Frightening Folklore #2: A Murder in the Gunter
This story is based on true events.
One of San Antonio’s most historical locations is a fantastic blend of history and modern renovation. Still planted on the corner of Houston and St. Mary’s street is the Gunter Hotel, now called the Sheraton Gunter Hotel.
The hotel was established in 1837, just after Texan Independence from Mexico. Its age has allowed it to collect many lives and is known to be one of the most haunted hotels in all of San Antonio.
People say they have seen ghosts from the Alamo walking the ground floor. Two flapper girls, or at least girls that appear to be from the 1920s, have been seen walking the halls and can also be heard arguing.
However, on the sixth floor is the ghost of a woman with the bloodiest and most obscure story. She was murdered and the things that happened to her corpse shocked the whole city.
Chapter 1: I’m Waiting, Walter
In 1965, a man by the name of Walter Emerick checked in to the Gunter Hotel. He was a tall, blonde, dashing man. His smile always came with a wink and a nod.
He had a beautiful young lady with him. She was wearing the finest clothes of the time and spoke elegantly. She was poised, but at times impatient.
Walter, who had actually checked in under a different name, placed the “Do Not Disturb” sign over the handle after the two entered their room. He preferred privacy.
The young lady was anxious to get out and see the town.
“I’m waiting, Walter.” She said.
Walter begrudgingly got himself prepared. They were both in a rush to have a drink anyway. Except, she might not have known that Walter was trying to get away for a much longer time.
Walter was on another one of his drinking binges and decided to bring this young lady along. He felt that may have been a mistake.
“I’m waiting, Walter.”
She was driving him mad, which is not a difficult thing to do to a man with destructive habits.
Night after night, Walter drowned himself in drinks. She’d indulge him, and they’d do it again the next night.
Every night she’d rush him, “I’m waiting, Walter.”
He knew. “She is always waiting,” he thought — Always waiting.
Another night passed. Another day began. Walter only left on these seemingly endless binges to escape, but now he just wanted to escape her.
As he was rummaging through his suitcase for a shirt, the young lady said for the last time, “I’m waiting, Walter.”
Without hesitation, Walter spun around with the .22 revolver he hid in his suitcase and fired a shot into the young lady’s chest.
She laid on the floor in shock, coughing up blood, gasping for breath, and staring back up at Walter.
He stood over her bleeding body, leaned closer, and looked her in the eyes.
“You’re not waiting anymore.” He said.
Walter waited as the life left from the young lady, leering into her eyes as she passed. Once there was no more breath, he stuffed the body into the closet to deal with her another time.
Chapter 2: A Time Before Caller I.D.
Panic affects people in different ways. Sometimes it happens immediately. Other times, it takes a while to set in.
Walter didn’t feel panicked. He felt relieved to get a drink on his own. The air was fresher for him that night, but it would not last long.
Once Walter returned to his room, stripped his clothes, and crashed on his bed, the phone rang.
Walter saw double because of how much he drank and had trouble grabbing the phone receiver. He managed to put it up to his ear.
“Hello?” Walter said with a slurred tongue.
No one answered. Walter focused a little harder and thought he could hear someone breathing.
“Hello?” He said again. When no one responded, Walter hung up. He didn’t have the energy to wait, nor did he care who would be calling him. His head hit the pillow, and he was out.
The next day, Walter began to strategize what he was going to do with the body.
Perhaps he could dump the body in the river or the concrete of the construction of the new park down the road. But how would he get the body out of the hotel without being seen?
His head hurt from the night before, and his memory was fuzzy.
Just as Walter started to remember, the phone rang again.
When he answered it, he only heard breathing. He demanded the caller to identify themselves.
The longer it took for the caller to respond, the harder he squeezed the phone. His mind started to race. Did someone know?
Out of the silence, a voice finally answered.
“I’m waiting, Walter.”
Impossible. Walter slammed the phone. He ran to the closet and swung the doors open.
The young lady’s body was still there, limp and pale.
Walter snapped. He left that night to buy the only thing he could think of that would help him dispose of the body.
A meat grinder.
Chapter 3: The Daily Grind
The grinding began in the bathroom. Walter started with the appendages.
Her blood sprayed every time he churned the handle. You could hear the bones crunching and body parts mangling in between the cogs. Out the other end, her beef would pour over into a wrapping paper that Walter would fill and store away.
It was hard labor, and Walter needed a break. He felt the pangs of withdrawal kick in every so often, and he’d rush to swig more from his flask to keep his buzz.
One of the times he went to grab a drink, the phone rang again.
He froze in place and looked in horror at the phone. Nightmares filled his head and his charming face, now covered in blood, contorted with anxiety.
The phone rang again. Walter dared not answer it.
The phone rang again. His vision tunneled across the room.
The phone rang again. Walter shed a tear and snatched the phone up to his ear.
“I’m waiting, Walter.”
“No,” he cried painfully. Tears rolled down his face, and he sobbed pitifully. He moaned again, “No! Who are you?!” The caller did not respond. Walter could only hear their breathing.
Walter hung up the phone and pulled the cord from the wall. He scowled and drank what was remaining in his flask.
After another couple hours of churning, grinding, and packing meat, he finished the entire body. Impossible for her to call him now, he thought.
He was wrong.
Just before he was going to take the packages of meat out, the phone rang again, without being plugged in!
Walter lifted the receiver to his ear. He didn’t say a word. He just listened to the breathing and waited to hear her.
Out of the silence, the young lady’s voice said,
“I’ve been waiting, Walter! But I’m not waiting anymore.”
Walter looked down, and his eyes watered. Walter’s face twisted into a grimace, the bags under his eyes darkened, the wrinkles on his forehead splintered, and the hair on his head almost looked gray.
Walter hung up the phone. He gathered the packs of meat quietly.
In a strange turn of events, a morning-shift maid missed the “Do Not Disturb Sign” and walked into the room.
The maid’s mouth dropped. The room had blankets of viscera across the walls, blood saturated into the carpet, and the distinct, utterly gut-wrenching smell of rotting flesh.
Walter held his finger to his mouth, “Shhh.” The maid screamed at the top of her lungs and ran off. Walter took the fire escape out of the window with his large bags of packed meat.
After discarding the remains, Walter hid out in a different hotel around the corner. He signed in again with a fake name and planned to leave town the next day.
Unfortunately for Walter, he had left behind a trail large enough for the authorities to track him. In a way, Walter knew he wasn’t going to escape.
The police corroborated their information with the hotel staff and came to Walter’s room door.
BANG, BANG, BANG! The officers knocked on the door, “Open up! Police!”
At the same moment, the phone started to ring.
Walter sat on the bed, defeated.
BANG, BANG, BANG! “Open up, or we’ll bust the door down!” The police shouted.
The phone rang again. Walter took a deep breath, let out a long sigh, and hung his head down.
Just as the police were about to knock again, they heard a bang come from inside the hotel room.
Without delay, the police officers busted the door down and found Walter lying on the bed, his .22 revolver in his hand, and his brains blown out the back of his head.
***
Visitors of the Sheraton Gunter Hotel say they can see a woman walking the halls of the sixth floor and that they can hear her crying in the night.
The original room, 636, has since been turned into two separate rooms, but visitors that stay in the rooms corroborate ghastly tales.
They warn others of any late-night calls you may get while staying there.
https://ghostcitytours.com/san-antonio/haunted-places/haunted-hotels/sheraton-gunter-hotel
