All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S07E11.Dead.Sea.Disaster.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Tom ward (narrates): A
decaying facility in america,

first designed to
tame the wild west.

There are a lot of strange
contraptions in here.

I've seen prisons, I've
seen torture chambers,

and this reminds
me a little bit of both.

A stately home in Scotland once
embroiled in an audacious plot.

Just kind of walking around

you are always in danger of
stepping on a rotted plank or something

and plunging to your death.

A subterranean maze in liverpool

with mysterious origins.

It really feels like a labyrinth

you know like one of those dreams
that you just keep running down,

there is another corridor
and another corridor

and you never
get to the end of it.

And a resort on the
shores of the dead sea

collapsing into the abyss.

When it opened up it just
caved in, we have got many more,

they are all over the place.

Decaying relics.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past.

Their secrets waiting
to be revealed.

Near loch lomond is the setting

for one of the strangest
stories of world war ii.

What makes this
castle so bewitching

is how it is almost merged
with nature over the years.

It's been basically encroached
upon by the surrounding woods.

Just to get to it,
you've got to climb

over a barbed wire fence

and fight your way
through thorny bushes.

Trespassers have been
beguiled by the castle ruin

but it's a place of
hidden dangers.

This is a grand place
and it's been consumed

by this jungle of a forest,

it's a bit like a
fairy tale in there,

it's all rather beautiful.

But don't let that
beauty fool you,

this is place is derelict
and seriously dangerous.

There is falling stone
from walls in all directions

and that's just the
danger that is above you.

Below you can see
these holes in the floor

and in some parts its
caved in completely.

Elsewhere layers of dirt
obscure lethal cassems

a side effect of being
opened to the elements.

Most places you
stand in the building,

you can see the sky,

there are three or
four floors above you,

but they are just gone.

And one of the
most striking features

is as you walk in there

is this massive beam
presumably from the roof,

that has just toppled
down into the interior,

into the keep of this castle

and it's just kind of
stuck in the ground.

An historic castle on
the edge of collapse,

still standing
to tell its story.

Today access to the castle
ruin is strictly forbidden.

But 80 years ago it was a safe
haven for hundreds of people.

During the second world war

this was used as
a military hospital

but the building is
much older than that.

John carruthers preserves

the history of the
loch lomond region.

With special permission
this is the first time

he has been allowed
inside the grounds.

One fireplace, two fire places,

looks like a spiral stair
a door come in up there.

It must have been a
grand place in its day.

Such a shambles now.

It has these beautiful
almost gothic stone walls

and spiral staircases...

And scattered on the floor

are these victorian
looking metal brackets

that were once used
for holding up the ceiling.

Just looking at
the cast iron beams

which have not yet broken

obviously supported
the upper floors.

Imagine getting these
heavy beams into this place.

Quite immense.

Then we find the
old entrance room,

it's a huge space

with a beautiful
grand fireplace,

this wasn't only built as
a place for sick people.

This is Buchanan castle.

It's a name that
reverberates in local folk lore

because Buchanan is the name
of one of Scotland's proud clans.

The clans were very important,

north of the central belt
they really ruled the roost.

Clans themselves
were more like tribes

and to be a member of a
clan like the Buchanan clan

you could be buchannan by blood

or you could be Buchanan
by alliance and affiliation.

The clan chiefs were
defector kings of their lands.

And they built these
castles to rule from.

Here we have basements
or cellars I'm not sure.

Massive, massive under building.

Maybe that's where
they kept their wine.

The buchannan's have a
very active history in Scotland

dating back to the 1400s

when they make a very
risky move to ally the French

against the English,

which you know
was fraught with peril

because the English
were closer to hand,

they had bigger armies

they were always
agitating on the frontier

so this could have meant
disaster for the Buchanan clan.

But it wasn't the English
who left this place in ruin.

Well, buchannan's had
been the dominant family,

ruled the roost round
here for oh what 700 years?

And in the early 1600s,
they fell upon hard times.

But in addition to
that the 22nd laird

failed to produce a male heir,

and the combination
of these effects

was that the estate
was put on the market.

The Buchanan dynasty was over,

and their family home
would share its fate.

A neighbouring clan
purchased the land

and built the castle that
barely stands to this day.

It must have been a
wonderful place in its day,

I'm sure the grace
and the good use of...

Buchanan castle
from time to time,

weekend parties
and all the rest of it.

The new castle became
a house of leisure

but when the second
world war broke out,

it was repurposed
as a military hospital.

And on one evening in 1941,

a doctor serving there
received an unusual patient.

On may 12th, doctor j
Gibson Graham was stationed

at Buchanan castle

now called the
drymen military hospital.

A pilot was brought to him
going by the name of Alfred horne

who had injured himself

when bailing out of his
aircraft over a wheat field.

The doctor noted in his memoir

that his patient was a
sallow man of good physique

and he spoke good English.

He had a commanding presence,

and clearly regarded
himself is an important person

and expected to
be treated likewise.

But something about this
German pilot didn't add up.

In the course of his early time

in the military
hospital in the ward,

there were suspicions
amongst his fellow patients,

that he wasn't just a simple...

There was more to
this than met the eye.

After his injuries were seen to

horne was taken for questioning

there he revealed
his true identity...

His name was Rudolph
Walter Richard hess,

once second in
command of the third reich.

Hess joined the Nazi
party very early on

and formed a close friendship
with a young Adolf Hitler.

Some people have called
him Hitlers most loyal follower.

But after the Nazis
came to power,

hess' influence on the
fuhrer had diminished.

He was a very weak man
and he was being pushed out

by more aggressive
Nazis like gehring

like himmler like boorman

and so it's been speculated
that he flew to Scotland

basically to try to
win favour with Hitler.

Hess' plan was to meet
someone who had influence

over the British prime minster
and broker a peace deal.

He was looking for
the Duke of Hamilton.

He's met the Duke of Hamilton
in receptions in the past,

but as it turns out
the Duke of Hamilton

has no interest in
helping Rudolph hess,

when informed of this plan

he doesn't want to
get his hands dirty,

refuses to be helpful.

This was a huge blow to hess,

he had come all this
way, risked his life,

disobeyed his fuhrer
only to be given

the cold shoulder by the Duke.

With or without
the help of the Duke

word reached Churchill
that hess was in britain

but his offer for
peace was ignored.

Churchill says

I don't want to hear
from Rudolph hess

that would look bad,

I have committed to
fighting these people

on the beaches on
the landing grounds

never surrendering,

why do I want to negotiate
with this sort of fallen Nazi.

Hess' plan had failed.

At the end of the
day the doctor thought

that hess was not
a military prisoner

he was a man with
medical problems,

he certainly had a
distorted image of reality

thinking that he
could bring britain

to the negotiating
table with himself

just on his own
without any back up.

When the mission
is revealed to Hitler

he is aghast, ashamed, baffled,

and tries to cover it
up as long as possible

but the British
advertise the news

and so predictably

doctor Joseph girbals
the head of Nazi

propaganda comes out

and totally disowns
hess, says he's crazy,

says we have no idea
how this happened.

With his mission of failure
and his career in ruin,

the disgraced Rudolf hess
could only confide in one friend.

Hess told the doctor
a fair bit about his life,

his private life, his
upbringing etcetera,

I think that the doctor
began to become

sympathetic perhaps,
not quite the right word,

but at least
understanding of hess

and a reasonably close
relationship was actually formed.

So, on may 17th, hess
and doctor Gibson Graham

left Buchanan house

and started a new journey
to the tower of London.

Rudolf hess spent the
rest of his life in prison,

after the war drymen
military hospital

was decommissioned and
the castle fell into disrepair.

It was abandoned after the war,

well the war office
had it till 1948

and then it was in limbo

and 1954 they took the roof
off to avoid paying property tax.

Now, all that's left
of Buchanan castle

is an empty shell
waiting to collapse.

Set back from the
shores of the dead sea,

decaying structures
create a chilling scene.

This place looks like
the set of disaster movie.

The roads and
Bridges are falling down,

you see the carcasses of buildings,
dead trees, empty swimming pools.

There's empty abandoned shops,

roads with holes in
them that look like craters

from ids or bombs,

everything is just
falling apart here.

There are security
fences warning signs,

whole areas of the
town which are off limits.

Has this site

in the famously troubled
occupied west bank

been caught up in conflict?

It becomes apparent the craters
extend well beyond the roadside.

There are huge
craters in the ground,

some of them even in
the middle of the beach.

Your first instinct is to think
these must be manmade,

they are so regular.

But the warning signs and fences

clearly indicate that
the danger isn't over.

To go beyond those fences
would be like entering a mine field,

you just don't know what
you will be stepping onto.

This whole area is in the
grip of some powerful forces

but what are they?

Despite the obvious dangers

and eerie quiet these empty
remains were built for crowds of people.

You can clearly see
the logistics of this place

were set up for tourism.

There's restaurants,
pools, bars,

everything you would want
at a nice seaside resort.

We have no electricity today
so the fences are closed,

and we will have to go
around the reception area

to go into the
beach and pool area,

so why don't you follow
me and we will go in.

Dr Arthur trotsky is part owner
of the mineral beach resort

in the occupied west bank.

This is what's
left of the office.

This used to be a beautiful
modern air conditioned office.

Ok, let's take a look over
here you will see the restaurant.

This was an amphitheatre,

and we used to have musical
performances on the stage,

they would actually have
the whole theatre filled up

and chairs and way up there,

it was quite beautiful
in the evenings,

dead sea, stars, the
wind, breeze, beautiful.

But the empty and
disintegrating structures

aren't the only thing
that is wrong here

they appear to be set back
hundreds of metres from the beach.

Ok this was the water line,

right under this bridge here
this was the lifeguard tower,

and these umbrellas
right on the beach

that's how high the water was.

The water line has
dropped so much

that some resort owners
physically moved infrastructure

to try and stay
close to the water.

These drop in water levels
kicked off a chain reaction.

Nobody saw coming.

December 29th, 2014.

Arthur was relaxing
at mineral beach

when the peace was
suddenly shattered.

I was sitting in the cafe,
I head this loud crash,

so I ran out here and I
saw this huge sink hole.

Faced with the drop in
water level for many years

now this new phenomenon
was threatening the resort.

You see this in the
middle of the parking lot

and we've got many
more over there

the massage rooms
went down into sink holes,

the beach had sink holes,
they are all over the place.

The receding water line
and sink holes are connected

but the root cause of both phenomena
is neither simple nor obvious.

The fast drop in
water level alone

isn't why these
places are abandoned,

but it is part of the story.

South of mineral
beach in Israel,

this entire area is out of
bounds to all but a few experts.

From here on you
must follow me exactly

to walk on my footprints, ok.

Because there are
a lot of hazards here.

And that's why you
must follow me ok?

Around 400 new sink holes
appear along the shores

of the dead sea each year.

It's happened to me

to find myself in the
bottom of a sink hole

covered by a pile of
avalanche above me.

Eli raz is a geologist

and has spent decades

studying the causes
of these collapses.

In the variation for the
sink holes appearance

the drop in the
level of the dead sea,

which was a made man problem,

now beneath there is a
subterranean salt layer.

The problem here lies
with this layer of salt

and it's a bi-product

of the dead sea's
remarkable geology.

This is a rift valley similar
to death valley in the us

or the great rift
valley in Africa.

It's a place where tectonic
plates are pulling apart

and the earth is dropping away, in
some cases even below sea level.

This is the lowest place
you can stand on earth

and yet under water it goes
down another thousand feet.

Gravity then does the rest.

All the water that flows in here

carries with it some
minerals and salts

that its picked up as its tricked
through the rocks and deserts.

But then the sun beats
down on the water,

the water starts to evaporate,
the minerals and salts stay behind.

That's the reason
the ocean is salty,

things flow into it
but they can't flow out,

but this dead sea is ten
times as salty as the oceans.

But the sink holes are a
relatively new phenomenon

so why is this high salt
content and dropping water level

only recently become
so dangerous?

As long as the dead sea
water was high enough

they penetrated to the area
and protected the salt layer.

The problem for the dead sea

is it that it depends
on a source of water

and that main source of
water is the river Jordan.

All along the way water
is being taken out for,

for drinking water, for farming,

farms in Jordan, farms in Israel
and the occupied west bank.

The Jordan river is blocked now
there are dams on the Jordan river

and other tributaries

and water continuously
evaporating

but there is no water
coming anymore.

So, now instead of having the
water in some kind of balance,

we have more water
evaporating every year

than is coming in and
the difference is dramatic.

The dead sea is sinking at a
rate of almost a metre a year.

As the sea water disappears
ground water takes its place,

this has a devastating impact

on the layer of salt
under the ground.

When the dead sea level is high

that stops fresh ground water
getting to this layer of salt,

but when the levels of
the dead sea receded

this fresh water could
now get to the salt

and cause it to dissolve

as it dissolved it left
huge hollows in the ground

and it was only a matter of time

before the ground
above would collapse.

The first sink hole

that I saw appear in 1981.

But since then the rate
of sink holes appearance

accelerated very much

there is no other
place upon the earth

where this formation
of sink holes is so rapid.

They have almost
cost Eli his life.

But the real cost has
come to the tourist industry.

The most remarkable damage
is the damage to tourism.

The dead sea brought
here a lot of tourists

and now they are prevented,
they cannot access the seashore.

Ironically it is the very salt that
causes sink holes to open up

that will also save the dead
sea from drying up entirely.

What's interesting here

is the dead sea won't
ever disappear completely

because as the level gets lower
the salt concentration gets higher

and so the water becomes
less likely to evaporate.

But the damage has already been
done to people's homes and livelihoods.

Hidden in the city of liverpool
is a true engineering mystery.

This is one of the iconic
cities of the world, liverpool.

A completely
urbanised built up area,

it would be really surprised
at what you can find

under your seat.

Just off the centre of
liverpool is this facade

that is still standing
that is missing

the rest of its building.

This facade is the gateway
to an underground maze

where things don't
seem to add up.

These are very complex
convoluted passages,

it really feels like a labyrinth
you know like one of those dreams

that you just keep running down,

there is another corridor
and another corridor

and you never
get to the end of it.

When you look up and you
see these ornate structures,

there's brickwork that
has been finely designed,

there's arches,

there is something quite
grandiose about these,

even though it seems
dark and dingy at first look.

The dirt and rubble
lays in contrast

to the elaborate architecture,

but artefacts uncovered here

begin to reveal the
tunnels surprising past.

There is a whole
collection of trinkets

that have been found down here
that date back over a hundred years.

Bits of China, bottles,

all these signs of a
life that was once lived.

A subterranean network
undisturbed for over a century,

a time capsule on a grand scale.

This is one of the
best kept secrets

in britain really,

I actually studied in this
town and knew nothing about it

in the late '90s,

it's a secret that was kept
for over a hundred years.

By the 1800s,

international trade had
put liverpool on the map.

But not everyone
here was prospering.

Liverpool is rapidly expanding

and is one of england's
largest port cities.

It's very bourgeois,
business is booming,

and the population is expanding.

Edgehill was one of the
poorest of these areas

but it had at least one resident

that was doing well for himself

and his name was
Joseph Williamson.

Joseph Williamson
came to liverpool

when he was 11
to make his fortune.

Joseph Williamson had worked
his way up the business ladder,

largely to the tobacco trade

and by 1803 he was
a very wealthy man.

He saw the poverty
and suffering of edgehill

and he decided to
do something about it.

Tom stapleton is part of a group

who have been unravelling
the history of these tunnels

for over 20 years.

Williamson appears to have

perhaps become a
philanthropist by default,

he was always happy
to give a man a day's pay

after they had done a day's work

but he would not give handouts,

he was not in the business
of hand outs to charity.

So, one of the early theories

about how these
tunnels came to be

was that he wanted to give
people the chance to work

for that money not a freebie.

And so he paid
people hands on labour

to come and make these tunnels.

Stories of Williamson's
philanthropy

are legendary.

But some think this was a
cover to hide the real purpose

of his underground chambers.

During Williamson's time,

liverpool was a hot bed
of Christian sectarianism

and even extremism.

While religious unrest
swept liverpool's streets,

Williamson himself a
protestant continued digging.

What's strange about
these excavations though

is that they are not in
some remote location,

the tunnels all lead directly
to Williamson's house.

We are now in
what we are calling

a sunken back yard at the
back of Williamson's house

and through this bay
window here we are looking

into a very large kitchen
area in the basement

of what was his three storey
Georgian house above here.

He lived alone with his wife

so why would you
need to have such a...

A big kitchen area
just beneath your house

what was the need for that?

It's quite an enormous
space really for a kitchen

and it contains this wonderful
array of four cooking ranges

which really was I suppose I
have to say a complete mystery

and a surprise to us
when we uncovered it.

It became a bit
of a local legend

that Williamson had

some type of end
of days cult going

that he and his
followers were seeking

to prepare themselves
for armageddon

and the story ran

that all this
underground construction

was that so they
would have a refuge.

Williamson's secrecy
invited speculation.

But rumours of the
occult were never proven...

And Joseph Williamson
took the secret of his tunnels

to the grave.

Williamson was
busy beavering away

with these tunnels
until his wife died

and then he started to do
less and less and then himself

he died in 1840

and that's when the
tunnelling stopped.

And so it was from
that point onwards

that the tunnels sort of
disappeared into folklore.

For a hundred and fifty years

the tunnels lay forgotten
under the streets of liverpool.

But in 1999,

workers on a building site
discovered a hole in the ground.

Under this car park,

that area under
these two parking bays

14 and 15,

is roughly where this big
hole in the ground was.

It was just big enough
to drop a ladder through

and a fairly slim man
to squeeze his way

through the hole and realise

that he was into
something important.

So, when they actually
found the tunnels

it was like stumbling
across Atlantis.

It opened up a whole
underground world

and that was just
the tip of the iceberg.

I remember when I arrived here

before any excavation started

I could say there
was a pile of rubble

from there to there you
could sort of clamber

over the top of it
for a few yards here

and then beyond
that to the far end

it was literally up to there,

you could look along it

and maybe see the
end but you couldn't,

you couldn't get over it.

The team of amateur
archaeologists

began removing hundreds
of tons of dirt by hand.

After chipping away they
finally found the tunnel floor

but that was just the first
level they found another,

this was a multi-levelled
tunnelling system.

At that time it was
absolutely impossible

for anybody to judge just
how deep this cellar system

might end up being and it
was years and years later

before we finally emptied it out

and realised the full depth
of what we had discovered.

As the team dug deeper

the true origin story of these
tunnels was becoming clear.

As we lowered the
soil level bit by bit

in this chamber it
became apparent

for the very first time
to us what he was doing,

he was going to vault over
here in his brick arches.

And had put two layers
of working cellars above

and then four storey
buildings on top of that.

They discovered stone
buttresses strong enough

to stop the roof from caving in.

But that didn't explain

why the tunnels were
dug in the first place.

However the team still
hadn't reached the bottom,

its only when they
went a bit deeper

that the purpose
was finally revealed.

We discovered this floor here

which consists of
three large blocks

of stone over there,

the one we are standing
on and the one behind.

They are not real
rock formations

they have clearly been
carved out of the rock.

Beneath edgehill
is a material prized

for its utility, sandstone.

It appears that Williamson
was extracting the stone

to extend his own stakes,

not only for himself but
for the whole community.

We don't know how
much of this went on

but we do know for sure
that he donated all of the stone

that was needed to build
one of the local churches,

that's st Jude's church which
was just a few hundred yards

down the road.

The secret of the
Williamson's tunnels

appeared to be solved

but some mysteries about this
place might never be explained.

One thing that
really intrigues me

is this appeared to be a process

that was going on in full swing,

they were obviously working
on three blocks of stone

or four blocks of stone all at
once and then suddenly stopped

and I find that a very
intriguing question,

we would love to know answers.

I'm afraid we never will.

Nearly two centuries after
Joseph Williamson's death

the legend of his tunnels
still captures the imagination

of liverpudlians

and the search for
the truth continues.

We believe that
there are other spaces

which are a lot bigger,

there is a great tunnel
which we know of

and we hope it still exists
and are having great trouble

trying to find it and we
haven't been able to find

a way into it yet, but we
are determined to find it.

On the southern
plains of Wyoming usa

lies a sinister building
designed to tame the untameable.

We are really out in
the middle of nowhere,

it's a beautiful
country the wild west.

But here in the midst
of all this natural beauty

we also see an outpost of
barbed wire and guard towers.

We are looking at
a building that sticks

out of the prairie
like a sore thumb.

The walls of this place
are built of stone slabs

that were quarried
from the local bedrock.

Very strong almost impenetrable.

You can imagine
cattle and cowboys

roaming around on these plains,

but this building tells
us a whole other story.

How dark that story is,

starts to become clear
once you walk inside.

There is a chamber
that looks like

some kind of human
sized pressure cooker,

and there are all these other
strange sorts of contraptions.

One room is particularly creepy,

there is not much left in it,

there's kind of an ominous
hook hanging from the ceiling

and a square on the floor

and then a window looking out
across the beautiful countryside.

As a soldier in the
invasion of Iraq,

I saw a lot of prisons
and torture chambers

and this place reminds
me a little bit of both,

I would hate to
be inside this cell.

So, who was locked up here

and what horror did these
walls bear witness to?

In the middle of
the 19th century,

the northern frontier of america
was a land of opportunity.

But it wasn't for
the faint hearted.

When the frontier was open

and the only people
that would go out there

were the people
who were foolhardy,

brave or trying to
escape from something.

The criminals were going out
there because there was no law.

It was these people that
gave the wild west its name.

They are used to taking
the law into their own hands

with quick draws,

lynching's and cash
rewards for killings,

but there is change
on the horizon.

As the 20th century approached
the territories government

hoped to join the union

and the population was growing
weary of Wyoming's wild side.

The problem was that you
still had your criminal element

and these people
didn't want to live

amongst a bunch
of lawless criminals.

This is a turning
point in history,

we are at a crossroads,

the west was known for
being wild for a reason,

but it needed to be tamed.

For their plan to work, something
dramatic had to be done,

and this site was
at the heart of it all.

The Wyoming state penitentiary.

Tina hill is an expert on
the history of the building.

Now, we are in cell block
a, it is our original cell block,

all of our cells could be
locked and unlocked by the bar

called the Johnson bar,

when the bar is up
all the cells are locked,

pull the bar down, all
the cells are unlocked.

These cells are 5 by 7.

We would have two to a cell,

we did not have hot water
it was very cold in a block.

We are the only state penitentiary
in Wyoming so we had everyone,

this is a minimum, medium,
Max security penitentiary,

we had people here for forgery,

we had people here
for first degree murder.

And mixed in amongst these ranks
were some colourful characters.

One of our most infamous
inmates was bill Carlo,

he was a train robber,

he robbed the indo pacific
railroad four different times,

he wound up escaping from
here, got put in a shirt crate,

they put the crate on the train,
which is right down the street,

he popped out of the crate,
robbed the train and escaped.

Trying to civilise
Wyoming's wild element

was never going to be easy,
escape attempts were common.

We had a mass escape in 1912,

at the time our penitentiary was
surrounded by a wooden stockade,

20 inmates escaped through a
hole that they had broken through

on the stockade,

people were out on the
streets shooting at anyone

they didn't recognise

because they just assumed
they are escaped inmates.

Most of the inmates
were soon captured,

but a few managed to flee the
town after a violent encounter.

One resident was shot
and killed by the inmates,

four inmates escaped, two
of them came back deceased,

the other two they
never found again.

A stone wall was soon built to
replace the old wooden stockade,

but for some it was clear
that simply locking up

violent criminals wasn't enough.

So, the prison
needed something else

to deal with these cowboys,

and why not turn something
from the past into the future.

Torture and execution
were about to become

this prisons calling card.

In 1916 the prison expanded
they added a death house

where they could house
the worst prisoners,

those with death sentences and
they could carry out executions.

It was a time in us history
when executions were on the rise.

While execution was
an accepted punishment,

the method of killing
was open to interpretation.

One of the stranger ways
of executing somebody

in the American west
was the Julian gallows,

it was basically a
sort of mouse trap

self-execution platform.

Designed so that the
condemned inmate

would start their own
execution process,

only a few features of the
elaborate system remain.

They would slip a
noose around their neck

and step onto a
trap door knowing

that they would fall
through that door,

and hopefully snap their neck.

By stepping on the platform
a chain reaction was started

in the room below.

Using water, weights and pulleys

ultimately would end in the
collapse of the support structure

beneath the trap door.

His weight would start a
bucket of water underneath

to start draining out,

it would take about a
minute to a minute and a half

for the bucket of
water to empty out,

the trap door would spring open,

the man would fall through
and down he would go.

The Julian gallows that
they installed in the prison

was poorly designed,

there wasn't much distance
for the prisoners to drop,

more than once prisoners
experienced the hell

of not having their neck broken

and slowly strangling
at the end of the noose.

In total nine men were
killed using this device,

but soon deemed too inhumane,

a unique contraption nearby

shows how the business of
execution was being modernised.

Just at the foundations of
the prison are being laid down,

eugenics are
starting to catch on,

this is the idea that
we should select

who is genetically
superior and inferior

and eliminate the undesirables
to improve the human race.

Unfortunately that
dangerous idea coincided

with the development
of chemical warfare

in the first world war...

All of this set the context

for the development
of the gas chamber.

It was an attempt
to be more scientific,

more clinical if anything it
was worse than hanging.

Installed in the 1930s,

this gas chamber was meant to
provide a more humane system.

The inmates were brought in,
strapped down by their chest,

arms and legs underneath
the chair was a pen...

A sulphuric acid
mixed with water,

when it was time the
warden was pull this lever

and a cheesecloth
sack of cyanide towels

would drop down into the acid,

hydro cyanic acid gas
would then be formed.

In about 30 seconds the
man was unconscious,

two and a half to three
minutes he was dead.

Use of the gas chamber
continued until 1965.

And all those encountering

that fate spent
their final days here.

Right now we are in the
bull pen for death row,

this is where you would be
waiting for your execution.

You are in your
cell, 24 hours a day,

if you were behaving,

they would allow
you to come out here

to the bull pen to
exercise for an hour,

inmates were up here

between three months
and a year and a half

waiting for their execution.

Imagine living in that
psychological burden

of knowing your
death is on the horizon

the exact date

and there is nothing
you can do about it.

In 1981 the frontier prison
was deemed outdated

and its doors were
closed for the final time.

Throughout its life thousands
had been incarcerated here

and an unlucky few had
paid the ultimate price.

While the prison
story ended years ago,

the death penalty
here still remains.

As long as Wyoming
has been able to decide

whether or not we were going
to have capital punishment,

the state of Wyoming has
always had capital punishment.

Wyoming is now in the minority.

Death sentences are
decided on state by state

and most of the United
States have abolished them.

As a result they have fallen
85% over the last 25 years.

We still have so far to go.

Liberty and justice for all
its an aspiration it's an ideal,

what's so frightening for me

is that what horrifies us today,

was seen as perfectly acceptable
even progressive in the past,

but what progress have we made?

Wouldn't we give anyone

the legal right to take
the life of another?

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