“Welcum to the church of fornication”
“How I got out of a parking ticket.”
“Today I had my way with my baby brother”
“01/12/2014 HPT was positive! Pretty sure its my dad’s baby! So excited!”
“Dick sucked for a ride to Tucumcari.”
“Brother sister cream pie”
“Came back to Santa Rosa again and got fucked Big Baby Brother.”
These and other depraved sexual confessions are scrawled on the walls of the abandoned Getty Memorial Baptist Church in Cuervo, NM, in distinctly feminine handwriting. They are accompanied with child’s smiley faces and a weird signature, sort of like a T with a heart around it, which might be meant to look like a butt.
Pinned above these confessions are panties and bras. Tons of panties and bras. Some are rather artfully displayed, like one with a scarf looped through it. One pair clearly belongs to a little girl. They appear to be different sizes. There are pages ripped from Hustler pinned to the walls as well, and seemingly used condoms tacked up there as well.
Blue spray paint instructs, “Fuck Here.” On the floor is a pink sleeping bag, which looks rather slept-in.
These gross and creepy writings have been touted as “a rapist’s trophy room” on KRQE and numerous online blogs. It is true that there is something deeply disturbing about someone who would write stuff like this, especially about incest. The panties do seem like the trophies that serial killers and serial rapists like to collect from their victims. But there is nothing to suggest this is a real crime scene. In fact, it seems more like a sex diary for a really sick person, and the stuff is probably made up.
Some of the entries appear to be written by someone else and answered by the poster, such as one that says, “I like your posts. How many guys have you fucked? 12/27/13” to which she answers, “I started at 15 with a 38-year-old by my 18th birthday I had been with 22 guys ranging from 13-39 now I couldn’t even guess but the range now would be like 13-60 yo. My pussy loves dick! T” So it seems like nasty dialogue, the type you would find in a truck stop bathroom stall, which people write for whatever reason they do. Nothing more disturbing than whatever triggers that need to communicate about uninhibited sex with people whose faces you have never seen and probably never will see.
by Leigh Lawless
Photo by Leigh Lawless
If you will notice in this still from KRQE’s news report, this part has very different handwriting from the above pictures, but the same date. And the handwriting is similar to the post where the person asks, “How many guys have you fucked?” So there could be multiple regulars here.
Throughout the KRQE news video, they keep saying “he” and “his work.” Well, there is just no indication to me that this is the work of a male – it seems distinctly female, written from a female’s perspective and in loopy, girly handwriting, replete with smiley faces. The panties seem to be paired with the dated writings as if they are journal entries to go with the sexual experiences she had on the days she wore said panties. If it is a guy’s work, then he must be fantasizing he is a female, perhaps to get inside the mind of his victims?
The Three Locations
The activity in the Getty Memorial Baptist Church was heaviest in summer 2013 through April 2014. After the room was first broadcasted online by John Mulhouse, it was cleaned up by an unknown person. Now the walls are still covered in gross graffiti, clearly copycat efforts left by bored people stopping through here, saying things like “brother and sister – had our first time here” or “mother and son.” The lovely greeting “Welcum to the Church of Fornication” with female and male symbols is also still there when you enter the church. But nothing like the panties and the original diary entries. She appears to have abandoned this spot for good. (Skip to about 21:38).
Then a photographer found the exact same room, set up just a few miles away in another abandoned house. The scarf slung through the panties and bra was even there and the writings on the walls were even more gross and detailed. They took the time to recreate both the journal entries and the underwear, as if attempting to recreate the exact same vibe and atmosphere for their lovely sex room.
Side by side comparisons of the original room and the recreated one
Apparently, this new location near Cuervo also started getting a little too much attention and so The Room was moved to the abandoned Dairy Queen/Stuckey’s in Palomas, NM, a tiny town about eight miles east of Tucumcari and about thirty-three miles west of Cuervo. Not many people were aware of this third location for the “fornication room,” but in blog comments, I found one couple who stumbled across it in early April 2014.
Interestingly enough, on Easter Day, April 20, 2014, a huge blaze got all of the local firefighter departments in Tucumcari, Bard-Endee, and Quay County called to the building. It had been set on fire by arson. It is unknown if the creepy room was consumed with the flames but if it was, that’s a real shame, because it means that’s a lot of potential evidence gone for good.
I found it really weird that in the comments section under the KRQE news report about The Room, someone mentions various abandoned buildings nearby that could be used for future “sex rooms.” One of their suggestions was the abandoned Dairy Queen/Stuckey’s. Weird how right they were, right? I definitely did a double take. Then I realized that this person posted this a couple years after the inferno, so they probably had no clue what they were talking about.
Theories
The rooms are all clustered along I40. This tells me that the person who runs this room either lives near Cuervo, maybe in Tucumcari or Santa Rosa, or they really like the location and consider it worth the drive. And who wouldn’t like Cuervo and the abandoned Stuckey’s if you’re into hanging out in squalid, decrepit buildings and writing about incest on the walls??
Many people theorize this room is just a hoax, the work of bored teens. Well, I was a bored teen once with bored friends, and we never came up with anything remotely this sickening and we certainly never strung up little girl’s panties. Our idea of fun involved shooting at grasshoppers with BB guns and drinking whisky while trying to make each other puke with the grossest stories we could think of. Then again, I guess all teens are different.
There are also rumors of a cult. The cult is supposedly a bunch of sex-crazed junkies. Seems unlikely, but I guess those cults have existed in other places, so one being here is not entirely outside the realm of possibility.
I get the vibe that the person who did most of the graffiti (T) has a serious urge to disturb, an exhibitionistic desire to be seen, but also a need for privacy. That is why the person picked a room in an abandoned church in a near-ghost town like Cuervo. Maybe it is a bored and rather disturbed individual from Tucumcari or Santa Rosa or one of the many near-dead towns between the two, who gets kicks from doing this because it allows her to live out fantasies she is not able to in real life. Life isn’t exactly glamorous these days along the old Route 66. The other people contributing graffiti are likely bored passersby, contributing to the weirdness for the same bizarre reason that people contribute to similar scrawlings on rest stop bathroom walls.
Nevertheless, I can see why people think this could be a rapist’s trophy room. A few things alarm me: the way the room has been moved three times, the various sizes of panties there (including a pair of tiny little girl’s panties), and the fact this person appeared to be watching for activity and moved as soon as there was too much for their comfort.
Implications of the Room
Like I said before, I’m pretty sure it’s just a sick person getting their rocks off. However, I do not think things like this should just be brushed off. Investigation is still in order.
It sounds like the state police have looked into the room, but they have not tested DNA on the panties. Maybe the “Did this to get out of a ticket” statement on The Room’s walls made them nervous that some type of internal investigation might be done, so they’re stalling. I don’t put anything past the NM State Police.
We also have to understand that crime labs are incredibly backed up and it can be hard to test for DNA. Some of the panties may not even have viable DNA on their fibers anymore, especially after all of this time in semi-outdoor conditions (the Getty has gaping holes in the walls and roof) and alternating cold and heat. However, I still think that some effort should be made to swab the panties and enter them into evidence. What if they match to a rape or a Jane Doe? There are many, many unsolved rapes and murders of women in New Mexico (and everywhere) and a lot of crimes against women are committed along I40, which makes dismissing something like this shameful and wasteful. This could potentially be an opportunity to make a big break in a case or group of cases. Let’s not just call it a hoax without being 1000% sure it is first.
No replacement trophy room has been found…yet. I’m not entirely confident that one doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s just hidden really well. There is an entire genre of photography and of blogging dedicated to abandoned buildings, especially in the wild and raw Southwest. Abandoned buildings, especially along the I40 corridor, are begging to be explored by people. So maybe the person or persons behind The Room figured that out after 3 tries and decided to move somewhere people wouldn’t go – maybe on private property, or in a well-hidden abandoned building far from I40 that the average blogger/photographer cannot find so easily. The room may still be found.
The apparent lack of a trophy room does not necessarily mean that the person is no longer active, or maybe it does. Maybe this person died, moved away, or simply got over the need to keep up The Room. Maybe that Dairy Queen fire put a nail in the coffin for them when it comes to the “trophy room.”
History of Cuervo
Cuervo and the surrounding areas are examples of New Mexico’s transient economy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Almost all New Mexico towns in those days were based on either mining and railroads; when the railroad moved or its hub shifted to another place, or when the mines inevitably went dry, the towns would go belly up as people moved on to more profitable places.
Cuervo was a railroad town, with cattle ranchers using it as a hub to get their livestock on the train. Later on, it became a central spot for refreshments off of Route 66. When both things became obsolete, Cuervo withered.
Then it was bifurcated by Interstate 40, with more buildings and streets on the south side than the north. The town had already been on its deathbed, but the interstate was the final death knell. The one-room schoolhouse closed sometime in the 1950s (from what I could gather), the post office closed in 2010, and now there are no stores or restaurants.
All that remains just a gas station with a mechanic, a stone Catholic church, and a few houses. Most of the houses are abandoned.
At its peak in the 1940s, 128 people called Cuervo home; now only fifty-eight people call the place home and the property records are a mess, making it unclear who owns the jumbles of dilapidated buildings and rusted-out vehicle carcasses that rot in the sun amid cactuses, spiders, and snakes. There are only about 57 residents.
People who like to explore these places report signs of people sleeping in a lot of the abandoned buildings. They also report that the few remaining residents are aggressive and unfriendly to visitors, which is actually understandable, considering the high rates of trespassing and vandalism going on in their town.
To read more about Cuervo, I like this blog post by Pin in the Atlas or this one by City of Dust.
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