Presidential Killer’s Hospital
By Mark McConville
LOOK inside this creepy psychiatric hospital that once housed a Presidential assassin and two would-be Presidential killers.
Eerie images and video show rows of observation seats overlooking the morgue’s blood-stained operating table and the stainless-steel drawers where bodies would have been kept.
Other spooky shots show paint flaking from the walls, hypodermic needles and forgotten blood samples.
The pictures and footage were taken in Washington DC at St Elizabeth’s Hospital by photographer Chris Hall (17) from North Beach, Maryland.
“In my images, you see a past filled with torment and neglect that somehow all comes together to be something incredible and interesting as a whole,” he said.
“I started urbex about a year ago and I came upon the image from an explorer who had shown the morgue and operation table.
“I spent months searching for the location and finally was able to come across this secret urbex spot.”
The hospital once housed two would-be Presidential assassins. Richard Lawrence, who attempted to kill Andrew Jackson, was a patient as well as John Hinckley Jr who shot Ronald Reagan but failed to kill him.
It also held Charles J. Guiteau until his execution after he assassinated the 20th president of the United States, James Garfield, in 1881. All three men were housed in the hospital after their claims of insanity at their trials.
Chris, who shot the images and video with a Samsung NX300M, didn’t experience any problems inside the forgotten hospital.
“The main problem was finding the main medical room within the huge complex,” he said.
“People are always shocked when they see something like this that has just been left to rot.”
St Elizabeth’s Hospital opened in 1855 as the first Federally operated psychiatric hospital in America.
It housed more than eight thousand patients at its peak in the 1950s but has been abandoned since 2010 when a new facility was built on site.
Find more of Chris’ work on his YouTube channel or Instagram.
