Abel Fonseca, II, is a lifelong San Benito resident and community advocate who has served students and families for more than two decades. Through his “Heart of San Benito” series, he shares stories that celebrate the people stories that make the Resaca City special. He can be reached at abelfonsecaii@hotmail.com.
Every town has its official landmarks, but for those of us who grew up with one foot in the supernatural, the true geography of the Rio Grande Valley is charted by ghost stories.
From the childhood beds where our grandmothers kept us awake with terrifying folklore to the specific apartments in neighborhoods where the unexplained became a daily reality, San Benito and its neighbors are rich with things that creep in the night.
For me, the paranormal wasn’t something read out of a book; it was a lifelong companion that started the moment I was born.
The Shadow and the Indian
Long before I navigated the haunted corners of San Benito, my experiences began in a set of brown apartments right next to the mall in Brownsville. I lived there as a baby with my mom (Darline Owens), dad (Sonny Fonseca), and my uncle, Vincent Trevino (my mom’s brother).
One ordinary afternoon, the adults were gathered in the living room watching television when the atmosphere suddenly shifted. Out of nowhere, a distinct, dark shadow manifested and glided effortlessly across the room, disappearing straight into my nursery. Immediately after the shadow vanished, they heard my voice echoing from the crib.
When they rushed into the room, they found me talking out loud, pointing at the empty space, and repeating the word “Indian” over and over. Local rumors later whispered that the apartment complex had been built over or right next to an old, forgotten cemetery.
From that moment on, the veil between this world and the next remained wide open for me.
The Ultimate Ouija Board Prank
As I grew older, my family quickly realized how obsessed I was with ghost stories—and my grandmother, Patricia “Pat” Cavazos, alongside my stepfather, Bill Owens, decided to weaponized that curiosity for the ultimate neighborhood prank.
They teamed up and gathered all of us—family and friends—upstairs at my mom’s house to play with an Ouija board. Being the skeptical kid in the room, I kept rolling my eyes and loudly declaring, “This is fake!” Seeing her opening, my grandmother looked down at the board and asked the spirit if it was mad. Slowly, the planchette slid over to “yes”.
She asked why, and the board indicated it was angry because of me.
Right at that exact second, the window behind us began to be violently and loudly slam and bang. What we didn’t know was that my stepfather, Bill, had quietly climbed a ladder outside to the top window, waiting in the dark for the perfect cue.
The terror was instant. Screaming at the top of our lungs, the entire group of family and friends tripped over each other racing down the stairs to safety. It taught all of us a lesson to never mess with the unknown again, and it is a hilarious, terrifying family legend that we still laugh about to this day.
The Green Face on the Resaca
Not every encounter was a family prank, though. Sometimes the neighborhood itself seemed to come alive.
Years after the Ouija Board incident, I was sitting on my other grandmother’s bed alongside my brothers and friends. The room was dark, and she was in the middle of telling us bone-chilling campfire stories about La Llorona—the infamous weeping woman rumored to walk the dark, weed-choked edges of the resaca.
Just as the suspense peaked, every single one of us froze. Looking directly at the bedroom window, we saw a glowing, green face staring back at us. Before anyone could even scream, the face lifted upward into the sky and flew straight toward the nearby apartment complex where one of my friends lived.
The next day, that same friend came over and asked me to visit his apartment. His mother confessed that ever since the exact hour we saw the face, the upstairs toilet had been flushing entirely on its own, and the bathroom lights were frantically turning themselves on and off.
Mind you, I was only a middle student at the time, but having been around spirits my whole life, I walked upstairs to investigate. I approached the bathroom door, knocked firmly, and asked, “Is anyone in there?”
Instantly, the toilet flushed violently right on cue. I turned and ran down those stairs as fast as my legs could carry me. Gathering my courage, I walked halfway back up the steps and yelled out into the heavy air, telling the entity that it was not welcome here anymore and it had to leave.
The very next day, the apartment completely returned to normal.
The Witch of Williams Road
That apartment haunting perfectly mirrors one of San Benito’s most infamous localized urban legends: The Witch of Williams Road.
For generations, neighborhood kids have passed down the story of a police dispatch to a unit on Williams Road. When officers breached the door, they reportedly found the walls covered in heavy witchcraft symbols and markings. But the climax of the rumor is pure South Texas folklore: rather than facing handcuffs, the tenant allegedly utilized dark magic to flush herself right down the apartment toilet, disappearing into the city’s sewer line.
Screams at Old Berta Cabaza Middle School
If you venture away from the apartment complexes, the hauntings only get more historic. One of the most actively investigated paranormal hotspots in town is the old Berta Cabaza Middle School.
Originally constructed in 1930 as the local high school, the brick building was used to house and treat wounded soldiers during World War II.
Today, neighbors living near the abandoned campus swear they can still hear midnight screams of the dying echoing down the empty, darkened hallways. Even stranger, locals report hearing the distinct sounds of a phantom basketball game—complete with bouncing balls and children’s laughter—echoing from the locked, empty gymnasium.
Secret Rooms of the ‘Haunted White House’
No tour of San Benito’s shadows is complete without mentioning the famous “White House of San Benito.” Located on a prominent small hill overlooking Interstate 69, this historic 1933 concrete structure sat abandoned, overgrown, and windowless for decades.
Before a local family lovingly bought and restored the property, it was officially known by the city as the town’s premier haunted house. Runaways, teenagers, and paranormal teams who snuck inside the secret layout of rooms reported a heavy, evil energy, unexplained shadows moving through the corridors, and rumors of dark witchcraft performed deep inside the hidden closets of the main rooms.
The Fabric of Our Community
Whether it is a prank by Grandma Pat, aka Mema and Bill, a phantom soldier at Berta Cabaza, a glowing green face outside a window, or a spirit messing with a neighborhood toilet, these stories are a vital part of what keeps San Benito’s community identity alive. They remind us that our neighborhoods have a memory—and sometimes those memories like to knock back.