Case File: Haunted Hotel Rooms

The modern hotel, with its cable television, room service, and swimming pool is a place of enjoyment during the summer travel season. Many of you will spend some time soon in a hotel and while I wish you the best during your stay I’d like to share some of the interesting acts of human desperation and subsequent after effects which occured in a couple hotels that I’ve investigated. You might be sharing your room with another hotel guest, one who saw fit to never leave.

During this season of travel and vacation I am reminded of a trio of investigations I have done involving everyone’s home away from home, hotels and motels. Places of lodging, far from one’s home town, have always held a certain anonymity for people. A rented place of privacy where your average individual would seem to feel more free and willingly act in a way they never would at home. I’ve worked in a few hotels and you’d be amazed at the overwhelming evidence of bizarre sexual acts and other deviant behaviors I’ve found after every sort of “normal” person has checked out. That isn’t what my column is about though and (hopefully) not the sort of thing you want to hear about. I’ve compiled here for your continuing education three small cases of hotel rooms I’ve come across that have a more lasting occupancy. Unlike any of my previous cases which have been published here, none of the locations have been changed, should your travels this summer bring you to seek lodging in any of these three locales you may want to avoid or request certain rooms at your discretion.

“21 Q”
Southgate Towers – Room 21 Q; New York City, NY

HISTORY:

In May 1994 a young woman was working as a maid in the Southgate Towers Hotel. One of the other employees, a maintenance man in his 30′s had been sleeping on the job, using vacant rooms to take long naps. The young maid discovered his laziness by walking in on the man during a nap on three separate occasions; she reported his activities to the management and the maintenance man was fired. A week later he returned to the hotel looking for the maid and found her cleaning room 21 Q. He assaulted her and dragged her to the bathroom where he threw her into the bathtub and slit her throat from ear to ear. The woman’s body was found at the end of that day’s shift, the bathtub deep with blood (the maintenance man having plugged the drain) when the head housekeeper noted that woman hadn’t come down to the basement to clock out. The maintenance man was immediately suspect and arrested the day afterward, confessing to the murder.

ACTIVITIES:

After the police investigation has been completed and the room cleaned it was returned to service and again lodged guests. Guests began reporting hearing noises in the room including what sounded like distant screaming, loud bangs and thuds on the walls, and a woman’s crying. An old couple who had checked out the room requested a room change after experiencing cold spots in the shower and bathroom. Maids assigned to clean the room often reported terrible feelings of dread along with the same sounds reported by guests. Room 21 Q has since been locked up and was not being rented out at the time of my visit in the summer of 2000. Despite no guests having stayed in the room in some years and no keys to the room existing other than the manager’s master key, when I investigated the shower walls were wet with a warm condensation. I observed nothing else during the short time I was there. Since then new management has taken over the hotel and I am unsure if the room is rented again or not.

“ROOM 138″
Comfort Inn – Room 138; Bayonet Point, Fla

HISTORY:

In 1998 a woman in her late 60′s was evicted from the retirement home where she had been staying for some years. Her daughter had no room for her to stay so the old woman checked into room 138. Being depressed over her situation the woman visited an adjoining liquor store and purchased a gallon of cheap Vodka and returned to her room, consuming the entire bottle. While on the phone with her daughter the woman peeled the hard plastic face plate from the phone and used it to saw through her wrists and throat eventually bleeding out and dying between the two beds. Her body was found soon thereafter by management alerted to her state of mind by the woman’s daughter.

Room 138 is also a frequent favorite of drug dealers and prostitutes. It is built beneath a stairwell and is never hit by direct sunlight, always being dim inside. The stairwell also conceals the door and window to the room so that the room cannot be observed from the outside very well.

ACTIVITIES:

Maids cleaning the room have reported the room to be very cold despite Florida’s climate causing goosebumps on anyone who enters. Another maid reports having the hair on her arms and head raise up whenever in the room, this peculiar occurrence having been witnessed by myself and others. Room 138 is notorious for guests checking in and soon thereafter requesting another room or simply checking out and leaving the motel. When the room is empty, knocking and scratching sounds are reported emanating from it by guests in adjoining rooms. Despite having been completely stripped and renovated the smell of blood is still present and noticeable to many.
“ROOM 605″
Holiday Inn – Room 605; Truman Sports Complex, MO

HISTORY:

Suicide seems a common thread in the haunted rooms I’ve investigated. In the Fall of 2001 a young African American man who’s wife was leaving him was kicked out of his home and checked into room 605 at this Holiday Inn. He wasted no time, having apparently planned his act of self annihilation, because as soon as he got his room key from the desk this individual went up to the room, locked the door and laid down on the bed using a small pocket knife to slit his wrists. He was found still on the bed, now soaked through with blood, the next morning when the maid came to clean the room.

ACTIVITIES:

Subsequent guests in room 605 report being touched by an unseen hand while laying down to sleep, small unidentified sounds from beneath the bed, and cold spots that seem centered over the bed. One of the more dramatic reports is from a young woman who had the covers ripped up off of her in the middle of the night and flung towards the door, landing in a heap beneath it.

I worked at this hotel during the summer 2 years after the suicide and often encountered another of the hotel’s permanent guests. There is a spirit who appears as an old man which is seen by many of the employees. It seems to center on the basement level of the tower portion of the hotel where housekeeping and laundry are located as well as the pool. Maids often see or hear this spirit in the stairwell, always a floor above or below them, heading up and down the stairs. Anyone working the night shift in the laundry room is likely to have faucets and washing machines turned on seemingly by themselves and stacks of towels and sheets relocated from the folding tables to the center of the floor. A loud tapping can be heard along the walls along with muffled voices throughout the housekeeping area. On two occasions I turned from the folding tables to catch a glimpse of a figure stepping around the corner into an enclave where the sink and mops are located, then investigating and finding no one there. There is no other exit from the enclave. Two other night shift houseman have come into the laundry room to see a old grey-haired man standing amid the folding tables and racks. When questioned as to what he is doing there (thinking at first it is a guest looking for extra towels as often happens) the old man simply vanishes in a blink. A look into the history of the hotel revealed nothing to suggest the origins of this haunting.

. . .

During your summer, while traveling the highways and seeking a respite from your daily lives, keep in mind the multitude of beings that have come before you to the roadside lodgings you may stop in. If you find yourself at one of the above establishments I only ask you have discretion. Most business owners and employees would rather not think about those guests who never checked out so do your best not to remind them. Though it doesn’t hurt to ask of the desk clerk who assists you if the hotel you stay at has guests of another nature, you may be surprised. Enjoy your stay and if you’re feeling adventurous you may request a room with more than a view.

Related posts:

1. Case #3: Donut Shop Ghost
2. Published Case #1: A Demon’s Passing Interest
3. Case #4: The Witch’s Circle
4. Case #2: Spectral Garden