Tuesday, April 19, 2016

The Cecil Hotel : A Phantasm From The Past

Picture This……
Imagine your taking the biggest move of your life.
Half way across the country, to a big city like Los Angeles.
Sounds exciting right?
Now imagine a hotel thats booked for you on arrival.
Centrally located in downtown L.A.
Its past midnight and your jet lagged.
It all sounds sounds perfect.
Right?
So you endure the rigorous check-in process that oddly,
with only two other people in line took over two hours.
Then finally after much hassle,and many headaches,
you leave the seemingly normal even fancy lobby.
Into an elevator that looks as though no maintenance has ever
been done since its been in operation.
Upon exiting the elevator the halls looked even more unnerving. 
After journeying through the labyrinth of hallways,
trying to ignore the rotting smell reminiscent of an
animal corps or something like it. You enter your room,
and it looks as though a murder was committed, and barely cleaned up
What looked like blood on the doors.
What was blood on our sheets!
Now imagine how unnerving that would be.
Now imagine finding out that the hotel was famous for death,
serial killers, murder, suicide, the works.
Even a  girl found dead in the cecil water tank who was
last seen where you are now,
Then you confront the clerk who claimed the Hotel Cortex
did not exist. Then you him of your discovery only to hear the reply
“Oh that girl in the elevator”
Then you find out later that night “that girl in the elevator”
was found dead, decomposing in the water tank for weeks while in use.
Now if this is all too hard to imagine……
You don’t have to because its all a true story.
It happened to us
just like that, but with even more disturbing details
It was so impactful as a filmmaker looking to steer attention towards unknown truths
that are ignored. I knew my first film in L.A had to be exposing The Cecil Hotel for what it is.
A crime ridden, stain on the community, murder hotel.
So with that being said…….
Follow along closely you wouldn’t want to get lost!
On the ninth day of November 1924 The Hotel Cecil
was eerily over advertised as a must visit for wealthy businessman,
and international  travelers alike. It boasted that it would serve was a place of growth.
But soon after opening the area fell into disarray as skid row formed,
and the Cecil served as the headquarters for criminal activity.
The year 1927 marked the first time a criminal would use the Cecil as their hide away.
John Croneur, a “suave and mild mannered Slavonian,”
was arrested in his room for running from police at the Hayward Hotel,
and stealing a diamond hairpin at the Rosslyn Hotel.
Petty seemingly evading police after stealing a diamond hairpin
not as sensational as what would take place just 2 short years later.
In 1929 just five short years into opening a women high on barbiturates
wandered around the hotel for three days apparently unnoticed.
Until finally taken to the hospital in an apparent failed suicide attempt.
According to reports she was distraught over the
sudden death of her husband which spurred the suicide attempt.
Over the next two years the great depression hit,
and a depression fell over the Cecil that would never leave.
The surrounding area slowly fell into disarray,
and The Cecil increasingly became a hostile for the shady and the sick.
Then enters the tale of Cecil resident George Ford.
A successful morphine, and opium dealer who was arrested
in a sting at the nearby Astor hotel.
Not long after an elderly man was picked up at the Cecil
In peril of death after drinking poisoned liquor,
that had killed three other men already.
So we have just now only reached the end of the 1920s,
and already we have three deaths, two near deaths,
one of which a suicide attempt, and two resident criminals.
Thats when the successful suicides began with the first years of the 1930′s.
In 1931 W.K Norton went missing from his home in Manhattan Beach.
Only to be found dead from poisoning in a room he checked into
at the Cecil. He like many other did checked in under an alias,
Norton’s alias was James Willys of Chicago.
Capsules filled with what was believed to be poison
were given by police as evidence that Norton had ended his own life……..
But who knows what really happened!
From their murder and suicide plagued the Cecil some more.
A year after Norton was found dead,
a 25 year old man shot himself in his room at the Cecil,
and then a young truck driver was fatally pinned to The Cecil
by a large truck, and then………
Another lonely man took his life.
Louis D. Borden 53 years of age was found
with his throat slashed and the razor near his body,
as well as a farewell note that reported Borden had ended
his own life due to his ill health
He like many others chose the Cecil as their end all.
Shortly After……
An elderly resident  attempted to shoot himself in Westlake Park.
Another elderly female tenant was found drowned in the ocean.
So since three short years into opening,
The Cecil has housed morphine dealers, stick up bandits,
all sorts of different criminals hiding out at the Cecil.
A criminal lured a women to the hotel by answering a news paper ad,
only to choke and rob her for $40 on arrival.
It was at the end of the 1030s The Cecil would see its first suicide jumper.
It was yet another brutal death, as her body was crushed by the fall.
Her body entangled in the telephone wires on the way down.
Police were unable to determine whether the women willfully,
or accidentally, or if she was purposefully thrown  from the 9th floor window.
Reports indicate her companion  was sleeping at the time
of the fall, and could give no explanation for the women’s actions.
Oddly enough the man’s statement was some how verified by
the hotel manager J.B Read Jr.
Then……
Like deja vu one year later,
a marine/firemen named Roy Thompson was found dead.
It was confirmed he had been at the Cecil for several weeks prior
to being found dead on the skylight of the building next door.
Again like Da Ja Vu, it was undetermined whether or not roy had jumped,
whether he had fallen, or whether he was thrown form The Cecil.
From there prostitutes, and cheating couples increasingly used The Cecil
as an assignation point. It was around then in 1940,
the first los angeles alcoholics anonymous meetings began.
Which were held at the Cecil.
Even after this attempt to make something semi positive out of the Cecil,
it wasn’t long before the death began.
A cafe manager who lived at the Cecil hotel, died in a nearby bar called
The Waldorf Cellar in a gun battle with a bartender,
who had been his childhood best friend.
Then a change of management occurred in 1941.
Which included extensive improvements, but could
not save the Cecil from its dark past, nor its even darker future.
it was in 1947 aspiring actress Elizabeth Short,
nicknamed The Black Dahlia allegedly had her last drink at the Cecil,
shortly before she was murdered.
The area around the Cecil was littered with
single occupancy living and cheap watering holes.
As the Cecil continued its inevitable decline into a last resort
for lost desperate souls like Helen C. Gurney
Helen plunged to her death from a 7th floor window
her body landing on the Cecil Marquee above the heads
of pedestrians on busy main street.
Police identified her as Helen C. Gurney by the cards in her purse.
Also an employee of the San Diego stationary firm.
She used the alias Margaret Brown Of Denver,
when she checked into room 704. Hundreds of spectators gathered,
as fireman pulled her body down from the Hotels Marquee.
Shortly after police were called over to the Philharmonic Auditorium,
to aid a man who seemed to be hysterical.
Witnesses told police the man was so unnerved by what he had just seen,
he fell into a fit of hysteria.
Long term residents of The Cecil began to refer to the building simply
as the suicide. Because in 1962 there was the infamous leap of
Pauline Otton out of a 9th floor window. The leap killed not only her,
but also an elderly pensioner, as he was just innocently passing by The Cecil
with his hands in his pockets.
That same year Julia Frances Moore leapt from an 8th floor window
of the hotel her body landing on a second floor rail.
Astoundingly enough the  blood curdling horror
was only just beginning at The Cecil.
Because then perhaps the saddest death of all came next.
That of Pigeon lady Goldie Osgood. A retired telephone operator
loved by the community. She frequented the nearby Pershing Square,
where she religiously fed the pigeons giving her the infamous nick name.
It was in 1964, when  she was found, raped, stabbed, and strangled,
in her room at The Cecil. Her body found next to the dodgers baseball cap
she always wore, and a paper bag of bird feed.
Probably the most famous Cecil resident of all
made his appearance in the midst of the even more epic decline of the area
that followed the 1964 murder.
A man named Richard Ramirez.
Ramirez is responsible for possibly thirty murders or more.
Only half of which he was convicted.
He stalked two major cities of California mainly Los Angeles.
It was there in Los Angeles where for Ramirez it was a free for all.
Killing just to kill. While he terrorized the city of los angeles murder by murder,
he did so while laying his head at the Cecil Hotel.
He lived out the time of his Los Angeles murder spree
on the 14th floor of The Cecil. That floor actually being the thirteenth floor
since the thirteenth floor is skipped.
Some think Ramirez’s interest in The Occult spurred this choice of floor.
He would come back to The Cecil from his kills,
and throw his bloody clothes in the dumpster of the back alleyway
behind the hotel, and head back in covered in blood.
Apparently that wasn’t odd for the Cecil in the mid 1980s.
Its unknown whether he killed in, or around the hotel.
But one thing is certain, he chose The Cecil likely
as it was known as a place to commit crime, or even get away with murder
But it didn’t stop there already known as murder suicide central,
now was marked forever as a home to serial killers.
With the appearance of Austrian Journalist & Serial Killer
Jack Unterweger.
Jack was a highly intelligent man. He killed a women in the 1970s,
Then after serving time in prison for the murder.
He gained popularity as an Author, and Journalist.
Then as part of a rehabilitation program,
he was released and praised for being rehabilitated.
He then moved to Los Angeles to cover the crime scene of that city.
Mainly prostitution. He checked into the Cecil and began killing again.
It is said he had lured three prostitutes up the fire escape of the Cecil.
Apparently he killed them right there in his room he stayed in at the Cecil Hotel.
He  would then dump the bodies in random places
like dumpsters etc around the city.
He was later caught in Miami, and killed himself in prison.
But while he went on his second killing spree, he
like Ramirez likely chose the Cecil not at random.
Before, during, and even after Ramirez & Unterweger,
The Cecil  was described as a free for all.Then it was in 1988
that yet another Cecil Resident left his dwelling, only to murder his girlfriend
by brutally stabbing her to death in Huntington Beach.
Then in 1993 the L.A times times wrote yet another article about a police officers passing.
The article recalled how the officer once had to
talk a women down from a tenth floor window of The Cecil,
who was intent on suicide.
That next year, in 1994 the Cecil was featured in yet another L.A Times article
about decaying buildings in the city.
Of course The Cecil was featured, and described as a most foul place to inhabit.
Any kind of filth imaginable, and unimaginable was present
according to this news article
Then 2 years later, another article spoke of a women
who went missing in 1994, but was reported to have stayed at
the Cecil hotel in 1995
Just another strange instance of people going missing,
and ending up at the Cecil including suspected murder
Eric Reed who that same year in 1995 escaped from prison, and gravitated to The Cecil.
Much like the man who escaped from prison in the 1950s and ended up at the Cecil Hotel as well.
Another man also escaped from a mental institution in the 1970s,
and bought a gun on his way to The Cecil.
He then Climbed to the hotels rooftop and began firing,
Oddly enough, they all chose The Cecil as their hide away.
Next up we have an L.A Times article from 2003 covering
a rash of 11 murders throughout Los Angeles on the Fourth Of July Weekend
of that year. One of which of course occurred at The Cecil hotel.
On the Saturday of that weekend a man was found strangled to death
in a room at hotel.
Then in 2008 a women who was reportedly doing cocain
at The Cecil, supposedly robbed a man of all his money,
and stormed out of the hotel.
The police were called,
but she was never caught apparently.
The Cecil Hotel would soon return to the papers.
Only this time The Cecil would return to the papers,
under new management.
The Hotel under went cheap renovations,
hardly even worth being called renovations.
During this time, the new management created The Stay.
Which would eventually turn into…….
Stay On Main, as it is still known today.
They tried getting their liquor license back, but failed.
Tried opening their restaurant back up…….But Failed as well.
They even tried opening a little cafe, that lasted a little while.
That cafe also soon closed.
Then in 2010, The Cecil Hotel would return to the papers,
yet again for another attempted murder.
Two fireman answered a call about a possible emergency
while one went inside to check on the emergency call,
the other his partner waited outside.
The Entering fireman claimed he was stabbed, which rang true since his partner found him……
Stabbed on a stairwell of The Cecil!
The claims of the victimized fireman were dismissed as false,
citing suspicious circumstances, and the investigation
was called off by authorities.
What truly put a damper on the plans of the new management,
would take place three years later……
At the start of 2013 elisa lam went missing and the cecil was her last known presence.
Apparently when she was due to check out the hotel,
staff placed her belongings in the basement after she didn’t check out
as scheduled. They then gave authorities a grainy, chopped video
to be used as evidence in identifying her, and to determine the last time she was seen,
after she was reported missing. But the video is clearly edited.
The encrypted time stamp and all. This meaning that there is
something, or someone not seen in the video.
One can only think this must have been by design.
But then who made the edits?
The police, or the hotel?
And why didn’t the police address this?
What was found in her belongings?
Why were they just placed in the basement?
It is said that there is supposedly a video that
shows two men bringing a box to Elisa.
Is it true?
Thats still up in the air.
Who were they, and what was in the box if it is true?
This isn’t addressed in any of the official legal documents.
i have found on the case thus far.
Why?
After she was found in the water tank on the roof,
nearly three weeks later, the death was ruled an accident,
after a weak investigation by authorities.
Mental issues were cited as a contributing factor,
but not a main cause contributing to her death.
This is all according to court, and coroner documents that were made public.
Its all so confusing I know.
This is just another unsolved mystery of The Cecil.
All the information is out there to draw a conclusion from.
As many have, except the police who never truly looked any further into it.
Just like there was a lack of investigation over two years later,
after a man was found dead in front of the Cecil Hotel.
It was basically determined he fell from a window of the Cecil,
and when questioned a man who identified himself as an assistant manager
claimed the man must have been an intruder, because he was not a guest
according to the nameless assistant manager.
So now that we have  briefly covered every major documented event since opening
Stay tuned for more updates on the  documentary film this blog is based off
What we came across while staying here ranges from strange,
high pressure air systems, used in laboratories to clear contaminants.
With air pressure so powerful opening the door was nearly an impossible task.
Even an incident where a member of the staff refused to let us off the elevator
as it passed our floor heading to the basement.
Just remember these strange occurrences
are what sparked the inspiration for this film.
Click the links directly below to watch the teaser video, 
Subscribe to The Tumblr account, and the Youtube Channel, Facebook, and Twitter, accounts below to get updates about The upcoming documentary film! 
https://www.youtube.com/user/ItsAMadWorld101
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/quincy-adams