He used the inmates in his asylum as guinea pigs in various experiments. DeJarnetteвЂ™s sterilization practices were heinous, they werenвЂ™t the worst of his work. Joseph DeJarnette, the sanitariumВ was a private unit for middle-income patients that operated separately from the government-supported state hospital.ДЇrom Atlas Obscura: 'DeJarnette was a respected doctor among the white Virginia elite at the time, but his career would ultimately be defined by his strong support for eugenics, specifically the forced sterilization of the mentally ill and others he deemed 'defective.'' More info is HERE.ДЇrom : 'вЂњThough Dr. And he either was so drunk he never heard it or he never saw it.Just down the road from the Western State Hospital is the DeJarnette Sanitarium. And they're screaming at him to get off the rails, because as soon as one train leaves, another one comes вЂ¦ so another train comes barrelling into the station. He goes out on the railbed there, and he's in between the rails, and he's staggering back and forth, looking like he had forgotten something, he's peering down like this. McClury turns around and he staggers out. Witnesses said he got off the train, he's all of 17 years old, and he immediately, D.C. WILLIS: They pile out on this platform, and by all intents and purposes, he was hammered. One of the group's tours is focused specifically on Civil War ghosts, such as one young soldier who can reportedly be seen on the train tracks by the American Hotel.

So when you start adding in the movement of large bodies of water through capstones of quartz and limestone, well there's an energy movement underneath this town. Limestone is littered with tons of quartz. And when you start getting into paranormal theories, it all involves movement of energies, and different types of energy.

MATT WILLIS: It runs under almost every building in this town вЂ¦ Staunton was founded on a bedrock of limestone, which is a very soft mineral, okay. According to tour guide Matt Willis, Staunton is a prime spot for hauntings and visitations of all kinds вЂ“В and not just because of the sanitarium, or the thousands of Confederate soldiers who died there in Civil War hospitals. And then I walked through the campus and just started researching, and all of a sudden I realized, okay, I have to tell the story.Д«lack Raven Paranormal leads a variety of ghost tours every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday through October. And I found out about the whole eugenics thing. And I said, 'this looks like a college campus,' and I researched it, because I teach psychology and English. SIMMS: When I moved down here, I looked at the place across from the restaurant we were at. He wrote a book, titled Fear the Reaper, about the sanitarium that first inspired him to research the darker side of Staunton. That was really surreal.Дavid Simms, originally from New Jersey, has been leading ghost tours in Staunton for eight years. DAVID SIMMS: We've done tours over at the DeJarnette Sanitarium, where we had like, up to 200 people a night.

Dejarnette sanitarium deaths