Ghost story behind 'Slaughterhouse Canyon' where mum killed her family in hunger madness

The eerie tale of Slaughterhouse Canyon is the stuff of urban legends – filled with madness, infanticide and a remorseful ghost. This spine-chilling story dates back to the 1800s, depicting a grim scenario of a family torn apart by starvation during the Gold Rush era.

The gold fever struck Arizona in 1858, leading to a wave of tragedy, illness and death for many fortune seekers. One such prospector is said to have regularly ventured out in search of his family's fortune, but one day he failed to return.

His wife and children, who had been dependent on the supplies he brought home, were left alone in the canyon, slowly succumbing to starvation. And if that wasn't bad enough, according to the legend things then took an even more sinister turn.

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Luna's Canyon, also known as Slaughterhouse Canyon, has become a hotspot for ghost hunters eager to explore its eerie past. In the 1800s, a miner with big dreams lived in a humble wooden shack in the canyon with his family.

He would often set off into the mountains in search of gold and food to bring back to his family. They didn't have the means to keep food in the house regularly, so their meals consisted of whatever he could bring back from his mining trips, reports .

However, one fateful day, the miner kissed his wife Luna goodbye, told his family how much he loved them, promised to return as soon as possible, and walked out the door... never to be seen again.

As the weeks passed, Luna and her children found themselves in a desperate situation as their food supplies ran out. Starvation began to set in.

With her family slowly dying and her heart breaking as much as her stomach was rumbling, Luna started to lose her mind. Every day, her children would beg their mother for food, but she had nothing to give.

She was powerless to help her children, and one day, she simply couldn't stand their cries and pleas any longer. Luna snapped, unable to bear the sight of her children starving to death any longer.

On a stormy night, Luna put on her wedding dress, grabbed a knife, and committed the unthinkable act of killing her own children. She dismembered each of their small bodies and cut their flesh into small pieces.

By the time she finished, her once pristine wedding dress was drenched in blood. The carnage was so horrific that the walls of her humble shack were covered in blood from top to bottom.

Luna gathered up the remains of her children and threw them into the river, before collapsing to the ground, overcome with hysterical grief at the horror she had inflicted upon her innocent children, even though she knew they were destined to die either way. She cried outside in the rain all through the night, until she herself died of starvation the very next morning.

Today, many ghost hunters who have ventured to the site claim that on a quiet night, you can hear the chilling screams and cries of the distraught mother who was driven to madness.