With latest arrests, city middle school could rival Conjuring House on unwanted attention

WOONSOCKET – The city’s long-vacant middle school may be starting to rival Burrillville’s “Conjuring House” as a site in Rhode Island that neighbors and law enforcement find as annoyingly magnetic to unwanted visitors.

The pull of the eerie locale drew another group of inquisitive intruders on Sunday, Jan. 10 – the single largest in a series of incursions at the 111-year-old Park Place building that have been ongoing for years.

This time, the police said, they arrested a dozen individuals who broke into the building on Sunday night. All were young adults save for one, a juvenile male, and most were from Connecticut, with few from Massachusetts. All were male except for two females and all were charged with one count of breaking and entering. 

They were identified as Dylan Bard, 18, of Brooklyn, Conn.; Mason Bright, 18, of Canterbury, Conn., who was also charged with possession of an unlawful knife; Bailey Segrid Bromley, 19, of Attleboro, Mass.; Kayden Dessert, 18, of Killingly, Conn.; Jacob Dohring, 19, of Attleboro, Mass.; Ryan Ellis, 18, of Danielseon, Conn.; a 15-year-old boy from Eastford, Conn.; Gavin Moore, 18, of Danielson, Conn.; Daniel Mosher, 18, of Brooklyn, Conn.; Kyle David Naughton, 18, of Wrentham, Mass.; George Perreault, 18, of Woodstock, Conn.; and Emma Powers, 18, of Groton, Conn. 

The arrests came after Officers Jaden Esposito and Joshua Lindsey responded to the building around 9:30 p.m. to investigate a report of flashlights glowing inside on multiple levels.

As the officers arrived, a few of the intruders were exiting the building and the police had the opportunity to ask questions.

Their explanation for breaking into the building echoes that of earlier trespassers, with several telling Esposito they were “exploring” the structure.

Police used a public address system to communicate with the intruders who remained inside the building after they arrived. And the number of suspects turned out to be so large they used the prisoner van to transport them to headquarters for booking.

Built in phases around 1915, the rambling brick and marble structure at 357 Park Place was founded as a high school, but it was later converted into a middle school after the existing city high school was erected. The site was cast off altogether by the Woonsocket Education Department in 2009, just before two replacement schools were opened on Hamlet Avenue for the first time.

Although the comparison to the Conjuring House has not been discussed publicly in the past, perhaps it should have. Both sites, known for attracting trespassers keen on getting first-hand experience of a place with a spooky vibe, owe their reputations largely to publicity drummed up by video or film. Of course, The Conjuring House, located on Round Top Road in Burrillville, takes its name from the 2013 film “The Conjuring,” which was inspired by a book written by a former resident of the clapboard farmhouse who said she and her family shared the dwelling with malevolent spirits.

Similarly, there are multiple videos circulating on YouTube and other digital platforms that play up the otherworldly aura of the old Woonsocket Middle School. 

But if there’s one video that can be credited with greasing the wheels of notoriety for the site, it’s the 2013 documentary “My Old School,” by Rhode Island filmmaker Jason Allard. He also revisited the subject in a 2022 video series, “Abandoned from Above.”

One of the common themes in these online features is the notion that a visit to the site is like falling into a time warp. When the education department abandoned the Woonsocket site, many have noted that it seems as if it was evacuated for a sudden apocalypse: items left behind included everything from furniture and chalkboards, to jarred frogs floating in formaldehyde for a biology class.

The confusing layout of the building reinforces the mood, as Allard explains in a website devoted to promoting “My Old School.” He says the floor plan “made for strange hallways, doorways to nowhere and nooks and crannies all over the building.” 

If all goes according to plan, however, the site’s days as a headline attraction on the teenage bucket-list tour may soon be over. In 2023, the City Council sold the old school to a Boston-based real estate development group for $1 million. The owners have announced plans to convert it into more than 100 apartment units.