Three Friends Diner
To: Jeremy Fuentes, Ph.D
Professor of Cultural Anthropology
University of California, Berkeley
Jeremy –
I assume you have heard about the strange discovery made at 918 E. 3rd Street – a converted warehouse located on the corner of 3rd and Weller Avenue, in the middle of the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles.
The building is currently undergoing renovations. Three weeks ago, construction workers noted a foul odor wafting through the property, coming from behind what they had thought was a solid brick wall. But upon further investigation, it was discovered that the inside measurements of the property did not match up with the outside. There was, in fact, a 25x30ft. space on the first floor completely overlooked. A secret room, so to speak; one inaccessible from any point inside the building or out. It was located at the far end of the property, along the wall forming the west side of Weller.
With permission, the workers broke through the wall to access the otherwise-inaccessible area. Immediately, they were floored by the overpowering stench of rotting meat. Bandannas over their noses, they entered the enclosure.
Inside, they found a nice 16mm camera, smashed to bits. They found film equipment, all destroyed – cracked lights, torn screens, metal light stands folded like paperclips. Cheap-looking framed paintings and kitschy prop menus scattered like confetti. And three bodies.
Three decomposing bodies, in a state too disturbing for description. Though the term “half-eaten” has been thrown around.
How the equipment, or the corpses, ended up there has yet to be determined. Neither the walls nor the ceiling were disturbed at any point, and there was no sign of tunneling under the four-foot-thick concrete floor.
No one can explain how three dead people and a bunch of film paraphernalia magically appeared within a completely walled-off space. But it was all the more shocking for me, personally, due to the contents of a handwritten letter left for me by a former patient of mine.
Her name was Kathryn Soo. She voluntarily checked herself into the Marsdale Psychiatric Treatment Center, where I am an on-call physician, several months ago, and was discharged shortly before the horrific discovery at 918 E. 3rd Street. I am no longer in contact with the young woman. However, I believe you will find her testimony – a transcript of which I have enclosed – very intriguing.
Sincerely,
Larry Schurr, M.D.
*****
Testimony of Katy Soo
1/5/2015, Marsdale Psychiatric Hospital
Just for the record, shooting Bella Cardone’s movie at the Three Friends Diner wasn’t my idea. I told her it was a scam; that no restaurateur in Los Angeles with two brain cells to rub together would have possibly charged us so little for a location so photogenic. Again and again, I insisted it just felt wrong.
I was right. I used to like being right.
A little back story.
I’m Katy. I’m 21 years old. I used to be a junior at Cal State Northridge, studying business administration and film production. I enjoyed the phone calls and the organizing and the paperwork-filling that most film students hate, and had built up a modest reputation as a pre-production guru amongst my classmates, as well as with friends and acquaintances who attended other schools.
Bella Cardone was one of such acquaintances, a 29-year-old international student from Italy I’d met at a third-rate horror film festival. She’d been employed at a television station in Rome doing… something, but dreamed of writing and directing Hollywood movies. She was one of a dozen or so, mostly foreign, enrollees a year and a half into the two-year Master’s program at New York Film Academy; she was writing her thesis script at the time, and asked me to help organize the production of the short film.
