abandoned insane asylums

Metropolitan State Hospital

There are plenty of disturbing tales surrounding Metropolitan State Hospital, which opened in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1930. On the grounds of the hospital sat the Gaebler Children's Center, which many of its former residents have described as being akin to a prison, with the children strictly disciplined and frequently sedated. Dinah Williams' book Abandoned Insane Asylums references a tale of an accidental poisoning of pediatric psychiatric patients during the 1960s, but that's not a story I've seen confirmed elsewhere.

The macabre tale for which Metropolitan is best known, however, earned it the nickname "The Hospital of Seven Teeth." In 1978, a patient named Anna Marie Davee went for a walk around the grounds and never returned. It wasn't until 1980 that her killer, a fellow patient named Melvin Wilson, brought police to the three separate graves where he had buried parts of her hacked-up body. As if dismembering her wasn't enough, Wilson kept seven of Davee's teeth as a souvenir.

Metropolitan State was closed in 1992, as psychiatric care became increasingly privatized. By 2009, most of the buildings on the campus had been demolished, replaced with condo complexes. Only the hospital's administration building remains.