The Haunted Hotel Cecil

Michelle, you know I should not be getting pimples at this age, and I got one where I don't see it. Is that why you were sitting in the dark when I logged off? Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about scary things that surprised us around the Internet. I'm Edwin, I'm Michelle. I mean I scared myself last night. Are you ready? I am ready? The Hotel Cecil. A few stories scared me as much as that one. Oh my god, there's a pretty good documentary on Netflix about Hotel Cecil. It's like one of their I don't know shock documentaries that they've made. It's pretty good. And then Ghost Adventures did one at the exact same time, So like you can watch the factual one on Netflix and then go over to Discovery Plus and watch Zach Began's run around and being like that faucet wasn't on when we left this room. Now, it's odd, dude. So you can have both your worlds together, but I feel like they aleance each other out, like you need both of them to really get an accurate picture of the Hotel Cecil. And for those who don't know the Hotel Cecil is a hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Was built in nineteen twenty seven and it's still around and it's now called The Stay on Maine, which is its rebrand where they tried to fix it but nothing was ever fixed. Weird. Yeah, it looks like a hostel. Like I went on and I looked at the booking pages, Well you can stay there currently, No, but I'll get to that. They are. There are still booking pages up, so you can see like what the rooms look like, which there's like bunk beds in there. It's like a hostel, like the equivalent of a hostel, and like the rooms were forty nine dollars. If you were like coming from Europe and backpacking, you'd be like, oh, yeah, sure, I'll stand downtown Los Angeles. Sure. If you didn't know anything, you'd be like, yeah, this looks cheap and it's walkable and it's in the heart of Los Angeles. Joke's on you. Downtown is not the heart of Los Angeles. It's not where you want to go when you come here. You're really thinking of Malibu when you're thinking of Los Angeles. So co stan Malibu, go stay in Santa Monica. They're all different cities. They're not Los Angeles. So go do that and know those postcards is like Los Angeles and they show picture of Santa Monica and yeah, like the palm trees, and yeah they don't. Downtown Los Angeles is not You're not where you want to be. Nope, not at all. The Hotel Cecil, now known as Stay on Maine, was opened at nineteen twenty seven in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. The hotel was an impressive fifteen story building with seven hundred rooms, making it one of the largest hotels in the city at the time. The hotel lobby was grand and ornate, with marble floors, high ceilings, and crystal chandeliers, all of which are still there in those photos on that booking website. You can see them. It's almost really nice, except there's like a coke machine. Now sounds fancy, sounds like a terrible place to record, though, with all that reverb in Oh, I'm sure that's like the least of the problems. I just can't even this place, even if you didn't believe in ghosts, just think of all the bad energy that's been there. And I'll get to some more of the stories about this place. But it's pretty gnarly. That's like a lot of stuff that's happened there in one area, one concentrated area. Honestly, I think they should tear it down and probably put in like a municipal building of some sort, something that people don't stay in at night. That would probably be the way to do it. Anyway. The hotel was marketed as a luxurious destination for business travelers and tourists during its opening. The rooms were furnished with stylish decor and modern amenities such as telephones or radios and private bathrooms. So modern. This was nineteen twenty seven. I say, ah, this is nineteen twenty seven, so fan. See. The hotel had several restaurants, a barbershop, a beauty salon, a rooftop garden that offered stunning views of the city. And despite this luxurious amenities and the prime location, the hotel Cecil was also known for its dark side. Over the years, it gained a reputation for being associated with crime and violence, and several suicides, murders, and other mysterious deaths that occurred within its walls. See something that happened at the Hotel Cecil is that during the thirties and the Great Depression, it just took a dive, like it became a low rent hotel, and a basic stayed that way for Honestly, forty nine dollars even now is not a lot of money for a hotel. So it has just stayed a low rent motel, which attracts a certain type of clientele, along with European travelers who don't know any better. Unfortunately, feel so bad to me too. Have you imagine like googling your hotel if you were going to go stay in Europe and you google your hotel and it turns out it has the nickname the suicide Hotel or something like that. Yeah, I don't Yeah, nope, it doesn't matter how cheap it is, it just doesn't matter. Plus, imagine international travelers who don't speak English very who Well, then you see the dollars sign forty nine. Yeah, you're like, yeah, walkable downtown Los Angeles. I'll just walk to the beach. But anyway, I wrote a little story about a fictional guy named Eddie. Have you ever gone by Eddie? Some people call me that really Eddie Edgardo. This story is to just set the tone for what we're walking into at the Hotel Cecil, just adding to the legend. Got to add my two cents to the legend. Our lies gotta add the scary mystery surprise lies to the legend here. Eddie had always been a drifter, never staying in one place too long, but when he arrived in Los Angeles in the nineteen thirties, he found himself drawn to the Hotel Cecil. It wasn't the fanciest place in town, but it certainly had his charm, a feeling of history and character that Eddie found appealing. He checked into a small room on the fourth floor and spent his first few days exploring the city. Eddie had always been a bit of a troublemaker, and he quickly found himself drawn to the seedy under belly of Los Angeles. I like it. I like it. It sounds very classy, very light. You can hear him doing his thing, and he's nanda belly of Los Angeles. He's a cousin trouble I like it. He spent his nights at the hotel bar, drinking and talking to the other guests, many of whom were also drifters and outsiders like himself, but As the days passed, Eddie noticed strange things happening at the hotel cecil. He would hear strange noises coming from the rooms next door, and sometimes he would catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure lurking in the hallway. One night, Eddie decided to investigate. He crept down the hallway, trying to be as quiet as possible, and as he approached a room where he had heard the noises, he heard a strange chanting coming from inside. He pushed the door open just a crack and peeked inside. What he saw made his blood run cold. A group of people dressed in ropes holy candles were gathered around a small altar. In the center of the altar was a book, and Eddie could see strange symbols etched into the cover. Suddenly, one of the robed figures noticed Eddie and pointed at him, shouting something in a language he didn't understand. Eddie turned and ran down the hallway as fast as he could, the sound of the chanting echoing in his ears. After that night, Eddie decided it was time to leave the hotel. Seesum dei, as I think we all would at that point, don't I think we'd all be like, Okay, time to go. After witnessing a toga party, yeah, after some sort of strange orgy satan party, he was like, it's time for me to go. He didn't know what was going on there, but he knew it wasn't anything good. He packed his bags and left without looking back, hoping to put the strange experience behind him. But as he walked the dark, deserted streets of Los Angeles, because of course, he left in the dark in the middle of the night, because of course, he did like a rocksack. Yeah, I'm imagine. I think it's called a bendle, just the stick and the rag. But as he walked down the dark streets of Los Angeles, Eddie couldn't shake the feeling he was followed. But the feeling persisted, growing stronger and stronger with each step he took. Every time he turned around, he saw nothing but shadows and the empty night air. Finally, Eddie reached his destination, a small apartment on the outskirts of town. He locked the door behind him and clapsed onto the bed, exhausted and terrified. But as he closed his eyes, he heard a strange whispering in his ear, a voice that sounded like it was coming from the other side of the veil. Eddie tried to forget about his experience at the Hotel Cecial the next day, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching him. He felt eyes on him everywhere he went, watching his every move. And then one night, as he lay in bed, he heard a knock at the door, and when he opened it, he saw nothing but darkness and the faint glimmer of a pair of eyes. The eyes seemed to follow him everywhere he went, haunting him with their unblinking stare at water. Ultimately, Eddie disappeared without a trace, His fate a mystery that remains unsolved. Did he just move on like the drifter he was? Or was he swallowed up by the darkness of the Cecil Hotel du Das No, there's just something about somebody disappearing. The Hotel Cecil is dubbed one of the most haunted hotels in the world, and the hotel Play's host to several legends, some of which include the hotel's basement, which is said to have been used as a morgue during the forties. Some guests have reported strange noises and feelings of uneasiness in the basement, and there's also a legend about a man who lived in the hotel for several years and claimed to have supernatural powers. He allegedly performed rituals experiments in his room, and some guests have reported feeling an eerie presence in that room after the man's death. No, but those are all just legends. The hotel has a lot of proven disturbing events that have happened there, from suicides to murders and disappearances. The hotel's reputation for violence, crime, and mysterious deaths has led to an association with the paranormal, with some people believing that the spirits of unfortunate guests stay and haunt it. So it makes sense, I mean it makes sense. It's seven hundred rooms, it's a lot. It's like a whole neighborhood in there. It's a lot of rooms and like a lot of people going through there. One of the notable murders was Goldie Osgood in nineteen sixty four. She's a retired telephone operator and she was found dead in her room at the hotel Cecil. She'd been raped, stabbed, and strangled, and her murder has never been solved. That's sad. That is sad. It's very sad. But that is like one of the well known She was like a kind of like a local character. I think she liked to feed the birds in the park. So that story with that murder, yes, that's real. We're into the real stuff now, not just the legends of there being a mythical Morgue or a witchcraft guy or Eddie Eddie could Eddie probably exists there now because I spoke it into reality and we all believe it. So Eddie, our ghost friend Eddie lives there as well. Hopefully he's cool. I imagine him appearing with jeans and a hat. Hmmm. I was thinking like cowboy, but I'm like, wait, no, not cowboy ish, maybe more classy. But he's a drifter, so he has to be some type of I think like it would be a fedora, a beat up fedora hat, and maybe he has a ripped knee in his is like corduroy pants or something. Okay, Okay, I see that. Okay, bit of a drifter, bit of a gambler, Eddie. Ye, taking it as it comes. Heartbreaker. Yeah, a heartbreaker ramblin' man. He's a real rambling man. Anyway. Another weird bizarre fact at the Hotel Cecil is the suicides. The exact number of suicides that have occurred at the Hotel Cecil now the Stay on Maine, which I feel like still needs to be reiterated, is that it's not called Hotel Cecil anymore. It's called the Benign Stay on Maine. The exact number of suicides is unknown, as the hotel has a long, complicated history that spans nearly a century, and they have only reported some of them, you know what I mean, They kind of like hide the numbers on suicides. But I think a lot of hotels do that, like where they're true remember the body under the Bed episode, They're not gonna know. Yeah, so especially one that's this notorious. However, it is known that the hotel had numerous suicides over the years, with some occurring by jumping from the hotel's windows. The most famous suicide at the hotel was that of Pauline Auten, who jumped from the ninth floor of the hotel in nineteen sixty two, killing a pedestrian on the sidewalk. Below. Oh no, yeah, which is really unfortunate, and the hotels association with suicide has led it to being nicknamed the suicide Hotel. How unfortunate. Fucking nail your windows shut, guys, Like, that's why hotels have like you can't open them. Yeah, you cannot open your windows because they do not want you to jump out? Is that why? Yeah? Makes sense? Makes it makes sense. It's a weird way to adapt. Instead of giving people mental health stuff, it's just instead of giving people mental health services, it's let's just nail the windows shut so they can't jump out. It's so weird to think that along that sidewalk. Yeah, I bet there's a lot that's just like one example of someone jumping out of the window there was. I've heard other stories about people jumping out the windows too. And there's a legend of a pregnant lady who jumped out the window because management was kicking her out, and so she jumped out the window, killing herself and her unborn child. And then apparently people see her ghostly apparition and hear a baby crying on the ninth floor. Ah, that's one of the legends there too. So dark out tell cecil. It's not light. It's not a light thing. And I haven't even gotten to the serial killers yet because two serial killers stayed there I've heard of that. Isn't that weird? Yeah, it's an ugly building. I don't know if at one point it looked cool or really fancy, but when you look at it now, well it was like a flophouse. Like they were staying there because it was cheap. So the two serial killers that stayed there, one was Richard Ramirez, who is known as the night stalker, terrifying, terrifying serial killer, terrifying photos of him. There's another Netflix documentary about him. You can watch it, but it is scary. He's just very creepy and really disconnected from reality. And let me look up a picture of this guy. He has these cheekbones that go on for days. Oh, cheekbones that could cut glass. Okay, wow, wait, this is modern stuff. Yeah, he's still alive. No, I think someone killed him in prison. This was in the eighties, geese Okay. Yeah. What I don't like about the documentary is like everything la still looks like it's in the nineteen eighties and nineties, So it's like they're showing footage of places he broke into and things like that, and it's oh, that was like Eagle Rock. I live right near Eagle Rock and lots like things like that where you're like, ohh huh, wow, he's terrifying. I don't know why I get Michael Jackson vibes off of this guy. It's those cheekbones. But also maybe that's why I'm terrified, Like that adds to the level of my being more terrified of him, was that it's the nose and the cheekbones. Well, it is known that at least two infamous serial killers stayed at the hotel Cecil Now stay on Main at different times in history. One of them was Richard Ramirez, also known as the Nightstalker terrifying looks like Michael Jackson, cheekbones that could cut glass, who stayed at the hotel during his killing spree in the eighties. Ramirez was a notorious serial killer and rapist who terrorized the Los Angeles area and was known to have dumped his bloody clothes in the hotel's dumpster during his stay, so like he's got some energy there. And then the other serial killer who stayed is this another cheekbone guy. Anyway, Wow, he does have cheekbones, bizarrely attractive serial killer cheekbones, as in the cheekbones are attractive, not that they are attractive. I just want to clarify that I do not rush on a serial killer. Never. God know, if you had to pick, though, Michelle, if you had to pick oh, I got into I got to the weirdest argument at a barbecue once because I don't know, me and this other guy were like, oh, Ted Bundy's the best looking serial killer. And then this other girl, who got like insane, was like, no, it's Jeffrey Dahmer. Like she got so incensed that it was Jeffrey Dahmer. And I think I just go Bundy out of like loyalties to the Northwest. Not because I'm particularly attracted to him, but he's known as mister charming serial killer, not like Dahmer, but not documentary, but that show that just came out, and he's like, let me take a picture. There's no being like, oh, yeah, that guy. I mean, whenever they make a Ted Bundy movie, they hire the most attractive man they could find, Like they literally what's his name. Zach Efron played him in the latest one. Why do they do that? He's literally got a U I just don't understand. Just yeah, the levels of attractiveness I'm a little confused by. But look, I get it. I'm a white woman that likes true crime. I should be into Cereal cal It's a good question. If I'm attracted to a serial killer, it's a valid question. My face hurts. The other serial killer who stayed at the hotel was Jack Untwger, who was convicted of murdering nine people in Europe and in the United States. I've heard about him before. So he was actually in jail killing sex workers in Austria, and then he somehow convinced people that he was reformed, and he wrote a book and got on TV, and so they let him out of jail, and then he came over here. And it was like he said, he was researching a story about a crime in Los Angeles in nineteen ninety one, and he was staying at the hotel Cecil, and one thing led to another and he murdered more people. Yeah, I think he killed two people while he was here, if I'm if I'm remembering it right. He's pretty weird. He's a pretty twisted guy. Like the fact that he convinced the public that he was like cured and that they let him out. Then neither of these serial killers, there's any proof that they murdered anyone in the hotel, So that just has to be stated, I guess so. But think about that energy of a place that brings in two serial killers. I'm telling you, just even to dump your bloody clothes well in the dumpster. Yeah no thanks. But now to get into the case that probably sticks in most people's minds and introduced us to the Hotel Cecil in the first place, The mysterious death of Elisa Lamb. Elisa Lamb was a Canadian student who went missing while staying at the Hotel Cecil in January twenty thirteen. Her disappearance sparked a massive public search and tons of Internet interests. It was all over the news, it was all over everything in Los Angeles. I specifically remember seeing it on Access Hollywood. People were covering her disappearance because leading up to her disappearance, it was captured on CCTV footage that went viral online. Lamb was a twenty one year old student from Vancouver, British Columbia, who was on a trip traveling alone in California, she checked into the Hotel Cecil. See here's another thing where I'm like. She was from British Columbia, so she checked into the Hotel Cecil. She did not know. Granted, downtown wasn't as bad in twenty thirteen. It's I bet Hotel Cecil was advertising itself. Is something different in Canada than it was in the US. Also, I blame some of those travel agencies. They get deals and try to really market it. Oh one hundred per set that, Yeah, you're not anymore. And I'm assuming that your hostel wasn't like as crazy as this place, but who knows, just a couple incidents depending on how many serial killers you had stay there. I think that's I think that needs to be disclosed. How many serial killers stay at your hotel? Just like the in the entrance, you're legally like you have to stay. There was a bar in my college town. It was called the Waterfront, and I don't know if it's still there. It'd be really weird if it was. But threes it was claim to fame that three serial killers had drank there, which I was just like, oh my god, which lens imagine it's just like a plaque like here sat good Bundy. Yeah, it was. It was interesting. Also, it smelled like fried food and there were probably rats in the back of the oh no, in the kitchen. So I just can't even imagine. I can't even imagine if it's still there. I'm sorry for slander. All of that is alleged. After Lamb was reported missing, the Los Angeles Police Department released the surveillance footage from the hotel's elevator that showed her acting erratically and appearing to hide from someone or something. In the video, Lamb is seen pressing multiple elevator buttons, stepping in and out of the elevator, and peering out the door, peeking her head out. She also hand gestures and seems to be talking to someone not visible in the video, which if you've seen that footage, it's very disturbing because it does seem like she's wildly gesturing and talking to someone not on camera, or like hiding, specifically hiding from someone as well. It's like she comes into the elevator, hits all the buttons, and then the doors don't close. Lamb's disappearance sparked a massive search effort and public interest, and many people speculate about what may have happened to her. Weeks later, on February nineteenth, twenty thirteen, Lamp's body was found in one of the hotel's rooftop water tanks. Her cause of death was ruled an accidental drowning, but the circumstances of her death remained mysterious and have sparked numerous conspiracy theories and speculation. I remember that being so creepy to see that video and then hear that she was in the water tank, and the way they found her was, which I just is burned in my mind. To European tourists noticed the water tasted weird and was a weird color and smelled funny, and so her body had been decomposing in the water tank and people had been drinking it. Is La water, my friend, best example of LA water I've ever heard. Only normally we can't figure out what's happening where it's coming from. European people would be drinking water. Yeah, And so they complained, and that's how they went up the hotel went and checked the water tank and found a lamb. I think she was known to have some sort of like a bipolar disorder or something like that, and she was off her meds, and it seems like it's pretty proven that this all might have been like a self induced thing at this point, but nobody really knows how she got up into that water tank. She was naked in the water tankod I remember seeing a picture of the water tanks and they're huge. They're very huge, and like the lids to get in, they're really heavy. It's very strange. She's never been at this hotel before. How does she know to go on the roof and go into the water tank or that the water tanks are even there. And just because she's having a mental episode doesn't mean that the nasty energy at that hotel might not have influenced her at some point. Yes, you can attribute it all to the mental episode or something helped something. Yeah, it's all just very strange. And now she's an internet legend, which is unfortunate to die and become an internet legend. I think, yeah, that's terrible. Like I think if it was something supernatural, it could have been some type of force just guiding her or telling her you must go up there. Well, especially because she was vulnerable, because she was she was like offer meds or something like that, yeap, or like that theory. Maybe we're the ones that are hypnotized and an actual mental episode is a moment of clarity. Ooh okay, I like that. Then you can see what's really there and why they won't let your elevator go and move like it's supposed to. Plus, in elevators is where you bump into like just about anybody, Like I remember bumping into a They call him a mentalist. I was an Ecuador and I went into the elevator and this guy, he's a hypnotist. I don't know what they're called. Yeah, a mentalist. Try to think of them as magicians. But I think you're right, they are hypnotists. I think that's like what a mentalist is. He just came in, said, Hi, that's it. It was normal. He didn't do any tricks. I thought he was going to do it. There was no point to that story, no point. But if you think about it, maybe he did do a lot and I just don't remember. Oh yeah, maybe he went on a whole adventure and he just wiped it. Yeah. See, so there's a story except thank god, I don't know it. But he knows the story. You're right, Yeah, you're right, So Edwin, after everything I've said, would you stay at Hotel Cecil or aka stay on Man, Yes, I would. I don't know. I think maybe i'd like to see the lobby. I think i'd walk into the lobby if we get messages they say, Michelle, just do it except pause this because the city of Los Angeles said in twenty seventeen they were turning the rooms into low income housing and as of twenty twenty three, you can no longer book rooms there. No, I looked. I was just like forty nine dollars like for content. There's no reason Edwin and I shouldn't go to this. But I imagine now that the Hotel Seats is so popular and famous because of this weird shit. They have people looking for content. I bet they have like podcasts. They would have had like podcasters, investigators. That would have been a whole thing that they were attracting for this. Such such a lost opportunity there. I'm telling you, this is why I want a haunted place, because true, you can do this kind of thing. It could be a business, and it could be just a cool place to hang out and go and just talk to ghosts and stuff like why not I think, I don't know, we have to really support ghosts here and not it's for the economy. Yeah, and like plus ghosts are cool. I don't know, And that's your position, that's my advocacy. Well, like I was saying earlier, you can't book a room there, but you can go see all the pictures of the place of Stay on Maine. It's like bunk beds, weird red bedspreads, coke machine in the lobby, which does not fit the old timey esthetic. And the plan is they're gonna put services. I don't know if this is still the plan, because last time I heard anything they might use some of it for low income housing. But I heard they were someone had taken it over and they were trying to redo it. Put a bar on the roof, make it a cool place to be, which I don't know if it can be that. It would be very interesting telling you they should just lean into it Haunted Hotel cecil. They'd have to change it back from the Stay on Main. I love how they tried to make it so bland Stay on Maine. Everything's fine. Yeah, I think it's on Maine but that's okay. Yeah, it's just to stay on Maine. Everything's fine here. Don't worry. Everything's cool. It's so average and bland. Don't worry. It's just an average Bland hotel. Nothing weird happens here. Don't worry about it. Oh but I have a final line because I think the Eagles said it best, because this might be the original Hotel California. Because you can check out, but you can never leave. You can never leave. That's what it's called. Stay. Yes, stay on Maine. D da da duh. It's not a name, it's in order. Yeah, no, thanks, No, I would stay there though. I guess what are we going to talk about next week? I don't know. It'll be a surprise, but it's on a list somewhere