 | |
| Red Meadows | |
| Continuity: | American Horror Story |
| Aliases: | Red Meadows Asylum |
| Category: | Medical center |
| Continent: | North America |
| Country: | United States of America |
| State: | California |
| Residents: | Benjamin Richter Karen Hopple |
| 1st appearance: | "Camp Redwood" |
Red Meadows Asylum is a fictional mental health facility featured on the FX Network television series American Horror Story. It is associated with the season nine storyline, "1984" and first appeared in the season premiere, "Camp Redwood".
Description[]
Red Meadows was a mental health facility for the criminally insane located in California. It was active during the 1980s. The hospital administrator was a man named Art and one of its top psychiatrists was Doctor Karen Hopple. It's most famous patient was Benjamin Richter, who was an accused mass murderer who had earned the nickname "Mr. Jingles".
History[]
Benjamin Richter was admitted to Red Meadows in the early 1970s after having been accused of brutally murdering nine camp counselors, and severing their ears as trophies. Richter, who had already suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome due to his activities in the Vietnam War, claimed to have had no memories of the crimes. This was owed largely to having undergone electro-shock therapy, which damaged his brain. In truth, the murders were committed by camp counselor Margaret Booth, who framed Richter for the crimes and became the star witness at his trial.
In the summer of 1984, a psychiatry student named Donna Chambers came to Red Meadows hoping to get an interview with Richter. He plan was to learn about what triggered sociopathic tendencies, but to study this at length, she needed to see Richter "in the wild". She conspired with Benjamin to help break him out of the hospital. [1]
Benjamin Richter pretended to hang himself in his room. When an orderly checked on him, he killed him, then made his way towards the exit. He triggered a release switch that opened all of the patients' rooms, which kept the staff busy long enough so he could affect his escape. [2]