt less like a coincidence and more like… attention.
We got the cameras running again and finished the day. But that moment stayed with us – the sudden silence when both cameras died, the realization that something had drained fully charged batteries in the same instant, in that particular location.
DAY TWO: THE BELMONT COUNTY JAIL
The Belmont County Jail in St. Clairsville is a Victorian Gothic structure built in 1888. It’s smaller than the Ohio State Reformatory, more intimate in its horror. The jail operated until 1895 and now functions as a museum, its cells preserved much as they were during operation.
We were filming on the fourth floor. I had my camera set up just outside one of the cells – cell 406 – when I heard it.
A woman’s voice. Clear as a bell.
“Hey. Come here.”
My first reaction was completely ordinary: I turned around to see who was speaking to me. The cell was empty.
And then the chills hit.
Our sound operator had heard it too – in his headphones, picking up through the equipment. But his recorder wasn’t running at that moment. No evidence. Just two members of a film crew hearing the same voice at the same time, coming from an empty cell.
I found the attendant and asked, trying to sound casual, if there were any ghost stories associated with the building.
She barely looked up. “The main one is on the fourth floor. Cell 406. A woman set herself on fire there in the early 1900s. Burned to death in that cell.”
Cell 406. Exactly where I’d been standing when I heard the voice.
The attendant’s expression was matter-of-fact. “Well,” she said, “that happens here.”
Our sound operator, who’d initially dismissed what he heard as just someone talking, went quiet. We all did. There’s a difference between hearing an unexplained sound and learning you heard it from the exact location where someone died violently over a century ago.
The voice had been clear, conversational, immediate. “Hey. Come here.”
An invitation. Or perhaps a warning.
We finished filming that day, but none of us stayed any longer than necessary.
THE HISTORY
The Ohio State Reformatory was designed with the then-revolutionary idea of reform through isolation and reflection. The reality was far grimmer: overcrowding, violence, and conditions that drove men to despair. The reformatory saw numerous deaths – some from disease, some from violence, some by suicide. The warden’s wife, Helen Byrne, died in the prison quarters in 1950 from an accidental gunshot wound. The warden himself died of a heart attack in the same quarters eight years later.
The building sat abandoned from 1990 until preservation efforts began. During those years of emptiness, something settled into the structure – a presence that visitors, film crews, and paranormal investigators consistently report. Cellblock activity. Shadows. Voices. And electronic equipment that fails without explanation.
The Belmont County Jail operated for over a century, housing everyone from petty criminals to those awaiting execution. The building is remarkably well-preserved, its cells still containing the original iron bars and minimal furnishings.
The woman in cell 406 remains the jail’s most documented spirit. Staff and visitors report her voice, her presence, the smell of smoke in that particular cell. She died in unimaginable agony, and something of that suffering appears to have remained.
THE EXPERIENCES
Both locations are open for tours and filming. Both have extensive documentation of paranormal activity:
Ohio State Reformatory:
• Electronic equipment failures (particularly cameras and recording devices)
• Shadow figures in cellblocks and administrative areas
• Voices and footsteps when the building is empty
• The third floor and east cellblock are particularly active
• Temperature fluctuations and unexplained sounds
Belmont County Jail:
• Female voices, particularly on the fourth floor
• Cell 406 reports: voice, presence, smoke smell
• Electronic interference
• Feelings of being watched in specific cells
• Staff report regular occurrences with matter-of-fact acceptance
The difference between reading about these reports and experiencing them firsthand is profound. I went into both locations as a skeptical professional just trying to do my job. I left both with experiences I can’t explain through conventional means.
VISITOR INFORMATION
Ohio State Reformatory
100 Reformatory Road, Mansfield, OH 44905
Open for guided tours, self-guided tours, and private investigations. The facility also hosts overnight ghost hunts and special events. Tours run year-round with extended hours during Halloween season. Check their website for current scheduling.
The building is massive – wear comfortable shoes and bring layers. Some areas are not climate controlled. Photography is encouraged.
Belmont County Victorian Prison Museum
68155 Bannock Road, St. Clairsville, OH 43950
Open seasonally for tours. The jail offers guided tours that include the history and reported paranormal activity. Private investigations can be arranged. The building maintains much of its original structure and atmosphere.
Both locations are within two hours of each other, making them an ideal combination for those interested in Ohio’s haunted history.
AFTERWORD
I’ve worked on numerous film productions in unusual locations. Most are exactly what they appear to be: empty buildings, interesting architecture, good backdrops for storytelling.
But twice – on two different days, in two different Ohio prisons – something reached through that professional distance. Equipment failed simultaneously without explanation. A voice called out from an empty cell where a woman burned to death over a century ago.
Were we experiencing residual energy? Actual spirits? Some property of the locations themselves that we don’t yet understand?
I don’t have those answers.
What I know is this: both cameras died at once in a cellblock where thousands suffered. A woman’s voice invited me toward the cell where she died in flames, and our sound operator heard it too. And in both cases, people familiar with these locations – staff, guides, attendants – barely blinked.
Because in these places, as that attendant said with perfect calm:
That happens here.
Account submitted by JR, B Camera Operator
Mock and Roll production, 2015
All filming conducted during daylight hours