DORCHESTER, N.B. — If Bill Steele ever had any doubts about his Dorchester jailhouse being frequented by the spirit world, a recent paranormal investigation of his building has shaken away that skepticism.
“What happened there absolutely blew my mind,” he said.
Steele, a retired city of Toronto worker who purchased the historic jail two years ago, said there has always been sort of an eerie and unexplained energy in the air throughout the building, felt not only by himself since moving in but many times by his guests who have visited the site, which he has since turned into an Airbnb and tourist attraction.
And now he’ll have a bit more leverage when telling people about those supernatural experiences.
The jail was paid a visit last month by the crew from the Saskatchewan TV show The Other Side. The Other Side is a half-hour documentary series that follows a team of paranormal investigators in their pursuit to make contact with Canada’s most unsettled spirits.
The Indigenous ghost hunters – intuitive Jeff Richards, paranormal investigator Michaella Shannon, and elder and spirit guide Tom Charles - spent three days in early July in Dorchester, capturing a series of scary and intense moments throughout the jail.
The Dorchester jail, built in the early 1800s, is the site of New Brunswick’s last double hanging in 1936. The Bannister brothers, 17-year-old Arthur and 20-year-old Daniel, were convicted of murder during a botched kidnapping attempt that left three members of a family dead. The brothers were hanged at 1 a.m. on Sept. 23 and buried together in a pine box behind the jail.
Steele said while there was a bit of other-worldly presence felt in the regular cell blocks in the building, it was in the death row chambers where things really began to happen.
He said the electro-activity and radio signals on the ghostbox were going wild when entering death row, and voices soon began to clearly come through and make their presence known. Steele said he and the crew are certain they were talking to one of the Bannister brothers the first night of filming.
“You just couldn’t fake this stuff,” Steele said of the activity.
But what also happened a bit later that night took Steele’s breath away.
Another presence became evident in the room and the investigators attempted to find out more about this spirit by going through the alphabet and asking for signals, trying to determine a name. It spelled out B-I-L-L-Y.
“So then they were asking me, do you know anyone with that name. And I said ‘that’s my son, he passed away a couple years ago,” he said. “It was totally not what they were expecting.
Steele’s son Billy died of heart failure a couple of years before Steele relocated to New Brunswick. He said being able to hear from his son was very heart-wrenching.
“I was really emotional, I was crying.”
Steele said he was excluded from the second day of shooting because the presence of his son was overpowering other presences the investigators were looking for.
He said people will be able to see for themselves exactly what happened those three nights at the jail when the episode airs, projected to be in the fall of 2020. The show is on the APTN Network Canada.
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