Charlotte County Jail and Courthouse 6/22/19

Zoom Zoom and I went to jail today and paid to get out. We were not arrested; it was a tour. We paired up with another couple from the RV Trek Adventure and headed into town after visiting Ministers Island.

The neat thing about the jail is Thomas still lives there-he is one of the resident ghosts. He keeps the door pulled closed tightly, so I had to pull a little more on the front door to get in. Our guide was a sweet girl named Claire. She is a college student working for her college fund. She did an excellent job explaining all about the jail and the courthouse.

The jail went into service in 1832 and was decommissioned in 1979. It originally housed inmates on death row. Back then you were executed by hanging. As it got closer to the 1900’s, the jail became a debtor’s jail and still along with the jail for those on death row. The entire jail had 14 cells. None of the cells had heat or air conditioning (especially back in the 1800’s 😊). If you were a debtor, you lived upstairs for 6 months with your family until your sentence had been served. Everyone else lived downstairs. The rooms were your typical 8’x8’ish with a “window” that was probably 3” wide by 12” tall. There was no glass in the window, so the inmates were exposed to the elements. There was no electricity at first. It was extremely dark in the rooms. The inmates spent from 6am- 6pm in the hallway of the jail and from 6pm- 6am back in the cell. The hallway was approximately 6’ x 30’. Claire told us one story about how the jailer forgot to lock the main jail door. All the inmates took off out the front door of the jailhouse. It happened that it was winter and brutally cold. They stepped outside – had no winter gear and turned right around back into the jail.

The last hanging was in 1942 of a Royal Air Force man. He left a dance one night with a girl who was found murdered the next morning.  He had a spot of blood on his shirt. He swore he didn’t know what had happened to her. But when they found the spot of blood that’s all it took. If it were today’s times, we would at least have DNA to look at and all our other forensics have come a long way. Unfortunately, the gallows weren’t built correctly, and he ended up hanging there between 12-18 minutes before he was pronounced. The time discrepancy still has not been settled. This gentleman happens to be one of the Thomas’s that frequent the jail.

The other Thomas that resides at the jail conspired with his girlfriend to kill her husband. She was given 7 years and he was given the death penalty. Most likely the girlfriend is the one that wanted her husband killed since this was her second husband she did this to.

Over at the courthouse, Claire told us they use a micro jury (10 jurors). The person on trial sits at the back of the courtroom in a box that resembles a penalty box. Smack dab in the center of the room is a long table. The opposing counsels face each other during trial. When a witness is called you can swear on any type of religious book you’d like, and then while giving your testimony they don’t let you sit. They believe you are more apt to tell the truth if you are uncomfortable.

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