On December 20, 1924, the middle-class «Cecil» hotel opened in downtown Los Angeles. No one suspected that this seemingly ordinary event would open one of the darkest and most chilling chapters in the history of America.
Strange Guests
The «Cecil» hotel would become one of those cursed places forever shadowed by death. And even with its dark reputation, it would constantly draw guests to it. It is worth noting that the famous serial killers Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger once stayed in the rooms of the Cecil hotel.
On January 22, 1927, Percy Cook took his own life in a hotel room. The cause of the suicide was a quarrel with his wife. This became the starting point in a chain of deaths. Four years later, having barely settled into the «Cecil» hotel, a certain Norton also parted with his life for some unclear reason. The string of tragedies continued with remarkable persistence. One gets the impression that the guests of the ill-fated hotel deliberately chose this place to depart for the next world.
The deaths of people at the «Cecil» hotel became a headache for the Los Angeles police. Even experienced detectives could not properly determine whether any of the cases was a crime or a voluntary departure from life.
But one horrifying story shook all of America. Dorothy Purcell, who lived in one of the rooms of the Cecil hotel together with her boyfriend – shoe salesman Ben Levin, hid her pregnancy from him. And she gave birth to a boy while Levin slept. Dorothy got rid of the child, and at trial she insisted on only one thing – that someone had forced her to do it, that she constantly heard voices in her head.
On June 4, 1964, a hotel employee found the telephone operator Osgood in a room. She was dead – brutally cut up with a knife. Although the hotel was always crowded, no one heard the victim's screams. The murder was never solved; the police did not even have any suspects.
Photo: still from the film
The notorious Elizabeth Short lived here for a time, and her death is on the list of America's most mysterious and unsolved murders. The «Black Dahlia», as the press nicknamed her, was seen at the hotel a few days before her death. The mutilated body of the young woman was found in a suburb of Los Angeles – the police did not advance a single millimeter in this case.
The Mystery of Elisa Lam's Death
The ongoing deaths at the cursed Cecil hotel took on the most terrifying and mysterious forms. And the most chilling and mystically frightening of them was the death of the Canadian Elisa Lam. On January 26, 2013, she checked into the hotel. She was last seen entering an elevator car as she rode up to the 14th floor. Then the young woman vanished without a trace. No one saw Elisa leave the elevator. The police began their search and first reviewed the video from the last day she was seen. What they saw frightened even seasoned veterans. In the footage, it was clearly visible how Elisa seemed to be arguing with someone invisible.
For two weeks the police searched the entire hotel; it was obvious that the young woman had not left it. The dogs could not pick up the trail, but on the roof they behaved very anxiously. The police then decided to open all the water tanks located on the roof, which supplied water to the hotel rooms. The discovery horrified them. Elisa's body was found in one of the tanks. Her death remained a mystery; the police had neither suspects nor any leads. One theory, that the young woman may have suffered from a mental illness, was immediately rejected by Elisa's parents. According to them, she was completely healthy and emotionally stable.
The hotel management even changed the name of the hotel to «Stay on Main», but this did not save them from a lawsuit by the parents of the deceased young woman.
The hotel with the dark reputation continues to operate and receive guests. Surprisingly, the frightening rumors about this cursed place, on the contrary, attract guests who want to give themselves a thrill.
The horrifying events taking place at the «Cecil» hotel would serve as the inspiration for Stephen King to write his famous novel «The Shining». In 1980, Stanley Kubrick's film of the same name was released, in which Jack Nicholson brilliantly played the lead role.
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