Kennedy Brothers – the Most Haunted Apartment Complex in El Paso?
At the corner of South Zaragosa and Schutz across from Mt. Carmel Cemetery are the Kennedy Brothers Memorial Apartments.
The cluster of buildings also known as the Kennedy Estates is a seemingly quiet and normal complex -- but it has a dark, paranormal side, too.
Tenants of the Lower Valley public housing unit have reported shadow people and several spirits haunting the place, including a ghost girl who they say disappears into thin air when approached by the living.
According to one former resident’s first-person account published on the website backpackerverse, “There was a little girl who could be heard playing on the stairs. Often times you’d hear her running up and down them, completely invisible but so, so loud.”
Sometimes kids living in the complex would leave out toys and gift for it [sic]."
"I’m sure that sounds endearing,” he adds. "But they did it because they were scared of her, and didn’t want her coming into their rooms at night—which she did sometimes.”
Others who have lived there talk about having experienced poltergeist activity, such as cabinets and doors opening on their own, and of seeing dark shadows moving about.
In the book “Spirits of the Border 3,” which relates the haunting of numerous locations around El Paso, authors Sharon and Ken Hudnell recount stories from residents who claim the gym is particularly haunted.
Sounds of someone…playing basketball can be heard, even though the court is empty and the basketballs are all locked up.”
They tell of toilets in the restroom gym flushing on their own, and visitors being harassed. “Some who have come to the gym for periods of relaxation have reported that even though they are alone, they can feel rough hands push them and some have reported being continually tormented until they left the building.”
One of the more recent strange occurrences happened only a few short years ago. An entry on the hauntedplaces website notes that an elderly woman burned to death inside one of the apartments in May of 2014.
The item concludes with "the cause of the fire was unknown," alluding to possible mysterious circumstances surrounding the death.
An El Paso Times Facebook post dated May 12, 2014 mostly validates the account. "Woman found dead, burned in Lower Valley apartment," reads the headline. The caption states:
A Lower Valley woman was found at about 9 a.m. inside an apartment in the Kennedy Brothers Memorial apartments at 447 S. Schutz, an El Paso Fire Department spokesman said"
The news report itself, however, is no longer available on the newspaper's website and an internet search did not reveal any further results or information. It's uncertain if a cause ever was determined or if the seemingly odd circumstances were of a paranormal nature.