Ghosts
The Black Dog of Newgate Prison

A woodcut of the Black Dog of Newgate Prison. Image: Factschology
In the late 16th century, a Newgate Prison inmate in London wrote a terrifying account of a ghostly Black Dog hunting prisoners. Today, reports continue to circulate about this Black Dog haunting the area around the prison.
The Legend of the Black Dog of Newgate Prison
The story of the Black Dog if Newate Prison begins during the 13th century, under the reign of King Henry III, when England was gripped by a devastating famine. Inside Newgate’s confines, where food was scarce, survival turned gruesome as desperate prisoners purportedly resorted to cannibalism. The guards, turned a blind eye to the ghastly acts, which allowed the weaker inmates to fall victim first.
Amid this horrifying scenario, a new inmate was introduced to the prison population – a scholar by trade and frail in stature. His true crime, unbeknownst to his fellow inmates, was the supposed practice of sorcery, with accusations stating he had employed black magic against the King’s subjects.
With the scholar’s physical weakness, his fellow inmates failed to show any mercy and saw him as an easy meal. They attacked him, consuming his flesh and unceremoniously labeling him ‘good meat.’
That very evening, an strange sight struck terror into the hearts of the inmates – the scholar’s ghost was seen wandering the prison, morphing from the shape of a man into that of a large black dog.
The phantom dog was said to haunt those who had eaten his human body as if biding time before a vicious assault. Some inmates claimed the phantom dog would roam the prison, its mournful cries echoing off the stone walls.
Paralyzing fear soon evolved into desperate action. The terrorized inmates, feeling the phantom dog’s imminent attack, sparked a violent riot, overrunning the guards and escaping into the open. Their collective hope was to put enough distance between them and the haunting entity to forever escape its wrath.
Unfortunately for the prisoners, escaping did not solve the problem. One by one, they were hunted down by the relentless phantom dog. Each ended up brutally mutilated, their remains discovered days later, as though torn apart by a savage beast in the dead of night.
In the following centuries, the Black Dog continued to haunt Newgate Prison, inspiring fear in new generations of inmates. Some alleged that the mere sight of the phantom hound drove them to insanity, leading them to take their own lives. Even after the demolition of Newgate Prison in 1902, sightings of the spectral hound continue, with reports suggesting it prowls the area where the prison once stood.
The Black Dogge of Newgate: Both Pithie and Profitable for All Readers
The Black Dogge of Newgate: Both Pithie and Profitable for All Readers by Luke Hutton.
The story initially surfaced in a 1596 publication titled, “The Black Dogge of Newgate: Both Pithie and Profitable for All Readers”. The general consensus is that the book was authored by the known criminal and writer, Luke Hutton. However, the exact timing of its creation raises doubts, given Hutton’s incarceration in Newgate during that period.
Newgate Prison Today
Jack the Ripper Tour covers the tale of the Black Dog of Newgate Prison
The Central Criminal Court, more commonly known as the ‘Old Bailey.’, built in 1907, is where the old Newgate Prison used to be. Newgate Prison was known for being a really awful place. An 18th-century writer named Henry Fielding even said that Newgate was like a real-life hell. There used to be a small alley next to Newgate called ‘Deadman’s Walk.’ It was called this because it was the path prisoners walked on their way to being executed.
These days, ‘Deadman’s Walk’ is now a quiet courtyard called ‘Amen Court,’ which is off Warwick Lane. But even with its new, nicer-sounding name, Amen Court is still said to be haunted by the ‘Black Dog of Newgate.’
Have you ever seen the Black Dog of Newgate Prison? Tell us about it in the comments.
If you enjoyed learning about the Black Dog of Newgate Prison you might be interested in other spooky dogs such as the Cadejo, or the Palmyra Wolves.
Ghosts
The Arkansas Dog Boy

Gerald Floyd Bettis – The Arkansas Dog Boy
A Victorian-era house stands proudly at 65 Mulberry Street in Quitman, Arkansas. It was built in 1891 and is reportedly haunted by numerous spirits including a WWI soldier, an old man, and a particularly terrifying entity known as the “Dog Boy”.
The History of 65 Mulberry Street, Quitman
The house where the spirit of the Arkansas Dog Boy is said to reside. Photo: Jason Roberts Online
Quitman is an old town in north-central Arkansas. During the Civil War, many men joined the Army there. Until 1870, Quitman was a busy place where people traded goods, and it was a key point for those traveling across the state. It had large, beautiful houses and buildings.
The Garrett family built a beautiful house there around 1890. After living happily there for a few years the Garrett’s sold the house to the Jackson family. Benjamin Jackson lived there with his wife, who died young. Their son, Joseph, was born in 1898, fought in WWI, and died young too.
In more recent times, the Garrett House got a bad reputation because of the Bettis family and it’s now known as the Bettis House. Floyd and Alline Bettis moved into the big house in the early 1950s.
After many years without kids, they had a son, Gerald Floyd Bettis, in 1954. People who knew Gerald said he was a naughty kid. “His parents were good people, but Gerald was a troublemaker,” Holabird said. Gerald liked to collect cats and dogs, which is why he got the nickname “Dog Boy.”
The Dog Boy of Arkansas
Gerald, the Dog Boy, would torture stray animals for fun. Neighbors could hear the animals cries and were incredibly unsettled.
Gerald was desperate for attention as a child and was constantly showing off and behaving strangely. He never moved out of his parents home and as her grew older he allegedly imprisoned his elderly parents in their own home, at times being abusive.
When Bettis grew up, people in town say he was very tall, about 6’4″, and heavy, almost 300 pounds, much larger than his old parents. It was often said that he physically abused his father, and there’s even a story about him throwing his dad out of an upstairs window when he was a teenager. His dad, who was in his 70s then, managed to hold on to the window ledge until the police arrived.
As an adult, Gerald sold plants, including marijuana, from a sunroom he built, leading to his arrest based on his mother’s abuse testimony and his illegal activity. He later died in prison from a drug overdose. After his mother’s death, the house was inherited and then sold to Tony Weaver, whose family experienced repeated paranormal activity in the home.
The Hauntings at 65 Mulberry Street
Karen Shillings, founder of The Central Arkansas Society for Paranormal Research (CASPR),became interested the house after speaking with the Weavers about their paranormal experiences.
Weaver’s wife told Shillings that she would switch off all the lights when she went to work at night, but they would be on when she came back. She first thought someone was breaking in, but then weirder things happened. Once, a handful of pennies fell down the stairs from upstairs all at once, right in front of her, Shillings said. After half a year of these things happening, she was really scared and didn’t want to live there.
Tony Weaver also saw strange things. Once when he was working on the house, he saw a man who looked like a soldier from World War I in the living room. But when he went for a closer look, he was gone.
Another couple, Quinton and Stephanie White, lived in the house in 2003. They saw strange things like the toilet flushing by itself. One evening, Quinton heard a noise upstairs, and when he checked, some wooden boards that he had stacked were all standing up straight. They only lived there for a few months.
Weaver still owns the house and tries to sell it, but hasn’t been successful. He says strange things keep happening. Once he lost his glasses and medicine after complaining about not being able to sell the house. He also said that if people the ghosts don’t like come in, they will feel cold and their hair will stand on end.
One woman who wanted to buy the house said her daughter, who is sensitive, felt very sad in the house. Another time, a chair reclined by itself and stayed like that while people were looking at the house. A dog refused to go into the house.
Ed Munnerlyn, who was fixing up the house in 2007, also has had spooky experiences. He said he feels uncomfortable, like someone is watching him, and he thinks he has seen ghosts. He also believes he saw the ghost of the Dog Boy, who was a big, scary-looking man. Sometimes he feels like a cold wind is blowing on his neck and hears noises, but can’t see anything. He believes the ghosts are letting him know they’re there.
The CASPR Investigations into the Dog Boy of Arkansas and other hauntings
Mr. Creep’s Crypt covers the story of the Arkansas Dog Boy
In 2005, Shillings and her ghost research team visited the house two times. “The first time, we felt areas that were colder by 10-15 degrees than the rest of the house. We used a special tool that measures electrical energy, and it found something we couldn’t explain,” she said.
Shillings also said that they sensed a ghost in the kitchen, and one of them felt like he was touched. “We saw a face looking at us from upstairs when we were outside, and we all saw it, but no one was upstairs,” she added.
The second time, they brought along a spirit medium, who made contact with what seemed like the ghost of Gerald Bettis. This ghost was angry and told them to leave.
They took video footage of strange things like balls of light moving through the wall and flashes of light that couldn’t be explained. However, Shillings said that the most impressive footage is lost and they haven’t been able to find it, which troubled her.
Have you heard of any stories similar to the Dog Boy of Arkansas? Let us know in the comments.
If you enjoyed this article you might be interested in other hauntings such as the story of the Sallie House or the Entity Haunting.
Ghosts
Tomino’s Hell: The Cursed Japanese Poem

An excerpt of the cursed poem, Tomino’s Hell
According to the legend of Tomino’s Hell, if you read the poem aloud you will become cursed.
The Legend of the Cursed Poem: Tomino’s Hell
Tomino, was a young boy living in Japan in the early 1900s. Tomino reportedly lived his life with a severe physical disability that confined him to a wheelchair.
He enjoyed writing poetry as a way of helping him cope with the overwhelming emotions he had connected to his disability. Upon composing a rather grisly poem, Tomino’s parents were anything but pleased. This reaction was not surprising given Japan’s tendency for strict cultural norms, and the fact that the poem dove into some pretty intense details.
To discipline him for his chilling verse, Tomino’s parents confined him to their basement without food. In time, due to the harsh conditions of the damp and frigid cellar, Tomino tragically passed away from bronchitis.
The legend goes that Tomino’s spirit lingered within his disturbing poetry. Anyone who dares to recite his poem out loud risks invoking a curse upon themselves, causing bad fortune and despair.
Victims of the Curse of Tomino’s Hell
The curse of Tomino’s Hell Poem became famous when people began to suffer unfortunate events after reading the poem aloud.
In 1974, a movie was released called “To Die in the Countryside”. It was written and directed by a man named Terayama Shuji. He got a lot of ideas from Tomino’s Hell Poem for his film. People started saying that he died because of the poem.
There were also rumors throughout Japan about some college kids dying after they read the poem.
The legend spread, claiming that if you read the poem aloud you could have a bad fall, lose your voice forever, get really sick suddenly, or even have a car crash.
Back in the 1980s in Japan, it became fashionable to record friends while they read the poem aloud. This fad took off and it was said that reading the poem aloud didn’t usually cause any problems.
It appears that the curse has an unpredictable nature. It could even be part of a mysterious pattern that we don’t fully understand yet. These days in Japan, even the older and wiser folk avoid talking about the poem, worried that it might bring them bad luck.
If you would like to try it for yourself, here is a version of Tomino’s Hell translated into english by David Bowles:
Tomino’s Hell
Elder sister vomits blood,
younger sister’s breathing fire
while sweet little Tomino
just spits up the jewels.
All alone does Tomino
go falling into that hell,
a hell of utter darkness,
without even flowers.
Is Tomino’s big sister
the one who whips him?
The purpose of the scourging
hangs dark in his mind.
Lashing and thrashing him, ah!
But never quite shattering.
One sure path to Avici,
the eternal hell.
Into that blackest of hells
guide him now, I pray—
to the golden sheep,
to the nightingale.
How much did he put
in that leather pouch
to prepare for his trek to
the eternal hell?
Spring is coming
to the valley, to the wood,
to the spiraling chasms
of the blackest hell.
The nightingale in her cage,
the sheep aboard the wagon,
and tears well up in the eyes
of sweet little Tomino.
Sing, o nightingale,
in the vast, misty forest—
he screams he only misses
his little sister.
His wailing desperation
echoes throughout hell—
a fox peony
opens its golden petals.
Down past the seven mountains
and seven rivers of hell—
the solitary journey
of sweet little Tomino.
If in this hell they be found,
may they then come to me, please,
those sharp spikes of punishment
from Needle Mountain.
Not just on some empty whim
Is flesh pierced with blood-red pins:
they serve as hellish signposts
for sweet little Tomino.
Who really wrote Tomino’s Hell?
Buzzfeed Unsolved covers the legend of Tomino’s Hell
After a little bit of online research we have found that Tomino’s Hell was actually written by a man named Saijō Yaso and published in 1919. Saijō Yaso was a popular children’s author at the time. He wrote Tomino’s hell during a difficult period in his life shortly after the passing of his father. Whether he intended to create a cursed poem or just express the negative emotions he was feeling is unknown.
Have you ever read Tomino’s Hell aloud? Did anything spooky happen? Tell us about it in the comments!
If you enjoyed this article you might be interested in other curses such as Rudolph Valentino’s cursed ring or the curse of the Passion of the Christ movie.
-
Ghosts10 months ago
Zozo: The Ouija Board Demon
-
Space8 months ago
Scientists claim to have found the answer what existed before the Universe
-
Ghosts10 months ago
Jumbee: Demons of the Caribbean
-
General10 months ago
The War for the Planet Between Humans and Neanderthals Lasted 100,000 Years
-
General9 months ago
Where did ships from the Middle Ages come from in the US deserts?