Buzz
When the Cecil Hotel, now known as Stay on Main, opened in 1927, it featured 700 rooms adorned in an elegant Art Deco style, designed to appeal to businessmen. Located at 640 S. Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles, the hotel quickly fell victim to the economic downturn that came with the onset of the Great Depression. Its proximity to Skid Row led to a rise in the homeless population, with over 10,000 people living within a 4-mile radius.
The hotel’s troubles didn’t end with the economic slump. Over the years, the Cecil became notorious for stories of suicides, murders, and serial killers making it their temporary home, transforming the 19-story building into a dark legend. For almost 90 years, it earned its reputation as one of the creepiest places to stay in the United States, and for good reason.
10. The Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam
In 2013, 21-year-old Elisa Lam, a college student, was discovered dead and unclothed in a water tank on the rooftop of the Cecil Hotel. Her belongings were found nearby. The chilling discovery came after hotel guests complained about low water pressure. Although the coroner ruled Lam's death as an accidental drowning, the bizarre circumstances surrounding her final moments led many to believe that something darker was at play.
Lam had traveled alone from Vancouver to Los Angeles and vanished shortly after checking into the hotel. CCTV footage of Lam in the hotel elevator, which was later released by police, showed unsettling behavior. She seemed frantic as she pressed multiple floor buttons simultaneously, then peeked her head out of the elevator doors, seemingly searching for something. She later huddled in the corner of the elevator and appeared to be conversing with someone out of view. After the doors malfunctioned, she exited the elevator and was never seen again. Speculation about her death includes theories of a possible killer pursuing her or a manic episode due to her bipolar disorder.
9. Elizabeth “The Black Dahlia” Short
In 1947, a mother and her young child discovered the dismembered body of 22-year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Short in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles. The condition of Short’s body was so gruesome that it was initially mistaken for a mannequin. She had been severed at the waist, and her face was grotesquely mutilated into a 'Glasgow smile' — a cut running from her mouth to her ears. Her body had been meticulously washed, drained of blood, and posed with her hands over her head and legs spread. Despite the brutal mutilation, no blood was found at the scene, and the killer was never identified.
It is believed that Elizabeth Short was spotted at the Cecil Hotel shortly before her tragic murder. Aspiring for stardom in Hollywood, she was well-known for visiting bars where she would meet producers in hopes of landing a movie role. Unfortunately, she became infamous for far darker and more sinister reasons.
8. Richard ‘The Night Stalker’ Ramirez
Richard 'The Night Stalker' Ramirez gained his notorious moniker after terrorizing the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco from 1984 to 1985, hunting for unsuspecting victims to slaughter. A self-proclaimed Satanist, Ramirez used a variety of weapons, including handguns, knives, a machete, a tire iron, and a hammer, to commit his grisly murders. His brutal crimes were so heinous that the judge remarked on the 'cruelty, callousness, and viciousness beyond any human understanding.'
During his reign of terror, Ramirez is reported to have frequently stayed at the Cecil Hotel. With rooms priced at just $14 a night, and the surrounding area being a well-known hotspot for drug addicts, his late-night prowling went largely unnoticed. Ramirez died on death row at San Quentin Prison at the age of 53 in 2013.
7. Jack Unterweger
Jack Unterweger, an Austrian serial killer and journalist, was a guest at the Cecil Hotel in the early 1990s. Between 1990 and 1992, Unterweger brutally murdered 11 prostitutes in Vienna, Prague, and Los Angeles, typically by strangling them with their own lingerie. Although his first murder occurred in 1974, he was released after being deemed 'resocialized' as a prisoner. During his time at the Cecil Hotel, Unterweger worked for an Austrian magazine, covering crime stories in LA. He leveraged his role as a journalist to obtain rides with the LAPD and to explore areas that would later become the sites of his own crimes.
The distinctive method Unterweger used to strangle his victims tied him to three murders in Los Angeles, making him a prime suspect. He was eventually apprehended in Miami. In 1994, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in Austria. However, on the night of his sentencing, Unterweger hanged himself in his cell, using the same knot he had used on his victims.
6. Pigeon Goldie
The unsolved murder of “Pigeon Goldie” Osgood continues to cast a dark shadow over the Cecil Hotel. Pigeon Goldie, a retired telephone operator, was a familiar face around the hotel, often seen caring for and feeding the local pigeons in nearby Pershing Square. In 1964, she was discovered dead in her room at the hotel—having been assaulted, stabbed, and strangled. Her Los Angeles Dodgers cap and a paper bag filled with birdseed were found in the ransacked room.
A suspect, 29-year-old Jacques B. Ehlinger, was arrested after he was seen walking through Pershing Square wearing bloodstained clothes. He was initially charged with the murder, but later had his name cleared. This case became the last widely publicized death at the hotel until Elisa Lam's body was found in 2013.
5. George Gianinni
One of the most unusual deaths at the Cecil Hotel occurred in 1962 when 65-year-old George Gianinni became an unintended victim. Pauline Otton, 27, had been arguing with her estranged husband in a room on the hotel’s ninth floor. After he left, she wrote a suicide note and jumped from the window, falling to the pavement below. Tragically, Gianinni was walking right beneath her, and she landed on him, killing both instantly.
When the police arrived at the scene, they initially thought it was a case of double suicide. However, Gianinni's hands were still in his pockets, which was inconsistent with the fall from a nine-story height. After further investigation, it was concluded that Otton's suicide had resulted in an accidental death for Gianinni.
4. Baby out the Window
In a heartbreaking incident in 1944, one of the youngest victims at the Cecil Hotel lost their life. Dorothy Jean Purcell, only 19, was a guest at the hotel when she threw her newborn son from a window. Purcell, unaware of her pregnancy, woke up in the middle of the night with severe stomach pains while lying next to her partner, 38-year-old shoe salesman Ben Levine. Trying not to disturb him, she went to the bathroom and unexpectedly delivered the baby on her own.
Believing the baby to be dead, Purcell disposed of the body by throwing it from a great height. The lifeless infant was later discovered on a nearby roof. Purcell was arrested, but after a psychiatric evaluation revealed she was 'mentally confused,' she was ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity.
3. Paranormal Activity
A chilling event at the Cecil Hotel occurred in 2014, when a young photographer from California captured what appeared to be a ghostly figure on camera. The image shows a transparent silhouette standing on the ledge outside a fourth-floor window. The eerie photo quickly gained attention from media outlets, linking the possible apparition to the hotel’s dark history. The photographer recalled, 'When I looked at that window, it just looked kind of creepy to me, and then I showed my friend, and he kind of freaked out. It just creeps me out still.' He further admitted that the photo had been giving him restless nights ever since.
The hotel has long been regarded as one of the most haunted locations in Los Angeles, attracting ghost hunters and those drawn to the macabre throughout the year. Many of the paranormal occurrences are believed to be connected to the numerous suicides that have occurred within the Cecil’s walls, as the restless spirits seem unable to find peace.
2. High-Profile Arrests
In 1976, 26-year-old Jeffrey Thomas Paley purchased a rifle, ascended to the rooftop of the Cecil Hotel, and fired 15 rounds into the street below. Shortly after the shots rang out, Paley was arrested. Fortunately, no one was hurt by the gunfire. Following his arrest, the former mental health patient stated that he never intended to harm anyone; he simply wanted to demonstrate how easily someone—even with mental health issues—could purchase a firearm.
This wasn’t the first time police had been called to the Cecil Hotel due to a potential killer. In 1988, 28-year-old salesman Robert Sullivan was taken into custody after the body of 32-year-old nurse Teri Francis Craig was discovered in the home they had shared for seven years. Sullivan was just another name added to the long list of cold-blooded killers who had checked in at the hotel.
1. Suicides in the 1930s
In 1931, 46-year-old guest W.K. Norton was found lifeless in his room after swallowing poison capsules. Though this was the first suicide at the Cecil, it certainly wouldn't be the last during the decade. The next year, 25-year-old Benjamin Dodich was discovered by a maid, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In 1934, former Army Medical Corps sergeant Louis D. Borden was found with his throat slit, having written several suicide notes before his passing.
In 1937, Grace E. Magro's body was found entangled in telephone wires after she leaped from a ninth-floor window. A year later, 35-year-old US Marine Roy Thompson was found on the skylight of a nearby building, having also jumped from his hotel room. In 1939, 39-year-old Navy officer Erwin C. Neblett was found dead after poisoning himself.
These tragic suicides were part of a broader wave during the Great Depression. Throughout the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Americans took their own lives, pushing the suicide rate to an all-time high—more than 150 per one million people each year in 1937 and 1938.
