The Ghost of Lavinia Fisher
My experience in the Old City Jail, Charleston, South Carolina
I sat with my feet dangling in the water of a pool at a house on the South Carolina coast. My friend had moved there from the mountains and was settling into a new routine of ocean life. An avid gardener, she told me about the trials and tribulations of Lowcountry vegetation.
She pointed to a shrub the lined the tall, iron fence around the pool. “The oleander needs trimming all the time.”
“Where does it grow?”
“Everywhere. It’s hard to contain.”
A few days later, I was touring the Old City Jail in downtown Charleston, learning about Lavinia Fisher and how she allegedly used oleander tea to earn the title of the first female serial killer in American history.
Her name and spirit have graced the production of many ghost hunting shows. Thousands of tourists line up each year to walk the empty rooms of the penitentiary where Lavinia spent her final year before being hanged for highway robbery. Scores of people perished in unspeakable conditions in one of the oldest cities in America, but what it is about Lavinia that keeps her story enduring for centuries?
