Ghosts Stories in the Recoleta Cemetery

 

In 1910 a man working the night shift in the cemetery committed suicide. This man was David Alleno, an Italian immigrant keeper of the tombs for 29 years. This man wished to be buried there ever since he started working there in 1881. He saved money to buy a lot in the cemetery; he built his own grave and even paid a sculptor from Genova, his hometown, to sculpt his figure. When everything was ready, he took his own life.

 The night watchmen that worked over these years in the cemetery talk about his ghost, never seen but heard. The set of keys that he uses to check the graves make a tinkling sound and give away his presence.

 Rufina Cambaceres

In a corner of section 13 lays Rufina Cambacere’s grave next to her family’s. This poor girl could be the famous Lady in White. She could also be the female ghost that walks around the cemetery at night.

Rufina died unexpectedly at the age of 19, in May 1902. She was buried in the family tomb, but a few days later the cemetery keepers noticed that the coffin had fallen and they contacted the family. When they opened it they found the girl covered in bruises and scratches. It is believed that she woke up in the coffin. Apparently her mother used to slip her a tranquilizer every night so that the daughter would sleep while she had sex with her lover, who was also Rufina’s boyfriend. The night of Rufina’s alleged death her mother would have given her a double dose.

A year later the family had an art nouveau tomb built. The statue of Rufina is at the door and her hand is on the door handle, as though she was now able to leave. Her tomb is the only one made of a single marble stone from Milan in the cemetery.

Other more rational versions claim that the coffin was actually disturbed by thieves that were looking to steal the jewellery of the dead girl.

Luz María García Velloso died in 1925 of leukaemia when she was but 15 years old. Her tomb lays on the right of the main road in the cemetery. There lays a statue of a beautiful young girl dead on her bed. Out of desperation her mother slept for months at the feet of the statue in a small place behind the bars.

One of the most famous urban legends is traced back to Luz María: The Lady in White. According to the story a young man meets a beautiful girl and takes her out. Suddenly she feels cold so he lends her his coat; she spills some coffee on the coat. The next day when he wants to get his coat back, he goes to the girl’s house where the mother tells him that she is dead, buried in the Recoleta cemetery. The young man goes to the cemetery and finds his coat on the grave. He kills himself or goes mad.

Another version of the story omits the part where he meets the girl’s mother. The young man follows the girl as she goes inside the cemetery and vanishes while walking among the graves. This is how he discovers he had been with a ghost.

An Argentinean actor, Arturo García Buhr, claimed having known her. The story was taken twice to the cinema. Once in 1942 with the title “Ghost of Buenos Aires” and then in 1950 as “A woman has entered” directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen.

For years young men of Buenos Aires have avoided picking up girls at the corner of Vicente López and