"Presumably,
we will never see a commercial in which someone, when asked if they are a
ghosthunter who spent the night in a haunted jail, replies with 'No, but I
did stay at Holiday Inn Express last night!' On the other hand, it would
be quite reasonable for someone to answer that question in the affirmative if
they had just spent the night in the Holiday Inn Express Riverwalk Area, which
is located in what had been the Bexar County Jail for nearly a century.
... One
of the most common phenomenon is rooms that remain unnaturally cold, even during
the summer or if the heat is turned on. Other activity includes beds that are
indented as if someone is laying on them, but then abruptly have the
indentations disappear; people hearing whispering in their rooms that stops
when the lights are turned on; objects being pulled out of people's hands and
thrown across the room; and the breakfast area being rearranged and disheveled
during the night. Most horrifying among the things people have reported,
however, are in the rooms where the gallows were once located, where people
claim to have seen apparitions fall through the ceiling as if just hanged!"
That is a preview of my chapter on the old Bexar County Jail for Ghosthunting San Antonio, Austin, and Texas Hill Country! People can become inmates for the night at the former detention facility, which is now a hotel in the heart of downtown San Antonio.
Above left: Allison Schiess of Sisters Grimm Ghost Tours talks about the Old Bexar County Jail from the parking lot of Penner's, an iconic San Antonio clothier. Above right: Brutal murderer Apolinar Clemente, who lived in the jail for a year-and-a-half before dying there at the end of a rope.
"When
one considers what sorts of places are most likely to be haunted they might not
necessarily think of large, public, relatively new structures like event arenas
constructed during the past two or three decades. But almost everything is
built where other things with their own histories used to be and on ground that
may have already been sites of spiritual activity and even places that are the
brightest under the best of conditions sometimes have dark pasts of their own.
And, short of a battlefield, there are perhaps few places where so many people
congregate in one place and express such strong emotions as at a sports
stadium. It should thus not be too surprising that people have over the years
reported so much paranormal activity at the Alamodome."
That is the opening paragraph to my chapter on the Alamodome for Ghosthunting San Antonio, Austin, and Texas Hill Country! Incidents at the stadium that some people believe contribute to it being haunted include the hideous death of daredevil Randy Hill in 1993, who was killed when the top of his car was sheared off by another driver.
"A
stunt driver was killed Saturday night when the top of his car was sheared off
during a planned midair collision gone awry," the Associated Press
reported on November 15, 1993. "His wife and three-year-old son watched
from the audience. Randy Hill, 49, of Phoenix died instantly when his car was
struck by another car driven by daredevil Spanky Spangler, who was not injured,
organizers said. Hill retired from stunt driving eight years ago and only
recently decided to do the stunt at the two-day San Antonio Thrill Show at the
Alamodome. The two cars were supposed to meet head-on at 50 mph. Organizers did
not immediately know what went wrong. The rest of the show was canceled after
the accident."
