The Old Lavaca County Jail in Hallestville, Texas was built in 1884 and opened for operation in 1885. It operated for 120 years, finally closing in 2005, making this jail the second longest continuously operating jail in Texas.
The original jail housed fourteen cell units, until an addition was made to the jail in 1976. In 1976, the state of Texas required for male and female inmates to be housed separately, at which time renovations created four additional cells, for a total of eighteen cells. Air conditioning and heat were also added to the front of the building. The back of the jail had to be renovated in 1940 and again in 1981, due to flooding. The jail closed it’s doors in 2005 as LaVaca county built another jail to house 48 beds. Rita, Inc. purchased the abandoned building in 2014 and has begun renovations for a museum to showcase 100 years of jail technology.
The jail may be empty, but is filled with paranormal energy, possibly of all the men and women who were once imprisoned here, or those who worked here. Paranormal evidence has been captured of banging on the cell doors, distant conversations, visuals of shadows, whispers and laughters - even some physical contact such as hair pulling and poking. One spirit believed to still reside in the jail, is that of Gregory Ray Hights.
Hights was imprisoned in cell #2. He had just been sentenced to 99 years for the brutal murder of his wife, Laura. Hights shot his wife point blank in the head at her workplace, the Yoakum Community Hospital. Gregory was sure his wife was cheating on him, so he marched in, called her out, an argument ensued, and then he shot her right there in the waiting room. His wife died in the very hospital she worked.
Not wanting to face what he had done, or his sentence, Gregory Hights took his own life, by hanging himself with his bedsheets on the shower bar in his cell.
As a weird twist to his sad story, on September 1, 1981, Hines was 16 years old. He lived in Shiner, TX and the town suffered horrible weather and flooding. The Rocky Creek, where Hines’ family’s mobile home stood, had flooded its banks. The boys were home alone, their father at work and their mother hospitalized in San Antonio, TX. As water was rushing in, the four boys escaped as their home was washed away. Only one Hights boy survived that day...Gregory. His brothers, Glenn, Johnnie and Bradford were swept away by the current. The last thing Gregory heard was his younger brother calling out to him, “Greg, Greg…”. It’s possible this tragic event was the trigger for him to murder his wife, in cold blood, in front of the town of Yoakum.
1. Andy’s Box Session “Alec”