11 minute read
JAILHOUSE SHOCK: Sarah Chumacero and the spooky stories of J-Ward Prison
Ant comments that he does not feel any fear but Jane senses that he has a sense of superiority, an arrogance and a sense of duty that makes him a very hard character to work with. Again, there were lots of loud bangs around the room. Jane: Have you been around for a long time? The Board: YES Jane: Have you been around since the dawn of men? The Board: YES Jane: Are you an Ancient Being? The Board: YES Neil: If you are DEATH, have you come for a reason? The Board: NO Jane: He is here because we invited him Neil: Does he travel on his own? The Board: YES Neil: Are you human? The Board: NO, I WILL ALWAYS COLLECT PAYMENT Neil: What is payment? The glass moves around the board very quickly then stops. Neil starts to hold his face. Neil: Are you affecting someone’s eyes? The Board: YES Neil: Will you leave without payment? The Board: NO Neil: What kind of payment? The Board: WHAT EVER YOU WANT TO PAY Jane: We will pay him with our gratitude Neil: Have you been called before? The Board: YES Neil: Do you only takes souls when it is the persons time to go? The Board: YES Jane: Is it the first time you have travelled through our Mirror? The Board: YES Jane comments ‘He has not been to the centre before but has travelled through many other mirrors and doorways to visit people’ Neil: Who tells you when it is time to go and collect a soul? The Board: THE UNIVERSE Jane: Is there a supreme Cosmic energy? The Board: YES Ant: Is there a Heaven and Hell? The Board: YES, BUT ITS YOUR OWN, DIFFERENT FOR EVERYONE Neil: Do you just work on this planet? The Board: NO Neil: Do you go to other life forms on other planets? The Board: YES Ant: What is the closest planet to Earth that has a life form on it? The Board: ALPHA CENTURE Neil: Is there pain in Death? The Board: NO Neil: Are there many other species on other planets? The Board: YES Neil: Are we all interlinked? The Board: YES Neil: Have other Alien species visited this planet? The Board: YES Neil: Are they on this planet now? The Board: YES Neil: Are they humanoid? The Board: YES Neil: Do you have a last message for us? The Board: DEATH IS A WORLD Neil: Should we fear death? The Board: NO Ant: Why should we fear you? The Board: THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE TAUGHT
On reflection, the session took some time afterwards, to try and process everything that had been witnessed. Had the Team summoned the figure we all know as the Grim Reaper? The session generated so many new questions and opened our minds to other avenues of investigation to consider. Has Mr Death been misinterpreted? Is he just doing his job? As with many other things the Team have encountered and experienced at HAPRC, it is so easy to fall into the trap in ‘assuming’ and ‘believing’ what other people have said whilst doing this type of work in the Paranormal before. Not assuming or pre-empting anything gives us a better understanding of what we are experiencing, rather than assuming and taking the inherited information as true. I believe other people have in the past, seen and felt this energy before. Like other stories from the past, it is very easy for them to be misinterpreted, changed and rewritten to install fear and/or control. It is also easy to ‘fill in the gaps’ to try and comprehend and make sense of what has been experienced, when the information given is new and contradicts what we have been ‘programmed’ with. Working with the Spirit World and understanding how it works, it is not unreasonable to expect a Higher Spirit to be in the position of overseeing and coordinating the process of Death. The guidance of souls returning to the Spirit World and ensuring the transition is smooth and that loved ones/ companions are available at the point of the soul leaving the body has to be managed at some level. We know that a few slip through the net but that is down to their choice and free will.
This was a very good session for the Team at HAPRC and no doubt, we will be doing more sessions like this to learn more about the unknown. Good Luck with any session you try and remember, be careful what you wish for…
PHOTOGRAPHY: © SARAH CHUMACERO
JWard Prison for the criminally
insane sits in the rural town of Ararat in Victoria, Australia. Built in 1859, it opened in 1861 as a Goldfields prison called the Ararat County Gaol. The prison saw three executions within its walls, with the bodies still buried in the courtyard to this very day. Their graves can be found by an arrow engraved in the bluestone walls. This represents the men being buried standing up with no coffins so that they would never see rest. The 4th official death at the prison was in 1881, when the 4th Governor to run the gaol George Fiddlemont died of a massive heart attack on the steps leading down to the bathroom. Tour guides to this very day purposely skip standing on the step where Governor Fiddlemont died as a mark of respect. Of course, like all old prisons, it is not without its horrid tales. The Governor’s bathroom is said to be haunted with many unable to walk inside as is rumoured that 6 people were murdered in the bathtub by one of the former governors.
One of the J Ward guides was taking a tour during the day and when they were in the Old Underground Kitchen, he and the group were able to hear a person walking up and down the steps….. sounding very much like hobnailed boots. Our guide thought this was strange as no other group or person was in J Ward at that time.
“As a result, he called out a number of times if anyone was there. There was no answer so he went over to open the door and to his and the groups amazement, there was no one there.”
When the goldrush in Victoria ended, the prison was no longer needed so in 1886, the gaol was acquired by the lunacy department and in 1887 opened as a section of the nearby Aradale Lunatic Asylum dubbed as J Ward. It would serve as a prison to the criminally insane housing the most mentally disturbed and dangerous men in Victoria right up until 1991 when it was closed. J Ward was a place for people that couldn’t be put in a regular prison or hospital. It was certainly not safe to return them to the community. For a lot of these people, the ‘system’ is the only thing they knew. It is a sad fact still to this day that many former criminals reoffend to go back to prison or an institution because it is all they know. Some felt the same way about J Ward. Former Inmates include William Watson Carr, a former coal miner that brutally murdered his fiancé for ending their engagement. Then there was Robert Peter Tait, a man who suffered a severe head injury as a child. His behaviour became increasingly erratic and extreme over time. His wife left him after enduring countless drunken beatings and he eventually beat a frail 82-year-old woman to death.
One of the more famous patients was a man called Garry David, also known as Garry Webb. In 1982, he was sentenced to 14 years for the attempted murder of 3 people, one of which was a police officer. He could have been out within eight and a half years had it not been for the fact he started to write to the media and the politicians about the very disturbing things that he would do when he got out. The politicians became so worried that they passed a special law to keep him locked up for the rest of his life. Webb also became a self-mutilator. There were around seventy recorded instances of him cutting off parts his body when his demands to police and politicians were not met. He cut his penis off three times with the last time being too damaged to reattach. He died by suicide in 1993 after ingesting razor blades.
J Ward was also home to Charles Foussard, a Frenchman who was admitted for shooting and killing a man. It was his home from the age of 21 until his death at 92 making his incarceration the longest in the world. Then there was Mr. Bill Wallace. A man who spent 64 years at his home – J Ward where he also held the title of the World’s oldest inmate.
In 1926, Bill Wallace who was 44 years old at the time was arrested as a suspect to the of murder of a man outside of a café in Melbourne. The man entered Waterloo Café in King Street where he sat down to light up a cigarette. Smoking was a regular part of life back then and people could freely smoke pretty much anywhere they wanted to. Wallace who hated smoking at the time told him to put it out. After he refused, Wallace waited for him outside in the street and shot him dead. A policeman who was nearby heard the shot and ran to the scene of the crime where he arrested Wallace. He refused to answer any questions or talk about the crime he had just committed. As there were no witnesses and no admission to the crime, Wallace was found unfit to plead and was declared insane by 2 Doctors. He was sentenced to be held at J Ward prison for the criminally insane at the Governor’s pleasure. It means that the Governor could hold Wallace for as long as he wanted and could also release him once he was convinced that he was cured. Wallace however refused to speak to the Doctors so was never released. He spent the rest of his life institutionalized which equated to 57 Years at J Ward and a further 7 at the adjoining Aradale Asylum until his death just shy of turning 108. It is thought that he had a wife and family at the time of his incarceration, but he was said to have possibly made arrangements with figures in the underworld to care for them. This was never confirmed, and Wallace never spoke of them. In a somewhat ironic twist, Wallace went on to become one of the heaviest smokers in J Ward. He liked to smoke government-issued Tobacco that came in a fifty-pound block. He was content to lead his daily life in J Ward which he considered to be his home. He preferred to be addressed as Mr.
Wallace and was said to always act like a gentleman. He always wore a suit, and the prison guards would measure him for his annual suit fitting. He bought his suits from a local store in Ararat called ‘Fosters’. Do not let his dapper looks deceive you though as if provoked, Mr. Wallace was said to be ‘fully capable of kicking one’s head off’. Even at the age of 100, he was still quite capable of becoming violent. One night in the dining hall while the inmates were eating dinner, a fellow inmate asked Mr. Wallace if he wanted to eat the last slice of bread on his plate, he reached across the table to grab it where, in response, Wallace picked up a fork and stabbed it into the hand of the inmate. Seems he didn’t want to share his bread!
On his 100th birthday, the staff at J Ward gifted him a chess set as a kind gesture because he loved to play chess. The Chessboard is still on display today in the J Ward Museum. The general public soon got word that there was a 100-year-old inmate at J Ward and quickly petitioned for his release. As he never went to court, they wanted to prove his innocence and become his saviour. After 3 years the Government agreed to release him but there was one catch. Mr. Wallace didn’t want to leave J Ward. His exact words were quoted to be “Don’t be f***ing silly, I live here!’. Realistically, Mr. Wallace had lived there for almost 60 years at this point. Where would he go? What kind of life could he even have as a 100-year-old man starting out again?
He was eventually moved to the geriatric ward at nearby Aradale Lunatic Asylum where he passed away at the age of 107 just one month short of his 108th birthday.
If walls could talk, I am not sure we would want to know what the walls of J Ward would have to say! It sits today intact as a museum and is considered a highly active location for paranormal investigators with many hoping to interact with Mr Wallace and his fellow inmates.
The historical information presented has been gathered from the book ‘The J Ward Story’ written by Graeme Burgin. J Ward Photos by Sarah Chumacero Photos of Bill Wallace from ‘The J Ward Story’ by Graeme Burgin
Sarah X
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