Dining With the Dead

Inside the “casino room” at Monteleone’s Ristorante in El Paso, a statue of the Virgin Mary watches over dinner guests from atop the mantle. But according to Gary and Laura Monteleone, the owners of the campy Italian restaurant, a different, smaller version of the figurine once sat in her place—a haunted one.

Gary found the original hidden in the building’s walls as he prepared to launch the restaurant in 2001. During the years the first statue reigned over the room, the Monteleones say they’d periodically find her turned away, staring at the wall. Each time, they’d place her back in the right