Unsolved Murders in Room 18

Globe, Arizona (AZ Family) — A hidden, haunted gem in the middle of one of Arizona’s oldest mining towns. The Drift Inn Saloon is located in downtown Globe and is still in operation more than 100 years later. However, what happened in a room on the upper floor of the bar haunts the minds of the customers and the owner even today and causes unexplained events, the answers to which are hidden somewhere in history.

Drift Inn Lounge

“Mean and tough old west town, dirty cowboys,” Megan Crawford said. “This is what I knew about Drift Inn growing up.”

It wouldn’t be the wild, wild west without the Drift Inn Saloon. “He drinks a lot, he gambles,” said Crawford, who now owns the saloon.

The story begins more than a century ago. The saloon opened its doors in 1902 with a bar below and a different business above. “This was a house of prostitution,” Crawford said. Prostitution was legal in Arizona at the time, but secrets still existed. “People are always attracted to the unknown, aren’t they?” said Crawford with a slight smile. It earned Crawford enough money to buy the hall six years ago.

The past is protected within its walls, but perhaps the past is still hidden in the present. “I didn’t really believe in the ghost part of it until we got it, and then it occupied my mind pretty quickly,” he said.

Their chiefs told the same story independently of each other. “There’s a woman in the kitchen. She likes to call your name. She likes to grab your neck and your waist,” said Crawford. Barb, a bartender of nearly 30 years, is familiar with their arrival at 2 a.m. “You’ll feel them,” she said as she poured drinks for customers from behind the bar. “Not the women, I saw mostly men, things being thrown out of the bar, stools being knocked over, a lot of weird stuff, scary stuff,” Crawford said. But the most gruesome comes in the form of a murder at the former second-floor brothel called the International House, within the walls of Room 18. Crawford said Richard Veckland was killed in the same room. Both men worked in the nearby mine.

The Murder of Joseph Ludwig

Joe Ludwig was murdered in Room 18, and the aftermath was particularly gruesome. “They took him about a mile up the canyon, his throat was slit, his heart was torn out and thrown under a bush, and then they blew him up with dynamite,” Crawford said. “They didn’t want anyone to know who he was.”

According to an archived article from the Arizona Silver Belt newspaper dated November 4, 1906, Ludwig describes his murder as the worst murder in Globe history.

He explains that Ludwig was also found with a towel secured with a rope around his neck.

At the time, the article said Ludwig was identified by a fragment of a bill found with his remains that linked him to specific locations and where he worked: the Big Johnny mine.

The chambermaid also found Ludwig’s bed in room 18 covered in blood.

No one was able to solve the real motive for the murder, and a reward was offered for clues in his case, but nothing else came of it.

The Murder of Richard Veckland

The following autumn, in November 1907, Richard Veckland was found drugged, robbed of his money, and passed out in the street by police officers. I asked him, ‘Where do you need to go?’ they asked. “He told them International House Room 18,” Crawford said. “Sometime after that, he also had his throat slit. The chambermaid found him around 2 o’clock the next day. But Veckland was not staying in the International House. “So no one could tell why he said room 18? doesn’t he know? said true crime reporter Briana Whitney.

“Nobody knows, but I think he was trying to tell them that the situation he was in was because he was in room 18 of the International House,” Crawford said. Two prostitutes and their babysitter were arrested for Veckland’s murder. One of the prostitutes, a woman named Elaina Mendoza, was convicted, Crawford said. Still, all charges were dropped after Veckland’s toxicology showed there was no poison in his system, and both men’s murders remain unsolved to this day.

Interior of the old brothel

Crawford led us upstairs, into the old brothel above the hall, down a dark staircase. He and his family now live here, subject to the spirits who also call this place home.

“The previous owners felt like Room 18 was because of the energy,” Crawford told us, and she now keeps Christmas decor and storage there to bring positive energy to the room. The rooms were all renumbered, but the abandoned brothel remained intact. “This would be the dining room,” he showed us, a creepy room that takes you back in time, with a vintage dining room table set on the original hand-painted linoleum rug with a floral pattern.

There is one spirit that particularly impressed Crawford the most.” When I turned around, it was clear as day that it was a woman in white. I thought there was someone in the building with us,” Crawford said. Some appear to pass by for a moment. “You’re carrying supplies and it looks like a cat is running in front of you,” Crawford said.

“But there’s no cat,” said Whitney.

“There is no cat. “I’ve never had a cat,” he said.

They also had to take action due to a persistent problem with their door. “We went to Ace Hardware and had eyes and hooks because the doors were slamming all night,” Crawford said. “Slam! Shoot! Shoot! “There are almost 30 doors there.”

Room 18 Murder Theory

Although the Room 18 murders remain a mystery, Crawford believes he knows what happened in both cases; especially the knowledgeable women of the night. “I think they had a pretty good gang to rob people and take their money,” Crawford said. . Later, some of his outspoken victims were caught in webs of scandal. “I think some people made a big deal out of it, and those are the ones who couldn’t get out of here,” Crawford said. “Why Room 18?” asked Whitney.

“I don’t know about that,” Crawford said. He believes there was some truth to that prostitute’s conviction before she was released. “The reason he was brought to court in the beginning was, ‘Did you see what happened to him?’ He bragged or threatened other men by saying. “I can do that to you too,” Crawford said.

The answers lie within the bones of this building, trapped in history but no longer hidden. “I mean, what would this big building be like if there were no ghosts… right?” said Crawford.

To hear more of this terrifying story, listen to the Murders in Room 18 episode of the True Crime Arizona podcast.

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