New Zealand parliament shows its spooky side in a tour of mysterious deaths and cat infestations

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A veiled woman burst screaming from an elevator. The small crowd gathered in a basement corridor of New Zealand ’s parliament drew back nervously.

Their guide, wearing a trailing, white gown, smiled sweetly. “You’re welcome to take the elevator,” she said. Nobody did.

Mysterious deaths, unexplained noises and late-night apparitions are not the usual fodder of daily tours offered at the parliament buildings in Wellington. After hours on Thursday, however, guides donned Victorian-era garb to regale visitors with the precinct’s less savory history — “mostly factual” tales of real-world tragedy and paranormal lore that have grown established among political staffers through decades of colorful retelling.

The history of parliament’s stately gothic library is particularly rich in woe. Constructed in the late 19th century and feared by some of parliament’s night shift security guards and cleaners, it has survived two fires, a flood and being overrun by feral cats.

“This is your last chance to back out,” Lisa Brand, her face dripping with fake blood, told the group who had arrived for Thursday's tour — a recent initiative and one embraced by the visitors’ center staff with gusto.

Walking through a cavernous parliamentary atrium, the guide let out a hair-raising scream that echoed up to the open windows of lawmakers’ offices. It explained why the so-called spooky tours are reserved for weeks when parliament is not in session.

Parliament's library is a gloomy and ornate building where stained-glass windows and crystal chandeliers dimly reveal wrought iron bannisters and Venetian décor. Designed by Thomas Turnbull and completed in 1899, it remains in use by staff seeking information or some slightly eerie peace and quiet.

When the visitors arrived Thursday, they were greeted by spectral figures who shrieked as they glided down staircases beneath the portraits of former head librarians and New Zealand prime ministers. Tour guides told a hushed audience that the library was imperiled by a savage storm that struck Wellington in 1968 — sinking a passenger ferry in the harbor with the deaths of 53 people.

The tempest lashed parliament too, tearing out skylights and prompting librarians to climb onto the roof as they tried to protect the books, according to a guide who sported Victorian garb and dark shadows under her eyes.

“For mysterious and unknown reasons they did this in their underwear,” she told the visitors. “There seems to be a history of people losing their pants here in this parliament.”

The guide added, with relish: “I haven’t even started on the politicians.”

Eventually the tour turned to lawmakers, too. Well-known in New Zealand is the story of William Larnach, a politician who in 1898 was found dead in a room at parliament with a revolver in his hand while experiencing financial and family strife.

Larnach’s ghost, some claim, remains in the building. His skull, however, was stolen — and in 1972 was rediscovered in a college student’s bedroom.

Another spirit reported to linger is that of the first full-time librarian, Ewen McColl, whose death was partly attributed by some official sources to overwork.

As the tour descended to the building's basement, the ceilings grew low and the corridors narrow. Frantic banging resounded from an apparently locked room.

The subterranean floors are home to an archive containing the historical and esoteric. It's also the site of some of the building’s strangest reported occurrences, tour guides said.

Urban legends passed down by staff include stories of hands reaching out from the stacks, songs emanating from empty bathrooms, the apparition of a ghostly woman in a mirror, and locked doors swinging open. More earthly horrors included a cat, and subsequent flea, infestation in 1977.

After one last fright, visitors emerged slightly shaken into Parliament’s near-empty lobby as darkness fell. The tour was “a bit spookier than I expected,” said Holly Masters, who had last visited parliament as a child. “There was quite a few deaths here that I did not expect to find out about.”

Another visitor, Sally Giles, said she was fascinated to learn the stories of those who worked and died in the precinct “and what they’ve left behind and how that surfaces every now and then.”

The tour guides would return to their regular, authorized scripts on Friday’s tours — but some said the building's spooky side was never far away.

“I always open up the tour route in the morning,” said Brand, the team leader. “It does always feel a bit tingly when you’re one of the first people walking around.”

The historical Parliament library, constructed in the late 19th century and rumored to be haunted, in Wellington, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)

A tour guide at New Zealand's Parliament gives a spooky tour of the historical Parliament library, constructed in the late 19th century and rumored to be haunted, in Wellington, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)

A tour guide at New Zealand's Parliament gives a spooky tour of the historical Parliament library, constructed in the late 19th century and rumored to be haunted, in Wellington, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)

A tour guide at New Zealand's Parliament gives a spooky tour of the historical Parliament library, built in 1883 and rumored to be haunted, in Wellington, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)

A tour guide at New Zealand's Parliament gives a spooky tour of the historical Parliament library, constructed in the late 19th century and rumored to be haunted, in Wellington, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Three people were fatally shot, and 15 others were hurt, after an altercation broke out at a park in the desert city of Las Cruces, police said Saturday.

Police and fire crews arrived at just after 10 p.m. Friday to a chaotic scene at Young Park, where an unauthorized car show had drawn about 200 people, police said in a news conference. Gunshot victims ranging in age from 16 to 36 were treated there or taken to hospitals.

Between 50 and 60 handgun casings were scattered across a wide swath of the park, Police Chief Jeremy Story said, suggesting multiple shooters and multiple weapons among two groups whose “ill will” toward each other are believed to have led to the shootings. Several others were injured in the crossfire, he said.

The dead were identified only as a 16-year-old boy and two men, ages 18 and 19, police said. Their names and those of the other victims were not yet being released.

Local police were being assisted in their investigation by New Mexico State Police, the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Las Cruces Fire Chief Michael Daniels said 11 patients were sent to three local hospitals or to University Medical Center of El Paso, the regional trauma center. As of Saturday, he said, seven victims were in El Paso, four had been treated and released and the conditions of the other four were not known.

Authorities are seeking video from the park and tips from those present as they work to identify a suspect or suspects.

“This horrendous, senseless act is a stark reminder of the blatant disregard people in New Mexico have for the rule of law and order,” Story said. He vowed that authorities will find everyone responsible and said, “We will hold them accountable to the criminal justice system.”

Story acknowledged that illegal car shows at Young Park are not uncommon and that the police presence has been larger in the past. Understaffing on Friday, he added, meant that he had “no units available for most of the night.”

In an Instagram post Saturday, City Councilor and Mayor Pro Tem Johana Bencomo expressed grief over the shootings.

“Part of me wanted to write that this is something you never really think this is going to happen in your city, but that actually feels deeply untrue,” she said. “Honestly now days a tragedy like this feels like a nightmare just waiting to come true at any possible moment, yet also always praying and hoping it never will.”

Mayor Eric Enriquez called for people to support the victims, their families and the community after the “senseless” event.

“We need to stand strong. We need to come together,” he said.

Police were still on the scene Saturday, and the area around the park was closed to traffic, according to local media reports.

“This is a huge crime scene with a lot of moving parts,” Story said. “It will take time to process it thoroughly and reopen everything.”

In the New Mexican capital, Santa Fe, the state Senate held a late-night moment of silence as word of the shootings spread.

The shootings cast a pall over efforts by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the state Legislature to find effective solutions to persistently high crime rates and concerns about gun violence.

Lujan Grisham said she was gripped by sorrow for victims' relatives as well as anger and disappointment that more public safety bills did not make it to her desk before the legislative session closed at noon Saturday.

“We don't have sufficient tools, we are not bringing accountability to these communities,” she said at a news conference. “I'm so sorry for the individuals whose lives are forever changed, for a community that will be shattered.”

Lujan Grisham recently signed off on a package of enhanced penalties for vehicle theft, fentanyl trafficking and school-shooting threats, along with a ban on devices that convert guns to automatic weapons.

Legislators passed an overhaul of the state’s red-flag gun law, under which firearms may be temporarily removed from people who may pose a danger, and bolstered funding for addiction and mental health treatment.

But the governor excoriated legislators for a lack of progress on juvenile justice reforms and highlighted the apparent large number of weapons used in the Las Cruces shootings.

“These tragedies have to end,” she said. “The amount of guns that find their ways into public parks and schools and churches and grocery stores and parties and cars must end.”

Las Cruces sits on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert along the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico, about 40 miles (70 kilometers) from the U.S.-Mexico border.

This story has been updated to correct the last name of the police chief to Story, not Strong.

Smyth reported from Columbus, Ohio.

Las Cruces Mayor Eric Enriquez opens a news conference on Saturday, March 22, 2025, by calling for the community to come together after a deadly mass shooting at Young Park in Las Cruces, N.M. (Justin Garcia/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)

Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremey Story speaks at a news conference on March 22, 2025 a day after a mass shooting at Young Park in Las Cruces, N.M. (Justin Garcia/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)

Crime scene technicians look over the Young Park parking lot after a mass shooting overnight, Saturday, March 22, 2025 in Las Cruces, N.M. (Justin Garcia/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)