Serial Killer Central : The Cecil Hotel
Have you heard of the Cecil Hotel? Did you know the Cecil Hotel is one of the most haunted hotels in LA? It has played host to countless serial killers like Richard Ramirez aka. ” The Night Stalker ” and the Hillside Strangler. It was also the location where one of the infamous Elisa Lam tapes were recorded. It is home to death himself. In fact, it was the inspiration for American Horror Story season 5, they loved it so much they used this hotel to film the entire season.
The Killers That Haunted the Hall’s of the Cecil Hotel
” Hotel with corpse in water tank has notorious past, ” was the headline for CNN following the disappearance of Elizabeth Lam. Another red ” Since its construction in 1927, it’s been the focus of suicides, murders, mystery disappearances, and serial killers,” an Australian news site said of the hotel. “Home to murderers, maniacs, and ghosts, some say the Cecil is anything but your average hotel, they say it’s cursed,” reported one blog. Another simply called it “Serial Killer Central.”
Richard Ramirez aka. The Nightstalker is perhaps one of the most famous serial killers in American history. He was the leader amongst the monsters. He rampaged from 1984 until 1984 when he was captured and convicted of 13 counts of murder, 5 counts of attempted murder, 11 sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries. He managed to elude capture by simply dumping his bloody clothes in the dumpster behind the Cecil Hotel and walking through the lobby up to his room. There were much worse things in the dumpster than bloody clothes, and a naked man walking through the lobby was a normal affair amongst the exclusive clientele at the Cecil.
Ramirez was first and foremost a satanist and believed he was doing the Devil’s work. It began for him when he slept on his father’s grave in the Concordia Cemetary, when he found numerous objects, such as a jar containing a pickled mouse and a human finger. He quickly learned what these satanic objects were and took a keen interest. Ramirez died after 23 years on death row at 53 of Lymphoma.
Downtown LA was a prominent area until the 1970’s when the business crowd moved towards the airport and crack was introduced. The area became so dark and dangerous that no one who had their sanity would enter. “By 1990, the LAPD won’t go into [these places]. It was like, ‘If we’re called we’ll go in. But we’re not patrolling.’” says Richard Schave. Drug dealers worked openly inside. The bodies of overdosed residents could linger in the hall for days. “No one wanted to be the person who called the cops,” Schave says.
Image via : Living in Los Angeles
There were many killers that followed Ramirez, inspired by him. One was an Australian journalist called Jack Unterweger who also stayed in the Cecil Hotel. He had a fetish for strangling prostitutes with their own bras, he was convicted of the murder of 11 women and eventually killed himself with his own signature knot.
Serial killer links were not the only abnormalities occurring in this cesspit. There were countless rapes, murders and suicides. One man jumped and landed on a pedestrian, killing him too. There are even rumours that the Black Dhalia stayed here. All of this, in short, gives credibility to the strange things that link the past of the Cecil Hotel with the recent murder of Eliza Lam.
The Disappearance of Eliza Lam at the Cecil Hotel
On February 1, 2013, Elisa Lam disappeared while staying at the Cecil Hotel. In an attempt to locate her the Police Department of Los Angeles released the footage above to try and locate her, but it was far from normal.
In the video, you can see Elisa entering the elevator and frantically pressing all the buttons, as if she was trying to escape from something. She peeks out and leaves the elevator a few times. then began to rock back and forth looking deeply disturbed. Then it would appear that someone or something found her… She rocks back and forth again and begins to make frantic hand gestures as if begging or trying to reason. Then she disappears.
Two weeks had passed. The Cecil Hotel filed a complaint about low water pressure in the rooms and brown water coming from the tap. So an Employee called Santiago Lopez went up to check it out. He opened the top and found the naked body of Elisa Lam floating face down in the water.
Image via : North Atlantic Blog
The Employee told the police that you can’t get up onto the roof without setting off an alarm through the fire door. Even if she did manage to get through without setting off the alarm. She would have had to climb up to the tank, move the huge lid, get into the tank, undress, and then move the lid despite the fact the tank was only 3/4 full and too tall for her to reach.
The autopsy later revealed that there was no evidence of assault, sexual or physical, no drugs were found in her system besides ibuprofen. How could a woman drown in water that she could stand in?
This brought up a lot of theory including murderers, ghosts, suicide and even the ghost of Richard Ramirez himself who is thought to still haunt the halls of the Cecil Hotel today. Is it possible that the amount of evil that this building has held including the satanic rituals of the Nightstalker have brought something else into the building? Something inhuman?
Is The Cecil Hotel Haunted?
There is not a whole lot of information on the Cecil hotel being haunted. The entirety of google is filled with the stories of Ramirez and Elizabeth Lam. The two of them being such icons in the weirder part of the web. However, there are a few stories and even a kick ass photo.
Image Via FPI Paranomal
One man who stayed in the hotel did say that from the moment he entered there was something just not right. He stayed in room 106 which was not too far from the Nightstalkers domain. Here it is…
” I checked into the hotel after watching American horror story and kinda liking it. I’ve always been a bit of a lone wolf and thought it would be cool. The staff were friendly enough but there was something just not right. The vintage furniture really creeped me out. As I was walking up the stairs through the lobby a cold blast of air hit me in the face and sent shivers up my body, just a breeze I thought. All the way up to my room I felt uncomfortable and unwelcome. Just uneasy. The room itself was nice enough, pretty basic. It wasn’t until I turned the lights off that it really began.”
“I closed my eyes, to be honest quite disappointed until that cold blast of air hit me again. Then I saw a man standing at the end of my bed, he was smiling and throwing a knife up and down in his hand looking right at me.. I fucking ran, that was it for me. I don’t even really remember how I got out of the building but I left all my things and got a cab home in my pj’s.”
“It wasn’t until I got home and did my research until I saw a picture of Richard Ramirez. It was him, I couldn’t believe it!!! I called up the hotel and turns out I was not the first. I highly recommend this hotel to any enthusiasts or anyone who does not believe it was an experience I will never forget.”
