This year was InMaricopa’s second annual Mysterious Mansion Mayhem. There were 46 haunted houses that signed up for the competition and more than 1,300 ghouls and goblins who voted.

The votes have been tallied for the winners.

Best house – Joseph Sanchez for The Graveyard! 

45571 W. Long Way in the Maricopa Meadows 

“I can’t believe that we won,” Sanchez said. “I wasn’t expecting us to win because there’s many other badass homes here in the town. I mean Cradle Bay; we went to go see that one the first week. And there’s so many other homes that have extensive amounts of detail and we didn’t think we were going to win.”  

Sanchez and his wife, Sabrina, have been decorating their house for at least the past six years, to his memory, but didn’t enter the competition until last year, when InMaricopa took over the longtime event, after being encouraged by their neighbor.

Sanchez said that his wife has been doing the graveyard theme for their home since they started decorating their house all those years ago. At first it was simple with little gravestones, but it has grown every year as they have obtained more and more decorations.  

Sanchez emphasized his wife’s love for decorating and said that Halloween decorations go up inside the house as early as August.  

“Halloween is one of our favorite holidays, so might as well make it fun,” Sanchez said.  

Sanchez’s house garnered 26% of some 1,400 votes and beat out second place, The Witches Watch Over Skeleton King’s Cemtery, which got 17%.

Lucky voter – Sebastian Fortin 

The winning voter selected at random today was The Villages resident Sebastian Fortin who also entered his house, Graveyard of the Forgotten, into this year’s Mysterious Mansion Mayhem contest. 

“Fantastic,” Fortin said when reporters called to tell him the news.  

This was Fortin’s second year entering his house in the competition.  

“It’s my favorite holiday, it’s kind of my Christmas,” Fortin said. “So, I always go all out and add to our yard each year.”  

Fortin won $175 worth of gift cards including $100 to Ak-Chin Circle Entertainment Center, $50 to Raceway Bar and Grill and a free large four-topping pizza from Rosati’s Pizza.  

Honorable mentions 

The sponsors for this year’s Mysterious Mansion Mayhem were Be Awesome Youth Coalition and 347Facts.com. 

Brandi Homan from Be Awesome Youth Coalition decided to trick-or-treat through the entire map and declared her favorite, as well as a runner-up.  

She picked Charles Wergin’s Return of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein at 22562 Reinbold Drive in Rancho El Dorado as her favorite frightful fun house.  

Her runner-up was last year’s winner, Shaun Martin’s Cradle Bay Children’s Sanitarium at 45595 W. Keller Drive in the Maricopa Meadows.