BY: HMONGTALES STAFF
This is the most famous Hmong ghost story in the United States.
I’m aware that there are different versions of this story floating around, but I’m going to share the version that my dad told me about. According to him, this story came from the lone survivor of the story.
This is the story of the three Hmong guys driving at night to attend the Oroville Hmong New Year and picking up a Hmong girl walking along the highway.
It was Oroville Hmong New Year’s Eve, and three friends were on their way to Oroville to attend the Hmong New Year the following day. They were traveling north on Highway 70 and had just barely made it out of Marysville when they noticed a beautiful Hmong girl walking along the highway just outside of town. For those who are not familiar with the area, there is an old, haunted cemetery right outside of Marysville where they picked up the girl.
Upon seeing the girl walking in the dark by herself, the guys decided to pull over to see what she was doing. To their surprise, she told them that she was actually heading to the Oroville Hmong New Year also.
Since she was headed in the same direction as them, they asked her if she wanted a ride, to which she answered, “Yes.”
As they drove to Oroville, two guys sat in the back of the car with the girl. According to what I was told, soon after they started driving, the two guys in the back let their intention be known as they started to kiss and grope the girl they’d just picked up. To their surprise, she didn’t resist and allowed the two guys to do whatever they wanted with her.
About halfway to Oroville, things were heating up in the back of the car, and the driver noticed what his friends were doing. Excited, he would frequently turn his head to look. He eventually got tired of looking back and decided to adjust his rearview mirror instead, but it was too dark to see anything. It wasn’t until an oncoming car briefly lit up the vehicle with its headlight that he finally got his chance.
After looking through the rearview mirror, his excitement shifted to horror. He became extremely nervous as he thought about what to do next. Luckily, there was a gas station nearby and he drove there as fast as possible.
Upon arriving at the gas station, he ordered everyone out of the car. Everyone got out except the girl, who was still seated in the middle of the back of the car with her seatbelt on. He demanded that she get out, but she refused and told them she would wait for them in the vehicle.
He asked his two friends to go into the gas station with him and left the girl alone in the car. The two friends noticed the look on their friend’s face and asked him what was wrong. Still terrified, he informed his friends that the girl wasn’t human. Shocked by his words, his friends question why he thought she wasn’t human. He then informed them that when he turned back to look at her, she looked like a normal person, but when he saw her from his rearview mirror, she appeared to look like a decomposing bloody corpse.
After hearing this, his friends were in disbelief. How could a girl go from being alive to a corpse? They questioned themselves. After spending about 30 minutes in the store, contemplating what to do, they all finally got the courage to leave the store to confront the girl.
They walked back to the car, and to their surprise, the girl was no longer there. When they opened the back door, they noticed that her seatbelt was still on. Happy that she was gone though, they all got back in the car and made their way to Oroville.
Not long after, all three of the guys begin to get sick. Two of the guys, the ones who were sitting in the back of the car with the girl, eventually passed away from their sickness. The driver of the vehicle became extremely sick but was able to recover. After recovering, he unfortunately became mentally unstable and was never able to recuperate from it. I heard a couple of years ago that he was still alive and living in Oroville.
Legend has it that when the Oroville Hmong New Year is near, this ghost girl can be seen walking along Highway 70 at night, waiting for someone who is unaware to pick her up again.
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