Rory Appleton|Indianapolis Star
Much of the Indiana State Sanatorium looks as it did when it was abandoned a decade ago.
Partially packed suitcases are filled with clothes.Pictures andfamily heirlooms are displayed in the rooms. There are dishes in the kitchen,bedding and gurneys in the hospital wing. A secret underground tunnel system connects the various buildings.
Yes, theSanatorium, which opened in Rockville in the early 1900s as a tuberculosis hospital, hasall the telltale movie signs of beinghaunted.
Sounds like an ideal place to spend a night alone in the dark, right?
It does if you're the cast of "Destination Fear," a Travel Channel series chroniclinga brother-sister duo and their best friends' never-ending search for spooky places and the adrenaline highs they provide. A mid-May Sanatorium stay is the basis for the show's latest episode, airing at 9 p.m. Saturday and available to stream on Discovery+.
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"When I was doing research on (the Sanatorium), no one's ever been there before, paranormal investigation wise or through TV," said cast member and cameraman Alex Schroeder, who selected the site as part of a slate of spooky locales in the series' third season.
"And I couldn't find anything on if it was haunted or not," he continued. "I thought this might be a great time to bring it back to our roots of going into a building, not knowing if it is haunted for one, and two, seeing if it is... it has all the criteria for being super haunted."
And? AND?
"I know we can all confidently say that there is something going on in those buildings there," Schroeder said.
Family thrills
"Destination Fear" started as a family hobby for Dakota Laden and his sister Chelsea, who would take road trips to haunted locations in and around their native Minnesota. As the Ladens and best friend Tanner Wiseman became more versed in film and television production, their online videos eventually blossomed into the full-fledged series.
The show's premise is simple: Every year, the Ladens, Wiseman, Schroeder and a small production team take a road trip to spend a series of nights in presumably haunted locations throughout the country. Each cast member does their own research and selects a few for the group.
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Once there, the cast separates and films themselves as they spend a night alone in the strange place. The production crew is not allowed in during this overnight portion.They huddle back in the morning, and it's off to the next place -- one night only to capture whatever they can, with Dakota Laden editing the footage down to episode length.
Although Laden has experience as a paranormal investigator and haunts are a major part of the show, communing with the spirit world is notthe group's only motivation.
"We like to say that we can do challenging things, and also we all crave that adrenaline rush that comes with going to a haunted place and being by yourself," Laden said.
The Sanatorium
The cast was given near total access to the Sanatorium grounds, which include a main hospital building, administrative building, living quarters and a barn.
The Sanatorium was first conceived as the Indiana State Tuberculosis Hospital in 1907, according to Indiana State University Library archives, where it eventually had "great success in arresting and curing tuberculosis."
It received its current name in 1919 and held many others over the years, such as the Parke County Sanatorium andLee Alan Bryant Health Care Center. After tuberculosis was widely cured in America in the '50s, the Sanatorium was repurposed as a mental health facility andnursing home.
It was abandoned in 2011 and purchased in 2020 by Gregg Larson, who set up a new website for the Sanatorium offering paranormal flashlight tours, overnight stays and other events across more than 100,000 square feet of building space.
The sanitarium did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
The "Destination Fear" cast said they have never visited a location with so much of its interior contents still intact. They're used to mostly empty, dilapidated buildings.
"It quite literally looks like one day, every single person who was on that property just left," Wiseman said. "And they didn't bring anything with them."
Staying the night
While they normally spend the night at opposite ends of one structure, the Sanatorium was large enough for all four cast membersto spread out into separatebuildings.
"You couldn't even yell if you wanted to and have someone hear you," Wiseman said. "You just have to pray that your walkie talkie would work and to be able to communicate with anyone."
The group also went through the Sanatorium's tunnel system. Whatexactlythey saw will be revealed in Saturday'sepisode.
"Itdidn't feel real," Dakota Laden said. "Like, how are we the first people to be here? This is too creepy of a place."
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Rory Appleton is the pop culture reporter at IndyStar. Contact him at 317-552-9044 andrappleton@indystar.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RoryDoesPhonics.
