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JEFFERSON CITY, MO. -- 'Tis the season for scary stories and Time Magazine once called it the "bloodiest 47 acres in America."

From 1836 until it closed in 2004, the old Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, Mo. has been home to mobsters and murderers and hundreds of people have died there. But these days the old facility draws visitors from around the Tri-States and from around the country. Most of them are interested in seeing history, but not all. Some want to learn of possible paranormal activity at the penitentiary. 

Under the cover of darkness it just looks creepy. And inside, the old prison is even more menacing.

Paranormal investigator Michael Joseph has been hunting ghosts for more than a decade. No inmates were ever housed in the basement, but Joseph says investigators have had good luck with encounters there. “This area has actually given us growls," Joseph told our Jefferson City sister station KRCG's Daniel Winn.

During a paranormal tour of the old penitentiary, a group barely made it through the doors of the old women’s cell block when someone in the group asked if there was someone else there. Joseph said, “Just us. You seeing something back there? Behind those doors I saw something walk from left to right."

Cell #85 is in the women’s block. It’s said to be one of the most haunted cells in the entire prison. “Rumor has it that one of the men who stayed here after 1926 when the women left the building, woke up every night to a ghost," Joseph said. Investigators call the ghost, "the Gray Lady."

Ghost or no ghost, Death Row is a scary place. A swastika and St. Louis Crips gang symbol still adorn the walls.

And whether you believe in ghosts or not, the M.S.P. Ghost Tour is sure to give you a good scare. You can take the tour for yourself. Click here to schedule a ghost tour or a history tour of the old Missouri State Penitentiary.

Information provided by KRCG.