The Most Haunted Prison in America Opens Its Doors to Ghost Hunters Last Night. Over 200 People Died Inside.

The Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, has been called the most haunted prison in America — and last night, May 14, 2026, the paranormal convention ParaPsyCon 7 kicks off its opening night inside the building with a live gallery reading by psychic medium Cindy Kaza at 7 p.m. The full three-day event runs May 15 to 17, bringing professional paranormal investigators, cryptid researchers, psychics, and the general public through the corridors of one of the most architecturally imposing and historically brutal penal institutions in the United States. Over two hundred people died inside these walls. The building has been empty of living prisoners since 1990. If the accounts of everyone who has investigated it since are to be believed, it has not been empty of anything else.

The Ohio State Reformatory was designed in 1886 by architect Levi T. Scott, who took deliberate inspiration from German Gothic castle architecture. The intention was spiritual uplift: the towers, the vaulted ceilings, the stone construction were meant to encourage reformation in the young first-time offenders the institution was built to house. It opened in September 1896 with its first 150 inmates. By the time it was completed in 1919 it contained what was then the largest self-supporting steel cellblock in the world — six stories, 600 cells, stacked floor upon floor in a Victorian iron cathedral.

The spiritual uplift did not materialize. The Ohio State Reformatory devolved over the following decades into one of the most notoriously brutal prisons in the United States. Young inmates sent there for minor offenses served time alongside hardened violent criminals. Punishment methods documented in the institution’s history included devices known as the “sweatbox,” water tube restraints, and an electrical shock apparatus called “the butterfly.” Deaths by violence, illness, fire, and despair accumulated across the decades. In 1930, a fire killed 330 inmates and injured 200 more, with survivors confined to an attic space with severe burns.

The prison was formally closed in 1990 following a court ruling that its conditions constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society was established in 1995 and has operated the site as a museum and event space since.

What People Report Inside

The list of reported paranormal phenomena at the Ohio State Reformatory is long and varied. Paranormal investigator Greg Feketik, who described himself as a non-believer before visiting, told interviewers he watched a shadow figure walk up a staircase and then heard growling from an adjoining room, followed by what he described as phantom church bells. Multiple investigators have reported orbs in video footage from the six-story cellblock. Shadow figures have been consistently reported in the basement, where a 14-year-old boy was allegedly beaten to death and whose apparition is described as lingering in the shadows near that specific location.

The most famous ghost story associated with the building involves Helen Glattke, wife of Superintendent Arthur Glattke. Helen was reaching for a jewelry box on a shelf in the couple’s apartment inside the prison when a handgun fell from it, discharged, and fatally wounded her. Her spirit is said to be one of the most active presences in the building, reported in the warden’s quarters. Superintendent Glattke himself died of a heart attack in his office at the prison nine years later, and is reportedly encountered there as well.

The building has been used as a filming location for multiple major productions, most notably The Shawshank Redemption, which used the exterior and several interior spaces in 1993 and 1994. Ghost Adventures filmed an episode here that is frequently cited as one of the show’s most compelling investigations.

Who Is at ParaPsyCon 7

Tonight’s opening event features Cindy Kaza, whose gallery reading format involves delivering spirit messages from a group of the deceased to a room of 80 audience members simultaneously. The convention proper runs Friday through Sunday, May 15 to 17.

The full speaker list is substantial: Dr. Mireya Mayor, a primatologist and Expedition Bigfoot cast member who also holds expertise in wildlife fieldwork; Ben Hansen, former FBI special agent turned paranormal investigator; John Zaffis, known as the “Godfather of the Paranormal” and nephew of Ed and Lorraine Warren; Dustin Pari and Heather Taddy from Ghost Hunters; Russell Acord, Dave Schrader, Brian J. Cano, Shane Pittman, and Mike Ricksecker. Weekend passes are $50. Single day is $30.

The programming includes celebrity ghost hunts inside the prison itself — the convention format allows attendees to investigate with professionals in the same building where the paranormal reports originated. This is not a haunted house attraction where theatrical effects simulate the uncanny. It is a group of people walking into cells where other people died, with equipment, in the dark.

Whether or not they find anything, the building has a documented history that requires no embellishment. Over 200 people died inside it. The conditions that existed there over nearly a century of operation were, in the judgment of a federal court, cruel enough to violate the Constitution. The architecture is still standing. Tonight, at 7 p.m., Cindy Kaza will attempt to speak to whatever is left.

Sources: Knox Pages — ParaPsyCon 7 Brings Psychics, Ghost Hunters and Cryptid Seekers to Mansfield’s Haunted Prison (May 13, 2026) — US Ghost Adventures — The Ohio State Reformatory: Mansfield Ohio’s Dark Legacy (updated February 2026) — Haunted Rooms America — Mansfield Prison, Ohio State Reformatory — Scripps News — Ghost Hunting at the Ohio State Reformatory — Ohio State Reformatory Preservation Society — Paranormal Programs (mrps.org)