The Hotel Cecil
When this Art Deco-style hotel opened in downtown Los Angeles in 1927, it was considered quite posh. However, the Great Depression took its toll and the hotel fell into disrepair. Over time, it would become the stuff of nightmares. Serial killer Richard ‘the Night Stalker’ Ramirez stayed at the hotel in the ’80s, and Austrian killer Jack Unterweger booked a room in the hotel in 1991. During Unterweger’s stay in Los Angeles, during which he was on assignment as a journalist, he murdered three women.
In 2013, a young Canadian tourist named Elisa Lam checked into the hotel, but never checked out. Her body was found several days later on the roof, in one of the hotel’s four water tanks. Although her death was ruled an accidental drowning, it is still unclear how she ended up in the tank. These grim incidents, combined with several suicides and the unsolved murder of a woman in her room in 1964, have led many to believe that the hotel is haunted or home to some pernicious entity. The hotel is currently undergoing renovations, which may help it to shed its dark past.
Ramirez Richard Ramirez was accused of 14 counts of murder in the ‘Night Stalker’ serial killings | © Lennox Mclendon / AP / REX / Shutterstock
Subterranean lizard people
An urban legend has it that an advanced race known as the lizard people lived in catacombs beneath Los Angeles thousands of years ago. Geophysicist George Warren Shufelt began searching for said tunnels and the lizard people’s buried treasure in the 1930s, saying that he had learned of the legend himself from a Hopi Indian, Chief Green Leaf. Shufelt’s quest was documented by the Los Angeles Times, which reported that Shufelt claimed to have built an X-ray machine that showed him the network of tunnels. Regardless of the machine, Shufelt’s quest was ultimately a bust and the supposed catacombs faded into history. There are, however, tunnels beneath downtown LA, which were allegedly used during prohibition as speakeasies and through which alcohol was transported.
The Colorado Street Bridge
The Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena has loomed over the Arroyo Seco since 1912 but is perhaps better known by its unseemly nickname: Suicide Bridge. More than 150 people have leaped to their deaths from this bridge since 1919, particularly around the time of the Great Depression.
Unconfirmed legends include a worker who supposedly fell off the bridge during construction and is now entombed inside of it, his ghost beckoning others to join him in death. Another possible ghost, according to those who believe in them, is a young mother who flung her three-year-old daughter off the bridge before leaping to her own death. Miraculously, the child landed in a tree and survived, while her mother’s ghost is said to prowl the bridge searching for her.
Even in modern times, the bridge is steeped in tragedy. In 2008, a man murdered his ex-girlfriend and her mother before leaping off the bridge. In 2013, officials erected suicide prevention signs on the bridge, but that still hasn’t stopped some from ending their lives here.
The Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena is known as Suicide Bridge | © Angel di Bilio / Alamy Stock Photo
The Black Dahlia
In 1947, 22-year-old Elizabeth Short was found dead in Leimert Park. Her body had been cut in half with surgical precision, and her face had been slashed from ear to ear. Despite the efforts of local law enforcement at the time and the public’s undying fascination with the tragedy, Short’s killer was never caught. Additionally, the circumstances surrounding her murder are mired in rumor, thanks in part to sensationalized news reports. Reporters gave Short a more lurid identity, nicknaming her ‘the Black Dahlia.’ Some reports said she worked as an escort, although there is no evidence to support that claim. Short was also rumored to have been spotted drinking at the aforementioned Hotel Cecil the night before her death, yet these reports have not been corroborated.
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In 1947, 22-year-old Elizabeth Short was found dead in Leimert Park | © Historic Collection / Alamy Stock Photo
Numerous people have confessed to being the killer, yet none of these confessions have ever checked out. Former LAPD officer Steve Hodel wrote a book, The Black Dahlia Avenger, alleging that his father, Dr. George Hodel, murdered Short in his elegant home. That home, known as the Sowden House, was built by Frank Lloyd Wright’s son, Lloyd Wright, in 1926. Although Hodel was once considered a suspect in the case, it has never been proven that he was responsible. The truth of who committed this horrific crime may never be known.
Sowden House was built by Frank Lloyd Wright’s son, Lloyd Wright, in 1926 | © Danita Delimont / Alamy Stock Photo
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Publish date : 2019-12-24 03:00:00
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