Haunted Horror Stories

Last Night in Santa Teresa: The Mermaid Who Never Returned The Pacific at three in the morning swallowed a young musician whose last social post read "Pura vida" - she vanished after a walk on a dark, camera-free beach and her body was found hours later on August 5, 2018. Three men were named in the case, one convicted for crimes against the survivor while two walked free - so how did a murder with witnesses and physical evidence leave no one convicted? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from María Trinidad Matus Tenorio's last message to her mother through the hotel footage and witness accounts that followed, tracing her travels from Tehuacán to Santa Teresa and the unanswered question about how the justice system failed to secure a homicide conviction. Person: María Trinidad Matus Tenorio Date: Body found August 5, 2018 Age: 25 Location: Playa El Carmen, Santa Teresa de Cobano Suspects: Sancho Rodríguez; Joel Esquivel Cerdas; a third unidentified man - María sent her last social media post on July 26, 2018, the day she flew to San José alone. - Her body was found on the shoreline of Playa El Carmen on the morning of August 5, 2018. - Prosecutors say Sancho Rodríguez dragged María approximately 400 meters from the attack site and forced her into the sea. - Joel Esquivel Cerdas was captured on hotel camera wet-clothed and found with money and belongings taken from the British tourist. - One man was convicted for crimes against the woman who survived that night; the other two were not convicted for María's death.

The Night They Tried to Erase Her: Salma's Vanishing Truth A young woman vanished from a museum parking lot and a body turned up seven days later with no hands, ribs, hair, skin, or identifying tattoos - yet she was identified twice by DNA. How did someone go from waiting beside a pickup truck to being stripped of every feature that made her human? In this episode, we tell what the record shows: the last confirmed sighting, the family’s search, the forensic confirmations, and the trial that ended in a seventy-year sentence - but the central hours remain unanswered. What happened between Salma standing outside the Paleontology Museum and the moment her life ended? Person: Salma Yajaira Montes Soto Date (disappearance): May 31, 2019 Location (last sighting): Paleontology Museum, Las Delicias, Chihuahua Date (body found): June 7, 2019 Sentence: 70 years (for feminicide, state of Chihuahua) - Salma was 22 years old, born November 18, 1996, and studying law at Centro de Estudios Universitarios del Norte. - The last confirmed sighting placed her outside the Museo de Paleontología in Las Delicias wearing a white blouse with a smiley face, blue jeans, and white sneakers. - The body found at the edge of an irrigation canal two kilometers from the highway had no hands, no ribs, no hair, no skin, and all identifying tattoos removed. - Salma’s family received the first DNA confirmation on July 29, 2019, and a second private lab confirmed identity on September 25, 2019. - Kevin Gualberto Pelcastre, 25, a cook and butcher and Salma’s ex-boyfriend, reported finding her asleep in his truck and later gave timelines placing him home around 00:15 and leaving again after 00:30.

The Night a Warning Was Ignored: Micaela's Last Walk A man with a prior conviction for sexual violence was released early despite the prosecutor's warning - and eight months later a twenty-one-year-old woman was dead. Security cameras captured a gray Renault circling the route Micaela walked home before she disappeared; why did the system ignore the warning that could have stopped this? In this episode, you will hear the timeline from the night Micaela García left a club to the discovery of her body seven days later, the forensic traces that tied a car to a convicted attacker, and the missed chances that preceded her death - what does that chain of failures reveal? Person: Micaela García Date: April 1, 2017 Location: Gualeguay, Entre Ríos, Argentina Cause of death: Mechanical compression of the neck Suspect: Sebastián José Luis Wagner - Micaela sent her last confirmed message to her boyfriend before six in the morning on April 1, 2017, saying she was walking home and was fine. - Her body was found seven days after her disappearance under a tree on a private ranch called Seis Robles, roughly two kilometers from where she was attacked. - Security footage showed a gray Renault with tinted windows circling the club area repeatedly along the route Micaela would have taken. - Sebastián Wagner had been convicted in 2012 for two sexual attacks from 2010, sentenced to nine years but served less than five, and was granted early conditional parole on July 5, 2016 despite the prosecutor's recommendation against it. - A vacuum cleaner used inside the Renault after the night of March 31 was traced to Gabriel Otero, stepson of Néstor Pavón, the car wash owner who had cleaned the vehicle.

He Drove Their Son Home: The Quiet Hour After Murder The front seat held a five-year-old boy while the man who had just killed his mother drove him home - an ordinary detail that hid an hour investigators later rebuilt minute by minute. What unfolded in that quiet house, between a sleeping woman, a nonverbal child, and a man who told a changing story, became the hinge of a case that broke something in El Salvador: who was Mario really, and when did planning begin? In this episode, we walk through the timeline the prosecutors used, the surveillance and cellphone data that mapped movements, and the single sentence Carla told her mother twelve days earlier that reframed the entire trial. How did ordinary routines and a string of specific pieces of evidence turn into a reconstruction that left no version intact? Person: Carla Lisette Turcios Cortés Date: April 14, 2018 Location: Colonia Costa Rica, San Salvador; carretera longitudinal del Norte near Santa Rosa de Huachipilín Person: Mario Alberto Hueso Portillo Person: Demetrio Turcios - Carla was born November 20, 1984, and was 33 years old at the time of death. - Marito, her son, was five years old and diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. - Demetrio left the house between 8 and 9 a.m. on April 14 and returned that afternoon. - Investigators used seven surveillance cameras and two cell phone signal logs to reconstruct the morning of April 14. - Twelve days before her death, on April 2, Carla told her mother she did not know who Mario really was.

The Warrant That Never Moved: How 51 Days Left Her Dead A signed arrest warrant sat in a drawer for fifty-one days while the man named on it continued to walk the streets - and a twenty-seven-year-old mother was murdered in the room next to him. How did a fuel excuse for a patrol car become the difference between a living woman and a body found after screams at 9:00 p.m. on July 9, 2023? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from the April attack that prompted the warrant to the July night Isabel Murillo Martínez was killed, laying out the missed chances, the neighbors’ testimony, and the forensic findings that shaped the case. Could the parked warrant have prevented the assault, and who carried the responsibility for leaving it unread? Person: Isabel Murillo Martínez Date: July 9, 2023 Location: Santa Cruz, Bolivia Case: Arrest warrant issued May 19, 2023 and not executed for 51 days Perpetrator: Rafael Junior Ramírez Jordan - A warrant for Rafael’s arrest was issued by Prosecutor Nelly Fanny Alfaro on May 19, 2023. - Sergeant Ema Quispe was assigned to execute the warrant but filed it away, citing lack of fuel for the patrol vehicle. - The warrant remained unexecuted for fifty-one days between May 19 and July 9, 2023. - Neighbors heard fighting, then screaming, and placed Rafael in the room during the assault at around 9:00 p.m. on July 9, 2023. - Forensic examination found manual neck compression and evidence of sexual assault, and Rafael confessed to killing Isabel during police questioning.

She Walked Out, Never Returned: Secrets of Fort Hood's Silence She vanished with her wallet, car keys, military ID and base access card all left on the armory table, as if she had stepped out for thirty seconds - and never returned. A soldier trusted the institution she served, several colleagues had complained about the accused, no camera covered the room where she spent her last confirmed hour, and the man alleged to have killed her was dead before charges - so what kept Fort Hood silent when it mattered most? In this episode, we walk through the timeline, the people, and the breakdowns that followed Vanessa Guillén’s disappearance on April 22, 2020, and ask how a system meant to protect soldiers failed her at every level. What choices, complaints, and missed alerts allowed a young service member to vanish without immediate institutional alarm? Person: Vanessa Guillén Date: April 22, 2020 Location: Fort Hood, Texas Person: Aaron David Robinson Witness: Cecily Ann Aguilar - Vanessa Guillén was 20 years old and clocked into the arms room at 10:00 AM on April 22, 2020. - Vanessa moved into a second room at approximately 10:15 AM where Aaron David Robinson was already present and no security cameras covered that space. - Robinson was 26 years old and had joined the Army in 2017; at least two fellow female soldiers had previously complained about his behavior. - At 1:30 PM Vanessa was last clearly seen walking through the regimental parking lot with her phone, and she did not respond to messages thereafter. - Two witnesses saw Robinson leave the base that night carrying a heavy wheeled container and later drive to the Leon River near Belton, about 49 kilometers east of Fort Hood.

He Replaced the Curtains: The Woman Found in a Fridge Dark curtains hid a rented room where a 45-year-old psychologist’s body was sealed in a refrigerator divided into six sections - and no one noticed for seven days. How did messages from her own phone keep the family believing she was alive, and why did a simple curtain swap matter so much? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from the day she disappeared to the moment the dogs led investigators to the truth, and we follow what the man living in that room did during the week she was missing. Could the requests to change the curtains and the messages from her number have been part of a plan to delay discovery? Person: Rosa María Cabezas Beis Date: May 13, 2023 (disappearance); May 20, 2023 (body found) Location: Cochabamba / Tiquipaya Age: 45 Perpetrator: Yelsid Chileno Mamani, age 26 - Body found sealed with packing tape inside a beige refrigerator divided into six sections. - Victim missing for seven days before officers pried open the refrigerator on May 20, 2023. - Family told by police to return during office hours when first attempting to file a missing person report. - Victim gave 41,760 bolivianos (roughly $6,000) to Yelsid, who bought a motorcycle instead of returning the funds. - Yelsid had asked the landlord to replace curtains with darker ones days before May 13, 2023.

She Said She'd Leave-Found Dead by a Man with a Badge She told her mother she would be back at three with all her things - and by evening her husband called to say she had killed herself. A body with waterlogged feet, a ten-centimeter wound on her thigh, and bruising never analyzed sat in a bedroom handled by a man trained to document crime scenes; how did a five-page file become the official record? What happened in the hours between a promise and a phone call that would take thirteen years to reach Mexico's Supreme Court? In this episode, we follow the timeline from the morning Mariana told her mother she was leaving to the discovery of her body that evening, the immediate actions by her husband who was a state criminal investigator, and the gaps in the official investigation that haunted the family - could the missing evidence and procedural failures point to something other than suicide? Person: Mariana Lima Buen Día Date: June 29, 2010 Location: Chimalhuacán, State of Mexico Status: Case reached Mexico's Supreme Court after thirteen years Person: Julio César Hernández Ballinas - Mariana announced she would return at 3:00 PM with her things and was twenty-nine years old at the time. - The official investigation file comprised five pages and lacked names of the technicians who processed the scene. - A cord described as five millimeters thick and looped through a metal ring was not recovered until eleven months later. - Photographs taken for the official record were out of focus and the cord at the scene was not collected that day. - Visible injuries included more than a ten-centimeter wound on her right thigh, waterlogged feet, blackened cheeks and mouth corners, a misaligned jaw, and a swollen area between her legs.

He Wore a Wig and Watched: The Four Days Before Andrea's Murder A man in a wig, skirt, white gloves and a wide-brimmed hat knocked at Andrea Morán’s family home and waited while surveillance cameras recorded every detail - and four days later she was shot in the back of the head. The footage shows the same man standing on a rooftop watching her house days before the killing; how did months of rehearsed disguise and surveillance end in a single, fatal morning? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from 2018 through April 26, 2022, laying out the surveillance evidence, the recorded impersonations, and the patterns of contact that preceded the killing, and ask how those signs were missed before it was too late. Person: Andrea Morán Date: April 26, 2022 Location: Colonia Elicerio Alanís, Huitepec, Morelos Perpetrator: César David Injury: Single gunshot wound to the back of the neck - Andrea Morán was twenty-three years old at the time of her death. - The killing occurred on the morning of April 26, 2022, after Andrea climbed into a black Chevrolet Sonic. - Surveillance footage from April 22, 2022 captured César David standing on a rooftop near Andrea’s home. - Investigators recovered audio recordings from César David’s phone in which he disguised his voice to impersonate a neighbor and a delivery worker. - Days before the murder, surveillance showed César David at the front door wearing a wig, skirt, jeans underneath, white gloves, and a wide-brimmed hat, knocking and waiting.

The Torso in the Suitcase: How Love Became a Trap The suitcase in a Madrid warehouse held a human torso doused in caustic soda, implants surgically removed and a forensic report that wrongly declared the victim Caucasian with no children - a mistake that stalled the case for months. How did a plan so methodical and patient become undone by one mother's DNA and a system that corrected its own catastrophic error? In this episode, we follow the disappearance and death of a 25-year-old Honduran woman who rebuilt her life in Madrid, the man she trusted, and the sequence of investigative errors and revelations that followed. What series of choices turned a relationship into a calculated, unrecognizable crime, and how was identity finally restored? Person: Heidi Paola Bulnes Date: August 5, 2018 Location: Usera-Villaverde district, Madrid Age: 25 Suspect: César Román Viruete - Firefighters found a suitcase containing a female torso on August 13, 2018. - The remains had been treated with caustic soda and breast implants manually removed before the fire. - Early forensic report incorrectly identified the body as Caucasian and without children. - Heidi arrived in Madrid in 2013 and regularized her legal status in 2018 after five years. - César Román owed more than €300,000 and was 44 years old at the time of Heidi's disappearance.