A former death row inmate who spent three years waiting to be handed his date of execution has shed light on an eerie phenomenon he claims takes place each time someone is put to death.
It’s difficult to imagine that there are many places on Earth more unsettling than death row, where those individuals convicted of the most depraved, brutal and unforgivable crimes see out their last days, weeks, months, years before having their sentence carried out.
And, according to one former inmate of Florida State Prison, there’s more than just the unthinkable mental toll of waiting to die to put up with… as there’s a creepy phenomenon that takes place at the institution every time a prisoner is due to make their final walk.
In 2006, Herman Lindsey, a father of seven, was accused of killing pawnshop owner Joanne Mazzola in a 1994 murder-robbery. The case had been cold for over 12 years when Lindsey was found guilty and sentenced to die.
He was promptly moved to Florida State Prison’s death row, where he remained for three years until the conviction was ultimately overturned when a Florida Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous verdict in July 2009 that there wasn’t enough evidence to find Lindsey guilty of a crime, much less sentence him to death.
The court said at the time that: “The state had failed to produce any evidence in this case placing Lindsey at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder.”
Nevertheless, three years, I think we can all agree, is a terribly long time to spend behind bars, and the crippling emotional strain is something Lindsey still lives with today, 16 years after he was freed.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, the now-52-year-old opened up about a truly haunting happening that played out every time an inmate was executed, claiming that a “spirit” would routinely walk down the hallway.
“On the night of someone being executed, you will see a spirit walk down the hallway,” he told the Mail.
“That is something that’s not a tale. The majority of people on Death Row will tell you they have seen it themselves.
“It’s not hallucinating, what you see is the spirit of a person.”
The common consensus among inmates at Florida State Prison – a legend that has been passed from convict to convict – is that the restless spirit belongs to an individual who was previously executed at the facility, possibly decades ago.
Lindsey added: “Where it goes, where it comes from, we don’t know.
“They say it’s a rumor of a certain guy.”
Naturally, tales of the apparition beggar belief, but Lindsey insists that he wasn’t the only person to have witnessed it.
“You can’t be hallucinating when you got 12 other people seeing the same thing that you’re seeing.
“That is virtually impossible, and that’s what made me believe in spirits because you actually see it.”
Lindsey added: “I have never known that spirit to stop at anybody’s cell, but I’m just saying it walks the road.”
These days, the former death row inmate is an advocate for criminal justice reform. He reportedly travels the US sharing his story in a bid to ensure courts and juries take the appropriate time and consideration before sentencing someone to death.
“Death Row was traumatising, but at the same time, it was a life lesson,” he told the Mail.
“Being around some of those guys was some of the greatest experience I ever had. I could say Death Row was the first place I felt like there wasn’t any division because of race, religion, or what someone believed or anything like that.
“It actually taught me a lot of things about life.
“The guys on there go through problems. It’s just different, it was life changing and I’m glad I got a chance to visit that, to see the real side of it.”
Florida is currently the US state with the highest number of executions carried out this year. Three more are scheduled to take place over the course of the next month.
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