Tag Archives: murder

The Previous Resident

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 18
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: University Housing - Dorm
Performance Date: November 12th, 2013
Primary Language: English

My friend once told me about his dad experiencing some spooky stuff when he was just out of college. He was in his early 20s. He didn’t have too much money at the time. I forget which town he lived in, but he was desperately trying to find a place to rent. Eventually, he realized that it would be financially wise to rent just one room in a house. So he found a location that allowed him to pay for just a bedroom. The seller though had to disclose information that the previous resident who rented the room was a criminal. In fact, this guy apparently was a brutal murderer. I don’t know if he did it in the house, the room, or whatever. But supposedly no one was renting out the other rooms at the time. This guy had the entire house to himself when he lived there. Well, my friend’s dad was pretty curious and would often meander around the house looking for history or clues as to what exactly happened. I guess he started lifting up the carpets and found some sort of satanic markings on the floorboards. After that, my friend’s dad said he always felt some sort of presence in the house. Especially when walking up the staircase. He always felt like someone or something was accompanying him from the first to last step.

 

I heard this story in a USC cafeteria around 3:30pm during a late lunch. The informant is a good friend of mine. He heard this story from a friend of his, who heard it from their father. The father directly experienced this event. My friend thinks it’s creepy, “especially the satanic markings part.”

I found a multitude of ghostly motifs in my informant’s tale. These motifs include satanic markings, murder, and the renting of property with abnormal history. Though the motif that stands out to me most would be the staircase. Ghosts are liminal beings and tie themselves to liminal times, events, and locations. Staircases are arguably liminal locations because they are neither the bottom or top floor of a house. I find it interesting then, that my informant explicitly states that his friend’s father felt the most discomfort on the staircase than in any other part of the house.

La Casa Matusita B

Nationality: Peruvian
Age: 62
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Performance Date: December 17,2012
Primary Language: Spanish

During the 19th century, the house was inhabited by a migrant Chinese (sometimes Japanese) family. The father worked very hard and came back late at night every day. One day, he came back earlier and was surprised to hear strange noises coming from his and his wife’s bedroom. He went there and fount his wife in bed with a lover, irate, he grabbed a knife and hacked them both up into pieces. When his kids got home, he decided to kill them as well since he saw no feasible explanation of his deeds and he didn’t want them to hate him. After that, he committed suicide.
While property records show that a Chinese family did indeed live in the house during the early 19th century, there is no proof that the above events transpired. This story’s popularity however could be attributed to lingering xenophobia, staring from the mid 19th century to the early 20th century, there was a very large wave of Chinese migrants to Lima. These immigrants were brought to Lima under false pretenses of wealth and opportunity when in reality, they were brought to collect guano since there was a dearth of cheap labor in Lima (the remaining Africans who were brought over as slaves were too few and the indigenous population had fled to the Andes to avoid being enslaved). These Chinese immigrants suffered horrendously and died by the thousands; however, there was a good number who survived the Guano age and established themselves in the city. In spite of their work which had brought an immense level of prosperity for Lima, these migrants were viewed with distrust by the Peruvians of European descent and were actively discriminated against. This version of the story is a vestige of that sentiment.

La Casa Matusita A

Nationality: Peruvian
Age: 62
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Performance Date: December 17,2012
Primary Language: Spanish

This house situated in Downtown Lima, Peru is the most famous haunted structure in the entire country. It is famous throughout, you can ask anyone in Lima, and they will all know of it whether they believe in paranormal phenomena or not. The house was first brought to my attention when I moved to Peru by one of my maids, she told me all about it and then my mother confirmed the stories circulated, but said they were all made up. During her last visit, I had her recount a couple of versions of the story of the Matusita which she knew (there are dozens):
At the turn of the twentieth century, there lived in the house a cruel man with two servants (cook and butler). During dinner with friends, the servants decided to get their revenge and poison their master and his friends with hallucinogenic substances. They served the tampered dinner and locked the door of the dining room. A few minutes later, the servants heard  a horrible scuffle. They waited until the noises ceased and then when they opened the door, they saw that the diners were torn to pieces, there was blood spread everywhere. The servants felt terribly guilty and took their lives right there. This version is said to explain the loud voices, conversation and laughter followed by blood curling cries and sepulchral silence that neighbors and passerbyers have attributed to the house.  It is said that if they get close to the house or look in, they will go mad at the sights of gore and debauchery inside.
This version shows the rift between the master and his servants which can be extended to the sentiments that the indigenous and African workers feel towards their European (and later on Asian) masters. This tension is found to this very day since in Peru there is a very strong, but passive racist undercurrent that is perpetuated from generation to generation and never confronted. The race of the master is left unsaid in some versions of the story like this one (it is implied he was white); however , there are also versions that connect this version to version b which I also discuss. In those versions, the master is Asian and a descendent of the Chinese family who lived in the house in the 19th century.

House of Tia Toña

Nationality: American
Age: 48
Occupation: Administrative at Santa Monica Unified School District
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 19,2013
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

In the forest of Chapultepec in the capital (DF) there is an old dilapidated house that is said to be inhabited by a woman who flies into a rage when curious onlookers come to visit.  Visitors to the house have said that when she is enraged, you can hear strange noises in and around the house; you will often see a shadow pass through the windows and the feeling of being watched by someone who sends chills down your spine and goosebumps over your flesh. 
The name of the woman was “Tia Toña”, and she was a very wealthy widow who lived many, many years ago in her house by herself. She was a very kind person and to ease her loneliness, she started taking in homeless children off the street. She gave them money, food, clothes and shelter. But in spite of her charitable acts, the kids were unruly and ungrateful. They made her life impossible and one day, they banded together and decided to kill her in order to take the house and her money.
The kids carried out the murder and threw the body down in the attic. However, they were unable to live in peace because the woman’s angered spirit returned and chased them out of the house – eventually leading each to a terrible death.  From then on, the woman’s angry spirit haunted the house and continues to do so now. Kids are especially warned to stay away from the house.

There is another version of this story that I found in this Mexican newspaper:  http://www.vanguardia.com.mx7leyendasdeterrorquehanpuestoatemblaraldf-668416.html
It is all the same except for the fact that the woman is the one who kills the kids (because they misbehaved so much) only to then be driven to guilt by her actions. She locks herself in the house and has been there ever since. Flory told this story to me during a coffee date, there were no particular gestures that she used to relay it; however, she did say that when she visited the capital for the first time with her parents, her mother repeated this story to her in an effort to scare her away from wandering away from them (it worked, especially in said park).

Gang Initiation

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 30th, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: French

“There’s an urban legend in Detroit, Michigan. To join a gang you have to drive around with your lights off and then the first person who flashes their lights at you to turn your lights on, you have to follow them and kill them.”

The informant told me about this initiation ritual at the very end of our interview. He said that he heard it from his brother, who is also from Detroit. The informant grew up in a suburb outside of Detroit. He likes to think of Detroit as tough and dirty. This legend of a gang initiation ritual reinforces this image of the city. The informant said that he finds the idea of randomly killing a stranger terrifying. However, he still likes to tell the tale of the ritual.

I think this process for initiating gang members is extremely harsh. I don’t know why anyone would participate in such an inhumane practice. However, it is a little romantically horrible; it could take place in a serial killer tv show or a scary novel. I have heard of similar gang initiation practices. In fact, another informant informed me that there is the exact same ritual here in Los Angeles. It makes me more wary of flashing my lights at people if they don’t have their lights on, which I do regularly when I drive. Therefore, the informant’s use of this tale to characterize Detroit as harsh is a little off target, because it isn’t unique to Detroit. Culture is defined by its folklore, from both within and outside of it. The informant used the folklore to define Detroit culture, even though it isn’t all of the culture of Detroit and it doesn’t belong only to Detroit. The ritual is terrifying and reflects how harsh and scary gangs can be.