Paranormal Encounter in Abandoned Mid-Orange Prison (PART 1) | Haunted, ...

Paranormal activity in abandoned Mid-Orange prison | Part 1

July 19, 2023 | 9:18pm

“When you are evil in life, you are evil in death,” warned Pam Crisci, of Ghost Hunts USA, outside the notorious Mid-Orange Correctional Facility in Warwick, New York. Here at this abandoned boys’ reformatory-turned-prison, paranormal investigator Colin Browen and The Post’s Danica Daniel attempt to contact the spirit of a boy named “Jimmy” in Part 1 of this terrifying tour.

Child abuse was rampant at Mid-Orange, where 500 juveniles from broken and violent homes lived over the decades. One boy, Charles, hanged himself after being abused by a staffer. In 1977, the facility was converted to a medium-security prison, where serial killer Richard Beigenwald was once held, until being shut down in 2011.

Raised on grunge rock and ghost stories, host Colin Browen has investigated hundreds of the world's most notorious locations, from Hoia Baciu Forest in Romania to the Sallie House in Kansas. As a kid, he says his family unknowingly moved into a haunted house where he learned to coexist with the spirits. By 19, he was hosting "Teen Spirit" on the Verizon GO90 Network. He went on to create the popular YouTube series "The Paranormal Files" and co-hosts a true-crime podcast, "Murder in America," with his wife, Courtney.

VIOLENT HISTORY

The former Mid-Orange Correctional Facility has an extensive, and often unsettling, history.

Its origins date back to the 1930s when it was built as a reform school for boys. The school housed about 400 teens at any given time and remained in use until 1976. It is said that at least one of the boys had prematurely ended his stay within one of the dormitories. And many others have continued to prolong their stay long after death, touching guests and closing doors on them- playing with their minds along with any possessions. But the story does not end with a few playful sprites.

In 1976, when the reformatory was closed, it was converted into a correctional facility. This was when it was at its most populated, boasting almost 1,000 inmates housed by 1989. This was its primary function until June of 2011 when it was closed alongside six other state prisons. It is from these men, some of whom had committed the vilest atrocities imaginable, that the complex gets most of its haunts. Bangs, shrieks, inaudible threats, thudding feet… apparitions. It is thanks to them that some of the floors of the schoolhouse remain inaccessible to the public. Although this is done to protect any guests from injury, locked doors mean nothing to the dead.

In 2014, the complex became the official property of the town of Warwick, and in 2019 it was finally given a new purpose with the Fuchs family, where it is currently used as a professional training facility with a focus on soccer, under its new name: The Hudson Sports Complex.

And even though it is now a place of passion and joy, the ghosts of its roots stay restless. And to this day, the complex is known far and wide as a home for the paranormal. Whether it be the ghosts of the children who never found reformation in its halls or the convicted who died within its walls, something at Hudson Sports Complex demands to be heard, and sometimes, even seen… or felt.

Prison of Horrors has found its strength in embracing the terror rather than avoiding it. And for the fourth year in a row, we seek to spread that terror to the masses. Our haunts may be an act, but the fear is real- and, for those lucky few, so are the ghosts. Come stay with us awhile, will you? But be careful when you leave us… for fear is infectious.