Halloween night, October 31, 2010 will mark 16,700 nights since the murder by Walter A. Emerick took place.
Some say the unknown, and never found victim, roams the halls of the Gunter Hotel perpetually fixated in 1965.
On that night it will mark 45 years, 8 months, and 22 days people have claimed to experience some of the most horrific encounters with guests and employees ever.
“Oh, there were ghost stories about the Gunter Hotel long before that murder (guest Walter A. Emerick’s room 636 in 1965),” said San Antonio police detective Frank Castillon, in a 1976 interview, the year before he retired the force. “We’d hear about them occasionally, but we heard them about the Menger (Hotel), all up and down Travis and Houston Street, Milam Park, the Alamo, everywhere.”
“A lot of these buildings and parks were built on burial grounds, so if there is anything to all these stories, it’s probably from the battles and killings that took place all along this area,” he continued. “But after the Gunter murder the ghost stories seemed to be coming more often.”
The Laughing
As recently as early October 2010, a housekeeper who works the afternoon to night shift had her latest experience.
“I have worked here for two years, but I am not scared of things like that,” the employee said. “Some of the housekeepers don’t like to work in certain places by themselves and see and hear things all the time. If someone gets too scared we will help each other out.”
“It’s only happened a few times to me,” she continued. “I was up on the sixth floor in the hallway and heard some laughing right behind me.”
“I turned around and there was nothing there,” housekeeper explained. “I thought maybe someone was playing on a trick on me; that maybe it was some children or something.”
“But then it happened again and there was no one there and then it was in front of me.”
“The laugh either came from the children or maybe the giggle like sound of a woman, but there was no one there.”
‘One of the things that happens a lot to me is I will clean up a room real nice and then I will do a final check and there will be tissues or toilet paper stringing all over the room, or the pillows are off the bed and sitting on the dresser or chair.”
“I say they may not be mean, but they do like to play tricks on us.”
“Like I said that doesn’t really scare me, I just do my job, but it does make me think,” she laughed.
The Shower
“Well, I guess the strangest thing I ever saw was just last week,” the housekeeper offered. “I was downstairs (in the basement) and there use to be like a spa or some showers there that people used a long time ago.”
“I was just cleaning and sweeping and all of the sudden the water came on in one of the showers,” she said seriously. “I don’t really get scared but that time I was a little spooked because I saw that water coming out of that shower with my own eyes.”
“No one ever uses those showers and I was by myself. I looked around just to make sure, but I was by myself. I usually come on (to work her shift) at 3 o’clock and get off at 11, and I was sure glad when I got off work that night.”
One famous story that has been retold among the employees since 1990 is of a Gunter worker named Jackie Contreras. She went to a room to make it ready for an important guest. She noticed the curtains were unusually closed and it was dark inside. As light from the hallway entered the room with her, she immediately saw an elderly woman standing in the middle of the room.
“She was looking straight at me, her hands reaching towards me. She looked very old, and stooped, and was white as a sheet. She was wearing a long white gown," Contreras claimed.
Where the Ghosts Are
It’s not unusual for guests to contact the front desk or security about strange noises or occurrences, several of the employees say.
“Sometimes security will have to verify there is no one in the next room, despite guests insisting there are people making noises in there,” said one employee.
“It can be amusing, because there will be researchers, or psychics or people just interested in ghosts that want to stay in room 636 or say they feel the vibes in 636,” added another. “But the thing is, room 636 now, in 2010, is not the same as 1965.”
“The numbers have been changed and the large suite of 1965 has been divided into two rooms,” he grinned.
“But we know where it is don’t we?” the first employee laughed in agreement.
"Yes," the man answered. The employees became serious.
"Anyone who works here for a while, and has to go to the sixth floor enough, will definitely know where the murder was, and where the ghosts are."
Special Note: Recently the Cold Case file of this murder was closed due in part to the efforts of Guillermo Fuentes, director of the San Antonio Paranormal Investigations. No other person, outside of law enforcement has spent so much time and produced the multitude of facts that Fuentes has.
Mr. Fuentes researched the case for seven years and through his persistence and intense research, worked with the San Antonio Police Department and the San Antonio Office of the City Attorney to be the first to aquire the case file of these murder and suicide of Walter A. Merick in 1965.
This examiner acknowledges and thanks Mr. Fuentes for his efforts to do what no other paranormal investigator has done, produced some of the best evidence, photos & facts on this subject.
On the anniversary of the case, in February 2011, Mr. Fuentes intends to release a documentary of his intesive research and has a website dedicated to his work and findings planned. For information please go to his site at http://www.gunterhotelroom636.com/Home_Page.php
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