La Llorona

From: Gordon Kilpinen (Kilpinen@coc.powell-river.bc.ca)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Toronto
Source: Form Submission

I have never actually had a personal experience with this story, but I know people who said they have. I am kind of a non-believer, but this story still scares the crap out of me.

During the settlement of the West, in a small area which is now known as Safford, there was a small colony of pioneers who had begun to farm and settle the land. The houses were sporadic and dotted the plains, sometimes miles apart. Now at that time, the pioneers had a real problem with the Apache Indians, and so the men would often ride together in scouting parties to search for war parties and warn their women and children. Once, while the men were out on "patrol" for the war parties, several of the men rode into town bloody and beaten. Their party had been ambushed and all the men killed except for these few. The Apaches were coming, and they were close behind. One woman, whose husband had been killed, was quite shook up about the whole thing. She was unstable to begin with, and had left her beautiful Southern home for the West. She was terrified at the prospect of the Apaches coming, and knew she couldn"t defend her three children. So she took the children out the the Gila River (close to Safford), and one by one drowned them, so they would not be raped or carried off and tortured by the Apaches. She tearfully buried their bodies, and returned to town to wait for her own brutal death. But the Apaches changed course and never came to Safford. After several weeks, the woman, who had gone insane from the whole incident, shot herself in her little cabin. Folks in the colony said at night her ghost walks the bank of the Gila, crying and searching for her children.

Now this is a story that most teenage guys cannot leave be. It"s the perfect story to scare a girl into a cuddle, eh? So I know several girls who have been suckered into sitting on the old abandoned bridge over the Gila to look for La Llorona ("The Crying Woman" in Spanish). I was always a little too smart (or scared) to be caught on the bridge, but I know several close girlfriends who swear they"ve seen her. The area is really spooky at night, and there is a lot of occult activity in the area, so who knows. But the legend is, if you park your car on the old bridge, lock the doors, and leave the keys on the roof, La Llorona will steal them.