Location Description and History

The building in this village, just north of Albuquerque, started out as a private home in 1801 but has been a restaurant under one name or another for several decades. It has long been associated with stories of ghostly goings on. Employees and many customers here are aware of a strange presence that haunts the old section  of the building. A bloody shoot-out between members of the Emberto family took place there in  April of 1898. It started when the son killed the father's mistress. The father then shot and killed  his wife, blaming her for prompting the murder. In the ensuing gun battle, the father was also killed.  The Emberto's were buried on the property, and their inflamed passions are felt to this day.

The apparition of a man sitting in a rocking chair has been spotted on several occasions in the banquet room. This room also has moving cold spots, candles light themselves and chairs are moved about in various odd configurations. Other areas of reported phenomena include the north dining rooms and the bar.

A May 1893 incident in which a 10-year-old boy, the son of the hacienda's owners, shot and killed a female member of the hacienda staff. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe not. Regardless, many believe that the boy's ghost haunts the building.

Luis and Louisa Emberto purchased the property in 1883. Five years after they moved in, Luis discovered that his wife was having an affair and moved out of the hacienda promising to return and kill both her and her lover. On April, 1898, made good on his promise and shot his wife twice.

An armed posse soon surrounded the hacienda and in the gun battle that ensued, Luis was struck down. Due to the scandalous circumstances of the couple’s death, they were not allowed a proper burial in the church cemetery and were their remains were interred across the irrigation ditch to the west of the building. Today, the restless pair continue to make their presence known at the hacienda turned restaurant. Reported activities include items that seemingly move on their own, the sounds of disembodied voices, and the appearance of a woman in 1800’s era clothing. Others have heard the sound of midnight parties in the old hacienda.

We began our investigation in the banquet room which is located on the northwest corner of the building. Extensive video footage was taken with the IR camera, but no positive results of activity were found. The room was also thoroughly scanned with EMF detectors, but nothing was found other than normal background readings.  We then moved to the northwest dining room. The same procedures were followed and again we received negative results.  Finally, when we moved to the northeast ding room, we started getting some suspect readings. There was a table which had a chair pulled away from it that exhibited a EM field of 8 m.g. that we could not explain. We concentrated our efforts to this room for over an hour and may have caught a possible orb on IR video.

We then moved over to the bar. This room had several strange EM fields associated with it, but we were unable to capture anything paranormal with either of the cameras. There are lots of reports of possible activity in this part of the building which would warrant another investigation of this location.

Filed for further investigation.