THE HOTEL OF HORRORS

MURDERS AND STRANGE DISAPPEARANCES HAVE ALL HAPPENED WITHIN THE WALLS OF THE CECIL HOTEL

- Emma Levett

It’s a hotel with a dark past. Over the years the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles has harboured murderers and rapists. It’s been the scene of suicides and grisly killings, and holds the secrets to numerous strange and mysterious accidents.

The hotel’s terrifying history has led some to believe it’s inhabited by evil, and others, more practically, to reason that its position in one of the most dangerous corners of the United States means crime is an inevitability.

Two of the hotel’s most infamous residents include Richard Ramirez, known as the Night Stalker, and the Austrian serial killer, Jack Unterweger.

Ramirez lived on the hotel’s 14th floor, while he terrorised surrounding neighbourhoods in the mid-1980s.

Californians were terrified as the months rolled on and Ramirez, who often broke into his victims’ homes while they were sleeping, carried out his crime spree. He raped, murdered, and terrorised his prey with guns, knives and machetes.

Nobody was immune. His first victim was a 9-year-old girl, who he raped and beat before stabbing her to death. From there he targeted men and women. Age and race didn’t matter to the killer, and sometimes he attacked several people in one night.

Ramirez was only identified in August 1985 after a shocking 13 murders.