The chilling tale of Slaughterhouse Canyon ticks all the boxes for a classic urban legend – complete with madness, infanticide and a remorseful ghost.
This haunting story traces its roots back to the 1800s, painting a grim picture of a family torn apart by hunger during the Gold Rush era. The gold fever hit Arizona in 1858, bringing with it a wave of tragedy, illness and death for many fortune seekers. One such prospector is said to have regularly ventured out in search of his family’s fortune, but one day he failed to return.
His wife and children, who had been dependent on the supplies he brought home, were left alone in the canyon, slowly succumbing to starvation.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, according to the legend things then took an even more sinister turn.
(Image: dronedaddydog/youtube)
Luna’s Canyon, also known as Slaughterhouse Canyon, has become a hotspot for ghost hunters eager to explore its eerie past.
In the 1800s, a miner with big dreams lived in a humble wooden shack in the canyon with his family. He would often set off into the mountains in search of gold and food to bring back to his family. They didn’t have the means to keep food in the house regularly, so their meals consisted of whatever he could bring back from his mining trips.
However, one fateful day, the miner kissed his wife Luna goodbye, told his family how much he loved them, promised to return as soon as possible, and walked out the door… never to be seen again.
(Image: Getty Images)
As the weeks rolled on, Luna and her children found themselves in a dire situation as their food supplies dwindled to nothing. Starvation began to take hold. With her family slowly perishing and her heart shattering as much as her stomach was growling, Luna started to descend into insanity.
Day after day, her children would plead with their mother for food, but she had nothing to offer. She was helpless to aid her children, and one day, she simply couldn’t bear their cries and pleas any longer.
Luna snapped, unable to bear the sight of her children starving to death any longer. On a stormy night, Luna donned her wedding dress, seized a knife, and committed the unthinkable act of murdering her own children.
(Image: Verde Canyon Railroad/Flickr)
She dismembered each of their tiny bodies and sliced their flesh into small pieces. By the time she finished, her once pristine wedding dress was soaked in blood.
The carnage was so horrific that the walls of her humble shack were smeared with blood from top to bottom. Luna gathered up the remains of her children and cast them into the river, before collapsing to the ground, overcome with hysterical grief at the horror she had inflicted upon her innocent children, even though she knew they were destined to die either way.
She wept outside in the rain all through the night, until she herself succumbed to starvation the very next morning.
Nowadays numerous ghost hunters who have visited the site claim that on a silent night, you can hear the terrifying screams and cries of the grief-stricken mother who was driven to insanity.
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.