It turned out that the tragic and destructive fire was only a harbinger of the shocking facts that would follow the destruction of HMI.
As authorities dug through rubble and ashes, they discovered a number of items that survived the fire—items that shed light to what had really been taking place at the Healing Minds Institute for the Criminally Insane.
The first, and most apparent, was that Dr. Johnathan Rosenbaum had been conducting strange and highly illegal surgeries on many of the patients. Evidence of medieval trepanation, vivisection, fetal conjoinment, limb and/or head transplantation, and even attempts at human-animal hybridization were all discovered. But, that was just the beginning.
Writings from Dr. Rosenbaum’s surviving journal suggest that all four founders were involved in dark rituals that involved demonic worship and human sacrifice. Rosenbaum’s journal, while quite benign on first look, was filled with secondary writings penned in invisible ink that explain the nature and structure of these rituals, and it is believed that each founder personally sacrificed (or planned to sacrifice) their first born children in exchange for greater wealth and power (there are detailed notes that outline their frustrations determining the location or identity of Dorian Shroeder’s firstborn child).
While so much of the mystery was lost to the fire, several larger mysteries still remain unsolved. Why did a raging brush fire during the dry season suddenly burn out once the entirety of the institute had been consumed? How were there no survivors? How was it that no one knew what had been occurring behind the closed doors of the institution?
One of the strangest facts to arise from the ashes of Healing Minds is that the remains of Dr. Dorian Schroeder, the long-believed father figure of the founders, were never discovered. Additionally, evidence suggests that during his time at the institute, Dr. Schroeder had fathered a number of children with several of the female inmates.
Sadly, the full account of the horrors which took place at the Healing Minds Institute for the Criminally Insane shall likely remain shrouded in mystery, lost forever to the fire that claimed them more than a century earlier. As such, the full explanation of some of the recovered artifacts, including the disturbing images like this one, will ever be completely understood.