NEPRONOMICON

Norwich Insane Asylum

Part I: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 

Recent archaeological evidence from digs at the site of the abandoned Norwich State Hospital indicate that it was the site of a Native American village about 5,000 years ago.  According to State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni, about 8,800 artifacts have been uncovered so far, which suggest a “unique village setting for the time.”

The original asylum, dubbed the Norwich State Hospital for the Insane, was established in 1904.  The site comprised two two-story buildings, one for women and one, known as Salmon Hall, for male patients.  A cottage on the grounds was erected for doctors.  Forty patients transferred from Middletown brought the total number of patients up to fifty one, with space enough to accommodate 104.  A tuberculosis sanatorium established in 1912 added another administrative building and two shacks for patients.  The insane asylum and tuberculosis hospital would quickly fill to capacity, eventually join as one institution, and be forced to expand their facilities throughout the 20^th Century.  The site eventually encompassed several buildings spread out over 470 acres, many connected via underground tunnels.

 The first documented tragedy to occur at the asylum was the suicide of a patient.  Edward K. Arvine, a lawyer, had voluntarily admitted himself as a sufferer of “melancholia.”  In December of 1914, he hanged himself in his room with an improvised rope of torn bedclothes, attached to an iron grating.  His death would be but the first of many tragedies at the institution.  An explosion of a hot water heater in 1919 killed two employees, teamster Fred Ladd and night attendant Thomas Duggan.  Hospital cook Fred Smith, while crossing the road, was struck and killed in 1925, by an automobile driven by Robert Anderson, a supervisor at the nearby tuberculosis sanatorium.  Annie Prudenthal, a trained nurse and former patient at the hospital, killed herself with a knife at her home in 1930, after having been discharged from the Norwich Hospital only a few days before.

 In December of 1934, Sheriff Michael Carroll attempted to serve papers committing one Leonard Gosselin to Norwich Hospital.  Rather than allow himself to be committed to the infamous asylum, Gosselin killed Sheriff Carroll with a shotgun blast, then turned the gun on himself.  Gosselin was found dead in his apartment by Patrolman Clifford Crary.

 In December of 1941, the State Public Welfare Council began an investigation into the suspicious death of Norwich patient William Smith.  Smith had a chronic heart ailment and had been mistakenly administered sedatives by an attendant, causing a fatal overdose.

 The name of the asylum was shortened to the Norwich State Hospital in 1926, and until 1971 the Hospital housed and treated the very worst Criminally Insane patients that Connecticut had to offer.  The majority of murderers, rapists and violent criminals that successfully copped an Insanity plea found themselves committed to the infamous Salmon Hall, the asylum’s maximum security building.  The rogues’ list of patient inmates that passed through its doors is a long one…

 September of 1918, patient Solomon Brooks escaped the asylum, found his way home and killed his wife Rachael with a bread knife.  Ernest Skinner, a 17 year old murderer who had hacked to death his neighbor with a hatchet and set him on fire, was admitted in 1922.  In 1928, 21 year old mother Mrs. Emma Muscarella, who confessed to the choking death of her one-day old son, was admitted.  In 1938, after having been convicted of shooting and killing a New Haven deputy sheriff in a 1936 holdup, murderer John Palm was spared the electric chair after pleading Insanity and transferred to the Norwich asylum.  Mrs. Florence Schwartz was committed in 1938 after asphyxiating and killing her 11 year old daughter.

 An investigation of Norwich State Hospital by the State’s Attorney and the Governor in 1944 followed a massive manhunt by State Police for two escaped patients.  Both Carl Wilson and Edward Dzeidzic were violently insane, and experienced escapees.  It was Wilson’s third escape from the institution and Dzeidzic’s fourth.  Wilson had previously served five years in the state prison for manslaughter after killing a man at a card game in 1924.  In 1936, he slashed a man with a knife and in 1941 he was arrested after shooting a Hartford youth in the leg.  Dzeidzic had been arrested after firing a shotgun at a group of children.  Though the Norwich asylum had enforced progressively more severe restrictions on Wilson and Dzeidzic, it appeared that the hospital just could not hold them.  The two were eventually recaptured.

 Charles Beausoleil confessed to stabbing his elderly parents to death in 1952 and was ordered permanently confined to Norwich State Hospital, after a judge’s decision found him to be insane.

The testimony of one Albert Taborsky against his brother Joseph Taborsky, in the shooting death of a package store owner four years previously, was called into question in 1954 following Albert’s committal to Norwich State Hospital.  Joseph Taborsky’s lawyers cited Albert’s insanity as cause for doubting his eyewitness account of the crime, in an attempt to keep Joseph from the electric chair.  The media billed the trial as the infamous ‘Cain and Abel’ Case.

Leroy Reddick, the so-called “dynamite killer,” was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Norwich State Hospital in 1954.  He had exploded the truck of one Homer Wright in New Haven in 1952, killing both Wright and his wife, Ophelia.

Everett Cooley, the “Lovers Lane slayer,” after an imprisonment at Norwich for the killing of 22 year old John Davis and the attack upon his 19 year old fiancé, was declared by hospital psychiatrists to be sane enough to stand trial for his crimes in 1957.  His brother and accessory, Milton Cooley, was already serving a life sentence at Wethersfield State Prison.  The pair had also been convicted of the kidnapping of a North Branford housewife and an attack upon her husband.

Mrs. Joan Gronwoldt of Granby, after being tried for manslaughter for shooting and killing her two children, was declared legally Insane in 1961 and remanded to the Norwich institution.  A diagnosed schizophrenic, she had frequent hallucinations and delusions of an “approaching black hand and a knife being thrust slowly into her heart.”  She also believed in a childhood memory of her hometown being invaded by a rats, and having watched them being shot down by the thousands.

Even after the closing of Norwich’s maximum security Salmon Hall in 1971, more of Connecticut’s worst criminally insane continued to end up at the institution.  Among these were Garcia Reyes, who stabbed to death three children in 1967, after his romantic advances toward their mother were rebuffed.  He reportedly heard voices he believed to be from the devil that told him to commit violent acts.

Another justified his violence as the work of God.  Twenty-two year old Matthew Naab claimed that he had stabbed his grandmother, Anna Naab, to death in 1974 because she was “possessed of the devil.”  He was committed to Norwich Hospital, where he was declared “psychotic and insane,” and the murder an “acute episode of schizophrenia.”

Even more embarrassing for the Norwich Hospital than the numerous escapes of patients over the years, were the instances of violently insane patients prematurely released.  Such was the case of 23 year old Gregory Gillespie.  After the shooting of a Hartford man, Wade Foote, in 1974 in an incident of road rage following a motor vehicle accident, Gillespie was acquitted of first degree assault on grounds of Insanity.  Foote had been unarmed and was shot five times by Gillespie, wounds from which he eventually recovered.  By June of 1975, Norwich psychiatrists declared that Gillespie was no longer a threat to himself or others, and he was granted leave.  Then, in May of 1976, a lovers’ quarrel with 16 year old Shereese Weatherly resulted in Gillespie shooting her four times with a handgun in front of her home, killing Weatherly.  Gillespie surrendered to police the same day.

During that same summer of 1975, another man was admitted to Norwich Hospital after stabbing a Hartford man (who later recovered) during one of his schizophrenic fits.  Twenty four year old John Franklin was sent to Norwich Hospital in April, but by July was declared sane and safe enough to be released.  In March of 1976, just eight months after his release, Franklin broke into the home of neighbors Leonard and Madaline Flannery.  Madaline witnessed Franklin stab her husband 21 times, killing him as she fled out the front door to a neighbor’s house.  Franklin was afterward committed to Norwich Hospital indefinitely.

Up until 1981, defendants in state courts entered pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity, but in 1981 a new law allowed for pleas of guilty to be followed by findings of insanity.  Such was the case with 23 year old William Johnston, who had shotgunned his father and mother in November of 1981.  His father, Murray Johnston, was killed though the mother, Barbara Keyes, survived.  Johnston entered a plea of Guilty, but was still found to be mentally incompetent by a three judge panel and sent to Norwich State Hospital.  He was declared a paranoid schizophrenic who heard voices telling him to shoot his father.

A similar incident occurred with former Norwich patient Thomas Auduskevicz.  A three panel judge in 1984 found him “guilty but not criminally responsible” in the strangulation death of his mother, Barbara Auduskevicz.  Auduskevicz was another paranoid schizophrenic obsessed with voices.  Barbara Auduskevicz was found dead in her garage in December of 1982, the cause of death having been strangulation, though she also suffered deep knife wounds to both sides of her neck.

The Hospital complex became a microcosm society, especially for the criminally insane and the staff expected to treat them.  The bedlam created at many times became a powder keg of violence when staff members who had been assaulted visited reprisals on particularly troublesome inmates.  Added to this intentional mistreatment are early primitive methods, begun with the best of intentions, but no less inhumane for that.  Early doctors believed in mechanical restraint, sometimes for days at a time, as a legitimate form of treatment for mental illness.  Hydrotherapy was also used, as suspension in water was believed to have therapeutic effects.

As early as 1921, a point was raised to the Hospital Appropriations Committee, and seriously considered, that the “hopelessly insane” be put to death.  The suggestion was considered after committeemen were shown a madman who had been shackled to his bed for five years.

Conditions at the Hospital, and allegations of abuse, were investigated several times.  Governor Baldwin ordered a full investigation in 1939.  The investigative team found that condition of care was below the necessary standard, for a number of reasons relating to personnel and supplies, but could find no evidence to confirm abuse.

A former inmate of Norwich State Hospital, however, spoke out in a May 1946 editorial in the Hartford Courant.  The editorial gives first hand eyewitness testimony of patients being starved, beaten and packed in ice for hours as a form of punishment.

In April of 1967, three hospital guards were attacked by patients in Norwich’s Salmon building where the very worst of the criminally insane were confined.  State police investigated the incident, in which patients had set a fire in an apparent escape attempt.  In 1982, hospital staff protested work shortages and assaults by violent patients.  Union workers picketed and cited examples to the media of workers having been kicked, hit and bitten.  They also demanded clearer definitions by administration of patient restraint versus patient abuse, since employees had been disciplined for having to forcibly restrain violent patients.  One psychiatric aide said that he had “suffered blackened eyes, broken ribs, chairs smashed over his head and other assaults.”  He also stated that he had been “threatened with knives” and “broken his teeth.”

By far, the most infamous building at Norwich was the hospital’s Salmon Hall.  One of the original two buildings of the complex, it originally served as housing for male patients.  By 1930, as many more buildings were added to the growing complex, Salmon was renovated to serve as a maximum security building.  Windows were barred and caged doors riveted in place, forming prison-like cells.  After 1930, most criminally insane were transferred to the Norwich facility.  Until its shut down in 1971, Salmon generally held around 700 imprisoned criminally insane, though at times it held considerably more.

In October of 1971, this most infamous building closed its doors.  The criminally insane were transferred to a much larger, newer facility at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown.  Media hailed the decision, describing Salmon as that “trouble-plagued maximum security center at Norwich” and as a “cramped, drab prison building at the hospital.”  Though inmates had been constantly locked down for the past 3 ½ years, in squalid prison conditions, it had not prevented escapes.  As recently as August of 1971, inmate Robert M. Layne of Glastonbury escaped Salmon and the Norwich facility.  He was eventually recaptured after having gunned down two policemen in Spencer, Massachusetts.

Another article in the Hartford Courant cheered “The state is finally going to close down its disgraceful ‘maximum security’ unit for the criminally insane at Norwich… the ancient, inadequate and infamous Salmon Building.”

Norwich continued to function as a treatment hospital until it finally closed its doors in 1996, and its remaining patients transferred to Connecticut Valley Hospital.  It now stands in picturesque abandon.  Security guards herd off photographers and thrill seekers who seek to photograph the still-impressive architecture, as well as urban explorers who seek adventure in the depths of its underground tunnels.  At least one doctor who used to work at the facility claims that the tunnel beneath Salmon Hall is definitely haunted.  He claims that violent inmates were chained to chairs in this tunnel, burned by cigarettes and beaten by aides.  He describes them as the failed experiments of doctors, who now haunt these tunnels and who seek revenge on anyone who ventures there.

The place is so spooky, in fact, that VH-1 decided to film its new Celebrity Paranormal show on the Norwich grounds.  As part of a deal with the town, they changed the name of the place in their episode to the “Warson Hospital for the Criminally Insane.”  Episodes 2 and 4 were filmed at the location in 2006, with a back story of one Nell Marley, supposedly committed in 1945 for murder.  Episode 2 was entitled “Pearl” after the entity which Marley supposedly claimed had possessed her during her crime.  Though the story of Nell Marley and “Pearl” appears to have been completely fabricated, the show was nevertheless a huge success.

Is the Norwich State Hospital truly haunted?  We could hardly wait to find out!

 

SOURCES:

 “Norwich Asylum Opened.”  Hartford Courant, 9 December 1904, p. 2

 “Norwich Sanitarium Site Finally Decided.”  Hartford Courant, 12 March 1912, p. 3

 “Lawyer E.K. Arvine Hangs Himself in Asylum.”  Hartford Courant, 1 December 1914, p. 1

 “Kills Wife With Bread Knife; Had Been in Asylum.”  Hartford Courant, 30 September 1918, p. 1

“Explosion Kills Man at Insane Hospital.”  Hartford Courant, 16 March 1919, p. 18

 “Point Raised That Hopelessly Insane Be Put To Death.”  Hartford Courant, 6 February 1921, p. 1

 “Boy Murderer Declared Insane.”  Hartford Courant, 21 January 1922, p. 15

 “State Hospital Cook Dies of Injuries.”  Hartford Courant, 18 April 1925, p. 3

 “Admits Choking Baby, Mother Becomes Insane.”  Hartford Courant, 21 March 1928, p. 4

 “Nurse, Insane Patient, Kills Self With Knife.”  Hartford Courant, 4 April 1930, p. 12

 “Insane Man Kills Norwich Police Sergt.”  Hartford Courant, 12 December 1934, p. 1

 “Mother Held in Child’s Death Declared Insane.”  Hartford Courant, 19 August 1938, p. 18

 “John Palm Held Insane, Life Saved.”  Hartford Courant, 25 February 1938, p. 1

 “The Norwich Investigation.”  Hartford Courant, 16 June 1939, p. 14

 “State Probes Man’s Death at Norwich.”  Hartford Courant, 3 December 1941, p. 5

 “Action Taken on Hospital by Governor.”  Hartford Courant, 19 September 1944, p. 1

 “The People’s Forum: Norwich Hospital.”  Hartford Courant, 16 May 1946, p. 8

 “Parents’ Slayer Ordered Kept in State Hospital.”  Hartford Courant, 23 May 1952, p. 2

 “The ‘Cain and Abel’ Case.”  Hartford Courant, 31 January 1954, p. SM3

 “Dynamite Killer Transferred to State Hospital.”  Hartford Courant, 12 August 1954, p. 3

 “Murder Trial Planned for Cooley, Found Sane.”  Hartford Courant, 3 July 1957, p. 6B

 “Slayer of Two Children Cleared, Sent to Hospital.”  Hartford Courant, 23 March 1961, p. 1

 “Norwich Hospital Wants Criminal Insane Moved.”  Hartford Courant, 31 July 1965, p. 2

 Demeusy, Gerald.  “State Police Probe Hospital Violence.”  Hartford Courant, 25 April 1967, p. 1

 Rhinelander, David.  “Unease Over Hospital Revived.”  Hartford Courant, 14 December 1969, p. 7B

 Rhinelander, David.  “Norwich Closing Security Center.”  Hartford Courant, 15 September 1971, p. 1

 Rhinelander, David.  “Infamous Unit to Close.”  Hartford Courant, 19 September 1971, p. 3B

 “Stabbing Suspect to Stay in Hospital.”  Hartford Courant, 22 September 1972, p. 10

 Barnes, Patricia.  “Accused Slayer Called Insane.”  Hartford Courant, 8 June 1974, p. 8

 Murphy, Robert.  “Mental Patient Slaying Suspect.”  Hartford Courant, 22 May 1976, p. 1

 Mahony, Edmund.  “Hospital Workers Protest Assaults, Staff Size.”  Hartford Courant, 6 August 1982, p. B6A

 Garnett, Lynne.  “Man Found Not Responsible in Mother’s Slaying.”  Hartford Courant, 16 October 1984, p. B2

 Richardson, Lisa.  “A father’s killing 16 years ago still haunts his family; Tragedy’s pain still fresh after 16 years.”  Hartford Courant, 8 March 1992, p. A1

 Hall, Lizabeth.  “Board Asked to Loosen Restrictions on Killer.”  Hartford Courant, 8 October 1994, p. B2

 Lawson, Amy.  “VH1 films ‘Paranormal Project’ at Norwich State Hospital.”  Norwich Bulletin, 21 June 2006

 Sipe, Corey.  “History of Norwich State Hospital.”  Associated Press, 2 November 2006

  

Part II: THE INVESTIGATION

  Though I had always been interested in an investigation of the Norwich Hospital, and particularly the Salmon building, everything I had read online insisted that the town had closed the place off to visitors.  Security, it was said, were diligent about rounding up intruders and herding them off property or worse, having them arrested by State Police for trespassing.  So, any investigation was put on the back burner until the situation changed, while we investigated other worthy sites.

 Earlier this year, in 2007, Matt and I began an email correspondence with another younger group of paranormal investigators, the CT Haunting Hunters, who were looking for guidance and a presentation by older, more experienced investigators.  While speaking to Steve, the founder of the group, we were told that his group was intimately familiar with the Norwich facility and knew its grounds, the tunnels and the security personnel.  We were assured that, if we were interested, he could get us in to investigate the facility provided that we were brief and respectful to security staff.

 I, of course, was interested from the beginning.  Though we could not gain official permission from the town of Preston (to which the majority of the property currently belongs—until the site is sold to Utopia Studios or some other developer), a brief investigation was possible through connections among the security staff, providing we were discreet.

 On the evening of Thursday 1 March 2007, Matt and I, along with our newest investigator-in-training Cynthia, met with three members of the Haunting Hunters; the founder Steve, Brittany and Kevin.  Armed with our camcorders, digital cameras and voice recorders, the six of us proceeded on foot from the apartment parking lot.  We had a long walk along the railroad tracks behind the facility, then a short but steep climb up the slope into the facility.  With Steve and his group in the lead, we entered an open building to the rear of the complex and proceeded through the tunnels.

 We came first to the Administration Building, where VH1 filmed much of their Celebrity Paranormal show.  The impressive staircase, safe and small chapel area (not to be confused with the nearby Chapel building) all made great photos.  Only later, upon review of the evidence, would we discover that Steve’s group got some great EVPs while in this building.  One seems to say “you’ve got pretty bones” or “carry him home.”  Another voice says “I am waiting.”  To hear more of the Haunting Hunters’ EVPs, check out their website at:

 http://www.freewebs.com/cthauntinghunters/index.htm

 Unfortunately, I was too busy snapping pictures with my digital camera and juggling my Sony handycam trying to get decent video.  I forgot to turn on my voice recorder until we arrived at our next destination: the Salmon building.

 Salmon Hall was truly as spooky as I had imagined.  The building was locked from the outside, so we had to enter through a window into the tunnel.  Walking the dark gloomy tunnel, I recalled the legends of abused patients said to haunt this tunnel.  I even found wooden chairs left in the tunnels, where supposedly patients had been chained and beaten, or burned with lit cigarettes.  No chains remained, however.

 On the upper level, I photographed the eerie hallway while Matt followed Steven and Kevin with his handycam (Cynthia and Brittany had opted to remain in the Administration Building).  Individual cells were outfitted much like prison cells, with barred windows and locked chain-link doors.  They also bore an uncomfortable resemblance to animal cages.  The remains of patient bedframes were found throughout, though the mattresses were long gone.

 It was up here that, for a brief time, I became separated from the others.  Too involved in my photographing the cages, I had not noticed that the other three had already proceeded to the next level up.  It was during this ten or fifteen minutes that my only EVPs of the night occurred.  Of course, I did not realize this until much later when I was reviewing the evidence at home.  While photographing the empty cells, after each flash of the camera (for about 3 seconds), a deep male voice said “smile!”

 I rejoined the others and investigated the rest of Salmon Hall.  The upper level was much like the first.  Some of the rooms appear to have been communal, with large windows looking out upon the complex.  After we were done, we rejoined the women and proceeded back into the tunnels.

 We came next to the Women’s Building, and its impressive auditorium.  We photographed and videotaped this area extensively.  The enormous empty windows leered down at us, and the torn and dilapidated theater seats.  I took my most interesting photograph of the night while alone on the stage.

 After walking carefully up the wooden stairs onto the torn-up stage area, I snapped two photos of the left section and two of the right.  My Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-F717 camera had a nifty feature called NightShot (exactly like that of the handycams), which allowed for photos in complete blackness, without a flash, via infrared illuminators.  To extend the range of the infrared light, Matt had loaned me his HVL-IRM infrared attachment that extends the range of the Sony NightShot.  Unfortunately, photos taken with NightShot tend to be colorless and grainy, particularly around the edges.  Therefore, my only unique photo is not the best quality.

 The picture shows what looks to be the shadow or silhouette of a man standing side profile.  The silhouette appears upon the stacked up ladders and scaffolding materials shoved in the back of the stage.  I was the only one on stage at the time, and no source of illumination (infrared or otherwise) behind me.  No object between the IR light of my camera and the scaffolding stood in the way to have cast a shadow.  The silhouette clearly shows, to my eye at least, a nose and chin and a billed hat.  Nobody in our group that night wore a hat with a bill.

 Matt and I would examine this photo at length later on.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to say definitively that it is paranormal.  In order to be certain, we would have to go back and try to recreate the image.  For a variety of reasons, however, this is nearly impossible.  The best I can say, therefore, is that the image certainly is interesting and is enough to cast a “shadow” of doubt.

 A last trip through the tunnels and we had to bid the Norwich Hospital goodbye.  Though we did not have the time or luxury of exploring more of the buildings, we felt we had gathered some good evidence and had shared in a unique experience.  I rendered heartfelt thanks to the CT Haunting Hunters, and promised to share whatever evidence we found upon review.