The Most Haunted Places in the RGV: The San Juan Hotel

By Joanna “Luna” Sanchez

Special to the PRESS   

The back of the San Juan Hotel, now overgrown and deteriorating. Photo by Brian Cofer.

Welcome back to The Most Haunted Places in the RGV. On our last investigation, we visited the Stillman House in Brownsville, Texas.
This week we’re investigating in San Juan, Texas, located in Hidalgo County, where dear friends of ours have encountered a paranormal entity known as “The Prostitute.” They claim of an old legend that has lingered since the 1970s, about a young prostitute who was murdered in The San Juan Hotel, located at 125 W 5th St in San Juan, Texas. The hotel was built in 1920. 

Legend has it that the young woman was to meet a gentleman caller one night but was led to an unfortunate turn of events. She met her gentleman caller and entertained him, but when it was time for him to.settle his end of the bargain the tables turned: he didn’t want to pay the young woman and she got angry, trying to take the money from him. He then murdered the young woman on the second floor, on the balcony. 

JoeDarkly and I decided to investigate for ourselves, to see if we could catch some paranormal phenomena on tape, picking up some of the crew and heading to the San Juan Hotel. To our surprise, the hotel was very old and abandoned. We filmed the empty rooms and asked if we could make contact with the young woman. In some parts of the video, as you will see on our YouTube channel, @JoeDarkly Vlogs, you can hear some of the questions we asked and some of the responses we got from the entity. On one occasion, you can clearly hear a young woman speak, and tell us “thank you.” A friend and I went up to the second floor to try and get some electronic voice phenomena (EVP) recordings. When we got to one of the rooms my friend said she saw a dark shadow in one of the closets. She quickly ran down stairs while telling me. I ran with her, right into a nest of honey bees. 

After our investigation, we decided to keep looking around, seeing if we could catch anything on camera. JoeDarkly decided he was going to look in the basement of the hotel. I told him, “No! “You’ve seen what happens in movies!” 

He said, “Yeah, right, nothing is gonna happen.” with a dumb smirk on his face. 

He walked down to the basement and took a look around, saying there was a chair and some other stuff that was hard to see, because it was so dark. In an instant, he ran up stairs and said he saw something. He started laughing afterwards and said, “gets you everytime!” 

We completed our investigation and, to our knowledge, we did catch something on camera. Was it the young woman who was murdered in the San Juan Hotel, or was it something else playing tricks? 

If you have a similar story or other experiences at the San Juan Hotel, feel free to contact us  at Joedakly1369@gmail.com or joannasanchez3232@gmail.com. Don’t forget to check out our YouTube channel, @JoeDarkly Vlogs. Leave a comment and tell us what you think. 

Permanent link to this article: https://www.portisabelsouthpadre.com/2019/12/06/the-most-haunted-places-in-the-rgv-the-san-juan-hotel/

3 comments

    • Al on August 26, 2020 at 2:18 am
    • Reply

    I stayed in the hotel for a night and could clearly here people talking but could not make out what was being said.

    • Sandra Ortiz on October 1, 2020 at 9:34 pm
    • Reply

    Is there any tours or openings to go in the hotel?

    • Des on October 15, 2021 at 7:24 am
    • Reply

    One of my rgv friends went there to take a picture of her Halloween nun costume, ofc with the upside down cross. As they got there they we welcomed by a Letchusa which is a supposed witch. Well she noticed the owl was whistling faster and faster, and on her camera should could not catch not one picture clear when it had not happened to any pictures before which she has been doing every night since Halloween began.

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