LA’s Most Sinister Hotel Has Hosted Serial Killer and a Century of Mysterious Deaths

The Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, CA

Most hotels in Los Angeles try to hide their dark past. Not the Cecil Hotel.

Since 1927, this budget spot in downtown LA has seen it all: serial killers as guests, weird deaths in its water tanks, and ghost stories that even non-believers find hard to ignore.

Here’s are some of the creepy stories behind LA’s most haunted hotel.

The First Few Tragedies at the Cecil Hotel

The Cecil’s dark path began just weeks after opening when 52-year-old Percy Cook shot himself after trying and failing to fix his marriage. But Cook wasn’t the only early tragic case.

Before him, a woman named Dorothy Roberson nearly died after taking pills and walking the halls for three days after her husband passed away. The trend kept going when W.K. Norton died in 1931 after taking poison pills in his room.

Then in 1937, Grace Magro fell from a ninth-floor window and got caught in phone wires on her way down.

It Was Home to a Serial Killer for a While

The mid-1980s brought an even darker chapter when killer Richard Ramirez (known as the “Night Stalker”) called the Cecil home while he was on his murder spree.

He paid just $14 a week for his room and would come back after his kills, throw his bloody clothes in the trash, and walk naked to his room—without anyone giving him a second look.

He picked the Cecil because it was cheap, close to the bus station, and nobody asked why he came home with blood on him.

Ramirez killed more than a dozen people before locals caught him on the street in 1985. He got 13 death sentences but died of cancer in 2013.

Another Serial Stayed at the Cecil

Lightning struck twice when another killer, Jack Unterweger from Austria, stayed at the Cecil in 1991.

He wasn’t there by chance—he picked the hotel to be like Ramirez, who he looked up to.

During his five-week stay, Unterweger killed three women, bringing them to his room before moving their bodies.

What makes it worse is that he was working as a writer for an Austrian magazine, writing about crime and even walking with police on patrol, which is how he chose who to kill.

After getting caught and sent back to Austria, he couldn’t face his crimes and took his own life in jail.

Beloved Bird Lady Met A Tragic End

The case of “Pigeon Goldie” Osgood shows how even kind souls weren’t safe at the Cecil. This friendly retired phone worker, known for feeding birds in Pershing Square, was found dead in her room in 1964.

She had assaulted, with her room torn apart. Police found her Los Angeles Dodgers cap and bag of birdseed among the mess. A man named Jacques Ehlinger was spotted nearby with bloody clothes but was later cleared of any crime.

Goldie had lived at the Cecil for six years before her murder, which has never been solved after all these years.

Black Dahlia Drank At The Hotel Bar Before Her Murder

You might have heard of Elizabeth Short, the “Black Dahlia,” who likely spent time at the Cecil just before her awful 1947 murder.

Some say she was seen at the Cecil’s bar, while others think she was at the nearby Biltmore Hotel.

She was found not far from the hotel with her mouth lacerated and her body nearly halved. Her case, one of LA’s most shocking crimes, has never been solved.

The Tragic Case of an Infant

The Cecil saw one of its most tragic events in 1944 when 19-year-old Dorothy Jean Purcell was staying with her much older boyfriend Ben Levine, 38.

She woke up with bad stomach pains and, not wanting to wake Levine, went to the bathroom where—to her shock—she gave birth to a baby boy.

She had no idea she was even pregnant. Thinking the baby was stillborn, she threw him out the window where he landed on a nearby roof. The tiny body was found later, and during her trial, doctors proved the baby had been alive when born.

The courts found her not guilty due to mental health issues.

Canadian Student’s Body Was Found In The Water Tank

The Cecil made news again in 2013 when 21-year-old Canadian student Elisa Lam went missing during her stay.

She was last seen on January 31, acting strangely in the hotel elevator as caught on weird security video.

Weeks went by until guests started to say the water tasted odd. When workers checked, they found her naked body in a water tank on the roof.

Many people still wonder how she got into the locked tank and onto the roof without setting off any alarms.

Her death was ruled an accident, but the case still gets people talking and trying to solve the mystery all these years later.

Twelve People Jumped From The Upper Floors

The Cecil earned its grim name “The Suicide” for good reason.

Of the 16 known deaths, about 12 were people who took their own lives, many by jumping from high up. Helen Gurnee (1954), Julia Moore (1962), and Pauline Otton (1962) all jumped from upper windows to their deaths.

There was even a woman who was never named who jumped or fell from the 12th floor in 1975. By the 1940s and 50s, deaths at the Cecil were so common that locals barely noticed anymore.

The Cecil Hotel Used to Be Beautiful

When it first opened in 1924, the Cecil looked nothing like the scary place it would become. It had lovely marble, stained glass, and palm trees, meant to be a nice spot for business people and tourists to stay.

Named after a famous London hotel, the Cecil had 700 rooms across three towers. Half the rooms had their own bathtubs, and the walnut dressers would stretch half a mile if you put them in a line.

Sadly, the Great Depression hit just two years later, and the hotel never got back on its feet.

Guests Have Taken Photos Of Shapes Leaving Windows

If you like ghost stories, the Cecil has plenty. Many people who stayed there claim they’ve seen ghosts, shadows, and weird things moving around.

Some say they’ve even taken photos of spooky shapes leaving through the upper windows.

The hotel’s dark past has made many wonder if it’s cursed or just a place where bad things happen. When you visit, you might feel its grand old bones but also get a chill down your spine.

Some guests say the building casts its shadow right across the street onto you when you’re nearby, almost like it’s watching.

It Continues to Have Major Issues

The Cecil tried to start fresh in 2011 by changing its name to “Stay on Main,” but they kept most of the old signs up.

In 2017, it was named a Historic-Cultural Monument and closed for repairs. Since late 2021, it’s been a home for 600 low-income people, but with tons of problems.

The 600-unit building has been up for sale since March 2024, and the folks living there now deal with broken lifts, mold, bugs, and leaks that make daily life hard.

The Cecil Hotel’s spooky history makes it one of LA’s most talked-about places. You can’t stay there as a guest anymore, but its scary story lives on as one of the city’s most hair-raising tales.