“It really happened, Taylor,” Kellogg said. He sat behind his desk in the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Center Facility Three Yard program office. He wore the brave class uniform of a correctional sergeant, a khaki shirt with three stripes on each arm, representing his rank, and a black uniform cap to cover his thinning brown hair. I sat across from him, leaning back in a chair, one boot on the desk. “I don’t expect you to believe me, but I was there. I saw it with my own eyes.”
It was the first watch, the night shift. The inmates were locked up for the night and the prison was staffed by a skeletal team. What better time to tell ghost stories?
Prisons are full of stories of supernatural apparitions, supposedly the spirits of murdered prisoners, or of officers who spend their lives after death eternally prowling the corridors of their former workplaces. During my academic training as a corrections officer cadet, I briefly worked at Old Folsom, the second oldest prison in the state. The stories revolved around the spirits of prisoners hanged for murder. Now there is a warehouse where the gallows used to be. Officers from the 1st Guard were asked to conduct security checks at the facility. New officers often reported that they heard the men crying and wailing in the old warehouse. Experienced officers either stopped reporting the sounds or stopped entering the warehouse altogether. Another story in Old Folsom Prison involved a certain housing unit. Officers routinely counted inmates and got used to the idea that, in that housing unit, they were never alone during the count. They sensed the presence of an invisible officer walking down the bleachers with them, and even heard the jingle of their keys.
“I don’t know Kellogg,” I said. “I’m not calling you a liar, but this place can do fun things to a man’s senses. And you said you were sleeping.”
“Yes, I was sleeping,” Kellogg said, “but I was awake when I saw him. He was there, just as real as you, standing on the second floor, looking down at the living room floor.”
“How it see?”
“He looked like a prisoner. He was a white guy, covered in tattoos. Even on his face. He was wearing his blue. I thought he had gotten out of his cell somehow. I’m glad I didn’t think about it. Notify central control. They would have thought he was there. mad “.
According to the story, it happened when Kellogg was still an officer, working overtime in the control booth of housing unit thirteen at Facility Four. The control booth was a large room on the second floor of the housing unit, with thick, unbreakable windows. The control booth officer provided gun cover for the yard from his rear window and cover for the officers inside the housing unit through the slots in his front windows. He also controlled the opening and closing of the housing unit and the cell doors from a panel on his desk. During the day, it was busy work, but at night, when inmates were locked in their cells, it was one of the easiest jobs in the prison. And an officer, especially an officer overtime, could find himself struggling to stay awake. Kellogg had succumbed to the fighting that night and was fast asleep.
“Something woke me up,” Kellogg said, “I felt like someone was in the control booth with me. I didn’t see anyone, but I felt it. I got up and looked around, but there was no one. I looked into the control room. And there he was, clear as day, leaning against the second-floor railing, looking down at the living room floor. I yelled at him, but he ignored me. I called the officers, but they were sleeping in his office. I don’t know. They woke up. The inmate started walking toward cell 216 and I started yelling at him again. He didn’t even look at me. He got to the cell door, but he didn’t stop walking. Taylor, man, I’m telling you, he walked through the cell door. the cell like it wasn’t even there. I don’t know what to make of that, but I know it happened. “
“And you don’t think it was a dream?” Said.
“No dream,” Kellogg said. “When my shift ended in the morning, I left the control booth and went to cell 216. There were two prisoners locked there. I spoke with them.”
“What did they say?”
“That’s the question,” Kellogg said. “At first they didn’t want to talk to me. They thought I would think they were crazy. When they spoke, they told me they woke up and saw an inmate, the same inmate, standing in his cell, looking out of the back window. And so on. , he left. He was there one second and he went the next. “
I took Sergeant Kellogg’s story with the proverbial grain of salt. I did not rule it out completely. Who am I, after all, to judge another man’s ghost story? But to say that he believed that would not be entirely true. I had witnessed many inexplicable events in my life and tried to keep my mind open to the possibilities, but I also fostered a healthy cynicism.
Another strange event occurred in the prison infirmary. I did not witness it, but I spoke to the doctor and nurses involved, who swore it happened to me. Prisoners with serious medical problems were kept in cells that were basically hospital rooms, equipped with medical beds and televisions. A man convicted of serial rape was dying. He was a belligerent, rude and caustic old prisoner, especially to the female staff. He was in the last minutes of life and was still conscious. He looked at the television from where he was lying on the bed and screamed in fear. Scrolling at the bottom of the screen were the words, YOU GO TO HELL. The Doctor was in the room with two nurses. They switched channels, but the words remained at the bottom of the screen. YOU ARE GOING TO HELL. The inmate took his last breath, staring at the television screen. Perhaps the story was true. Maybe not. I kept an open mind.
It wasn’t until I had an experience of my own that I decided that Sergeant Kellogg really may have seen a ghost. It happened to me. It happened when the employee came to work.
There were many jobs in jail for inmates. The inmates were cooks, worked in the laundry, as porters in housing units, and in a variety of other positions. Being a prison clerk required intelligence. Being the lieutenant’s secretary required even greater intelligence. The lieutenant’s secretary had to be well informed about yard procedures and had to be able to read and write well. When a courtyard discovered an inmate with these abilities, they clung to them. Most lieutenant secretaries had long sentences and many held the same job for ten years or more. Installation One’s lieutenant’s secretary, inmate Jensen, had been the secretary for at least fifteen years. He was an older man with gray hair, a pale complexion, and bifocals. He was quiet and discreet, never straying from the officers, but always professional and courteous. It became part of the furniture, so to speak, its so common presence in the show’s office that it often went unnoticed. He had been sentenced at the age of thirty for murdering his wife’s lover after trapping them together in his bed. He was in his sixties and had spent more time in jail than outside of it. His life inside the wall was a routine. He got up every morning, put on a clean and ironed inmate uniform, waited for the control booth officer to open his cell, and then headed to the program office. Five days a week, every week for over fifteen years. He never spoke about parole. Like many for life, I am sure that one day I hoped to be free. But inmate Jenkins would spend the rest of his life in prison.
The rest of his life. And one more day.
It was an early Monday morning. I walked into the Facility One Program office. I was scheduled to work as one of the yard officers, and I grabbed my equipment, cane, pepper spray, radio, keys, from the equipment locker. I hardly noticed when inmate Jenkins came in. He looked around and seemed a bit confused. I was too busy giving my team to pay much attention. He headed back to his workstation, an alcove down the hall with an electric typewriter on a large wooden desk. I finished fastening my service belt and pressing the microphone on my radio to make sure the battery was charged. Inmate Jenkins left his work area, the same expression of vague confusion on his pale face. He walked to the program’s front door, which was open for officers to come and go, and stepped out onto the patio. I checked the task schedule, which was posted on the wall, to see what additional tasks I had to do.
I heard screams from one of the first watch officers at the end of the show.
“No way!” the Scream.
I went out into the hall to see what was going on. The officer, a middle-aged Hispanic, watched from where he stood at the end of the hall, through the open door. His eyes were wide with surprise and not a little scared. I followed his gaze to the empty courtyard.
“What’s happening?” Said.
“Jenkins, man. I just saw Jenkins!”
“Doing what?” Said. I looked out into the courtyard, but didn’t see inmate Jenkins.
“You don’t understand! He’s not supposed to be doing anything.”
I went back to examining the yard. No recluse Jenkins. Where could it have gone?
“I don’t see it at all,” I said.
“Taylor,” the officer said, exasperated, “Jenkins is dead. He died in the infirmary last night!”
I looked at the officer, sure he was messing with me. I smiled.
“Okay,” I said, “Jenkins is dead. Go on. I saw him a minute ago.”
The officer stepped out onto the patio and looked around. Shook his head.
“I don’t get it, man,” he said. “They told me he was dead.”
“Well,” I said, “they told you wrong. Maybe it was another Jenkins.”
He thought about it, looking at the empty courtyard. He nodded to himself.
“Yeah. I guess so. That has to be …”
“Here,” I said, “come with me.”
I walked into the program office and he followed me. I sat down at the computer, entered my password, and logged into SOMS, the officer information system. I looked for inmate Jenkins in facility one. His information appeared on my screen, his housing unit, and a photo ID. I checked its status. It showed that he had gotten out of jail the day before. I glanced at the officer, who was looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. His mouth was open. His eyes were wide. There, directly below the photo of inmate Jenkin, were the following words: Status: Discharged. Cause- Death. Location: San Diego County Coroner’s Office. Not only was inmate Jenkins dead, he was released to the San Diego County Coroner’s Office.
His body was in the morgue.
From time to time I read articles in the newspaper or see news about people convicted of heinous crimes. Some are sentenced to life imprisonment, others to life imprisonment for more than fifty years. I worked with inmates who were sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. We all assumed they would leave prison when their first life sentence ended. After all, a man only has one life to give. But now I wonder if that is completely true. How many inmates served their life sentences and realized they had much more time to do it?
