Experts say Frontier Prison is crawling with spooks

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Experts say Frontier Prison is crawling with spooks
By Baylie Evans
Wyoming Tribune

CHEYENNE -- Strapped into the gas chamber of the no longer working Wyoming Frontier Prison in Rawlins, Stacie Tomlinson asked the spirit that she felt in the room if it knew how it died.

At the time, she felt an angry and confused spirit there, possibly that of the youngest and most recent person to die in that room, Andrew Pixley.

As the story goes, Pixley was put to death in the 1960s for murdering and cannibalizing two young girls, explained Bob Aquin, one of the original members of the Cheyenne Paranormal Investigations team.

Pixley was particularly violent while in prison and apparently took much longer to kill than other men.

The spirit that Tomlinson thought she felt was male, and very angry. And she didn't get an answer to her question.

At least, she didn't think she did.

It wasn't until later, when she listened to the tape of her seemingly one-sided conversation with the spirit, that she got her answer.

So faint that only super-sensitive microphones could pick it up, Aquin and Tomlinson said a faint sound on tape is a little girl's voice wailing "no" after Tomlinson's question.

"I've had dreams about that one," Tomlinson said.

The Wyoming Frontier Prison was the most recent project by the Cheyenne Paranormal Investigations team, and it's one of the most active places they've visited, Aquin said.

More than 50 sounds were recorded over the course of a few hours there last July. The sounds were posted on the team's Web site, www.cheyenneparanormal.com, this week.

Ten separate "voices"

were picked up by the high-tech microphones that the team brought along. They said they also recorded drips where there was no water, footsteps where there were no people, strange static noises and unusual instrument readings.

The frequency of the events is unusual, but the events themselves aren't, Aquin said. The team has been picking up strange sounds and experiencing strange events since its beginning in 1994.

The most active location they've investigated was a home in Cheyenne, where they recorded almost 100 sounds in three hours, mostly in a child's room.

Many paranormal investigation teams come through the Wyoming Frontier Prison. So many, in fact, that the prison -- which is now a museum -- has made it a business and charges the groups by the hour.

Still, Tina Hill, the historic site director for the prison, isn't convinced.

"I'm on the fence," she said about whether she believes in what so many say is there. "I really don't know how much I personally believe in ghosts, and I'm not sure I want to (believe) because I'm here by myself a lot."

Over 80 years, more than 13,500 inmates were housed in the prison, which used to be the Wyoming State Penitentiary. That any of them would stick out above the others is probably unlikely, she said.

Plus, what the investigators usually find doesn't match up with the history very well.

Nevertheless, CPI picked up one sound of a voice saying "leave me," while at the prison.

"I really think I hear that one," she said.

Unlike Aquin, Tomlinson has experienced paranormal events her whole life, she said.

She doesn't consider herself psychic or gifted, but she does say that spirits seem to follow her wherever she goes.

As a child, she saw and heard spirits often.

The Wyoming Frontier Prison was one of the first investigations that she participated in.

"That was the most ... exhilarating thing," she said.

She had several experiences there, including the one in the gas chamber.

"I have children," she said. "When it comes to children and hearing them, it's a tough thing for me."

God has a reason for her to search out the paranormal, she added.

"I know that there's something else that's going on out there, and I'd love to be the one to be able to find it," she said.

Although Tomlinson has always believed, and Aquin has come to believe, the goal of CPI's investigations is not to prove anything, Aquin said.

After all, he added, it's impossible to prove the paranormal, which by definition is something that is not scientifically provable.

Their goal is to research and document what they find and let people come to their own conclusions.

"(When we record a sound,) we're not saying that a ghost has appeared and is standing next to you," he said. "We're saying this is a strange occurrence."

When strange noises are coupled with strange instrument readings like temperature changes or static readings, and that happens again and again over the course of years, it's hard to believe that it's a coincidence, he said.

"I was the type ... I didn't believe a darn thing unless it grabbed me around the neck," Aquin said. "(But) how many times can something happen before it's not a coincidence anymore?"