In an unassuming set of buildings in the middle of North Carolina, you will find whiskey being manufactured in what once was the home of a number of prisoners. The prison had a long and brutal history that may have led to the current day reports of haunted activity including moving objects, unexplained voices, and even full body apparitions. We spent the night investigating the “Whiskey Prison” to see what we could find.
Date: March 1, 2025
Location: Mount Pleasant, NC
Investigators: Chris, Matt S, Matt K, Ana
Location History
Opened in 1929, Mt. Pleasant Prison, also known as the Cabarrus Correctional Center, operated as a minimum security prison housing up to 140 prisoners at a time. Most of the inmates were kept in barrack style cells that tended to be overcrowded causing friction at times between the inmates.
When we arrived on site, we were given a tour of the facility and provided with a brief history of the land, buildings, and people who spent time there. The original landowner was a man by the name of Rufus Barrier, a hardcore alcoholic who died of consumption. The land was purchased and turned into a campus style prison with separate buildings for the barracks, mess hall, warden home, and support facilities such as medical, commissary, and a barber shop. The prison operated for many years, finally shut down in 2011.
One notable building was referred to as the Hot Box. It was a tiny building that held 2 cells and when a prisoner acted up, they would be thrown in there for up to 30 days at a time. Not only did the inmates suffer in the sticky hot humid North Carolina summers, but the hot box actually had wood fire stoves inside to intentionally increase the heat and therefore increase inmate suffering.
Hot box including 3 chimneys for the fires set inside to increase the heat.
In another small outbuilding we learned of a man by the name of Ready Carter who tried to fight with a guard but ended up dead in the altercation.
We were told this bullet hole in a door was caused by the fight between Ready Carter and the guard.
We were told this bullet hole in a door was caused by the fight between Ready Carter and the guard
At the end of what is now the distillery’s current production building are 4 solitary confinement cells that have quite the reputation. We were told that women today often report that they get their hair pulled in cell #3, an inmate hung himself in cell #4, and a man by the name of Franklin Shackleford died of a heart attack in one of the cells.
Our Experience
Ana and I, the 2 gals of the group, were very interested in investigating cell #3 where there are reports of women getting their hair pulled. We brought in a host of gadgets including our SLS camera. On the SLS, a very tall and thin figure popped up by the doorway. My initial thought was that the camera was picking up the bars of the cells and when I said this outloud, the figure suddenly made itself much wider so as to suggest “I’m not bars, I’m a real ghost!” Ana got up and walked through that space and the figure disappeared.
This SLS “skinny” figure made itself suddenly wider when I accused it of picking up the jail bars. Could that have been an intelligent response?
We had 4 static cameras going throughout the night. Two in the cask storage area (where we were surprised to learn that the company blasts music on giant speakers to vibrate the whiskey improving its flavor), one inside the production building, and one outside the back door of the production building. Ghost Hunters had an experience during their investigation in the production area by this back door so we wanted to cover it well.
We explored many of the buildings on the grounds and did not have any personal experiences, except having to dodge a skunk, but when we got to the production building we did have a couple of weird things happen all in the same area where Ghost Hunters had their experience.
First strange thing in the production building was when using the Ovilus in the red/green mode (red button for no, green button for yes), I was getting a bunch of green/yes answers in a row. So I said, I believe the device was just stuck on green/yes mode and if a spirit was really there with us, it would need to hit the red/no button to prove it. Immediately, the red button was hit. So, I continued asking questions again getting nothing but green/yes answers so I did the same experiment and asked it to hit the red/no button, and once again, it did so immediately. In that same area, the Ovilus said the name “Walter” 2 different times. In our experience the Ovilus doesn’t typically say the same word twice in a short period of time. Perhaps there was a Walter trying to reach out?
In that very same area of the production building, we also caught 2 interesting videos and an EVP.
Video 1: a light showed up on the bottom of the outside door and our camera caught a strange loud noise at the same time. The light ended up staying on the rest of the time.
Video 2: some strange lights bouncing near the door. It almost looks like a laser pointer but we did not have any with us nor was anyone in the building at that time. Not sure what caused this.
EVP: While Matt was standing in the area, he caught the name “Paul” on his audio.
Did we capture Paranormal Evidence?
Maybe. We caught a couple of interesting videos, an EVP of the name Paul, and some seemingly intelligent responses on our equipment.
