{"id":1277,"slug":"calcasieu-parish-courthouse-lake-charles-louisiana","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Calcasieu Parish Courthouse is the building where Louisiana electrocuted a woman — the 1912 courthouse in Lake Charles where Toni Jo Henry, a sultry brunette in the papers and a convicted murderer in the record, went through three spectacular trials before dying in the electric chair in November 1942 — the first woman Louisiana ever executed by electrocution, in a courthouse basement that had been fitted for it.","Her ghost is the building's famous tenant: the lights that flutter, the smell of burning hair, the cold spots on the stairs. The courthouse also saw the Ax-Man era — the 1912 Broussard family murders that were part of the serial killings terrorizing the Gulf South — and the whole paranoid architecture of early twentieth-century Louisiana justice is in its walls.","The file keeps the courthouse: the 1912 building, the Toni Jo trials and execution, the Ax-Man cases, and the ghost that Lake Charles says never left the basement.","Calcasieu Courthouse is the archive's execution file — Toni Jo's three trials, the chair in the basement, and the burning-hair smell on the stairs."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Calcasieu Courthouse is the archive's execution file — the 1912 courthouse, the first woman electrocuted in Louisiana, and the hauntings the staff report.","A courthouse that held an execution keeps its ghost — the file's suggestion being that Calcasieu's hold is the sentence: the trials that were spectacle, the chair that was the end, and the smell of burning hair that outlasted the verdict."]}],"name":"Calcasieu Parish Courthouse","aliases":[],"type":"COURTHOUSE","type_label":"Courthouse","cats":["HAUNTED_PLACE"],"groups":["hauntings","institutions"],"desc":"Courthouse in Lake Charles; research record.","full_desc":"A courthouse in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Calcasieu Parish Courthouse is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Courthouse in Lake Charles; research record. HauntHunt files it with haunted places. Ask the file who haunts it and it answers: Toni Jo Henry. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 legend, every one filed as account rather than fact. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.","address":null,"city":"Lake Charles","county":"Calcasieu Parish","state":"Louisiana","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.19902,"lon":-93.210835,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Discovery pass. Precise location, historical chronology and current visitor conditions require independent enrichment. Confidence concerns provenance only.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":43.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":548,"type":"HAUNTING","description":"Explore Louisiana attributes footsteps, whispers and perfume reports to Toni Jo Henry. Calcasieu Parish Courthouse's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. The account appears in 'Louisiana’s Spooky Side'. The reports keep the place on every haunted list it qualifies for.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"Toni Jo Henry","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.65,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Louisiana’s Spooky Side","url":"https://www.explorelouisiana.com/blog/louisianas-spooky-side","publisher":"Louisiana Office of Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Explore Louisiana attributes footsteps, whispers and perfume reports to Toni Jo Henry. Calcasieu Parish Courthouse's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. The retelling is the record now — the legend metabolized the facts long ago.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Louisiana’s Spooky Side","url":"https://www.explorelouisiana.com/blog/louisianas-spooky-side","publisher":"Louisiana Office of Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[{"name":"Toni Jo Henry","claimed_identity":"Toni Jo Henry","verified":null,"summary":"Explore Louisiana attributes footsteps, whispers and perfume reports to Toni Jo Henry. Calcasieu Parish Courthouse's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. The name travels further than the proof; the sightings keep renewing the lease. The telling survives; the proof stays folklore.","behavior":"Explore Louisiana attributes footsteps, whispers and perfume reports to Toni Jo Henry.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Louisiana’s Spooky Side","url":"https://www.explorelouisiana.com/blog/louisianas-spooky-side","publisher":"Louisiana Office of Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Louisiana’s Spooky Side","url":"https://www.explorelouisiana.com/blog/louisianas-spooky-side","publisher":"Louisiana Office of Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Calcasieu Parish Courthouse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcasieu_Parish_Courthouse","desc":"United States historic place","extract":"Calcasieu Parish Courthouse is located in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The previous courthouse burned down in the great fire of 1910. The courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in Calcasieu Parish on November 2, 1989.","img":null,"score":108,"lat":30.22638889,"lon":-93.21833333},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":1}}