Creepy Facts, Conspiracies and Stories

Five: The Cecil Hotel

The Ceil Hotel, located in downtown Los Angeles, has a long history of suicides, murder and mysterious death. Would you care to stay the night? 

Built in 1927 the hotel quickly became a hotspot in downtown L.A. However, the good times of the roaring twenties were quickly outlived once the stock market crashed, signaling the start of the Great Depression. The Cecil Hotel managed to hold it's glamorous appeal through the 1940's, but the years that followed the hotel fell into hard times. Transforming into a place of crime, prostitution, drug use, and violence. 

The first of the many suicides to occur happened in November 1931, when 46-year old W.K. Norton, who checked in as James Willys, took a large amount of poison pills and ended his life. 

Roughly a year later, 25 year old Benjamin Dodich checked into the hotel. When a maid went to clean the room on September 17, 1932, Dodich was found dead with a self-inflicted gun wound in his head. 

In 1937, Grace E. Margo became first of the many people to fall to her death from on of the hotels higher floors. As Margo fell her body became tangled in the telephone wires. Authorities were unsure to whether her death was intentional. 

In 1938, 38 year old Marine fireman Roy Thompson threw himself off of the top floor of the Cecil. That same year 39 year old navy officer Erwin Neblett checked into he Cecil. Similar to W.K. Norton he poisoned himself to death. (I've personally seen some reports that Neblett's body was found in the name room Norton died in, but it was never truly confirmed.)  

In 1940, 45 year old teacher Dorothy Sceiger consumed poison at the Cecil. Her condition was decided as "near death". No other reports were filed about her. 

Seven years after Sceigers death, suicide stuck again. In 1947, 35 year old Robert Smith jumped out of a window on the Cecil Hotel's seventh floor. In 1954, 55 year old Helen Gurnee also jumped from the seventh floor to her death. 

In 1962, 50 year old Julia Moore jumped out of an eighth floor window. That same year, 27 year old Pauline Otto jumped to her death on the ninth floor and killed a 65 year old pedestrian named George Gianni in the fall. 

In 1975 an unidentified woman jumped from the twelfth floor of the building. She registered herself as "Alison Lowel" when she checked into the hotel, but authorities were never able to fully trace back her identity. 

The most recent suicide at the hotel occurred in 2015 when a 28 year old unidentified man found found dead in front of the building. Some say he fell to his death, but the official cause of death was undetermined. 

As though the suicides weren't enough, there were still cases of violent murders and death. One of the most haunting stories occurred in the in September 1944, when 19 year old Dorothy Purcell birthdates and child and then threw her baby boy out the hotels window. She was charged with murder and trialed for the crime. In January 1945 she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. 

In 1964, "Pigeon Goldie" Osgod was found dead in her room. When investigators examined the scene and her body, they concluded she was raped, stabbed, and beaten to death. Her murder was never solved. 

Perhaps the most notorious murdered connected to the hotel is the Black Dahlia slaying. It is believed that Elizabeth Short, the aspiring actress, was brutally slain in January 1947, last seen when she had a drink at the hotel bar in the days before her murder. 

The hotel also served as home asked for a pair of notorious serial killers. In the mid 1980's, Richard Ramirez, also known as The Night Stalker, broke into the homes of unsuspected women to bind, rape, and brutally murder them. During this time he often, stayed at the hotel and sometimes tossed his bloodstained clothing in the hotel dumpster. 

In 1991, Austrian serial killer and journalist Johann "Jack" Unterweger called the Cecil home. In 1997 he was first convicted of murder in his home of Austria. He was released 15 years later after convincing authorize he was "reformed". Sadly, he soon fell back into his old habits, murdering three sex workers while on assignments in Los Angelous. Unterweger was later arrested in 1992 and was sentenced to life in prison in June 1994. The night of his sentencing, Unterweger hanged himself in his cell. 

And then there's the strangest death yet: The Death Of Elisa Lam. Lam checked into the hotel on January 28, 2013. She was scheduled to leave the hotel and travel to Santa Cruz on January 31. But when her parents didn't hear from her they called the police. A little over two weeks later hotel gust complained of poor water pressure. On the morning of February 19, when staffers went to check on the hotel's roof water tanks, they found Lam's body floating within one of the tanks.

There were any things wrong with this. Access to the hotel's rooftop is off limits to guests and the public, the doors are locked and only staff posses keys and passcodes. Any attempt to forcing open these doors should have triggered an alarm. Similarity the water tanks are difficult to access, and presuming Lam was alone, also challenging to seal up from within. 

Then there was the elevator footage of Lam acting weirdly in the elevator. Stepping in and out, pressing buttons, waving her arms, rocking in place, and pressing herself against the corners of the elevator. Wattpad being a ass, won't let me link the video. So you're going to have to look it up on your own. 

There was also been a few ghost sighting at the hotel, along with paranormal activities on the floors and rooms people have died on. With everything that happened at this hotel, why is it still standing? 

Alright, back to the Death Of Elisa Lam because it intrigues me. It seems really fishy, and there are many theories to how she died. Lam suffered from bipolar disorder and depression, and she she wasn't on her medication it could result in her attempting suicide. But I highly doubt a suicidal person would through all of the security just to die in a water tank. 

There's also theories that Lam had played The Elevator Game, since she was behaving as if she were suddenly in a different world. If you remember from a few chapter ago I explained the rules, and she broke a lot of them. Stepping in and out of the elevator and pressing random buttons could result in her being stuck in another world. But Lam was still found in our world in a water tank. So perhaps is she was playing the Elevator Game and fainted, resulting in her being transported back to our world in the hotel water tank, resulting in her drowning. And if she was suicidal from not taking her medication, it makes sense if she would go down playing a haunted game. But again, who would go to such extreme measures to kill themselves. This one makes the most sense to me, but that's only because I like to look at the supernatural side of things

But she could have been murdered also. Since only workers of the hotel have access to the water tanks, one of them (or maybe even a few) could've taken her and put her into the water tank. And since there is no other footage of her, workers could've easily destroyed evidence of her murder. But we'll probably never know. 

What do you guys think, was it murder, suicide, or did she break the rules and angered something while playing the Elevator Game?