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Ghost hunters discover woman's body at abandoned Mississippi hospital

By Danielle Haynes

VICKSBURG, Miss., June 29 (UPI) -- Police in Vicksburg, Miss., arrested two people after a team of ghost hunters discovered the body of a woman at the abandoned Kuhn Memorial State Hospital, reputed to be one the state's most haunted sites.

The group found the body of Sharon Wilson, 69, lying outside the old hospital Sunday, though police said blood trails indicate she was inside the building at one point. She appeared to have head trauma, The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., reported.

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David Childers, co-founder of the Mississippi Paranormal Research Institute, was not among the ghost hunters who discovered Wilson's body, but later at the scene he said it was clear her body had been inside the building.

"You could tell where they had dragged someone down from the second floor in the middle of the building, to a grassy area on the left side of the hospital," he said. "On the steps, that's where most of the blood was, and it looked like they dragged her all the way to the grassy area."

Police Chief Walter Armstrong told WAPT-TV in Jackson that Raphael McCloud, 33, and his nephew, Akeem McCloud, 20, were arrested and face charges related to the woman's death. Police said the McClouds confessed to breaking into Wilson's home, kidnapping and robbing her, but they said they left her on the side of the road.

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The two had been arrested after they were pulled over for reckless driving and were discovered to be driving Wilson's vehicle. A stolen gun was also found in the vehicle.

Kuhn Memorial State Hospital was built in 1832 in response to a smallpox outbreak and was later used to treat soldiers during the Civil War. Later, the building housed Confederate veterans and the fourth floor served as a minimum-security prison.

The hospital was shuttered in 1989 and has been unused since then.

Childers said the building, though interesting for ghost hunters, is not safe.

"Kuhn Hospital has a lot of places inside and out that would be an ideal spot to place a body. In my opinion, they should tear it down. It's condemned and is open for things like this to happen," he said. "It's an unsafe environment, there are open elevator shafts, black mold, asbestos, and debris, and people ought to stay away from that place."

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