Happy Halloween travelers! Hope you get many treats on this fine day. Todays terrifying scary story comes from my home town of Los Angeles. The scariest part is it’s all true. It’s the story of the Cecil Hotel.

Cecil Hotel stands in Downtown LA to this day. However, with all the bad press and media coverage they’ve changed their name to Stay on Main. Although, the old painted sign can still be seen on the side of the building.

The exterior of the building is an old, almost ugly, bland mid-rise, but the lobby is beautiful and grand. The beautiful lobby hides the gruesome history of this place with its grand art deco chandeliers and marble floors.

Some say this hotel is possessed or haunted. Others use this place as inspiration for the artistic endeavors. You might already be aware but this hotel served as inspiration for American Horror Story: Hotel. This was the hotel they based it on. Although, I’ve never seen that season, I can tell you lots of crazy things happened inside these walls.

Beyond the Walls of Cecil Hotel

Lets start with current events. These days Cecil Hotel is more of a budget friendly, almost hostel-like facility. It has shared restrooms and private hotel rooms. A Portion of the hotel is a permanent residence as well. Although, many people who stay here report hearing strange noises, this hotel can’t seem to get enough of the spotlight.

In early 2013 the mysterious disappearance of Elisa Lam, a Canadian citizen who lived in Vancouver, put this hotel back in the news. Lam was backpacking across California, starting in San Diego and making a stop in LA before heading to Northern California. She stopped at the Cecil hotel when she later disappeared. Elisa Lams body was later found in the property’s water tank on the roof when people started complaining about the bad taste in the water.

The biggest mystery is how she might have gotten into the water tank. Lets start with some basics. The water tank is a gigantic tank on top of the hotel. It towers over the building and is probably about 30 feet tall. There is no way to get on top of it without using a ladder. But lets say she had a ladder. The lid of the tank is an industrial, massive lid that you can’t open with one hand. You might need tools to open it. If you don’t need tools, you might need more than one person to help you with it. If so, who helped her? Was it a group of people? Was it a city employee with proper tools and a ladder? No one knows.

Other factors bring about more questions. Roof access sounds the alarm, which means she somehow bypassed the alarm. Or did she find another way?

Upon further investigation it looks like there may have been a small opening where she could climb, with a ladder and eventually jump in. Although when police found her body, she was found naked. Her clothes, nearby, on the roof. But security personnel were too big to fit through this small opening.

One of the creepiest findings is the security video footage of Elisa Lam right before she disappeared. I’ve included a part of it on a YouTube video I made of downtown LA. I’ll link it below.

This video shows her frantically pushing buttons in the elevator before she decides to get out and leave. Was she being followed?

The case of Elisa Lam has so many weird factors that bring up more questions than answers. I can go on and on, but I’ll stop here.

Her medical history suggests she was bipolar but that just adds to the story and doesn’t answer any questions. So what happened to Elisa Lam?

The death of Elisa Lam has so many weird coincidences and odd curveballs, you can write forever trying to explain them and lay them out. However, I found one article that does it justice. The article is very long but it tries to simply explain facts without leading to any conclusions. The writer does a fantastic job at citing sources and talking to appropriate people who worked on the case. He ultimately tries to give a proper conclusion of what really might have happened to Elisa Lam. Although we may never know, I felt a certain type of closure upon reading it. I’ll link to the article here: https://medium.com/matter/haunted-947d642a6d59

Cecil Hotel in the 80s

Have you ever heard of The Nightstalker? He is one of the infamous serial killers of our time. His real name was Richard Ramirez. His victims were all women. Can you guess where he lived during his killings? The Cecil Hotel!

Not only was this serial killer staying at this hotel but years after he was caught and taken to jail another guy by the name of Jack Unterwager checked in and decided to spend some time here as well. It turns out Jack Unterwager was a copycat serial killer with an affinity for The Nightstalker. He also had a thing for killing prostitutes.

Other Weird Mysteries and Deaths

The Cecil Hotel has seen as many as 16 deaths throughout the century. Many were suicides. Some homicides. You’ll find reports of babies thrown out of hotel windows, documented and reported by police. Other cases involved jumpers throwing themselves off the top floor only to land on pedestrians walking by. The history of the Cecil Hotel is a dark and mysterious one.

Stay on Main Hotel

The hotel recently tried to rebrand itself. Due to its tragic history, the hotel changed their main sign and placed Stay on Main where Cecil Hotel would be.

The last occurrence happened in 2015 where they found the body of a man, dead on the hotels doorsteps. Much is unknown about the case but the fact that it was in front of Cecil Hotel makes it seem all too coincidental.

The hotel lobby is beautiful, although, beware if they see you walk in with a camera you’re in for a rude awakening. Security will try to intimidate you and make you leave. There is nothing wrong with walking into a hotel. Perhaps they’re trying to keep their bad history under wraps.

Today the Cecil hotel has links to so many popular cases, including one that almost resembles

the death of Elisa Lam case.

Like Elisa Lam, Elizabeth Short hopped on a train from San Diego and landed in Los Angeles… In pursuit of a Hollywood career at an early age of twenty-two, she landed on the doorsteps of ‘the boulevard of broken dreams.’ Traveling alone as well, Elizabeth Short disappeared soon after arriving. Some people say they last spotted her in the Cecil Hotel.  Although, others say she was seen at a bar nearby. The police later found the gruesome murder scene. Her mouth, slashed open and her body cut in half. The media called her The Black Dahlia.

I’ve obviously left out a bunch of things. I didn’t piece it all together for you. However, you can write so much about all cases.

The Cecil Hotel’s wicked history goes on and on. With so many unanswered questions and unforeseen tragedy, it’s no wonder American Horror Story made it into a season long show.

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