The Chilling History Of Murder And Hauntings Inside Los Angeles’ Cecil Hotel

The Chilling History Of Murder And Hauntings Inside Los Angeles’ Cecil Hotel

From Elisa Lam to Richard Ramirez, the Cecil Hotel's history has been filled with bizarre horrors since it opened in 1927.

Nestled within the busy streets of downtown Los Angeles lies one of the most infamous buildings in horror lore: the Cecil Hotel.

In 1944, Dorothy Jean Purcell threw her newborn baby out of one of its windows. In 1985, Richard "The Night Stalker" Ramirez stayed there while in the thick of his killing spree. In 1991, Jack Unterweger checked into a room there shortly before strangling three sex workers to death. And in 2013, Elisa Lam vanished from its halls one day — only to turn up dead in the sealed water tank on the roof three weeks later.⁠

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Click the link in our profile to read the grisly story of Los Angeles' Cecil Hotel, perhaps the most cursed building on planet Earth.⁠

Since opening its doors in 1927, the Cecil Hotel has been plagued with unfortunate and mysterious circumstances that have given it a perhaps unparalleled reputation for the macabre. At least 16 different murders, suicides, and unexplained paranormal events have taken place at the hotel — and it’s even served as the temporary home of some of America’s most notorious serial killers.

Suicide And Homicide At “The Most Haunted Hotel In Los Angeles”

In the 1930s alone, the Cecil Hotel was home to at least six reported suicides. A few residents ingested poison, while others shot themselves, slit their own throats, or jumped out their bedroom windows.

In 1934, for example, Army Sergeant Louis D. Borden slashed his throat with a razor. Less than four years later, Roy Thompson of the Marine Corps jumped from atop the Cecil Hotel and was found on the skylight of a neighboring building.

The next few decades only saw more violent deaths.

In September 1944, 19-year-old Dorothy Jean Purcell awoke in the middle of the night with stomach pains while she was staying at the Cecil with Ben Levine, 38. She went to the bathroom so as not to disturb a sleeping Levine, and — to her complete shock — gave birth to a baby boy. She had no idea she had been pregnant.

Mistakenly thinking her newborn was dead, Purcell threw her live baby out the window and onto the roof of the building next door. At her trial, she was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity and she was admitted to a hospital for psychiatric treatment.

In 1962, 65-year-old George Giannini was walking by the Cecil with his hands in his pockets when he was struck to death by a falling woman. Pauline Otton, 27, jumped from her ninth-floor window after an argument with her estranged husband, Dewey. Her fall killed both her and Giannini instantly.

Police initially thought the two had committed suicide together but reconsidered when they found Giannini was still wearing shoes. If he had jumped, his shoes would have fallen off mid-flight.

In light of the suicides, mishaps, and murders, Angelinos promptly dubbed the Cecil “the most haunted hotel in Los Angeles.”

A Serial Killer’s Paradise

While tragic calamities and suicide have contributed heavily to the hotel’s body count, the Cecil Hotel has also served as a temporary home for some of the grisliest murderers in American history.

In the mid-1980s, Richard Ramirez — murderer of 13 people and better known as the “Night Stalker” — lived in a room on the top floor of the hotel during much of his horrific killing spree.

After killing someone, he would throw his bloody clothes into the Cecil Hotel’s dumpster and saunter into the hotel lobby either completely naked or only in underwear — “none of which would have raised an eyebrow,” writes journalist Josh Dean, “since the Cecil in the 1980s… ‘was total, unmitigated chaos.'”

At the time, Ramirez was able to stay there for a mere $14 per night. And with corpses of junkies reportedly often found in the alleys near the hotel and sometimes even in the hallways, Ramirez’s blood-soaked lifestyle surely raised nary an eyebrow at the Cecil.

In 1991, Austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger — who strangled prostitutes with their own bras — also called the hotel home. Rumor has it that he chose the hotel because of its connection to Ramirez.

Because the area around the Cecil Hotel was popular with prostitutes, Unterweger stalked these environs time and again in search of victims. One prostitute he is believed to have killed vanished right down the street from the hotel while Unterweger even claimed to have “dated” the hotel’s receptionist.

Eerie Cold Cases At The Cecil Hotel

And while some episodes of violence in and around the Cecil Hotel are attributable to known serial killers, some murders have remained unsolved.

To pick one of many, a local woman known around the area named Goldie Osgood was found dead in her ransacked room at the Cecil. She had been raped before suffering a fatal stabbing and beating. Though one suspect was found walking with bloodstained clothing nearby, he was later cleared and her killer was never convicted — another instance of disturbing violence at the Cecil that has gone unresolved.

Another grimly noteworthy guest of the hotel was Elizabeth Short, who came to be known as the “Black Dahlia” after her 1947 murder in Los Angeles.

She reportedly stayed at the hotel just before her mutilation, which remains unsolved. What connection her death may have had to the Cecil is not known, but what is known is that she was found on a street not far away on the morning of January 15 with her mouth carved ear to ear and her body cut in two.

Such stories of violence are not simply a thing of the past. Decades after Short, one of the most mysterious deaths ever to take place at the Cecil Hotel happened as recently as 2013.

In 2013, Canadian college student Elisa Lam was found dead inside the water tank on the roof of the hotel three weeks after she had gone missing. Her naked corpse was found after hotel guests had complained of bad water pressure and a “funny taste” to the water. Though authorities ruled her death as an accidental drowning, critics believed otherwise.

After the video surfaced publicly, many people began to believe that the rumors of the hotel being haunted might be true. Horror aficionados began drawing parallels between the Black Dahlia murder and Lam’s disappearance, pointing out that both women were in their twenties, traveling alone from L.A. to San Diego, last seen at the Cecil Hotel, and were missing for several days before their bodies were found.

Thin though these connections may sound, the hotel has nevertheless developed a reputation for horror that defines its legacy to this day.

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