One of the Eastern Shore’s most famous ghost stories is about the hand-print that Wish Sheppard left on the jail cell wall just before he was pulled from the cell and taken out behind the jail to be hanged in front of hundreds of people.

The Caroline County Jail has been haunted by the ghost of Wish Sheppard since the 1940s – at least the testimony from the Sheriffs and jail wardens say so. Even today when we do our Denton ghost walks, there’s always someone on the walk who either works in the jail or knows someone who does. And they will pour fourth the stories of file cabinets in empty rooms slamming shut, gates blowing in the wind, security alarms going off, furniture rearranging, books and items on shelves dropping like dominoes.

The scariest testimony I every heard was from Warden Charles Andrew who recently retired. He was the son of a Sheriff and the grandson of a Sheriff. Charles has seen the hand-print and he talked about many strange happenings. But the scariest tale Charles told wasn’t about the hand-print. It was when the staff at the 911 dispatching office seeing the red eyes of Wish Sheppard peering through an internal window. Continue reading Wish Sheppard’s Handprint on the Jail Cell Wall →