Hello! Welcome back to another episode of Diagnosing a Killer. I'm Koelle and I'm Kenna.
I'm excited! I want to know who it is. Who it is? Or who it is?
Or where it is? What? That's such a time traveler thing to say.
Okay, buckle in folks. It's going to be a lengthy one. Today we're going to be talking about the Cecil Hotel in LA.
Oh my god, I definitely have heard of podcasts on this story.
The Cecil Hotel was originally built in 1924 by William H. Hanner, Charles L. Dix, and Robert H. Shops.
So it was built in the heart of downtown Los Angeles on May between 6th and 7th.
At the time it cost over $1 million to make, but today it will be the equivalent because I know you like exchange rates.
It would be $21 million today. So it was built with 700 rooms.
So 300 of them were rooms that were running at about $1.50. But these didn't have a bathroom inside of it.
So it's kind of like that hotel that we stayed at in New York. Like ours had a bathroom inside of it, but they have like those communal bathrooms in the hallways.
So those were running for $1.50. Then the next set of rooms, it was about $200 of them, and they went for $2 with one private toilet in the room.
And then of course another $200 would be $250 with a full bathroom.
Okay.
So the Cecil Hotel would open on December 20th of 1924 and would be advertised as a 14 story.
I thought this was interesting because on the flyer it says quote, absolutely fireproof, which I thought was really interesting.
So I'm wondering if it was like one of the first hotels that actually had like steel and concrete and stuff, you know what I mean?
Instead of it just being wood or something.
So the Cecil Hotel was actually built keeping in mind for like travelers and business people.
This is also around the time when the railroad work was a really big thing like industrialism.
So a lot of jobs were available in a lot of the major cities that were developing.
So a lot of people were traveling for work and whatnot.
So hotels around this time were popping up all over the place.
So you can imagine that this gave way for a lot of employment opportunities.
The hotel was absolutely gorgeous.
The lobby was made almost completely out of marble.
The windows were stained glass and there were like lush palm trees in like every corner and tons of alabaster statuaries everywhere.
So it was just really like luxurious hotel.
It was some fancy shit.
Sounds like the orgyle.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, just a few years later, the US would experience the biggest economic fallout of its history, which was the Great Depression.
It lasted from 1929 to 1939.
And just to give everyone an idea of how economically devastating this was, we're all sort of old enough to know,
or most of us are old enough to know, the Great Recession.
That was from 2008 to 2009.
We saw a decrease in the market value by 1% in that year, 08 to 09.
The Great Depression saw it drop of 15%.
Oh my gosh.
It gives you an idea of how absolutely devastating this was to our system.
So international trade was actually cut off by 50% and the US unemployment rate rose 23%.
Wow.
So on top of the financial fallout working against the Cecil Hotel, it was also placed next to Skid Row.
So these are some facts about Skid Row.
If nobody knows what that is or the history behind it.
Los Angeles was actually the end of the Transcontinental Railway line in 1876.
Many times displaced veterans and transient people would hop on the trains and get from state to state,
but oftentimes they would end their travels at the end of the line, which was LA.
And there were also many work opportunities at the time, like we talked about earlier.
However, it was really difficult to house such an influx of people.
A lot of the time, men would congregate in a specific area called Hobo Corner at the end of an area called Hell's Half Acre.
Some of them could afford hotel rooms, but most would just stay on the street and they would just wait for word of new work around the area.
Since a lot of these men were on the streets, they would choose to spend a lot of their time in and out of bars and other establishments that were open just to get out from the elements.
After about 30 years of this going on, communities started to somewhat thrive on their own.
There were people that started to become infamous within these communities like preachers, teachers, and they even began to govern themselves.
So it was like a small community.
Society means rules.
Yeah, of course.
So not everything was capiche, though.
Not capiche.
Capiche.
Not everything was all good, though.
Men were often arrested for various things like public drunkenness and decency or violence.
Fights would break out.
They would be arrested and then released back onto the streets where they came from, which was around Skid Row area.
Other than this, there was nothing really done to correct the overpopulation issue.
I think it's because the city knew that they were being hired for work and usually city work.
Either way, it was like we have to deal with these people because they're also building our stuff.
They were really thought of as cheap labor.
So in the early 1900s, street lights had begun to be installed and a lot of petitions from local residents were to essentially push the boundary of where these homeless people or transient people could be.
So essentially, if there was any street lights, essentially you couldn't be around that area because it was a nice enough area.
So you're not allowed to see in the dark?
I guess not.
This is our light.
So by the 1920s, the line between the transient community and the rest of LA rusted right on Skid Row.
So if you look at Skid Row, it's actually like a rhombus kind of.
So it's not actually like when you're on Skid Row, it's like when you're in Skid Row.
So the Cecil actually sits on the border of Skid Row.
So let's fast forward again during the Great Depression.
So this went back through the history of Skid Row.
Now we're going back to the Great Depression.
Because of the state of everything in the whole country was in dire straits, hotels in the local area were actually forced to open their doors to provide low income options for people to be housed.
Makes sense.
So when Skid Row was, because Skid Row is so close, the hotel's clientele changed dramatically within just a few years of it being open.
So drugs, sex workers and violence took a hold of the hotel very quickly.
And it began to gain like a seedy reputation.
So the Cecil Hotel had all of the makings for this negativity and almost like in the word of Zach Bagan sits up portal to hell.
So I want to go ahead and give a very broad content warning.
We're going to be talking about all throughout this episode.
We're going to be talking about mostly self-harms, suicide, things like that.
So if anybody is sensitive to those kinds of things, I was thinking about putting a timestamp on it.
But let's be honest, it's pretty much going to be the entire podcast.
So again, if somebody is sensitive to that, or at any time you just want to fast forward, I'm going to be going through quickly, be going through the years that were to follow after the Great Depression and all that with the Cecil Hotel.
So we're going to talk about the history of the Cecil, as it pertains to people.
The first known recorded death at the Cecil Hotel was a 52 year old man.
His name was Percy Ormond Cook.
Percy had been going through marital issues and his wife had left with her child a few months before.
January 22nd, 1927, Percy took his own life by a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.
The man left a note detailing that he, in an attempt to buy happiness, had spent nearly $40,000.
Yeah, could you imagine how much money he had in the 20s?
Do the math.
I just looked up the conversion rate for that, it's $682,000.
Oh my gosh.
That's ridiculous.
So much money and this is just a few months.
So his wife and his child had left.
He was a successful real estate agent and he was originally from Rhode Island.
But I guess, I don't know what marital problems they had, but wife and baby left and in an effort to buy happiness, he spent that much money in just a few months.
She's the weasel.
I've never even seen that much money.
I've never even seen 40,000.
Percy was transported to the hospital where he later succumbed to his injuries.
How he ended up at the Cecil is kind of unknown.
Like I said, he had paperwork from Rhode Island, so they knew he was from Rhode Island.
But maybe he just wanted to get as far away from the situation as possible, because he was in Rhode Island and this is LA.
Another few years later, a man checked into a hotel room by the name of James Willis, hailing from Chicago.
This man would stay just one week before being found dead in his hotel room by a maid on November 19th, 1931.
Mystery surrounds his death, as his name was in fact not James Willis, but 46-year-old W.K. Norton.
And it seemed that he had poisoned himself as poison capsules were found in his...capsules.
Poison capsules were found in his vest pocket.
This is unusual given that it's a male individual and it statistically less likely that a man would poison himself, right?
So, that was interesting.
Sometime in September of 1934, a 25-year-old man named Benjamin Dodditch checked into the Cecil.
Just a few short hours after checking in, Benjamin shot himself in his hotel room.
He was found by a maid after investigating where the gunfire had come from.
Benjamin did not leave a note.
Just a few hours.
Like, he checked in with the intent of doing that.
Yeah.
Oh, I see.
You know what I mean?
I thought it was like, the hotel made him.
Maybe.
That's kind of what we're talking about.
Hey, y'all, it's Halloween, okay?
On July 26, 1937, former Army Medical Corps officer Sergeant Louise D. Borden checked into the Cecil.
The sergeant had been in poor health for some time and he had decided that he did not want to suffer any longer.
Sergeant Borden was found in his hotel room with a box of razors next to his body.
He had slit his own throat in an effort to make it a quick death to which it was.
There were tons of fair well-known notes thrown about the hotel room, but most notably one that stated, quote,
Ms. Edna Hassener of PO Box 664, Edmunds, Washington, to be my sole beneficiary of whatever little I leave, end quote.
I just can't get past the fact that he slit his own throat. That is brutal.
That's brutal.
How would your, like, I feel like your body wouldn't allow you to do that.
Don't really have a box of razors.
Like, multiple choices.
How many times are you going to do it?
I don't know.
It's very, very brutal.
In March of 1938, Grace E. Margo, age 25, would fall nine stories to her death.
Her body being tangled up in phone lines on her way down.
It is unclear whether this was intentional or an accident at that point.
They don't know.
In January of 1939, Roy Thomas, a 35-year-old Marine firefighter, jumped from the 14th floor, landing on a nearby building.
He did not leave a note or a reason as to why he decided to commit suicide.
His family was in Port Arthur, Texas, and it was, the family was notified on the next day.
Damn.
On May 27, 1939, Edwin Neblett checked into the Cecil Hotel.
Three days later, he was found in his room after ingesting poison capsules.
Like, where are they getting these poison capsules from, huh?
So now it's like multiple deaths that have been similar.
There's now two gunshots to the inflicted, self-inflicted.
There is now two people that have jumped to their deaths, and now there's been two poisonings.
What the hell?
He was a Navy man, Edwin was.
He was a Navy man who had served on the USS Wright.
One note was addressed to Satin Island, New York.
He was 34 years old.
See, what's really interesting too is that a lot of people are like from Chicago, or like,
New York, not from LA.
In January of 1940, a woman checked into the hotel underneath the name Evelyn Brent.
A few days later, on January 10th, the woman was found after ingesting poison.
Later identified as Dorothy Seeger, she was a schoolteacher.
She would not recover from the poisoning and pass on the 12th.
How come all these people have aliases too?
That's strange to me too.
They're checking in under different names.
And obviously they're not the only people checking in.
There's been people in and out of the hotel this entire time that don't have this issue.
They're not coming into this, you know, suicide thing.
It's not like every person that walks through the door is doing this.
But it's also very interesting.
Do you think it's similar to that, like, that forest in Japan where, like, people go to kill themselves?
Like, do you think it's like a...
becoming one of those things where people are like, okay, if you want to kill yourself, you go to the Cecil?
Yeah, and I think also with the name change thing, it's probably because they didn't want to shame their family.
So, like, if it was written in the paper, it would be written in the paper as this person.
That makes sense.
They're registered under that.
And suicide was not something you did, you know.
It's not as...
It was shameful.
Talked about as it is today.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, there was no awareness about it.
And, you know, not only that, but it goes against God and the Bible and all this stuff.
And, like, that could be a shameful thing for a family to experience.
That makes sense.
I guess with the name change.
Dorothy Jean Purcell was 19 years old when she checked into the hotel with her boyfriend, Ben Levin.
Ben was a hardworking man.
He was a shoe salesman.
So hardworking.
I don't know.
He could have gone door to door.
But he worked a lot of hours.
One evening when the couple was sleeping, Dorothy awoke with painful stomach cramps.
Riding in pain, she didn't want to wake up her boyfriend.
So she went to the shared bathrooms in the hallway.
There, Dorothy noticed that she was bleeding and, on the other hand, she was pregnant.
So there in the showers, she gave birth to a baby boy.
Dorothy would later testify that she believed that the child was deceased at the time of birth.
Although an Emmy would testify for the prosecution, stating that the baby was in fact alive when Dorothy decided to do what she did next.
I think I know what happens.
She found a window from the 13th floor.
Dorothy would throw her newborn from the window to its death.
Not what I thought was gonna happen.
Landing on a nearby roof.
Oh my god.
For some reason, I thought that she put it in one of the walls or something.
What?
Maybe that was a movie.
She hid it in the pillowcase.
That's terrible.
Yeah, isn't that awful?
Oh my gosh.
So how heinous.
Dorothy and I, kind of, testified that they believed that Dorothy was dealing with some kind of postpartum psychosis.
And she would be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Where was the boyfriend?
Asleep.
She didn't want to wake up her boyfriend.
That's why she was like, oh, he's a hard-working guy.
I don't know, maybe he got mad at her in the past for waking him up.
She had a baby in the bathtub and then proceeded to throw it out the window all the while he was asleep.
In the showers.
In the showers, but yeah.
Oh, you're right, because they didn't have the bathroom in the room.
That makes sense.
Okay, I was like, what?
Yeah, she didn't want to wake him up, so she was like, and she was writhing in pain, so
she was like, maybe a hot shower or something.
She noticed that she was bleeding and then she gave birth to a baby in the hallway bathroom.
That is so weird.
Like, that's just an odd story.
That's awful.
Isn't that terrible?
She was just like, oh no.
Oh my gosh.
Like, can't have this.
But like, that's what I'm saying.
Like, that's why I think the psychiatrist found her to be insane at the time of the event.
Because, like, why wouldn't you go to your boyfriend and be like, I didn't have a baby.
Why wouldn't you just leave the baby in the bathroom someone else could have found him?
It's true.
No, she threw that baby out of a window.
That is so sick.
In November, 1947, a man by the name of Robert Smith jumped to his death from the seventh floor.
He was 35 years old.
Helen Gurney checked into the hotel around the third week of October in 1954.
But by the 22nd, she would throw herself from the seventh-story hotel room, landing on the Cecil Hotel's marquee sign.
She had registered under the name Margaret Brown, but police later identified her as Helen Gurney by the items that they found in her purse.
One bystander was actually taken to the hospital, not because he was injured, but the man was so shocked by what he saw he needed psychiatric evaluations.
I don't fucking blame him.
It's incredible.
I can't even imagine being in that situation, like being next to someone, like when that happens around you.
But I've heard it is...
It's traumatizing.
It's frightening.
That's horrible.
Yeah, this was really awful because a lot of people had began to gather outside.
They said that there was up to like 100-150 people that were watching because they had to bring in a fire truck to get her off.
So she was just out there.
Oh my god, that's so sick.
It's heartbreaking.
So I've noticed it's interesting that the people that have been jumping to their deaths have all been on different floors.
It seems like there's only been two off of the seventh floor, but every other one are different.
So if this is some sort of like, whatever, it's not really like located in one spot.
It's always on the 13th floor or the fourth floor or whatever.
The Cecil has no MO other than the poisoning and the jumping.
Well then we have shootings and throat splitting as well, so that's not the same.
Julia Francis Moore was a woman who traveled from St. Louis to LA for unknown reasons.
On February 11th, 1962, she left from the eighth floor and landed on the second floor roof.
She had 59 cents in her purse, but a bank book suggested that she had close to $2,000 in her bank.
So maybe not financial issues.
Yeah.
She left no note and the police gave this information to the press hoping that the woman's relatives would eventually reach out to find her.
No follow-up on whether or not the family was ever actually located.
Wow.
October 12th of 1962, Pauline Aten was staying at the Cecil when her estranged husband came to meet her in the room to discuss the state of their relationship.
The conversation did not go well and when her husband Dewey left the room in anger, Pauline jumped from her ninth-story room.
However, she would accidentally claim the life of George Giannini when she fell on top of the man killing him instantly.
Killing the both of them instantly.
Not even kidding.
Oh my gosh.
Isn't that horrible?
Like what terrible luck.
Literally.
That is like...
I don't even know what to say.
That's wild.
The police believed that they both had left from the building but when it was discovered that George still had his shoes on which is indicative of somebody jumping,
it's usually they fly off or on impact they come off.
Oh.
And his hands were actually still tucked into his pockets.
That's when they knew that he was just an innocent bystander.
Oh my gosh, he was just a bystander?
Yeah.
I was thinking that you were trying to say that people always take their shoes off before they jump to their death.
Sounds like a why.
Superstition.
Yeah.
He was, it was literally wrong place, wrong time.
That's awful.
And like, how, like what are the odds of that?
That's like a person sized like spot that you have to stand in.
It was just like the perfect size.
It was like tiny.
Like I'm sure she was smaller than him.
Oh my gosh.
So Pigeon Goldie Osgood, her name was Goldie Osgood but she went by Pigeon.
She was known throughout the community as a very kind woman.
She gained her nickname because every day she would walk down six to get to Pershing Square and feed the birds.
Notably wearing her favorite baseball hat, which was a daughter's hat.
The 65 year old woman had lived at the Cecil for close to six years and had never caused problems.
On Thursday, June 4th, 1964, friends came over to Goldie's place to chat and just visit.
Her friends left for the evening, however, just moments later, a door-to-door phone book salesman would find Goldie's door ajar.
When he pushed open the door, he saw the figure laying face down in a pool of blood and it was Goldie.
She had been beaten, raped, stabbed, um, to death.
Oh my gosh.
Police recognized the MO from two other murder scenes of women who were known to feed birds in the park nearby.
So these had occurred in the last two weeks or so.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
So that's not a suicide?
No, it's not.
It's our first murder.
After Goldie's body was found, Jock Elinger was seen walking through Pershing Square covered in blood.
Police arrested him for the murder of Goldie Osgood.
However, after intense interviews and interrogations, Jock Elinger would be released.
Goldie's murder would never be solved.
The end.
What?
That's the end of that.
Yeah.
So who- why was this guy covered in blood?
I don't know.
They didn't specify that.
I tried to Google that.
Interesting.
And maybe that's something that's, uh, typical of Skid Row, is for people to walk around with like, bloody clothes.
Honestly, I don't doubt that.
I don't doubt that either.
Especially with like, how hard labor was like, back in the day.
Like, I was actually listening to an episode of a podcast about, uh, Jack the Ripper recently.
And the part of London that he was like, prevalent in.
And that part of London was like, really, really bad, like really poor.
And there was frequently men walking around covered in blood because they would either get in like, fights or there are butchers and they had like, animal blood on them.
And it was like, not uncommon to see people walking around, um, like that.
It's really interesting, yeah.
Which is probably why he got away with what he got away with, and he was never found.
Right.
And he was like, oh no, just the local bircher.
Yeah, honestly.
Yeah.
They didn't know how right they were.
Dexter.
A woman fell to her death, December 20th, 1975.
The woman who checked in was under the name of Alison Lowell, but had no identifying items on her.
She was described as having brown hair, scars on her wrists, wearing a blue sweater, blue pants, blue coat, black shoes, and a bus ticket in her pocket stamped for December 15th, 1975 from Bakersville, California.
Her identity has never been found.
Damn.
That's crazy, right?
On September 1st, 1992.
What?
Yeah.
It's been like, 70 years.
A man, well not since the last one, 75 to 92.
Oh, since the beginning of the-
Oh yeah.
So these are very far in between.
Yeah.
They're not like every other week.
Yeah.
There's like a murder or whatever.
I see.
It's just the overall history of it.
So on September 1st, 1992, a young man about 20 to 30 years old was found behind the hotel in an alleyway.
Given the trauma to his body, he had either jumped or had fallen to his death.
The boy has never been positively identified.
Oh my gosh.
So at this point, we're going to take a break from all this Cecil action happening, okay?
We're going to switch gears because again, after all, this is a true crime podcast, and
we have yet to talk about a serial killer.
Let's talk about a serial killer.
All right, let's do it.
All right.
Ricardo Leiva Muñoz Ramirez, or Richard Ramirez.
No.
Yeah.
Was born February 29th, 1960.
You son of a bitch.
You made me think that we were doing a fucking spooky episode about this hotel.
I didn't even know we were going to be talking about like a serial killer, and now I'm like, let's go.
So he's a leap year baby.
That's kind of unique to be born on February 29th.
Yeah.
I mean, he's not cool.
So.
He was actually born in El Paso, Texas.
He's a Texan.
Yeah.
I wouldn't give him that much credit.
His parents were Julian and Mercedes Ramirez.
He was the youngest of five.
His father was an established man back in Mexico where he was actually a police officer.
Julian was.
However, it was really hard for him to find work in the States, and eventually he settled
in the railroad business, which I thought was kind of interesting.
Richard's father was actually an alcoholic. He would verbally and sometimes physically abuse the wife and children.
Oh, man.
So Richard actually started drinking and smoking weed by age 10.
Richard was extremely close to his cousin Miguel, who he called Mike.
Mike was a decorated green beret, and while serving in the Vietnam War, Mike had committed tons of like atrocities that Richard found fascinating.
Like he would love to listen to Mike talk about all these brutalities that this guy had done, right?
In fact, when Richard was 12, Mike showed him photographs of women that he had beaten, raped, murdered, and even decapitated.
What?
When he was 12.
At 12?
At 12.
That is absolutely ridiculous.
This is a complete side note, but I meant to say it earlier, and I just forgot.
When we did the BTK episode and I was talking about how he was in the Air Force base, I kept saying Air Force base, and I know that it's Air Force base,
and I was like super self-conscious about that when I was editing, so I want to make sure everyone knows.
I know it's Air Force base, not Air Force base, but I just kept saying it wrong for some reason.
I think a lot of the times I feel like I'm pronouncing something correctly, but it's with the headsets, and then the like slight echo,
and then listening to us, and then everything else.
Sometimes I feel like I don't, like when I'm listening back, I definitely pronounce things strange, but it's just because...
It's like Tito's and Vodka.
You don't realize you're saying something wrong because it sounds right.
I want to Tito's and Vodka.
Anyway, back to the story.
That was just like...
That's wild, though.
At 12 years old, that's absolutely terrifying, and I would go so far as to say that I kind of maybe blamed this Mike guy.
Maybe blamed this Mike guy for Richard's future.
For cultivating all that?
Yeah, Richard would say, thinking back about that moment, he said that the images excited him and didn't repulse him.
He was really fascinated by it.
Awesome.
At 12.
So Mike would tell Richard stories of sneaking in and out of camps or villages in the night to commit these acts, like these horrible acts.
To like, make people, like, keep people on their toes, and like, surprise, doesn't it sound familiar a little bit?
If anybody knows a little bit about Richard Ramirez.
Yeah.
Sounds a little familiar.
He's like, here's how to get away with this.
He's just giving you all the tools.
Sneaking in there, he's like, just to keep...
I mean, his intent was either to rape the women, murder the men, whatever it was.
Yeah.
I feel like a lot of people got away with a lot of shit in Vietnam.
That's awful.
So Richard, of course, at this time is still living at home.
He's 12, 13 years old, but he became increasingly angered by his father's behavior, of course.
Oftentimes, he would escape the house and sleep in a nearby cemetery just to escape.
That's terrible.
But a little creepy.
At 13.
On May 4th, 1973, Mike shot and killed his wife in front of Richard during an argument, a domestic dispute.
What?
He's like, hey Richard, watch this.
Like, I don't know if it was like, watch this.
I think it was just...
He like, didn't fucking care.
He didn't care who was there, he was gonna kill his wife.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
Richard is 13.
How did I not know this?
It's incredible.
Mike would actually be found not guilty by reason of insanity, given his obvious PTSD.
The guy has PTSD.
Like, come on.
The guy has PTSD.
He caused his own PTSD by doing that heinous shit over in Vietnam.
Well, if you're like, exposed to something like that over and over again, like he's exposing Richard.
Like he's saying...
This is okay.
Like this guy's doing it, like everything.
It's fine.
Like this is what is okay to do.
Mike is so desensitized to it because of all the things that he probably witnessed and
saw and then eventually participated in.
That's like what he was experiencing.
Like you're gonna be the odd man out.
I don't know if you've ever seen what was a full metal jacket.
Yeah, I have.
Like full metal jacket, right?
Isn't that the one where he's like, he asked that guy to shoot that girl or whatever and
he wasn't gonna do it.
I think so, yeah.
So, stuff like that.
And I think platoon was like that too.
But yeah, it's like you're the odd person out.
If you don't participate, then it becomes a part of that culture, like the culture of
the men that you're serving with.
So anyways, like I said, it's kind of that same, what is that like the abuse pattern?
Well, just the cycle of abuse, right?
It's like you're abused by somebody and then you tend to abuse somebody else.
So it's kind of like that, but just with highlighted to capitate.
Yeah, like heightened.
So actually Mike would be admitted into the Texas State Mental Hospital.
So that's where he was after he was let off for murdering his wife in front of a 13 year old.
He should have at least gotten, well, I guess if it's reason of insanity then he wouldn't
be convicted for anything, but at least child endangerment.
So after the shooting, Richard went to live with his sister Ruth and her husband, Roberto.
Roberto turned out to be a total fucking creep.
Oh, great.
It's okay.
It's not nice.
He was actually an avid peeping Tom.
Doesn't help the case.
That's like the lamest crime to ever be accused of.
That's not true.
That's like, that's creepy.
It's terrifying.
I'm just saying like.
They're saying it's so 1950s.
It's so childish.
Childish.
Yeah.
Childish.
Like.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Sweet.
Yeah.
Oh, oh, oh.
Sorry.
Got an ankle.
Um, he would actually take Richard sometimes on these little walkabouts.
So.
Panier.
Yep.
So Dennis Panierater.
It's so funny.
I didn't even realize that that was like a pun until I edited the episode.
I was like, oh my God, that was so much funnier than I like responded.
I figured because you only went, haha.
Like, so if anybody has listened to the BTK episode yet or will probably by this point.
Yeah.
When I say that line, just I'm sure you left your reaction in there.
Oh, I did.
For sure.
You're just, haha.
Yeah.
I was like, oh, haha.
Oh, haha.
Anyway.
No, I definitely did not get that enough credit.
That was hilarious.
Thanks.
I'm kind of funny.
Anyway, so Richard and Roberto, they would walk around peeping Tommy things or whatever.
And peeping Tommy peeping Tommy.
It's a verb.
It's a peeping Tommy.
Peep Tommy.
They would walk around peep Tommy.
Anyway, I don't know what would be the verb of that.
Peeping.
Oh, okay.
So they'd walk around the neighborhood peeping.
It sounds peeping.
If you say peeping, that doesn't really.
Yeah, that sounds bad.
You could just be peering, not necessarily peeping.
That's true.
Tommy.
So coinciding with this, Richard and Roberto would bond over their use of LSD.
How old is Richard?
14.
No.
He's 14 and he's abusing LSD with his smuggle.
So he's melting his brain that's not even fully developed yet.
By the time 1977 rolled around, Mike was released from the mental hospital and began to join
the two on their walks around the neighborhood, spying on unsuspecting women.
What a great couple of guys.
Just real standup dude.
Honorable as fuck trio.
So the more that Richard's LSD usage became more and more severe, he began to read things
about Satanism and the occult.
So he was just like, Satan is the best.
I'm Satanist.
Okay.
Richard's violent tendencies began to grow and while still in high school, he began
working at a local hotel.
Richard would use this key cards to gain access to travelers rooms and rob them in the night,
which is awful, but kind of a funny image in my head that he's using the key cards and
it's like dark as fuck and he's just crawling on the ground and stealing things from people
and then crawling out.
It's literally like that episode of SpongeBob where they go on a panty raid.
I'm telling you.
They go on a panty raid in SpongeBob.
In SpongeBob.
They still miss his puffs underwear in one episode.
Can you believe that shit?
No.
The 90s.
That's a cream of Richard Ramirez.
Well, it's interesting because of the connection that Mike would make with, like he was making
with Mike's experiences like where he would like sneak into the villages or camps.
Isn't that creepy?
So that's what it starts.
So he's not original at all.
No, he's not OG.
He learned this.
So his crimes began to escalate pretty quickly working here at this hotel.
He had actually inappropriately touched two children in an elevator, but it was never reported
by the children.
What the fuck?
He just admitted to it like much later.
On one occasion, he tried to rape a woman while she slept.
Her husband entered the room and found Richard on top of her.
The husband beat Richard violently at the scene, LOL.
The couple would actually drop charges, however, because they weren't from El Paso.
They were just, they were travelers.
They didn't live here.
They did not want to come back to the state just to confront this fucker.
I don't blame them.
Yeah, I don't either.
As long as, especially since he didn't like succeed in anything that he was really doing.
True.
Of course, he was fired from his drop.
Was he?
Oh, was he?
Great.
So that was all throughout high school, okay?
So Richard dropped out of high school in the ninth grade.
Actually, he wasn't all in high school.
He was only like 15 at this point?
Ew.
It wouldn't be until age 22 that he would actually move to California permanently.
At this time, Richard began using cocaine regularly.
He would burglarize homes and apartments to support his habit.
His first known victim, meaning murder victim, was a nine-year-old girl.
What?
She was lured into a basement away from her brother.
They were walking down the street.
Lured into the basement probably like, I got candy or something.
Or it was something like she was looking for her dog or looking for something.
And he was like, oh, it's down here.
Just follow me.
Yeah.
Took her into the basement and then she was actually assaulted before he stabbed her to death.
Oh my god.
With a pocket knife.
Oh my god.
Which is awful.
Which is brutal.
But this would be his first victim in a one-year-long spree.
One year.
Oh my god.
So we're going to go over the next year, y'all.
Damn.
His next victim was 73-year-old Jeannie Venkow.
She was found stabbed to death in her apartment.
A fingerprint was actually left behind on the window that Richard used to access the apartment.
Fucking dumbass.
So this was June of 1984.
That one was.
In March of 1985, so almost a year, Ramirez followed 22-year-old Maria Hernandez into her
garage as she parked her car.
Ramirez fired a 22-it Maria, striking her in the face.
Oh my god.
However, Maria did not die.
When she had lifted her hands to defend herself, the bullet actually ricocheted off of her
car keys and it saved her life.
Oh my god.
Although she was hit by the bullet.
She laid there and she played dead in the garage and Ramirez walked past her to access the home.
Maria's roommate, Dale Okazaki, had actually heard the shot in the garage and went to investigate.
And when she came around the corner into the kitchen area, she saw Ramirez entering the
residence.
So she ducked behind a countertop in the kitchen so she could remain out of sight.
So she stayed there for a while and she didn't really hear anything.
So Dale decided to peek up over the countertop to see if Richard was still in the kitchen.
When she lifted her head, Ramirez had already taken aim, shooting Dale into the forehead
and she died instantly.
Isn't that like the creepiest fucking scenario you've ever heard?
He was like, so quiet.
And he literally just stood there and waited for her to look and he was right.
That is so fucking scary.
Isn't that terrifying?
Like he waited.
He had all the time in the world.
He didn't care.
That is so fucking scary.
Oh my gosh.
It's terrifying.
I can't get that out of my head.
Yeah.
Like imagine that.
You think he's gone because it's so quiet and you just peek your head up and then you're
just gone.
Like lights the fuck out.
After ransacking the house and fleeing the scene, Ramirez happened upon 30 year old Sai
Lian Wu waiting at a stoplight.
He pulled her from her car, shot her twice and then fled the scene.
Pulled her from her car, shot her twice and then fled the scene.
On foot.
Idiot.
Like why wouldn't he just take her car?
Yeah, what the fuck?
Well do you think that the whole point of pulling her out of her car and then like shooting
her is to steal the car but no he just ran?
Like there's no point.
He just wanted a killer.
What the fuck?
Sai Lian unfortunately would not survive that attack.
Word got around that these two crimes were related essentially because of the proximity
of the crime scenes and the police with the media had said to be on the lookout for the
attacker described by Maria because she did survive.
So Maria described the attacker as a man with curly hair, bulging eyes and with wide spaced
rotting teeth.
Oh yeah he had halitosis.
Did you know that?
No I didn't.
He's a fucking disgusting fuck.
If anyone doesn't know what halitosis is, it's chronic bad breath.
His breath always fucking stank.
I'm sure he never like was taught how to brush his fucking teeth.
You know what is he like 12 right now?
He's the fucking disgusting.
It's just ugh.
He looks dirty.
That image though because when I read it and it said like wide spaced rotting teeth.
It's awful.
It's just I don't know.
One of my biggest creepy things is facial distortion.
So to think of somebody with a really big smile is like ugh.
It's fucking creepy.
It's creepy.
So he was dubbed the walk-in killer and the Valley intruder.
The walk-in killer?
The walk-in killer.
Just because you just walked in.
Just walking in.
Just walking in at places.
Killing.
Just walked in.
I don't know.
The walk-in killer.
I wonder if it's just because it was just at the garage and then the kitchen was attached
to the garage so it's like right there.
Just walked in.
I wonder if it's just walked in.
But then what about the lady of the car?
I don't know.
He just walked, I mean he walked away after that.
The Valley intruder.
It's the asphyxiation.
It's nothing like the asphyxiator though.
The asphyxiator.
That's so the Valley intruder?
The Valley intruder or the walk-in killer was what he was dubbed by the media.
So ten days later on March 27th, 1985, Ramirez planned to enter a house that he had robbed
one year prior.
He immediately shot and killed 64-year-old Vincent Zazzara.
When his wife Maxine awoke from the noise, Ramirez bound her hands together and demanded
that she tell him where all the valuables were in the house.
As he was ransacking the house, Maxine actually freed herself from the restraints and received
a shotgun from underneath the bed.
Extra bad bitch alert.
Okay.
Hearing all this commotion from the other room, Ramirez returned to the room only to
be met by the business end of a shotgun.
Let's go.
However, the gun was not loaded.
Out of sheer anger, he shot Maxine several times before mutilating her body.
He was that mad at her.
Did she try to pull the trigger and he found out it wasn't?
Oh my god, that's so scary.
Imagine like having a weapon and then pulling the trigger and it doesn't work for you.
That is so scary.
He was so mad that he took her eyes out of her head, put them in a jewelry box, which
he kept as a trophy.
Yeah.
Her eyeballs.
What does that have to do with her putting it?
It's just cruel.
Her trying to defend herself made you mad.
Yeah.
Hmm.
That's weird.
And then she was putting her husband and tying her up and breaking into her house made her
pretty fucking mad.
Yeah.
At least this is all postmortem, honestly.
Jesus.
That's awful.
So unfortunately, Peter, the couple's son, was the one to find them to cease the next
day, which is the most heartbreaking part, I think.
The police were able to collect a shoe print from the front yard's flower bed and it was
determined that it was an Avia sneaker, an Avia brand.
They also matched some of the bullets at the crime scene to the two other crime scenes,
the Maria's crime scene and then Cy Leone.
Ramirez's next victims were Bill and Lillian Doi.
On May 14th, 1985, Ramirez broke into their home in the middle of the night and after
shooting her husband, Lillian was cuffed, raped, and beaten.
She would survive the attack, but unfortunately Bill would not.
On May 29th, Mabel, Belle, and Florence Lange, who were two sisters, aged 83 and 81, they
were sleeping in their shared house.
Ramirez found a hammer in the house and bludgeoned Florence as she slept.
After the beating, he did the same to Mabel and actually electrocuted her with a nearby
exposed wire.
What the fuck?
Isn't that incredible?
Like I said, he's just a monster.
He just thinks of things and does them.
He actually-
Sorry, that is so sick.
He grabbed one of the ladies' lipsticks and would draw pentagrams on their bodies and
on the walls before leaving the house.
The women were found two days later, alive.
What?
You want to talk about a bad bitch alert.
What?
Yep.
Mabel and Florence, they're the heroes.
Both of them?
Both of them.
In their 80s.
Found alive two days later.
After being bludgeoned.
Yeah.
Electrocuted.
Electrocuted and like oh my gosh, bad bitches alert.
Seriously.
However, unfortunately Mabel would eventually subcum to her injuries.
Her injuries were too severe.
But that's just incredible.
Like she survived maybe-
For two days.
Like a week, honestly, because it's like days later that she passed in the hospital.
That's insane.
Imagine living like 80 years on this fucking planet and then some dickhead decides that
it's your time to go.
Like fuck you.
The day after the women were beaten, Ramirez drove to the home of Carol Kyle where her
and her 11 year old son lived.
He broke into the house, bound the two, put her child in a closet and proceeded to sexually
assault her.
He told her many times during the attack to not look at him and if she continued to,
he would quote cut her eyes out and take them with him.
Which we know he's done.
Yeah.
So I don't think it's an idle threat.
When he was done with the assault, he tied the mother and son together and then fled
the scene.
So he beat her up a little bit but he didn't murder either of them.
Especially not the kid.
That's odd that he like will go in and murder two people for no reason and not sexually
assault them and then sometimes he'll sexually assault someone and just dip.
Yeah.
Or sometimes he'll just murder someone and dip.
Well he's clearly not above murdering a nine year old.
Yeah.
So like to leave a 12 year old completely unharmed, it's just unusual.
It's very strange.
Maybe it has to deal with the fact that he's a boy.
Maybe he identifies with that.
Yeah.
You know?
Then he entered the home of 75 year old Mary Louie Cannon.
She was beaten and stabbed to death with her own kitchen knife.
On July 5th 1985, Ramirez broke into a home and began to bludgeon and beat a 16 year old
girl named Whitney Bennett with a tire iron.
When he looked for another weapon to finish the attack, specifically a knife, he grabbed
a telephone cable and to his surprise after wrapping it around her neck and attempting
to strangle her, the wire actually began to spark while it was around her neck.
The fact that Whitney seemed to have found even more strength and start to fight back
at this point, Ramirez fled the scene believing that Jesus had intervened and saved Whitney
from dying.
What?
Like essentially he thought that he like she couldn't be killed.
Yeah.
So although Whitney would survive the attack, she did require 478 stitches to her head from
the tire iron.
Holy shit.
Isn't that incredible?
478.
But she survived.
Damn.
Because she's, yeah, bad bitch.
She fucking fought back.
Ramirez broke into 60 year old Joyce Nelson's house on July 7th 1985.
Just like two days later.
Oh, these are like bam, bam, bam, bam.
You would talk about bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
These are bam, bam, bam, bam.
So yeah, this is two days later.
I think it's like, yeah, if you're listening to the dates, it's like two days, two days,
two days, sometimes in the same day.
This is kind of brutal.
He actually kicked Joyce Nelson to death, literally.
Like stomped on her to death.
Oh my God.
But then they matched the shoe prints.
They had shoe prints on her body that would match an Avia shoe.
Actually not satisfied with this, Ramirez started looking for another victim on the same
day.
He broke into the house of 63 year old Sophie Dickman.
He bound her, beat her, sexually assaulted her, but he didn't kill her.
He made her swear on Satan that she had told him where all of her valuables were in the
house and then fled.
It's kind of odd.
Swear on Satan.
July 20th 1985, Ramirez purchased a machete before deciding on the house of Maxon and
Leela Knitting, an elderly couple that lived in Glendale.
He slashed at them with the machete and eventually shot both of them.
He did continue to mediate the bodies even after death.
Once again not satisfied with this, at approximately 4.15am he entered another home.
This is like the three in the same day now.
Yeah.
Well within 24 hours for sure.
This home belonged to Chanarag Kanavanath, some kid Kanavanath and their 8 year old
son.
After shooting Chanarang, killing him instantly, he repeatedly beat and raped Sam Kim, but
eventually stole valuables and then left.
He did not harm the child.
Both mother and son would survive.
On August 6th, Ramirez entered the home of Kris and Virginia Peterson, where he shot Virginia
in the head.
However, when he went to shoot Kris, Kris was struck by a bullet in the neck but managed
to dodge two more shots while fighting off the attacker.
Dodge?
Dodge.
I mean I'm sure it's like, you know, just struggling and whatever.
So eventually, I guess it's two more shots went off, but neither of them managed to hit
Kris because of the fight.
Ramirez would flee the scene and fortunately the couple were able to survive.
Both of them?
Yes.
Wow.
The next victims that were attacked just two days later on August 8th were Elias Abouath
and Sekita Abouath and their 3 year old who was sleeping.
When Ramirez entered their home, you know, they were all asleep.
He shot the father and similar to his other attacks, he assaulted Sekita but left her
and her child alive.
Just 18th, Ramirez attacked a sleeping couple, Peter 66 and Barbara 62 Pan.
What was their last name?
Peter Pan.
Peter was shot first and would not survive the attack.
Barbara was shot but she did survive.
At this crime scene, police located another set of footprints that matched all the other
prints.
So we've known for a while like, we've been detailing these crimes, I've been detailing
these crimes and we really haven't talked much about the investigation but at this point
in the background with all this stuff going on, detectives know that they have a serial
killer and they are hot on Ramirez's trail.
They do know his description and they know the size of shoe he was wearing and what kind
of shoes he was wearing.
They had actually determined at this point that there were only a few locations locally
that carried that specific shoe in that specific size.
So they were already kind of...
Narrowing.
Yeah, they're coming up on this.
Not only that but they were also in constant communication with the media so they figured
that Ramirez was probably watching so Ramirez also knows these things.
On August 24th, 13 year old James Romero was up late in his house.
Probably normal teenager stuff.
Walking around the house, probably eating snacks, watching TV.
He went to the family car to retrieve something from it and while he was out there he heard
rustling in the bushes nearby the house.
Oh my god, that is so terrifying.
Thinking this was an animal he went to investigate but he saw nothing when he checked the bush.
Checking the car door handle again he realized the car was locked so he headed back inside.
Whether or not he decided to not go back outside because he was like creeped out or like maybe
he was like oh whatever I'll just get the thing tomorrow.
Either way he didn't go back outside.
While inside for a while though he heard something else outside.
He went to go look through his bedroom window, he saw Ramirez standing in the yard.
Oh my gosh.
I thought you were going to say that he was like standing on like the second story roof.
Like inside his wall.
Ding, ding, ding, ding.
Oh my gosh.
James immediately notified his parents saying that there was a parlor outside looking to
break in is what he thought.
His parents quickly got up and scared off Ramirez by making a bunch of noise or shouting
out the windows and stuff.
But not before James actually chased him, 13 year old, chased him like within a certain
distance.
You don't want to fuck with this guy bro.
Right.
So he chased him but he mostly to take note of the man's description, his clothing, the
make and model of the car as well as the license plate number.
What a badass.
I know at 13.
That's awesome.
He saved his whole fucking family bro.
Oh like a hella fucking like just doing the damn thing.
James or Miro.
Hella proactive.
So we all know Richard at this point right?
We know he's not afraid to commit multiple crimes in one night.
Yeah what the fuck.
And in fact it's kind of part of his MO at certain times.
So Richard entered the home of Bill Karnas and his fiance, Inez Erickson.
He shot Bill three times while he slept.
He told Inez, I am the night stalker swear to Satan that you love him.
That you love Satan or that you love the night stalker?
That you love Satan.
He dragged her throughout the house collecting valuables and assaulting her before leaving
the residence he said quote, tell them I'm the night stalker and I was here.
End quote.
He's so fucking narcissistic.
He's like BTK all over again.
He's a list of the names you can call me.
I am the night stalker.
Tell them that the night stalker was here.
I am the night stalker.
Fuck you.
I'm not gonna tell them shit.
The couple would survive by the way.
Tell them some pussy ass bitch was here.
Tell them the night stalker was here.
So Inez was actually able to give a very detailed description of Ramirez and based on the proximity
to the Ramirez house because it happened in the same night, they knew that the night
stalker had to be in the area like then.
Do we call him the night stalker?
Do we give him that?
I don't think we should give him that.
Okay we won't give him that.
We should call him the halitosis hangman.
Halitosis.
She's called him the bad breath burglar.
The Tums and Frooters.
Oh god.
The car Ramirez used in the Romero and the Carnes Ericsson case was actually found abandoned
nearby.
So like police knew that they were around.
Right they're closing in.
So all of the breath of trail of the bad breath.
Yeah he's close.
The stinky strangler.
The stinky staffer.
That's what it was.
The stinky staffer.
The stinky strangler.
That's what it was.
So police were actually able to retrieve a fingerprint from the car.
Let me tell you a man in car.
What?
I'm gonna give another one.
Bad breath burglar triple B.
Call me BBB.
Call me triple B.
B cubed.
I don't know why I thought of that.
So police were able to retrieve a fingerprint from the car, the stolen car that was used
in the crimes.
Oh and did they have a fingerprint from the window right?
Yes they sure did.
So using this print police were actually able to match it out of Texas at this point because
new technology had come out in just the last few months.
So they could match it to any state.
So now this is yeah that was a nationwide database that they had just come up with.
So police were able to match it out of Texas to Richard Ramirez.
Oh interesting.
So at this time I don't know what he was doing.
Wait but that's not the killer.
The killer's name is the Night Stalker.
Oh wait it's Compositely the Him.
For those of you that have been doing the math on the years, Richard is just 25 years
old at this point.
Oh my god.
Like he's a kid literally.
So it just so happened that the fingerprint print, it just so happened that the fingerprint
database was the whole like for keeping records of like children's records or even criminal
records that that process hadn't started until 1960, January of 1960.
So literally just like two months before Richard was born.
Wow.
Isn't that incredible?
So like that's how they have like his, it's just, it's crazy that that's when it was
established.
It just so happened to be that his whole life it's always pretty much been a thing.
But like they would keep fingerprints.
The criminal database is actually updated recently to include not only that like nationwide
searches but the computer generated auto searches instead of just everything by hand where it
takes forever.
So literally they got these results within a few days.
So they knew it was Richard Ramirez.
So of course they blasted all over like media.
Like there's like this is this dude.
If you see this dude he's highly dangerous you know all this shit.
So he stinks.
He stinks.
He's got a weird ass smile.
He really never smiled.
So anyways spotted just a few days later after the car was found.
Ramirez was essentially evading police.
Like somebody thought that they saw him.
The police came to that area.
He was already fleeing.
Yeah.
All this stuff.
Anyways, just through that commotion alone, citizens started literally seeing him down
the street.
Like that guy.
That's that guy.
Yeah.
That's that guy.
Recognizable as fuck.
And so people were essentially chasing after him down the street.
Like he's Frankenstein's monster and everybody has like pitchforks and like torches.
And so they're chasing after him and eventually when he was caught by these citizens they
held him down.
They beat the shit out of him.
Hell yeah.
Somebody hit him over the head with a pipe.
Good.
Like just nutsness.
And so they held him until the police came to get him.
Right.
Taking his eyeballs.
It's pretty interesting story.
Police arrived and took him into custody.
I won't go into the court proceedings.
It's pretty cut and dry.
He admitted to a lot of these murders and incidents.
So he was convicted, found guilty of 13 counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder,
11 counts of sexual assault, and 14 counts of burglary.
I didn't realize his killings was in such a short amount of time.
Yeah.
I didn't realize it was only a year.
It was like a few, like at least three.
Yeah.
Something like that.
I didn't realize it was literally from 94 to 95.
He was sentenced to 19 counts of the death sentence.
Wow.
Yeah.
Which is kind of like...
I'm gonna kill you 19 times.
Yeah.
So a psychiatric evaluation concluded that Ramirez had a schizoid personality disorder
because he had been knocked out, literally knocked unconscious several times before the
age of six, that that contributed to his aggression and his hypersexuality.
And that's all.
I mean...
It's to Julian.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
Thanks, dad.
For real.
Richard would never see his execution day, however.
On June 7th, 2013, Richard Ramirez died of complications with lymphoma and hep C.
He had halitosis.
I'm telling you, probably made him sick.
He probably did.
He probably had a bunch of fucking abscesses or like fucking, um, like bacterial infections.
In his mouth, you know.
Yeah.
Like gingivitis and shit.
So, that's the story of Richard Ramirez.
I mean...
Have you forgotten about the Cecil yet?
Yeah, I have, actually.
So why is this tied to Richard Ramirez?
Yeah, what the hell?
Because during the entire time that Richard Ramirez was committing these alpha murders,
he called the Cecil home.
No.
That's where he would rest his head at night.
Wow.
So that's...
He's just in the middle of all this carnage and this is in his place.
Oh my gosh.
So, oftentimes tenants would complain to staff because Richard would return to the Cecil
covered in blood.
Tenants and staff would recollect him walking around in his underwear and socks because he
would walk down to the dumpsters, throw his clothes in it, and then walk upstairs.
Sometimes naked as well.
And they were like, cool?
He lived on the 14th floor and he paid $14 a night.
That is so crazy that that ties together.
I was totally...
I wasn't even thinking about that anymore.
You're right.
I was like, oh, Richard Ramirez!
Wow.
So, believe it or not, this would not be the only serial killer to grace the Cecil with
their presence.
Hmm.
Jack Unterweger was an Austrian killer who came to L.A. as a writer for an Austrian paper
at the time that he was working.
He had already killed seven women back home and his MO was strangling sex work victims
with their own bras.
Oh my god.
He came to L.A. to write about the difference in U.S. crime rates versus Austrian crime rates,
which is interesting.
He's like adding to it.
So he wanted the best research as possible, so that's why he checked into the Cecil.
There he would kill three sex workers over the time that he stayed there, each garaded
with their own bras.
Jesus.
So, Unterweger would eventually be caught and he was extradited back to Austria, where
he would be found guilty of a total of 11 murders.
Wow.
The night of his sentencing, however, Jack took his own life and his jail cell.
He hung himself.
Oh, poor baby.
You got time for one more?
Yeah.
It's kind of like ghost stories.
A 21-year-old, Elisa Lam, was traveling as a Canadian student.
She was the daughter of Hong Kong immigrants.
In 2012, Elisa had begun to post on her blog that she was struggling with mental illnesses,
saying that she and her mind had recently, quote-unquote, relapsed, not relapsed mentally,
and that she felt, quote, utterly directionless and lost, end quote.
She was also posting things like, quote, you always feel haunted by the idea that you're
wasting your life, end quote.
So this is in 2012.
Elisa had dropped several classes because of her struggles with her depression and she
was looking to do something a little different before getting back into school for the new
year.
During this time, however, she fell into a really deep depression and started experiencing
hallucinations in which she would often hide under her bed out of fear.
Oh, my gosh.
Which is awful.
I can't imagine that.
After these episodes, several of these episodes, she was actually sent to a hospital where
she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder as well as depression.
She was prescribed medication and it seemed to be working for her pretty well.
She decided to take a trip before heading back to school for spring.
So she decided to travel to San Diego and the California area.
She visited the San Diego Zoo, blogging about her experience the whole way throughout this
time.
On January 26th of 2013, she arrived in LA and two days later, she would check into
the Cecil.
Oh, no.
At this time, there was a student program going on that would house several students
in one room, kind of like a hostel, and then they would have those shared bathrooms and
things like that.
And it was also for a cheaper price.
Alisa was assigned to one of these rooms with many people, like a few other people.
However, her roommates would begin to complain about Alisa's strange and erratic behavior.
Alisa would lock the room when everybody would leave and then she would refuse to open the
door to anybody that didn't.
She would ask them random questions or they would have to have a password, like a child.
Like, what's the password?
And they're like, okay, it's kind of funny, but all my shit's in there, can I get in my
room?
And then I wonder what the questions were.
I wonder if it was a vetting thing.
She didn't trust who was coming in another room.
She didn't trust that it was one of her roommates.
She would also leave, Alisa would, leave odd notes in their belongings or on their beds,
saying things like, go home or go away.
So very strange her out of here.
That sounds like schizophrenia.
Right, doesn't it?
And keep in mind, she's only 21 right now, so that might be what was happening.
After two days of this, Alisa was actually moved to a private room by herself because
of the complaints.
Another few days later, she was actually escorted and removed from a live taping of a show where
she was an audience member and she caused such a disturbance that they actually had
to remove her from the premises.
So this was just a few days after she got her own private room.
Alisa typically called her parents in British Columbia every day since she had began her
vacation in California as she was traveling alone.
However, her parents didn't hear anything from her on January 31st.
This is 2013.
By the next day, which was February 1st, her parents had called LAPD to report that their
daughter was missing.
They then made the trip from British Columbia to LA to aid in the search of their daughter
because they knew it was very unusual for her not to call.
At this point, she hadn't checked out of her hotel room either.
She was supposed to check out February 1st morning and they checked and all of her things
were in the room.
So they're like, okay, clearly she's missing.
She's not here.
She hasn't called.
She's not checked out.
So it was a problem.
So police and family members started canvassing the local area and there was actually a local
bookstore owner that remembers seeing Alisa in her store the day of January 31st.
The shop owner remembered her because she said Alisa was very enthusiastic about purchasing
gifts for her family and that she couldn't wait to get back home to show off all the
goodies that she got.
So of course, it's something to remember her by, like, oh, you're from British Columbia.
Wow, that's pretty far.
What are you doing out here?
Things like that.
So she really remembered Alisa.
Search dogs were called into the hotel, but little was found.
There'd be kind of trails and then nothing and then kind of trails and then nothing.
Sergeant Rudy Lopez said that there wasn't much that they could do about the search unless
a dog had indicated that they could go into the hotel room.
So when asked by media, oh, did you search every room?
He's like, well, no, because that's people's private areas and unless a dog essentially
marks or indicates, I guess, there wouldn't be probable cause.
So plus this is 700 rooms.
So at this point, almost a week had gone by and Alisa's family and local authorities
started outsourcing to the media and produced missing persons flyers around the neighborhood.
After a few weeks since Alisa's disappearance, LAPD released footage of the last no moments
of Alisa.
Do you remember this?
No, I don't think so.
Oh, wait, hold on.
In the elevator?
Oh yeah, I remember this.
It was a video taken from an elevator in which we see Alisa displaying very strange and
bizarre behavior.
The elevator doors open.
Alisa walks in casually into the elevator.
She bends over and gets extremely close to the elevator buttons.
She begins at first to hit a few buttons and then begins to hit all of them in order.
The elevator door tries to close, but maybe only about an inch before staying open.
It hangs open for another five seconds before Alisa approaches the open doorway, quickly
sticks out her head and looks left and right.
Then she goes back into the elevator.
She then backs into the corner of the elevator like she's hiding from someone or something.
She waits another few seconds before approaching the door again.
This time she almost hops out into the hallway as if to startle someone.
She does a four square movement after this, takes one step to the left, one step backwards
almost back into the elevator, a step to the right, and then a step forward out of the elevator
once again.
At this point she shuffles all the way to the left of the elevator, so you can't really
see her.
She's kind of out of frame.
She then begins to raise her hands over her head, possibly resting her hands on the back
of her head.
She stands there for another few seconds.
Keep in mind that the elevator door has not shut, which is very unusual.
Because there's nobody in it.
There's nobody in it.
There's nobody in the doorway.
She's outside of the elevator at this point.
The door remains open.
Not only that, but she hit all the buttons.
Shouldn't it be going somewhere?
So she gets back in the elevator, she has her hands up.
She then begins to hit the buttons again, all in order one more time.
She steps outside of the elevator once more, and at this time she begins kind of manipulating
her hands and her arms as if she's talking to someone or pleading with someone.
But she's definitely moving her hands around like she's expressing herself in some way
to someone.
It looks like a full on conversation.
This lasts for a solid 40 seconds.
So if you time 40 seconds at your head, it's pretty long.
Alisa walks out of frame at this point.
Another 30 seconds goes by with her nowhere near the door until the elevator door actually
starts to finally close slowly.
After 30 seconds?
30 seconds.
Like 30 full on seconds, not including the 40 seconds where she's already off of the
elevator, expressing her waving her hands.
So that's like over a minute and a half long that this door has just been open.
15 seconds later, the elevator door slowly opens to no one.
10 seconds later, it closes once more.
It intervals like this once more.
10 seconds open, 10 seconds closed, until the video ends.
So assuming that the end of the video is the elevator going to each floor, you can't see
it moving up and down obviously because the camera's inside of it.
So it's opening on each floor.
I didn't even think about that.
Opening, closing, and then going down open or whatever.
It's not just at a standstill.
That makes no sense.
Opening and closing.
I feel like a dummy.
It's funny, I didn't even think about that because that's the whole thing is that you
think that this door is like, oh my god you're so smart.
Internet sleuths, did you just hear it kind of crack the case?
Well because another thing they won't talk about is what floor she was on.
They won't release that information.
And she seemingly is talking to someone but you don't ever see anyone else.
She's clearly startled or uncomfortable or uneasy at some point.
The video is really eerie.
It is.
And it's out there, the whole video is out there.
It's like the ring shit.
It's like if you don't share this in seven days you will die.
It's really creepy.
It's super unnerving.
So the hotel meanwhile is still in operation through all this time searching for Alisa.
So within this time frame tenants are actually becoming increasingly concerned about some
issues they were experiencing with the tap water in the building.
So some had complained of weak water pressure, others had complained about odd tastes, odors
or smells.
Odors and smells are the same thing.
The color as well, that the color was off.
On February 19th, three weeks after Alisa's disappearance, a maintenance worker climbed
the ladder to the roof in order to inspect the water tank because of these complaints.
This water tank provides water for all residents, the kitchen and the coffee shop that is attached
to the hotel.
Inside the water tank, the maintenance worker found Alisa Lam's body.
She had been there for three weeks at this point since the police could confirm that
she was wearing the exact same clothes as the video in the elevator.
The Emmy reported that there was no signs of trauma to the body, no sexual assault and
no obvious signs of suicide.
Tox reports confirmed that Alisa had minimal amounts of prescription drugs in her system,
but those were consistent with her normal doses of medication.
She did have at least one alcoholic drink, maybe two sometime during the day, as her
blood alcohol content was.02, so way underneath the legal limit, but she clearly did have
some alcohol.
Investigators did however say that the prescription medication amount was so small that it might
have been undercutting her medication, so she probably wasn't taking the full dose.
The Emmy report would reflect that Alisa had died from drowning.
So how did she get up there?
All doors and stairways that could have accessed the roof, you only can access them with a
key card or a password.
Forcing any of those doors would cause an emergency alarm to go off for a fire exit.
But at this time, you can actually access the outside fire escape without triggering
any alarms through a window.
A dog had found Alisa's scent at the end of this specific hallway, but the dog did not
alert the fire escape itself.
Don't really know how sniffing dogs work, maybe it was wind or maybe she wasn't there
long enough to really get a scent, and it is on the side of a fucking building.
So this may be how she got access to the roof, but how did she get in there?
Because surely the water tanks that supply all of the water for the hotel would have
a pretty heavy lid on it, just to keep the water protected from bird shit or whatever
it is.
But according to Google Maps, accessed while the search for Alisa was still going on,
you could clearly see that water tank lids were open on two of the four tanks.
This is the Google Maps area, and this is before Alisa was found.
So somebody was doing just like an aerial view, and it just so happened that these little
snippets or screenshots or whatever had tanks open.
So clearly they had their tanks open, which was gross, because yeah.
Wasn't she found with the lid completely closed then?
That was a rumor.
Yeah, that was apparently a rumor.
The maintenance worker said that when he found her, he just looked in.
There wasn't a cover over it.
So she might have fallen in.
How she actually got in there though is still a mystery, because even the maintenance worker
required a ladder in order to get up there to look in.
So how she got in there is still kind of a mystery.
Although the ME had determined that Alisa's cause of death was drowning, police and detectives
have not officially closed her case.
Because Alisa was in such a deep state of decomposition, they haven't ruled out foul
play completely.
Police's family decided to sue the Cecil Hotel for failing to protect Alisa by allowing
access to the fire escape.
The Cecil denied any wrongdoing saying they couldn't possibly predict the circumstances
and the likelihood that someone would be able to access the tank in normal circumstances
are very slim.
Which is kind of true.
The case was eventually dismissed.
On June 13th, 2015, a 28-year-old man was found outside the hotel.
Another person had either fallen or jumped to their death.
He has not been identified and the case is still open.
In 2011, the Cecil in an effort to distance themselves from their past would change their
name to the stay on Maine, although the original marquee still remains.
Happy Halloween!
That's crazy.
That's my story, y'all.
Wow, I definitely was not expecting any of that to come full circle like it did.
The Cecil, I knew a little bit about it, not a lot.
I've definitely heard that Alisa's story told on another podcast.
But yeah, definitely cool to hear it from another perspective as well, because that
video is very eerie.
So if you haven't seen that video, you can definitely Google the elevator video.
It's pretty crazy.
Just definitely look at it and try to decipher it for yourself.
Yeah, but it's very unnerving to watch.
I just think what's really interesting about this whole case in general about the Cecil
Hotel is that so many different kinds of people from different places, it's almost like when
you read it like that, it's almost like what makes people so drawn to this place?
Yeah, exactly.
Is it because it's kind of seedier?
Is it because, you know what I mean?
Is it the overall depressive nature of it?
It's like vintage or whatever.
Even American Horror Story Hotel is based off Cecil.
I mean, and it's got this very like just a creepy feel, you know?
So I don't know, is it that that makes people kind of go insane or feel more depressed or
is it just a fucking portal to hell?
Yeah, so I definitely wanted to tie in some of that haunted house kind of story-ish spookiness,
plus also serial killers, because that's what we do.
And then just talking about like honestly people's mental states because I mean especially,
you know, I get Great Depression, Doug's in the name, but people were so desperate during
that time and it's just like that's when it kind of kicked off and then it just kind
of never stopped.
It's just really interesting.
Definitely.
And about Richard Ramirez, like I think that it had everything to do with what he was exposed
to as a child, like how he turned out.
That's absolutely awful that he was exposed to all of that as a kid.
Definitely not excusing what he did as an adult with his cousin and then with when he
went with his aunt and then she had her husband or whatever and even his dad.
Like he just had like the really, really shittiest end of the stick coming to like how he was
being raised and stuff.
So that was awful.
But again, I didn't know that his crimes were so short and I definitely didn't know how
young he was when he was caught and all that stuff.
Yeah.
Definitely also just want to pepper this in as well since we did Taco Bell.
Self-harm and suicide earlier in the episode.
It's always in our synopsis of the episode, but I just want to put it here.
You can actually call a new suicide in crisis line that they've recently put into place
to a national suicide lifeline.
And the number is 988 rather than dialing 911.
You would dial 988.
That's actually able to be texted as well.
And there's also like an instant chat option as well online.
If you'd rather message or text someone about it, but definitely share that with your friends.
Definitely know you're not alone.
And of course we put the Trevor Project and the National Suicide Hotline number in our
info every time.
But yeah, that was an awesome case.
Thank you for bringing that.
I was really excited.
I'm glad that we're doing these like longer, like more in-depth cases.
I already know what I'm going to do next.
So I'm really excited about that.
I'm excited.
You guys definitely have been awesome.
You know, keeping up with the downloads of the episodes and we've been really excited
about those.
And we've definitely been seeing like a trend that people listen to us all over the world,
which is pretty cool.
So thanks for all the support, y'all.
And we'll definitely just keep getting these episodes out for you.
We'll just keep going back and forth.
Again, we've been focusing a lot more on cases rather than mental breakdowns.
I think we're going to keep that trend to see because it's been working for us.
Happy Halloween.
You can definitely follow us on Instagram at Diagnosing a Killer, Twitter at KillerDiagnosis.
We have patreon.com slash Diagnosing a Killer if you want to support us that way.
We're on anywhere you listen to podcasts.
We also have a TikTok Diagnosing a Killer and you can email us at Diagnosing a Killer
at gmail.com.
If you have any suggestions now that we're doing these like more well-known cases, definitely
shout us out.
Give us a shout.
Tell us who you want to hear about and that rhymed.
All right.
I think we're good.
Yeah.
Okay.
We'll see you guys later.
Love you.
Bye.