Richard Estep - Spirits of the Cage: True Accounts of Living in a Haunted Medieval Prison

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Spirits of the Cage: True Accounts of Living in a Haunted Medieval Prison 2017 by Richard Estep and Vanessa Mitchell.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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First e-book edition 2017

E-book ISBN: 9780738754000

Book design by Bob Gaul
Cover design by Shira Atakpu
Editing by Aaron Lawrence
All photos by Richard Estep except for image on by Vanessa Mitchell

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (pending)

ISBN: 978-0-7387-5193-1

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Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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Woodbury, MN 55125

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Manufactured in the United States of America

For my wonderful nieces and nephews: Bethany, George, and Morgan Estep, and Olivia Tiberio.
My love to you all, now and always.
Uncle Richard

This book is dedicated to the everlasting loving memory of my dearest and deeply missed grandparents Elizabeth Mary and
Malcolm MitchellTill we meet
so I can cuddle you both again.
Vanessa Mitchell

Contents

One:

Two:

Three:

Four:

Five:

Six:

Seven:

Eight:

Nine:

Ten:

Eleven:

Twelve:

Thirteen:

Fourteen:

Fifteen:

Sixteen:

Seventeen:

Eighteen:

Nineteen:

Twenty:

Introduction

D o you want to come and live in a haunted prison for witches?

A lot of people would run for miles if they were offered an opportunity like that. But then again, just as many would jump at the chance. Im definitely in the latter group.

My name is Richard Estep. Ive been a paranormal investigator for the past twenty-one years, investigating claims of ghostly activity and haunted locations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. During that time, Ive been fortunate enough to spend nights in some of the worlds most haunted buildings: Asylum 49 in Tooele, Utah; Bobby Mackeys Music World in Wilder, Kentucky (which some have labelled the gateway to Hell); and the notorious Black Monk house at number 30 East Drive in Pontefract, England.

Ive also been locked up in haunted prisons. I spent a night in the old jail up at Cripple Creek, a former mining camp turned gambling town up in the hill country of my adopted Colorado. In one hair-raising night, my fellow investigators and I heard the whisper of disembodied voices all around us on the cell block, recorded an EVP of what sounds disconcertingly like somebody getting their throat cut, and most concerning of all, my very own doppelgnger put in an appearance while I was securely incarcerated in one of the cells.

But a haunted witches prison? Just show me the way!

I had first heard about the Cage from a TV show called Great British Ghosts . In it, former kids TV presenter Michaela Strachan travels around the United Kingdom, visiting some of its most active haunted hotspots and interviewing the people who live and work there. It was late 2015, not long before Christmas, and I was in between paranormal cases to consult on.

The episode concerning the Cage really piqued my interest, and I ended up re-watching it several times over. I was impressed by just how down to earth its owner, Vanessa Mitchell, seemed to be. As she began to tell her terrifying story of life inside the Cage, detailing some of the more bizarre and disturbing events that had taken place there, I found myself growing more and more intrigued. Could the building really be as active as Vanessa claimed it was?

Flipping open my laptop, I went online and began some preliminary research on the Cage, beginning with that most trusted of resources: good old Doctor Google. Is this UKs most haunted house? was the question posed by reporter Matt Quinton in a Halloween week article for The Sun national newspaper on October 28, 2014.

Mr. Quinton spent a night sleeping inside the Cage in order to research his article. His evening seemed to start out innocuously enough, with a tour of the prison conducted by Vanessa, followed by an interview with a paranormal investigator named David Mayhew. Mr. Mayhew reported that he had been Bitten by an invisible force once while trying to make recordings of spirits in the living room. There was a sudden pain in my leg and I collapsed to the floor. It was agony and actually drew blood. Ive still got the mark.

I sat up straighter in my chair. It wasnt all that unusual in the field of paranormal research to record the voices of the dead, to hear phantom footsteps, feel icy drafts, or even witness shadowy figures and sometimes full-bodied apparitions, if you were really lucky. But physical phenomenaparticularly violent physical phenomenaadded an entirely new dimension to things. For one, it implied that any spirit entities that might be present at the Cage would be willing to interact with visiting paranormal investigators and not necessarily in a nice, friendly manner.

Continuing to scan the article, I read about Vanessas own dark experiences while living inside the Cage. It might even be more accurate to say that she was sentenced to it, because her life inside the former witches prison sounded very much as though it had been a jail term, full of trials and tribulations that ultimately led her to flee the place in fear of her own safety and that of her precious baby son.