happy halloween. tonight on a second look we go inside one of the spookiest places in the bay area. and we will retrace some of the celebrations in san francisco's castro district. we will go ghost hunting inside a virginia former prison. all straight ahead on a second

look. good evening i'm julie haener and this is a second look. tomorrow we observe one of the ghoulish annual rituals halloween. it's a night filled with ghosts and goblins, jack-o-landers and trick or treaters. there's one place in the bay area that feels like halloween all yearlong. that would be the -- house in san jose. george watson brought us this look inside one of the spookiest places you will ever visit. >> reporter: the outside gardens in the great house itself speak wealth and meticulous care. but this victorian mass suggests something else may be a foot here. the serene stateliness that you

find outside hides the inside. welcome to the winchester mystery house. the mansion began as an eight room farmhouse but sarah winchester built and built and built until the time of her death when she was 83. there were 160 rooms. the seemingly random incoherence of doors opening out into space, skylights on top of skylights. stairs that lead nowhere were actually the product of a plan. she was desperately trying to stave off death. using her inheritance from the winchester rifle company, she thought she was buying life. >> she started with an eight room farmhouse and went on from there whenever and however she

wanted. that's how we ended with stairs on the walls. >> reporter: winchester was building to ease the spirits. continuous work was what was important to her not the results. she would walk the grounds through the hall ways and scribble plans on walls and paper backs. she would give these plans to her workers. sometimes asking them to tear down what they had just built the day before. this would go on, 24 hours a day 365 days a year. by the time of her death the work in progress at the mansion included 40 bedrooms all of which she slept in but never for more than two consecutive nights. there are 47 fireplaces, six kitchen, 40 staircases including one that has seven flight, 44 steps, and only goes up 9 feet. but that is just one of many

architectural oddities. >> it is generally accepted that ms. winchester was an excentric woman. but she was also an exceptionally bad architect. this exquisite window is belt on the west side, hence it does not get any light. >> nightly she would retreat to her seance room to hear what the spirits wanted her to do. despite the grand ballrooms and bright welcoming sits rooms and parlors, mrs. winchester never received visitors, behind the high walls she lived her life alone. perhaps the simplest explanation can be found in the

deaths of her husband and infant daughter. her daughter annie died shortly after birth and her husband died 15 years later. >> she reportedly wore black all the time. she never went out without a vail. she just remained in mourning for her entire life. >> reporter: her grasp of immortality ended when she died in her sleep. she has received a lasting immortality. the lonely home is now a that

gives tours. >> she inherented $20 million in cash. >> reporter: when m rs. winchester died, servants opened the safe, there was no gold, jewels or great sum of cash. all the servants found were locks of her husband and infant daughters hairs along with the copies of the obituaries. those were the only things that mrs. winchester thought were worth saving. a bit later, looking for a costume you like, wait until you see some of the ones we dug out of our archives.

we're taking a second look at halloween. over the years one of the most colorful places to celebrate halloween has been san francisco's castro district often draws tens of thousands of people. however the crowds became increasingly unruling to a point where a shooting left nine people wounded. so for the fifth year there will be no castro district celebration tomorrow night. but we have searched the archives throughout the years and found the best halloween parties there. >> who are you supposed to be tonight. >> whatever, just bizarreness, whatever. i'm halloween i can be anyone i want to be in san francisco. >> who are you supposed to be? >> martian mellow. >> a stick of gum? >> i'm a package of juicy fruit gum. just a wildcat out for a good

time direct from the jungle. >> cosmic tiger the cosmic pig. >> where are you from? >> san francisco, where else? >> the people not in costume what do they think of all this. >> i think it's great, fun. there's some very interesting costumes out. >> then there's castro street, certainly the mecca of the moon worshipers madness. thousands of people here daring not to do the rest of the year  or standing around looking at those who do. people pour in from the suburbs to see this spectacle many even bringing their children. >> how are you doing? hi. >> reporter: what would halloween be without a trip to the castro. here in halloween you go from the land of children to the night of adults who at least for one night a year can say, to heck with it. it's halloween.

>> reporter: what does halloween mean to you? >> a good time, real good time. >> reporter: how about to you in. >> same. >> reporter: a night to see and be seen. so far a very well behaved crowd. monitors are keeping everyone within barricades. people here collected donations for quake victims and this postquake celebration took on a new meaning. part of castro street is shut down as the city's mostly gay neighborhood is showing off its most colorful sight. >> happy halloween. >> reporter: officials say some 100,000 people packed into the castro last night and they expect it to be the same number tonight. >> we came too last night.

>> reporter: what was that like? >> huge, very crowded. >> you could not even walk on the street. we were hoping it would be like that tonight too. we hope it'll be. >> i think everybody forgot about their troubles and dressed up and came out and partied. >> reporter: this party has all kinds of costumes imaginable. quite a few nuns, even dorothy from the wizard of oz. >> everybody is exotic and crazy i rather be something simple and conservative. >> reporter: and seems like the castro has it version of the don't ask don't tell policy. and yes that is a dining table. >> you know from the problems they had in the past i think they're doing the right thing. it's sad a lot of things have happened here but they did the right thing they had to do. you can still have a good time here with the local crowds.

i think it's great. >> reporter: more than 100,000 people let lose in the castro district where six people were shot. the next year, the city called the party over asking people to go elsewhere, and they did. >> we don't want the neighborhood to be overrun. we want to have a zero policy. when we come back in a second look, let's play dress up. some of our favorite costumes from halloween past. and a bit later bob mackenzie introduces us to a man with the weirdest collection ever.

tomorrow night kids all over the bay area and the nation will put on their costumes and head out to trick or treat or go to a halloween party some where. but it's not just children who dress up. we went back through our files and found some of our favorite

halloween costumes over the years. >> reporter: many homemade costumes were on display in downtown los gatos tonight as 200 dogs pranced in a halloween parade sponsored by a group of dog lovers known as society dog. these cowboy chihuahuas came with chaps. >> they all seem to love the hats expect for her she doesn't like the hat on her. but i just thought the cowboy theme, we're all from texas any way. >> reporter: this ghost was all ready to trick or treat along with this hot dog dog and ballerina boston terrier. >> sit, stay. >> reporter: uncle sam watched a wizard's treat. >> with all these dogs we don't really have any problems. i mean there'll be a little bark here or there. but truthfully they just seem

to be having a really great time. >> reporter: well you decide who has the upper hand in this particular situation. located conveniently on church avenue in san leandro this household takes halloween seriously. you would dress up as the good ferry would you ever even hint at trickery here. >> i never saw anything like this before. >> it's gross. >> we've been doing this for almost 15 years and i guess it started when we used to go trick or treating, the house down at the corner used to dress up for the holiday. then we figured i guess that we could do just as good or better. so we started and over the years we've gotten a little larger and a little more extravagant. >> reporter: back in oakland we found the place that is the disneyland of trick or treating. kids flock to this house all night and have been doing so for years.

>> it's scary for the kids. they love it. >> it doesn't look like you're having a good time. >> it's kind of scary. >> i've been doing it for 13 year, but five years here. since i moved here it's a good corner lot to do a lot of things so i've really done all that in the last five years. >> dark clouds were moving in over the hopers house. >> this house always looks cool. >> reporter: coming to this creepy house in the corner is a tradition for many in the neighborhood. >> happy halloween. >> thank you. >> reporter: haley hobert tonight a mad scientist is the brains behind the haunting scenes. >> he gets into it september and by halloween it looks great. he loves the company of everybody here. >> what do you think about this house? >> pretty spooky for some little kids. >> reporter: but not for you? >> when i was young, because i've been to this house a lot

of times. >> well, it's scary but it's not scary to me. but it really is. >> reporter: this house was a huge hit and of course let's not forget the real reason for tonight. >> i got lots of candy. >> double, triple people coming back for more. >> reporter: what is your favorite part of halloween? >> getting the candy and getting cavities. bob mackenzie shows us a little slide of hand and a collection of magical history. >> you told me to, to beware. >> of what? >> i don't know. >> i suggest you better leave here.

if you like spooky stuff we have a job for you.

ghost hunter. in 2004 reporter jonathan freed introduced us to a crew that was spending a time looking for scary ghouls in a jail in virginia. >> reporter: it is a place marked by violent death. close to 100 people were executed here. most by hanging. >> i think you really have to be prepared to be a little scared, because when you lose that edge, the fun of it is gone. the awareness. >> reporter: in all about 1,000 died. half murders and suicides. the prison hasn't housed an inmate for a decade now. at least not officially. >> it felt like somebody was up here behind the railing. >> reporter: al brinsa and his fellow allegheny ghost hunters believe many inmates are still

here in spirit, in part because their earthly departure was so sudden. >> we're essentially a walking wired machine between a still camera, motion picture camera and audio recorder, we're good to go. >> reporter: the group stakes out haunted places, hoping a stalker will float by. >> ghost hunting is the scarest moment but you are moved when a movement on video. >> you are watching video of what they say are moving orbs of ghostly energy. but the group captured it's prized footage last year thanks to brinsa who says he is sensitive to paranormal activity. >> i get a headache when i feel

movement. >> reporter: brinsa says he captured this footage of a spirit. >> do you ever have moments when you stop and think to yourself, what on earth am i doing on the basement of this prison at 4:00 in the morning? >> do i wonder, yeah, but if you like history and you like a good ghost story. it doesn't get any better. >> jonathan freed, mountsville west virginia. one of the things you might not have known about our late colleague bob mackenzie is that he was an amateur magician. he admired and enjoyed others that practiced the misdirection and slight of hand. bob got together with magicians and talked about the advocation they loved. >> reporter: these hands belong to a bay area surgeon. he's known as a collector and historian. he began collecting the magic

equipment at 10 years old. almost all of it hand crafted at the time when magic tricks were made one at a time. the collection is worth more than a million dollars right now. it numbers some 6,000 separate tricks and albo claims to be able to perform any of them. i challenged him to do good with a 19th century trick. >> when we take it off there is the ball back in the vase. and we will just take it and push the top like that. when we do that, the ball falls right out of the vase. and it does that because there's a hole. >> it goes right through the hole. >> right through the hole. >> reporter: he maintains and repairs the collection himself. he also writes books about antique magic. very expensive books for which he does many of the drawings.

>> i will come home and either write or practice magic. as you well know you get a deck of cards in your hands and practice a new slide or a new trick, it's very rewarding to be able to do something that you weren't able to do an hue before. >> reporter: the people at this -- that you weren't able to do an hour before. >> reporter: the people at this table get together to do tricks. >> this is an old british coin it's from about 1797. it's almost 200 years old. the magicians in england used it for years and years. i don't know how they did they are enormous. i prefer the smaller english money or the kennedy half dollar. this is what we use in the united states but if you were in england you would use

english money. the larger coins have some collectibility. it's good to have kennedy half dollar any time you ride b.a.r.t. i'm going to keep this for my daughter. >> okay now, one in the hand, one in the pocket. as you give this a little push. isn't that silly, if you take the coin like that. throw it, throw it. >> all right, all right. >> james hamilton spent many years as a traffic manager but a few years ago he quit to do what he has wanted to do all along. now he's a full time magician. and his favorite job is to impersonate alexander herman his favorite magician. hamilton's victorian apartment in san francisco is a magic museum full of memorabilia of the mystical art. though hamilton never intended to be a collector of magic

congresswomen. e quipment. 40 years of buying equipment turns you into a collector. this is not because hamilton does bizarre things in the living room, the coffee table is part of his old illusion performed by his favorite magician, alexander. >> they're hoping to go see a magician and hoping the lady is really going to float or the lady really is going to disappear. i think everybody has a sort of amazement inside them that they want to latch on to. they all know we can go to the moon and fly around the world. but when you take two steel rings and they become intertwined, it's magic. that's it for this week's second look. i hope you and your family have

a happy halloween. i'm julie haener, thank you for watching.