Podcast by Jen
The Shadow Sanctuary
Join me for my weekly podcast every Friday night The Shadow Sanctuary, to hear about the history of haunted locations, the haunting stories of paranormal activity and if there is an correlation between the two.
The Shadow Sanctuary
Latest episodes
22 August 2026
Summerwind Mansion
Nestled on the shores of West Bay Lake, Wisconsin sits the ruins of Summerwind Mansion—a place infamous for shifting wall dimensions, ghostly specters, and a history so chilling that former owners fled after shooting at apparitions in the night... 🚪💥
What sinister forces were truly at play inside these walls before it burned to the ground?
00:00
11:49
15 August 2026
Maple Hill Cemetery and The Dead Childrens Playground
Tucked away, half-forgotten, sits a playground with no children left to play on it.
Swings that move without wind. Laughter carried on the air when no one's around. And just beyond the tree line — rows of small headstones, some worn smooth by time, marking lives that ended far too soon.
Locals call it the Dead Children's Playground. They say the swings still sway for kids who never got the chance to grow up. That if you listen closely enough, you can still hear them playing.
This week, we walk the grounds of Maple Cemetery — and we ask whether some children never truly left the place they loved most.
00:00
09:42
08 August 2026
Pennhurst Asylum - Spring City, Pennsylvania
Spring City, Pennsylvania. Behind these walls, thousands of children and adults with disabilities were sent — promised care, promised safety.
What they found instead was neglect. Overcrowding. Suffering so severe it eventually forced the courts to intervene and shut the doors for good.
Pennhurst's history isn't a ghost story first — it's a human one. And that's exactly why so many who walk its halls today say they can still feel it. Voices in empty wards. Cold spots in rooms where children once waited, forgotten. A weight in the air that visitors describe as grief that never left.
This week, we walk through Pennhurst's ruins — and we ask not just what haunts this place, but what it means to remember what happened here.
00:00
12:52
01 August 2026
Lemp Mansion - St. Louis, Missouri
Beneath the streets of St. Louis lies a fortune built on beer... and buried in tragedy.
The Lemp family had it all — wealth, power, a brewing empire that stretched across a continent. But behind the mansion's grand walls, something darker was fermenting. One by one, the Lemps met violent ends, until whispers began to call their home cursed.
Today, the mansion still stands. Guests report footsteps on empty staircases. Doors that open on their own. A spectral figure in the window, watching the street below.
Is it grief that lingers in those halls? Or something that never wanted to leave?
00:00
09:27
25 July 2026
Rio Grande Depot - Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah. Once, this was the grand gateway to the West — a depot alive with steam whistles, ticket lines, and the constant rush of travelers passing through.
The trains stopped running long ago. But some say not everyone left.
Visitors and staff describe footsteps on empty platforms. Voices in the vacant halls, echoing like the last announcement never quite finished. Shadows moving where there's no one left to cast them.
Was it a lingering passenger, forever waiting for a train that won't come? Or something else that took up residence when the crowds went quiet?
00:00
04:55
14 July 2026
Gadsbys Tavern Museum - Alexandria Virginia
Since 1785, this tavern has poured drinks for the men who built a nation — George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison — all raised a glass within these walls.
But one guest never checked out.
In October of 1816, a well-dressed couple arrived by ship, fleeing an illness that had already taken hold. The woman was dying.
She died within weeks. To this day, no one knows who she was. Her tombstone reads only: "To the memory of a Female Stranger."
This week, we step into one of America's oldest taverns — and we ask the question no one could answer two hundred years ago.
Who was she?
00:00
04:45