HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Nevada's first licensed brothel, site of boxer Oscar Bonavena's 1976 shooting death and a 1999 federal forfeiture.
1011 Wild Horse Canyon Dr, Sparks, NV 89434
Research updated August 2026
Age
21+
Cost
$$$$
Companionship is negotiated privately with independent contractors and isn't publicly priced. The Wild Horse Saloon and lounge run standard bar pricing.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Renovated indoor resort building with a lounge, bar, and themed suites, about 20 miles east of Reno off Interstate 80.
Equipment
No Photos
Est. 1971 · Nevada's First Licensed Brothel, 1971 · 1976 Oscar Bonavena Shooting · 1999 Federal Racketeering Forfeiture
Mustang Ranch traces to a small operation called Mustang Bridge Ranch, four trailers run by Richard Bennett along the Truckee River east of Reno. Joe Conforte and his wife Sally Burgess Conforte took it over in 1967 and used their influence in rural Storey County to get a brothel-licensing ordinance passed in 1971, making it Nevada's first legally licensed brothel. It grew into a 54-bedroom building on 166 acres.
On May 22, 1976, Argentine heavyweight boxer Oscar Bonavena — nicknamed "Ringo" for his Beatles-style haircut, and a fighter who had gone the distance with both Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier — was shot dead at the ranch's gate at age 33. Security guard Willard Ross Brymer, acting after a conflict with Conforte, fired the shot; he was convicted of manslaughter and served 15 months. Bonavena's body was flown home to Buenos Aires, where an estimated 150,000 people filed past his casket at Luna Park.
Conforte's own legal troubles caught up with him not long after. He lost a tax-fraud case in 1990 and fled to Brazil, which later refused to extradite him following a 1999 U.S. conviction on racketeering and conspiracy charges. The ranch was forfeited to the federal government that year.
The government auctioned the buildings on eBay in 2003; developer Lance Gilman won them for $145,100 and moved the structures to his nearby Wild Horse Adult Resort & Spa property in 2004. Storey County granted a second brothel license in 2005, reviving the Mustang Ranch name, and when Wild Horse lost its own license in 2011 the combined site was rebranded fully under the Mustang name. It operates today under Gilman's ownership.
Sources
Ghost Adventures visited Mustang Ranch for a 2013 episode (season 8, episode 9), investigating claims from staff that a male presence in a hallway workers call "B hall" targets female employees. Staff on camera identified the presence as Oscar Bonavena, tying the modern reports directly to his 1976 death at the ranch's gate.
A separate account comes from writer Colin Dickey, who visited in 2014 while reporting a magazine profile of owner Lance Gilman and interviewed Gilman and staff for his 2016 book Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places. Dickey describes a different entity in the same hallway — one staff call "Baby," first named by a psychic during a television ghost-hunting shoot. A worker named Jean told Dickey the presence moved objects on her dresser and that she'd placed a small fountain in the room because, she said, "Baby apparently likes water." Dickey also heard secondhand reports from other women who avoided B hall, describing a feeling of being held down and unexplained bruises.
Mustang Ranch doesn't run a ghost tour or promote the haunting; the accounts come from staff describing their own workplace, told to a TV crew and to a visiting writer years apart.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Visit the Wild Horse Saloon and lounge, open to guests 21 and older year-round. Arranging companionship with the ranch's independent contractors happens on-site directly with staff and isn't part of any ghost-related programming; the venue runs no dedicated paranormal tour.
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