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| MARLBORO SLAUGHTERHOUSE |
TALES FROM THE MARLBORO SLAUGHTERHOUSE AT MARLBORO ASYLUM As a kid growing up in the town of Marlboro, I had always heard lots of scary stories about strange local sites and creepy hometown haunts. Since then I have seen many of these places first hand, such as Igoe Road and the Baby Tree, which have been featured in past issues of Weird NJ. There is one place though, which terrified me as a child that I have not yet seen featured in your hallowed pages – the Marlboro Slaughterhouse. This site is by far the creepiest place that I have ever seen with my own eyes, and has haunted my dreams ever since the day that I first laid eyes on it.Spending my formative years in the shadow of the nearby Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital weighed heavily on my young mind. Laying in bed at night knowing that there were hundreds of demented, tormented souls just a stone's throw away from my bedroom window was none too comforting for a young boy with an over-active imagination. The massive institution, along with the vast expanses of lonely, desolate hills and fields which surrounded it, were more than enough fodder for my pre-adolescent fantasies of axe wielding escaped lunatics. On sleepless nights I would often gaze out that bedroom window envisioning shadowy figures dashing across the moonlit countryside. More terrifying than any of my own nightmarish delusions though, were the stories that I had been told by the older kids of the "Slaughterhouse." The Slaughterhouse is located on land, which used to be a farm, but was long ago incorporated into the property of the nearby asylum. How this land became hospital property is where this chilling tale begins. Apparently there used to be a farmer named Mr. Allen who once worked the land, raised and slaughtered livestock there, and generally lead the life of a normal, rural New Jersey farmer. His family, I've been told, had owned and farmed the expansive tract of land for generations. Then, one day the State came along and seized his land, telling him that they needed it for the mental institution, and that they had the authority to take it under their right of eminent domain. So they forced the farmer off of his own property, and began using the fields that he had cultivated to grow food to feed the asylum's inmates. Naturally the farmer was furious, and did not vacate his property without a fight. He would often be seen wandering the fields he once worked, hollering threats and cursing at any hospital employees who came into his sight. After hospital officials padlocked his house, he would repeatedly break in and continue to live there. When they called the police on him, the authorities had to drag the farmer away kicking and screaming. In a rage he vowed revenge against the the hospital staff, and anyone else who dared trespass on his land. Eventually, out of sheer anger and frustration, the farmer went completely insane. Then, in an ironic twist of fate, Mr. Allen was committed to the very mental institution, which he so despised and had sworn vengeance against.  As the story goes, the farmer spent many years at the asylum, keeping pretty much to himself. After awhile, the aging Mr. Allen seemed to no longer be a threat to himself or anyone else. He had even gained enough of the trust and confidence of the orderlies to be allowed to join inmate work details outside the asylum's walls. Being a farmer by trade, it was not surprising to any of the officials at the hospital that he volunteered for duties in the institution's gardens and greenhouses, and he even tended to the institution's livestock.Then one day, after working in the same fields, which he had once owned, the old farmer was nowhere to be found. The overseers rounded up all of the inmates to go back to the asylum, and Mr. Allen was just gone. A massive manhunt ensued, but after several weeks of searching, there was still no sign of him. It was as if he had just been absorbed back into the landscape that he was once so much a part of. Now at this point in the story you might be thinking "good for him, he sure showed them." But the legend doesn't end here, in fact it is really just beginning. You see, apparently farmer Allen had never really forgotten what the State had done to him, nor had he forgiven them for stealing his farm. Several weeks had passed since the old farmer had made his escape, and things around the asylum grounds had pretty much gone back to normal. Then people started to report hearing horrible animal noises coming from the Slaughterhouse late at night. Witnesses said that the unearthly racket sounded like the death squeals of pigs being butchered. Although people at the hospital were used to hearing these noises during the day when the Slaughterhouse was operating, it was quite unusual to hear them at night when no one was supposed to be there. Patients were starting to become disturbed due to the ghastly sounds, and many inmates had to be restrained or sedated at night to keep them from totally freaking out. Although the hospital sent police out to investigate the Slaughterhouse, no one was ever found trespassing. However, it was soon discovered that some of the farm animals were missing. Then one day something happened that would change the course of everything at the institution forever. Workers arriving at the Slaughterhouse early one morning were shocked when they entered the building to find the carcasses of various pigs, sheep, and calves strewn around the killing room floor. To make the gruesome discovery seem even more eerie, the walls were smeared with the blood of the animals. Scrawled across the white brick walls were warnings like "I SEE YOU" and "TONIGHT ALL WILL DIE." The butchers at the Slaughterhouse notified the superintendent of the hospital, and a decision was made that that night an armed guard would pull an all night security shift at the Slaughterhouse, just in case the unknown intruder returned. That evening the blood curdling squeals of dying pigs once again echoed over the fields of Marlboro, yet no call was made to police from the night watchman, so everyone at the asylum felt confident that all was well. The next morning all seemed quiet and normal as the butchers approached the old Slaughterhouse for another day at work. There were no dead animals laying around, and no new bloody graffiti, but there was no security guard to be found anywhere either. The men called for him, but there was no answer. Then, one of them saw something unusual – a small stream of blood, which ran across the killing room floor, then trickled down the drain in the middle of the room. The men followed the tiny red river into the next room, then traced it right under the huge steel door of the meat freezer, which was still locked.  I can only imagine what went through these men's minds when they swung back that enormous door and caught their first glimpse of the grisly spectacle within. There, hanging by a hook from an overhead meat rack, was the blood soaked body of the night watchman, still in uniform, frozen solid, with the decapitated head of a large pig where his own head used to reside. All around the wall of the freezer were writings on the walls – ramblings about greed, and pigs, and revenge.Around town the gruesome discovery was kept as quiet as possible, but in a relatively small community such as Marlboro it is hard to keep such a thing a secret for long. No one was ever convicted, or even charged with the crime, yet everybody around here had a pretty good idea who the killer was, though nobody will talk about it openly to this day. The Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital has since closed its doors for good, and the old Slaughterhouse has stood abandoned and open to the elements ever since the whole incident took place. Crazy farmer Allen was never heard from again, though legend has it that he still roams his fields in search of trespassers. I was told that he even goes back to the old Slaughterhouse at night, where he sits in the attic staring out over his land through a hole in the building's crumbling roof. I've been told that sometimes people who live close to the old farm still hear the faint sounds of animals in their death throws emanating from the ruins of the Slaughterhouse. I know all of this sounds kind of unbelievable, and as I got older I too began to question some of the tall tales that I took as frightening fact when I was younger. So, around the time I was 16 (two years ago), I decided to do a little investigating, to see if I could find out just where the facts of this story ended, and where the local lore took over. I asked several older people that I know around town if they could help me out with some details about the Slaughterhouse killing. Everywhere I turned though, I seemed to get the same reaction: either people said that they didn't know anything about it (which just didn't make sense), or they flatly refused to talk about it. Then I started poking around in the local library to see what I could dig up from old news clippings, and microfilm from the local papers. Much to my surprise and amazement, I found that many of the events in this hair-raising story were in fact true, and were documented. Still, I could not allow myself to believe that some crazed old farmer, or his ghost or whatever, still wandered those unused fields behind my own back yard, and haunted an abandoned slaughterhouse there. That is, of course, until I decided to visit the place for myself. This I felt that I had to do to satisfy my own curiosity, and to face and perhaps even overcome my own childhood fears.  To get to the Slaughterhouse today you have to go through a small, relatively new suburban neighborhood. Behind these houses is an old road which leads into the woods. There is a metal gate across it, so you can't drive to the Slaughterhouse, you have to walk. A short distance down the road, if you look to your left, you will see a large white, uninhabited farmhouse. It is said that this is where Mr. Allen used to live. Though it has been abandoned for many years, some of my friends have told me that they have seen lights on in the rooms of the upper floors late at night. Beyond the house, the road ahead of you then crosses miles of vast overgrown farm fields. The pavement is old and cracked, with weeds poking up through it everywhere. Near the end of the road is where you will see this huge white wooden building rising up out of a tangle of vines and thorn bushes. Outside, there are animal cages, pens, and manger-like structures.The first time that I saw the Slaughterhouse for myself, I suddenly started doubting my own convictions that the stories I had heard were merely the products of youthful imagination. After walking around the entire building (which is no easy task due to the fact that everything is so overgrown), I rallied my courage enough to enter the building. There I saw a long dark room with pens and cages for the pigs, cows and sheep who would be the next to die. The hoses to wash the cages out still snaked their way across the cement floor beneath my feet, and one pen still contained one doomed critter's water dish. At this point I was starting to get a little nervous. The sun was beginning to set, and I knew that I had a long lonely walk ahead of me back to civilization across those deserted fields. The thing that really unnerved me though, was the fact that I kept thinking that I heard something, or someone, rustling around in the bushes outside the building. I decided that I had come this far though, so I was going to see the rest of the Slaughterhouse, only at a more accelerated pace. I turned a corner out of the paddock area and found myself standing right in front of an enormous walk-in freezer, with a huge steel door, and an overhead track from which the butchered livestock (deadstock?) once hung. This made everything that I had heard about this place seem suddenly all too real to me. As I inched my way into the freezer I felt a sudden chill run through my entire body and I spun around, fully expecting someone to slam the huge steel door behind me. Fortunately that didn't happen, but I was still shaken, so I rushed out into the next room. This didn't do much to calm my jangled nerves though, as I realized I had just entered the killing room itself! There were iron rings affixed to the walls where they would tie up the animals to prepare them for the knife. The floor was graded slightly downward toward a large drain in the middle of the floor, where the spilled blood of the butchered beasts could be neatly hosed away. It was a very freaky scene, and I was real ready to the get the hell out of there. Then, I saw something that even my better judgement would not permit me to resist. It was a ladder which lead up through a hatchway in the ceiling, and into the attic. It was very old and rickety. As I ascended it toward I knew not what, the wood creaked and rusted nails groaned. I fully expecting a rung to give out at any step. As I sheepishly poked my head up through the small hole in the ceiling, I once again started to reconsider my doubts about the existence of the phantom farmer. As I peered across the floorboards of the empty attic, my eyes stopped on something that made my blood run cold. There, perched all by itself in that cold empty room, was a single chair, facing a gaping hole in the roof, overlooking the vast deserted fields of a once productive farm. I started to wish that I hadn't come here alone. Then, when I heard the approaching crunch of footsteps in the dead underbrush just outside of the Slaughterhouse, I wished that I hadn't come there at all.  Needless to say, I didn't stick around long enough to find out who might be coming to take a seat in that vacant attic chair. I don't believe that a bat out of hell could have beat a hastier retreat than the flight that I made that night from the Slaughterhouse. I jumped down the ladder and bolted through one of the many shattered windows on the first floor. After struggling to free myself from the thorny tangle of thicket outside, I ran as fast as my legs would carry me down the darkening expanse of Allen Road.My heart was pounding in my chest and ears, and my lungs felt as if they were going to explode. But I didn't dare stop for a second, not even to look back over my shoulder to see if I was being followed. I know that it sounds crazy, and I can hardy believe it myself as I write this down now. But I swear that as I sprinted away, I could hear the awful high-pitched squeals of animals being slaughtered coming from somewhere behind me. I can't explain any of what I experienced that night at the Marlboro Slaughterhouse, and I don't think that I will ever really know. Nor do I believe that I will ever return to find out. – Shaggy Doo SLAUGHTERHOUSE RULES I live in Marlboro, and about 4 months ago my friend told me about this slaughterhouse that has been closed down for sometime. I went there one day after getting out of school. I saw this real old house, but I don't know anything about that, except that it’s abandoned. There was a trail and when we got to a fork where you have to pick either right or left, we went left, which led to this big house - the Slaughterhouse. We went in it and turned on our flashlights. There were pens and when I went in I saw a big door, like 5 inches thick. I felt this wind of cold air and that big door slammed shut and there were scratching sounds coming from the other side of it. When we pushed it open, nothing was there - no marks, nothing. After a while, we started to hear things moving, so one of my friends went up to the second floor and one of the girls started to freak out. She told us she saw this shadow of a man sitting on one of the windows and around that figure were red eyes. That got to all of us. As we left, I turned around and saw a shadowy figure on the top floor. It was a mix of black and red and had red eyes. I still won’t go back there to this day. – StreetRacer |
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