Angelo State University appears to have at least one ghost of its own, the reminder of a teenage student’s brutal murder four decades ago.
The Hardeman Building used to be the Business Administration Building in 1978, and Room 200 was the photography darkroom — the scene of the murder.
The second floor of what is now the Registrar’s Office is believed by some to be haunted by the spirit of Leandra Morales, who was killed there April 22, 1978.
Morales, 18, was studying while Robert Mark Wagner, a yearbook photographer, was working in the photo lab that night. He saw her in the keypunch room and went to talk to her.
Wagner, 19, started kissing her and she slapped him, according to Standard-Times archives. He ignored the first slap and continued trying to kiss her. He then continued to kiss her neck, and she punched him. He stabbed her with a pair of scissors.
“I started choking her and grabbed a pair of scissors and stabbed her,” Wagner told a detective. “I don’t know how many times.”
Wagner said in the university newspaper, the Ram Page, in an April 1978 article that he told the detective that he killed Morales, dragged her body down the hall and called a priest around 11 p.m. The priest told him to call the police.
Wagner was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder and released in 2003.
“I have only known this girl this semester,” Wagner said in the article. “I think her name is Linda or something like that.”
According to an autopsy, Morales was stabbed three times and beaten.
In the years since then, people have complained of strange noises and eerie feelings in the building.
Reported unusual activity includes:
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Footsteps
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Elevator doors randomly opening and closing
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A disembodied argument between a man and a woman
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Unplugged radios turning on
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Objects falling or being thrown
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Apparitions of a woman
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Feelings of being watched
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Phone calls with no one on the other end
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Electrical equipment turning on and off
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Cold spots
Some people in the building have claimed witness to ghostly activity, but others consider the haunting to be a legend.
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This article originally appeared on San Angelo Standard-Times: Murder haunts halls of Angelo State University building
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