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Reported phenomena — as catalogued
The 1981 murder of 14-year-old Marcy Conrad in the Milpitas hills inspired River's Edge and became a dark pilgrimage site.
Marsh Rd, Milpitas, CA 95035
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public road; drive-by only
Access
Limited Access
Unpaved hillside road; no designated parking or access point
Equipment
Photos OK
True Crime — Homicide 1981 · Basis for River's Edge (1986 film) · Sociological case study in adolescent bystander behavior
On the evening of November 3, 1981, Anthony Jacques Broussard, 16, strangled and sexually assaulted 14-year-old Marcy Renee Conrad after an argument in a park. He then transported her body to a remote area in the hills above Milpitas near Marsh Road and left her there.
What happened in the days following became the story's most disturbing element. Broussard told classmates at Milpitas High School what he had done and, over the course of roughly 24 hours, took a number of them to view the body. At least 14 students made the trip. None immediately told an adult or contacted police. Conrad's body was not discovered by law enforcement until two days after the killing, following an anonymous tip.
Broussard was arrested, tried as a juvenile, and convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 25 years to life. The case prompted extensive reporting on peer culture, adolescent moral reasoning, and what critics characterized as social detachment among American teenagers.
Director Tim Hunter and screenwriter Neal Jimenez adapted the events into River's Edge, released in 1986, starring Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, and Dennis Hopper. The film took the underlying sociological question seriously without dramatizing the violence itself, and it remains in regular circulation as a document of a particular moment in American suburban life.
The Milpitas hills site has no formal memorial and has never been made a public landmark. Local teens have treated it as a rite-of-passage destination for decades, a pattern documented in regional press accounts through the 1990s and 2000s.
Sources
The Marsh Road site has attracted paranormal claims since the late 1980s. Neighbors and visitors to the hillside area have described hearing screaming with no identifiable source coming from the brush, particularly at night. Apparitions described as a young girl have been reported by several witnesses over the years, according to accounts compiled by regional dark-tourism researchers.
None of these claims has been formally investigated by paranormal groups, and the site lacks the organized ghost-tour infrastructure of more publicized haunted locations. The reports circulate primarily through word of mouth and local online forums. The Metro Silicon Valley roundup of the region's most haunted locations cites the site specifically for these witness accounts.
The character of the claims — screaming, a girl's apparition — tracks closely with the known facts of the crime, which is consistent with the pattern of location-attached folklore that develops around high-profile violent deaths. Whether that makes them more or less credible depends on what the observer brings to the question.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Marsh Road passes through the undeveloped hills above Milpitas where Marcy Conrad's body was found in November 1981. There is no formal site or memorial; visitors come to the road itself. The area is a public right-of-way through scrub oak and chaparral, largely unchanged since the early 1980s.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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