Whatever her origins, the weeping woman seems to have universal appeal. Sometimes she appears riding a white horse, sometimes as a beautiful woman, or sometimes with the hideous face of a horse or a skull. The legend says that she has killed her children on purpose or by accident, or that she has simply lost them. Her weeping, however, is universal; those who have witnessed her appearance or heard her cries are often said to abandon their bad habits, especially drinking or philandering.

Many have heard her weeping and wailing at night as she searches for her lost children. Some area residents swear to have had personal encounters with her as well. Two cousins, Carlos and Miguel, had been having a party with friends on the banks of the Rio Grande to celebrate Carlos’ new job.

When the party broke up, about 1:45 A.M., the two young men drove back along the banks toward the main road to town. Rounding a bend, Miguel noticed a figure walking slowly up ahead. It seemed to be a young woman, with long dark hair, her back to them, dressed in a seductive black dress. Driving slowly behind, they began whistling, making suggestive comments, and offering her a ride. Suddenly she stopped, turned away from them, and then walked back toward the car. Her face was hidden by a dark veil or scarf. She stepped into the headlights, directly in front of the car, and lifted the veil. The sight that greeted them was hideous. Her face was almost that of a horse, with long yellow teeth and wild, staring eyes. Her clawlike fingernails gleamed in the moonlight. The young men were horrified and the driver stepped on the gas pedal. They thought that they had run over her, but they felt nothing. They never went back to that area again.

One grandmother tells of how, when newly married, she moved with her husband to the city of Deming, which was then only a dusty village. He worked in the Chino mines, often on the graveyard shift. She stayed alone in a one-room adobe house. One night, near midnight, she says, came the most piteous cries she had ever heard. “They were the cries of someone suffering terribly,” she said. She went outside into the moonlight and observed at a short distance, a woman, dressed in a long, white gown, with long, dark hair, wandering aimlessly among the weeds and rusted tin cans that littered the area. Her hair stood up on the back of her neck, for as she watched, the woman slowly dissolved into the air. She never saw her again but was certain that she had witnessed the ghost of La Llorona.