They had children, which just ups the creep factor. The neighbors decided, instead of installing shiny new door locks and a neighborhood watch, to vilify the new family. Apparently the previous owners of the home had received letters a well, and just refrained from putting that in the listing. Because who wouldn’t disclose getting love notes from strangers like this? “Who has the bedrooms facing the street? I’ll know as soon as you move in. It will help me to know who is in which bedroom. Then I can plan better.” The family that moved in 2014 has been unable to sell the home, even at a loss. …that sounds really crowded, guys. Carol also lived off of some dubiously collected life insurance policies of her late husband, dad and maid, who all died mysteriously. Carol was eventually jailed and fled the state upon her release, but the shocking case, including why these people came back. Witchcraft? Probably. Most locals still believe it was a hex. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a disturbing number of people who remember playing it, though. Some people claim they were kidnapped and found 60 miles from where they’d been abducted, with mental side effects from whatever happened to them. The game involved shapes, colors and geometric patterns and was only ever serviced by men in suits who didn’t talk. Many believe that it was part of the CIA’s MKUltra program. And yes, this might sound like an internet rumor gone amok, but considering what we do know about the CIA…seems more likely to be true than not. The second version is that an eccentric local man built seven gates leading deeper and deeper into the forest. The whole town rejects these rumors, claiming there was never an asylum, much less gates to Hell itself in the town of …Hellam. They were engaged, but a condition of the engagement was that Poe stopped drinking. Anyone who knows anything about Poe knows that didn’t stick, and Edgar and Sarah were sitting in the Athenauem when some jerk, who couldn’t mind his own business, delivered Sarah a note telling her that Edgar had been drinking. Engagement and heart broken, Poe placed a curse on the fountain that whoever drinks from it shall never leave. Though he died a year later, his ghost still visits on occasion. The Craigmiles decided to pay for a larger, fancier church to be build with a marble mausoleum for Nina, John and the rest of the family. They even commissioned a white marble bust of Nina from overseas, to be kept in a niche behind the pulpit. Sadly, the bust never made it to it’s new home as the sculptor shipped it aboard the HMS Titanic (40 years later. Some people have trouble moving on). The most interesting thing about this whole thing is the mausoleum build for Nina and her family. White carrera marble shouldn’t have blood red streaks running through it, and yet, it does. Stories abounded about the headless horseman who eventually became known as El Muerto. Eventually, the pony was caught, and Vidal was laid to rest, but people never stopped seeing El Muerto roaming South Texas on clear nights. The trail to that cave was also haunted, having cold spots even in the middle of summer, and whispers and laughter in the early morning. A ghost of a lost little boy of about 4 years old appears on one of the trails, a man who’s not yet realized he’s dead stomps through the brush before glaring at hikers on another. If you stay at the campground, you can supposedly summon a ghost hearse by driving your car in a circle three times. You can also possibly take an apparition home via hitchhiking ghost, that’s if he’s kind enough to stick around after your headlights have illuminated him. He usually just disappears. The statue sits atop the grave of a greedy man named John Hubbard. Other oddities recorded at the statue include screams, glowing red eyes, and death within a week after sitting upon it’s lap. The actual name of the statue is Thanatos, which is Greek for “death.” When people checked the mausoleum, it wasn’t there, and there’s no back door. Sometimes a man is seen walking out of the mausoleum after dark. One more creepy thing about the tunnel accident (that did really happen) – they only ever found one of the bodies. Many men never made it out of the tunnel, but only one body was found? Perhaps Richmond has more than one resident vampire. Several people have reported going at night, shining a flashlight and not being able to see the bottom when they should, and one person claimed that they went down when they were 16, only to come back up and realize their friends were screaming at them. According to the stepper, he only went down 6 steps because he started to feel sick. According to his friends, he went down all 13 and disappeared for a time. He said that when he left, he felt hands shoving him out of the darkness. That’s kinda sweet; ghosts pushing you out of possible gateways to hell. Yeah, that sounds like hell. Hell is accurate. This wasn’t the first fire, either; it was the third. Other rumors surrounding the property are plentiful— murdering psychopath killing guests before committing suicide, Al Capone being a frequent guest, bootleggers regularly stopping by during prohibition—one can only imagine the ghosts that call Maribel Caves Hotel home. Sounds like someone or something otherworldly really had it out for this place.
