Moses Lake resident believes her child took pictures of ghosts

MOSES LAKE — It was a normal winter night when Malaki Juarez, 3, took his mother’s phone and snapped several pictures inside his grandmother’s house.

“My son loves taking pictures on any camera he can get his hands on,” said mom, Martha Juarez, 23. “He only takes a picture when he sees something. Something has to catch his attention.”

Martha went home, put her son to bed and flipped through her phone at midnight. She erased pictures of plants and blurry photos until she came to the last picture.

What she saw sent chills down her spine.

“I noticed there were figures in this picture and at first I thought it was a lamp or maybe the light hit it weird,” Martha recalled. “But the closer I looked; I saw what appeared to be three people. I showed my boyfriend and he noticed the people looked like the ghost from the movie ‘Scream.’”

Malaki had taken a picture of the main hallway of their one-story home. The home was in the process of being remodeled and the hallway was bare.

As Martha zoomed into the picture with her Samsung Highlighter phone, there appeared to be a figure dressed in a black cloak with a white face, a figure of the same height dressed in white with a black face and a small figure, dressed in black with a white face.

“We tried to debunk the picture by taking several photos in the same location, turning the lights on and off,” Martha said. “The more you look through the photos my family took and compare it to the one my son took; you can see the difference in his photo. I think my son captured something we can’t see.”

Martha showed the picture to her son and asked him who the people were.

“Those are my friends,” Malaki said.

“It freaked me out,” Martha said. “My son is young, but he is very precise. He calls things by name and has always been very detailed when talking about events or people.”

This isn’t Malaki’s first experience with paranormal activity.

“My son is weird,” Martha said. “He talks to walls as if there are people in front of them. He’s been doing this since my mom moved into her house and he only does it at her house.”

Silvia Ramirez moved into a home on Castle Drive in Moses Lake around 2006. She lives with her two daughters and son.

It is a fairly large home, consisting of a family room, living room, kitchen, four bedrooms and two bathrooms. Family members say there have been strange occurrences in the home since the first night spent in the house.

“One of my sisters lives in a yellow room and this room freaks us out the most,” Martha said. “At night we always hear chuckling, rattling noises and scratching noises.”

The family thought they had a mouse problem and set traps throughout their home.

“It’s been four months since we laid out traps and we still have not caught a mouse,” Martha said. “We all have that eerie feeling, that feeling you get when you know something is just not right, you know? You just don’t feel comfortable.”

Martha’s youngest sister Margarita Juarez, 20, has had a few odd experiences.

“I was watching television in my room at night and fell asleep,” she said. “I had put my phone on my nightstand. I woke up around 1 a.m. to find my phone placed right next to me.”

The rest of the family denied moving the phone.

“When I go to my room to go to bed, that’s when I feel like there is something there,” she said. “I don’t feel that it is harmful, but I feel there is something.”

The middle sister Karina Juarez, 22, experienced weird phenomena when baby-sitting Malaki at the home.

“One time he was watching television and I was in another room,” Karina said. “I heard what sounded like a child crying so I went to see if he was OK, but he was quietly sitting down. He hadn’t made a sound.”

Ramirez says she sometimes feels someone watching her when she is alone in the house.

“Sometimes I get an eerie feeling, but I’ve never had anything happen to me like my daughters have,” said Martha, translating her mother’s Spanish to English.

A devout Catholic, Ramirez doesn’t believe in ghosts.

“I’d have to see it for myself to believe,” Ramirez said to her daughter in Spanish.

Martha remembers Malaki talking and looking up at the ceiling several times at her mother’s house. As a baby,  Malaki would often lift his hands in the air as if he was touching them against anther person’s.

“He talks about his friend named Frank,” Martha said. “He only does this in my mom’s house.”

When asked the name of his friends and shown the photograph, Malaki pointed to the larger dark figure and said, “Mike.”

The family members don’t think Malaki is lying or trying to get attention.

“He’s been this way since he was very little,” Martha said. “We’ve never caught him in a lie before.”

In search of answers, Martha went to the Grant County Courthouse in Ephrata to discover the names of the families living in the home.

She found out the home was built around 1960 and the latest records kept at the courthouse were in 1986. No one from the latest family had died in the home.

“It’s creepy, but I’d really like to know what’s going on,” Martha said. “I am a believer of ghosts and think they hang out for a reason. They watch us, protect us or simply have no where else to go because of life choices. I think technology can capture things the eye cannot see and when there is no explanation, it’s time to explore.”