This Paranormal Life - #237 Is The Hotel Cecil CURSED?

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

In Downtown Los Angeles, the name 'Hotel Cecil' means one thing - bad news. The infamous site of the Black Dahlia Murder has had so many dark, terrible, and mysterious things happen that you begin to wonder; is the hotel itself cursed? From historic murders to paranormal experiences on Reddit and TikTok, it's time for Rory and Kit to investigate.Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL MerchFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmEdited by Kami TomanResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can a hotel lobby be cursed? Do ghosts celebrate Halloween? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hey! And welcome back to This Paranormal Life. This is the weekly comedy podcast in which every Tuesday we investigate a different paranormal tale or claim and get to the bottom of whether it's truly paranormal or not. Yeah. We're both paranormal investigators. That's me, Kit Greer-Molvena, Rory Powers, who's sitting across from me.

And we've decades of experience in the field investigating the paranormal. How are you doing today, Rory? I'm doing pretty good. I'm feeling a little bit heartbroken because obviously Halloween is over. That is our Christmas as paranormal investigators. You know, the season's ending, the pumpkins are coming down. For a lot of people, Halloween is a fad. Obviously for us, it's a lifestyle. We never take down the cobwebs in the studio. We never take down the inflatable skeletons. This is our life. So yeah, I'm a little sad that it's ending

for the greater public. And unfortunately we have to get into a pretty paranormal, but much less fun season of Christmas. And it is paranormal. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking otherwise. Flying reindeer. A dude visiting every child in the world in one night. A fat man who can apparently fit on any size of chimney. That is either a paranormal beast or a very determined pedophile. Frankly frankly i don't want to know which one and we may be getting to the bottom of that closer to the time i hope everyone had an incredible halloween i know we did but rory paranormal never sleeps it's time to dive into yet another investigation let me take you back to 1924 los angeles

wait what was it sorry what was the year 19 what 24 sorry i did the sound effects and then i got distracted 1924 you don't need to do the sound effects all right some old-timey music if you please okay it's not bad i need a cigarette and a glass of whiskey, I think. I'm a madman for this. Hotelier William Banks Hanner has just decided to invest a million dollars in his latest masterpiece. And as we know, this is 1924, which means a million is borderline a billion. Right?

It's actually surprisingly, it's only 16 million. Oh, okay. I'm off. It shall have an opulent marble lobby with stained glass windows peppered with statues of alabaster. And it shall be called Hotel Cecil.

William Banks Hanner was gonna build the most beautiful hotel in LA. And at any other point in history, it might have been. But the timing wasn't quite right. The Great Depression struck, Oh. sad, but hardly paranormal, businesses fail all the time. But there may have been something much darker going on here, because for those of you who don't already know, the Hotel Cecil has an extremely grisly history, and is considered one of the most haunted buildings in America.

It's said that so many people have died inside this hotel, it quote, isn't worth cataloging all of them. What? Oh my god. Which is just a bad attitude to have. That is the words of a police officer who's too afraid to go into the hotel and investigate. How many have to happen before you just lose count? Many even died under unusual circumstances, where they would maybe check in under a fake name. The first death at the hotel

was in 1931, just four years after the establishment opened its doors for the first time. Many of the cases stumped the police, who were unable to determine what was natural causes, what was suicide, or what was something more sinister going on. Even back then, the place was developing a dark reputation. But today, the Hotel Cecil is synonymous with death and misery. And when I tell you the shit that's happened there, it'll leave you wondering

the same as me. Can a building, can a place, be evil? Ooh. Alright, so we're not talking about a building being haunted or being plagued by ghosts or spirits. I wouldn't say it's not haunted or not plagued by ghosts. We're talking about a f***ing cube

of evil. That when you enter it, you succumb to the darkness. I like all of these angles, though. I mean, we can get into it later. What could be the mechanism of these kinds of evils? Is it atop of some kind of burial site? Is there just so many ghosts? The place is just like a Scooby-Doo sandwich

filled with curses. Right. Stacked on top of one another. Wow. The Cecil Hotel is best known for being the site of terrible murders and mysteries over the years, such as the Black Dahlia case, which remains unsolved to this day.

Or in the 80s when the Night Stalker, a killer that terrorized California, operated in the Cecil Hotel, even dumping evidence in the hotel's dumpsters jeez like at a certain point they have just uh bad luck with clientele right yeah at some point if you're when not many murders happen at your hotel you're the murder hotel murderers come to the hotel hang out in the hotel lobby murder a couple people in the by the. The murderers are hanging out in the bar together. They're like, dude, you can leave anything lying around your room. They won't tell the police at all. Because some of the room cleaners are murderers. Some of those cleaners, God bless them, are

murderer interns. They're learning the trade here in the hotel. Or there's even the case of Elisa Lam, which we covered in a bonus episode, I think. Even that took place in the Cecil. Wow. But we're more interested in the lesser known cases that occurred in the Cecil. The cases where something happens to people when they stay in the hotel, when the hotel changes them. There's the story of Jack Unterweger. Despite his last name being fun and sounding like underwear, he was a convicted murderer in his home country of Austria, sentenced to prison in 1974.

But after 10 years behind bars, by all accounts, he was a changed man. He wrote and released a book called Purgatory or the Trip to Jail, Reports of a Guilty Man. It was a hit and helped convince the Austrian officials that Unterweger was rehabilitated and they let him go. Wow, that's pretty impressive. You wrote your own PR piece in prison that was so convincing they let you go. Yeah, it's weird how that's how it works, isn't it? I mean, it makes sense. They've got to know whether you're going to do anything again.

Like in Shawshank Redemption, you go into the office and make your case for why you think you should be let out. But he really went over and above and wrote a whole book about how repentant he was and how he was such a changed man. Classy move. And after the great success of his writing, he went on to become a journalist. He was a living example of the success of the prison system and began even reporting on true crime. He was able to use his life experience as a convicted murderer to cover the stories of the very crime he had been sentenced for. He was also present, weirdly, at a lot of the crime scenes moments after the victim had been attacked. No one said that. So he had a pretty clear insight as to what went down suspiciously so he was the

peter parker of murders always weirdly at the sight of spider-man he was like here you go chief high resolution pictures of night stalker it's like i don't even know who the that is these are selfies of you at a crime scene how the did get in here? He's already half out the window as Night Stalker. They're not selfies, chief. Sure, they may have been taken with the selfie camera, but that was only because

I was so close. Things were going great for Unterweger. Right up until 1991, when he checked in to the Hotel Cecil. Uh-oh. He was in town

to write an article about street crime in L.A. It had been 17 long years since his initial conviction, but that fateful weekend, he would be arrested again for killing three innocent people. What happened after 17 years when he walked through the doorway of the Cecil that caused him to snap and commit evil crimes again. Wow. Yeah. It sparked this part of his brain off again. He went to the murder hotel. This is a pretty interesting story and pretty wild that there was seemingly 17 years between his first conviction and then and him committing another crime in the Cecil of all places. But there is some evidence to suggest he was committing crimes as a crime journalist okay

the entire time yeah so what i still he was caught in the hotel cecil so what i said about him being at crime scenes reporting on true crime was funny and also weirdly accurate right okay i feel like that was probably his biggest mistake because the ceil Hotel is the one place they're expecting someone to get murdered. The police are camping out. Yeah. So they're like, even if he had got away with it for 17 years, he just checked into the place where murders happen. Yeah. They're probably going to get them there. How bad is this hotel that people are getting into such a hot white rage that they end up murdering people? You know i've stayed in a decent amount of hotels in my life it's generally quite a pleasurable experience not just the love hotels regular

hotels um uh so i can't imagine how you could have that dramatic uh mind shift going from like approaching the front doors being like it's going to be great to get away uh we got a nice room in a good place uh get get some time away relax yada yada all that jazz and by the point by the two seconds it takes you to get to the front gate you are sweating you are panting licking your lips looking at at human flesh. What's happening? The guy at reception is just lurched from the Addams family. Like, I'm so curious. Like, what could this place look like? Okay. To be honest, the story of Jack Untowager seemed more paranormal when I was researching it. But wait until you hear this story from a blogger called Joy Johnson, who wrote about her father's experience

at the Cecil Hotel. Okay. My father lived at the Cecil in 1965. He was a young single immigrant from Northern Ireland. Whoa. Who needed affordable accommodation near his workplace. He had been staying at the Cecil for some time with no unusual incidents to report. Until one night, he woke up to the sensation that someone was smothering him. Holy shit. He described it as a heavy pressure weighing down on his chest and throat, as if someone was sitting atop him. He gasped for breath and tried to fight back, but it felt like his entire body was paralyzed by an invisible but strong presence. Then, as soon as it began, the feeling dissipated. My father ran downstairs to the night clerk and explained what had happened.

The clerk said, nonchalantly, that someone had been murdered in my dad's room. What? Yeah, that there had been a murder in the very same hotel room. I mean, granted, we've established at this stage, there's probably been a murder in every single hotel room. very same hotel room. I mean, granted, we've established at this stage, there's probably been a murder in every single hotel room. Yeah, I'm gonna start calling this place the Deceasal Hotel, because I think someone has died in

every corner of this place. Just imagining you check into this room, the porter is like, okay, number 452, please come on in and check out your room. He opens the door, you see a dead body on the floor. Whoa! Okay, let's get that cleaned up for you and I'll let you right in. I thought housekeeping had already been around this morning.

My dad changed rooms and did not experience anything unusual during the rest of his stay. But the experience, I mean, those rooms must have been very affordable for him to go back into another bedroom after that. But the experience haunted my father for the rest of his life decades later my father would be visibly shaken when retelling the story of what happened in that room at the cecil hotel wow he would break out into a sweat and his hands would shake my mother would caution him to stop telling the story if it upsets him so much that's a very fair point but dad felt compelled to go on even while clutching his heart he's having a

cardiac episode while telling the story but he has to get the truth out i love that just don't tell the story and then i felt it on my chest. It'd be interesting to know if the person that died in that hotel room that he stayed in was smothered. I wonder if they ever found out. If it was a strangulation, and that's why maybe he was feeling a similar kind of thing. That's very interesting. I don't think he found out. Oh, damn.

My dad lived through the Nazi bombing of his hometown in Belfast as a child. He recounted having to run to the bomb shelter in the middle of the night with less fear than he told the story about that night at the Cecil Hotel. Oh my gosh. The logical, rational side of me can dismiss my father's experiences at the Cecil as just a nightmare. He was prone to nightmares, very bad ones, in which I remember him moaning and crying out in fear. A lot of in Belfast, he was captured by Nazi forces and he's like, and then I felt the hands go up my... They're like, we don't care.

We're going to execute you. Those horrible smothering hands. Just let him go. Just let him go. They're like, we tortured him for hours and nothing but this story it sends his heart rate racing but the thing about his nightmares is that they were always the classic someone chasing me scenario never did he have a nightmare that in any way resembled his experience at the cecil so rory already we're getting a pretty spooky picture. Not only have incredibly famous and disturbing incidents happen in this hotel, but seemingly reformed criminals have gone loco

and visitors to the hotel have experienced an evil force in their hotel room, only to find out that's where a murder took place. Wow. You know, I would consider myself to be a do-gooder on the scale of do-gooder to serial killer. Sure. consider myself to be a do-gooder on the scale of do-gooder to serial killer sure but it's interesting to see that even do-gooders can fall ill to curses and and hauntings you know you might not be pushed to murder but you're still gonna feel the effects of this evil place when you visit

it yeah it's very interesting like what did the demon or curse or ghost want was it trying to take him over was it corrupt him possess him is that what is it the first stage to you becoming a killer yeah or maybe they're like we know we can't get this guy to kill uh so let's just kill him he's too much of a pussy. Let's just end his ass. All of these things could seem like coincidence, but so many disturbing things have taken place at the Cecil that there's a whole Wikipedia page called List of Death and Violence at the Cecil Hotel. That's not good.

That's bad. Which is why the hotel has changed its name in the last few years to The Stay on Main. Okay. Which is a smart idea. But even after its rebrand, spooky shit continues to happen. For example, Reddit user VKLC was a guest back in 2016 and had a truly harrowing experience.

When she checked into the hotel, all of the staff were warm and friendly. But after darkness fell outside, she witnessed a number of strange occurrences in her hotel room. It all started when she heard a sudden thumping coming from the bathroom. She tiptoed in and waited, listening hard. Soon she heard it again. Thinking there could be a problem with the plumbing, she turned the tap to check the water flow. Nothing happened. With a sigh, she picked up the phone to dial the reception desk. Hello, ma'am. How can we help you? But right as the receptionist answered the call,

the water started flowing. Oh, never mind. Forget it. Thank you. flowing. Oh, never mind. Forget it. Thank you. She wandered back to the bathroom to turn off the tap, but leapt back in horror when she saw the water. It was a deep gray color. Not wanting to phone down to reception again, which I would understand because that guy was creepy, she decided to brush it off and go to bed. Note to self, don't drink the water. She collapsed in bed and was soon fast asleep. But in the middle of the night, somebody suddenly started pounding on her door. She bravely went to the door and looked through the peephole. There was a man banging on the door, clearly in need of help.

For some ungodly reason, she took pity on the strange man and opened her hotel room door for him. As soon as she had the door open a crack, the man wrenched it open on the strange man and opened her hotel room door for him. As soon as she had the door open a crack, the man wrenched it open, pushed her aside, and ran into the room, slamming the door behind him. It was the middle of the night, and now she was locked out of her room. What? So rude! He threw her out? She had no choice but to trudge downstairs to the reception desk, where the clerk was more than happy to help. Oh my. I'm sorry about that.

I don't think he's sorry at all. Doubt. Oh my. You want to be a dude with a spooky voice, you get in your spooky voice. Downtown LA characters. You gotta love them. I'll call security and we'll have you back in your room in no time.

There's no way she wants to be back in that room. Find a new room. And you absolutely, under no circumstances, gotta love him. Absolutely, no. The downtown LA characters. He's talking like this is a nightly occurrence. It's like, oh, did the hallway man get you too? All right, we'll just move you to another room.

Let him have that one for the night. The KLC was escorted back upstairs by two burly security guards who went in ahead to remove the intruder but there was nobody there not in the closet under the bed or behind the curtains none of the classic hotel room hide and seek-seek spots were occupied. Thinking it was safe, VKLC wandered into the bathroom. Her heart stopped when she pulled the door closed and saw the man brandishing a razor blade, bleeding profusely. She screamed and he lashed out, slicing her cheek with the blade. Security intervened and soon the emergency services were on their way. He was real? I thought he was like a ghost man.

He was hiding in the bathroom in Slicer with a razor blade. Bad security. Check the bathroom for sure. Check everywhere. There's only two rooms. The bedroom and the bathroom. There's only two places he could be. The bedroom and the bathroom.

We checked the bedroom, so we're going to leave. Good night. Good night and good luck. like are you sure i can hear heavy breathing from the bathroom i think that's the air con anyway stay safe y'all you're missing a razor by the way you're gonna want to get a new one from the front desk there were bloody footprints from the bedroom into the bathroom not long now you can hear that right he's not even being discreet ring around the roses nothing to worry about security guards nothing to worry about ma'am what you're just repeating what he's saying. The staff were extremely apologetic and offered VKLC a new room. Nothing you can do will make up for this.

No way. There's no kind of upgrade that could possibly make this night worth it. So she, anyway, she accepted the new room. She knew staying at the Cecil Hotel was going to be a wild ride. The next morning, she'd almost forgotten the craziness of the previous evening when she stepped into the lift on the third floor. How did she forget? You said she got her cheek cut off.

Yeah. By a razor blade? Yeah, I don't think you kind of forget that in the morning. She pushed the button for the lobby, but the elevator was making a weird clunking noise. Oh, take the stairs, you son of a bitch. Take the stairs. It moved, but the doors wouldn't a weird clunking noise. Oh, take the stairs, you son of a bitch. Take the stairs. It moved, but the doors wouldn't open.

They were stuck closed. She pressed the emergency button and an intercom came on. But all that crackled over the speaker was a weird static noise. It got so loud, it filled the whole lift. And at that moment, the lift dropped, coming to an abrupt halt on the third floor. She ran out of there as fast as she could and headed for the stairs. On her way, she passed a young mother and daughter. The child stared at VKLC with wide eyes and said,

Mama, that lady isn't real. Her mother replied, Sure she is, honey. I can see her. No, she isn't, Mama. I can see her. No, she isn't, mama. I can tell because she has the shadows following her. That kid needs to shut up. You can't say shit like that in a hotel. I could be staying at the Hilton by LAX, having a totally normal night, and if a kid in the hallway says,

You've got the shadows following you, I'm going to punch the kid. I'm going to punch the kid. I'm going to punch the kid and maybe try and fight my own shadow. I don't know what's going on anymore. My night is ruined. My life is maybe ruined. Children need to understand the power they wield when it comes to creepy shit. Especially British children.

Oh, my God. With bulging eyes? Mama. You can't just say shit like that, kid, to an adult. Glory isn't real. They don't know the power that they hold. You could have the cutest little kid and all they would have to do is just stare at the corner of a room for like 45 minutes.

That alone would make me move house. That's a lot of power to have in a child, you know? They need to understand that. It's true. Yeah yeah they don't understand that whenever they're just like scribbling with like crayons and a bit of paper that all the adults in the room are waiting to see if they draw the demon from insidious yeah the kid just draws a terrible wonky looking barney the dinosaur what the is that is he here? Do you see him now? Get out of the house! A purple dinosaur? Are you kidding me? Get the f*** out of the house!

What about our things? F*** our things! Burn it down! Kill the beast! I know, it's like you're reacting in real time. It's like, okay. Little Timmy's drawing two eyes. Good so far.

Uh-oh. Horns? Oh, wait. No, a cute little tail. Could be a billy goat. Hooves. All right, I don't know. Let's see where these other legs go. That's enough drawing for today, Billy. Oh, you're grabbing the red crayon. That's weird for a billy goat. Flames? I guess this goat could be on the grill. No, it's a devil. It's Satan. VKLC ran back to her room for a shower, but there were yet more

water problems. Once again, she dialed the front desk. To her surprise, the staff's friendly attitude had disappeared. If you're seeing things, it might be in your best interest if you check out. And quickly, too. Wow, that is pretty chilling stuff, Rory. Can you imagine being in the author's shoes for that experience? I had a, I'm not going to say a similar experience, because I feel like that's doing a disservice.

I didn't have my butt cheek carved off by a razor blade. But I did, once on a work trip, was staying down at uh santa monica in a hotel an equally insane location it was uh it was only four stars um so you know i was i was slumming it uh no i was on a work trip staying in this hotel and uh part of the work trip was there capturing footage of a video game yes i have a ridiculous job but that footage need to be processed edited and turned around for the embargo which was 8 a.m the next day so i think we did the whole day of capturing footage then i got back to my hotel after dinner at like seven and i was like all right i'm just not sleeping tonight i need to

edit all of these from pretty much right now until the embargo at 8am in the morning. Insane. Uh, awful, not, not a really great work experience. I just went to the corner shop, got some snacks, monster energy drinks, and just pulled an all nighter, uh, cutting all these features and social clips and everything. By the time it got to the morning, I mean, I'm no stranger to a 24 hour marathon in terms of like work or fun. You know, I do them quite a bit. But you're a different person by the time the sun rises. You are pale, kind of ghastly. It's the closest you can kind of get to becoming a vampire.

You don't really look like yourself. Bags under the eyes. You don't feel great. Your head is kind of like fuzzy. But I managed to pull it off. But I had to check out at nine right after all the videos went out. So I do my checks, pack up all my bags, get all my shit together. And of course, the thing you do when you're leaving a hotel is

check every corner of the hotel room where it would be physically impossible for any object to have reached. Oh, sure. You're checking the air vents if you put your AirPods in there. Then I put my password in the tank behind the toilet. You know, you have to just check everywhere. And obviously a big one is underneath the bed. So I went down to check if there was anything underneath the bed. For some reason in this bonkers hotel the bottom of the bed underneath the cloth was mirror so i raised up the cloth and just see this ghastly pale face looking back at me i thought some had been under my bed all night and had been waiting to come out

but because i never went to sleep he had stayed under there and been trapped i've never i've never that's the most logical conclusion your sleep deprived mind of course oh my god like i've never i've been in some scary life situations before i've never had a uh something happen to me in such an instant where like i almost spasmed my heart skipped four beats i freaked out so hard uh i thought there was a man under my bed and he had been there the whole time not gonna lie as soon as i managed to collect myself laughed about it went to see if there was anything under the desk mirror mirror under the desk shot myself a second time oh it was terrifying and so even though you know obviously not a similar experience i feel like i've had that same moment where i've thought someone has been in my hotel room before stalking

me yeah it was very lucky i was checking out because even though that was me being a dumbass i would have felt uncomfortable sleeping in that room for a second night. Yeah, that's true. That's interesting. It's almost like you can't, even though you rationally know it's not true, kind of the mood has been ruined already. Terrifying. That is terrifying.

I'm not sure what the lesson in there is. I think check if there's mirrors in your room before you pull an all-nighter yeah yeah then you can't be caught out or if you're feeling really paranoid uh when you check into the room go into the bed yourself and then if anyone else is gonna come you freaking freak them out you've got the upper hand you you open the door to your room go under the bed you're like i'm gonna i'm gonna get a little knife from the dining area as well. So if anyone wants to come in here and try and freak me out, I'm ready. I'm going to freak out the freaks.

A family of five come in. All right, honey, this is the hotel room. 205. You look at your card. 204. Kids, you make yourselves at home. We're just going to go to the bathroom. Get like, fuck, fuck. Stuck under this bed. kids uh you make yourselves at home uh we're just gonna go to the bathroom get like

stuck under this bed i'm just i have to kill them now i am a killer for this this is how it happens stay there for like their three-day trip to disneyland you're under the bed sweating in florida heat imagine that imagine being stuck under the bench being like, all right, I have to wait until they go for breakfast. You just overhear them being like, huh, well, it sure is going to be boring quarantining in this hotel room for 10 days. F***, shit!

That's when you just got to come out and just run out the front door. Whether every detail of VKLC's story actually happened is up for debate, but the hotel really was open to visitors at that time, and people did stay there as a kind of dark tourism to experience the history of the hotel firsthand. Can you stay now in the stay hotel? It's been closed since 2017. Oh, we just missed it. But that doesn't mean people have stopped trying to investigate the paranormal there. I found a TikTokeroker i don't know if you've seen this guy called pete mon pete monzingo is this the drone

guy i don't know he definitely he's about to use some drones that's for sure okay um i saw someone i think was yeah because it is close to the public you can't go in but i saw someone was yeah trying to use drones to go by the windows and have a little peek inside oh so you've already seen this guy um for anyone who hasn't seen his account uh this guy, Pete, he's like a famous TikToker in his own right. He moved to downtown LA a couple of years ago just because it's popping right now. It was an up and coming area, lots of artists and creatives, and he wanted to live in this cool loft. What he didn't expect was that he would end up living opposite the Hotel Cecil, a place he didn't know about before moving there.

And he now says he constantly sees shadows and doors opening and closing on their own and he can feel the bad vibes. Shadows and doors in his own apartment or across the street he can see through the windows? Yeah, so he can just see the front, like all the hundreds of windows in the Hotel Cecil. Right. It's his view outside his apartment window. Got it. Okay. So it seems like the evil is at least contained to the cube.

Yeah, thank God. It's not leaking across the roads. I live across the street from the most haunted hotel in the world. And I always take a look just to make sure I don't see anything. Like this. Hey, look at me. Do you need help? The time I called 911 because this girl was about to jump.

The hotel has a long history of suicide, so I thought she was just trying to continue the legacy. It turns out I was wrong. So we started off doing videos just showing the outside of the building to his TikTok followers. Right. Is this the Walking Dead music?

It's kind of zooming in on windows, noticing that lights are turning on and off, that windows are open and closed, depending on the day, in a hotel that really should be closed. And he's inviting his followers to pause the video at different points to try and look in the windows and see if they can see anything right right and it kind of reached its conclusion when

as rory said he attempted to fly drones across the road from his apartment in through the open windows of the hotel cecil which is pretty ingenious because there isn't really that much access to the hotel. Yeah. I mean, that's got to be a hard... That's like threading a needle, you'd think. Yeah, and he failed miserably. I think he failed twice.

It just hit the window both times. A guy with a razor took a swipe at the drone as it came close. But finally, I don't know how or why, maybe it's to do with the internet's increased interest in the Cecil Hotel, but a number of people now have been inside this year, quite recently, and had a look around. So I'm just showing Rory a video of this guy, Pete Monzingo, walking around the hotel itself. The vibes are definitely creepier every floor I go up.

It does look like a horrible hotel. Yeah. Not haunted, but just horrible. All right, now it's getting a little haunted. It's getting bad. Okay, that's bad. This is a level from Resident Evil. Good lord.

What do you think, Roy? Did it look that creepy actually on the inside? It's hard for me to imagine a world in which this was built to be the most luxurious hotel in existence. It looked like prison cells. I might have oversold that bit. But to be fair, I think a lot has changed in the last almost 100 years since it was built. Yeah, I suppose. There's a lot of grand hotels out there that it costs so many millions of dollars to renovate them that it just never gets done.

Right. They fall apart. They stay crummy. How did this guy get in? Because I assumed you said that people had gone in recently. I assumed it was maybe part of some sort of ghost tour. But he was. He was on his lonesome.

Oh, yeah. He was not doing the Disney tour. He was off the lonesome. Oh, yeah. He was not doing the Disney tour. He was off the tracks. Yeah. All I know is he said in it, he didn't have much time. I don't know what that means. If someone said, all right, you can look around for like 20 minutes. Oh, right.

Or if he was like, the demons are coming. I don't have much time. Yeah. Or if he broke in and the police were on their way. I don't know. It's hard. You can interpret that in a lot of different ways. I like the way he was like, I don't have much time.

And then slow panned into an old toilet filled with shit. It's like, all right, dude, we get it. It's nasty. But like, there's probably cooler things to look at in here. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to be honest. Because I think quite a number of like well-known YouTubers have had a look around now. And I wouldn't be surprised if they just threw cash at the situation there's a lot of people who want a tour right or to be just left on their own to look around it yeah that's fair I got to admire

that I mean we didn't watch the whole video but he seemed like he was just up for documenting it not trying to play it off as like what was that oh yeah you know here's someone in the background he was just like yo this is it this is what You know, here's someone in the background. He was just like, yo, this is it. This is what it looks like. Here's some of the rooms. This is crazy. Um, which I can appreciate. Totally. Cause I think he understands the history of the hotel is bad enough. You don't need to like, you don't need to invent a bunch of things to be, you don't need to invent a bogeyman. Like a lot of bad people stayed there and a lot of terrible things happened. So Rory, now we've taken you from the reformed criminals who went loco once they set foot inside a Hotel Cecil

to the story of Joey Johnson's father who experienced it many years ago and experienced some kind of evil force in the middle of the night right through to our Redditor VKLC's experience, supposedly firsthand of experiencing some kind of British demon child in the hallways of the Hotel Cecil.

What do you think? Is there something specifically paranormal and cursed about this hotel? It's hard, isn't it? I wish I had, if I looked at the greater stats for murders in hotels, I'd like to think that comparatively other hotels are quite low

i don't really know what the murder or death rate is for hotels on average yeah you know because there must be the majority which is none but then a couple that are like yeah quite a few here yeah i mean this gets into kind of the meat and potatoes of what's really going on here. Sure, it's easy to look at the Hotel Cecil and say, it is located in downtown LA on Skid Row, granted, one of the most infamously chaotic locations in America. Yes. It's probably going to have a couple more murders than your average hotel.

Yeah, it's not just in Colorado. Right. In the suburbs somewhere. Yes. Pretty chill. New Haven, Connecticut. Yeah. It's in GTA Vice City.

There is crime in GTA Vice City. Yes. So yeah, I think environment definitely plays a role in that. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe the price of it as well. If it's not really an expensive hotel. I don't know.

I don't know what the answer to this is. And then also just the odds, you know, just sometimes these things happen. I don't really know. There's no history or explanation behind why this thing would be causing these events to take place within it you know you know because you could say oh yeah people are now being haunted by the murders that took place years ago exactly why do these guys go crazy then what murders haunted them this place was built like four years ago um although it is kind of an embarrassment of paranormal riches, isn't it? Because we've probably done cases on haunted houses in the past where probably just one murder happened there,

and now the house is haunted forever. For all eternity, yeah. Whereas this is like, you almost don't know where to begin. All right, it's cursed. Sure, which one was it? You've got to be more specific. A lot of people have died here. I know.

We're saying that there's nothing paranormal about jigsaw's mansion where every room is a game a f***ed up game of life or death but i don't know i don't know is there i mean is there any explanation as to what could be causing people to be going loco in the hotel i haven't honestly come across any explanation that involves anything about say the building itself or the land itself i think it really does come down to just the the things that have taken place in the hotel i think probably other paranormal investigators would say you know some pretty terrible murders and things happened back in the day, like in the 30s, in the early years of the hotel.

And then it was just cursed forevermore. As always in this paranormal life, we're really just hamstrung by the actual evidence we have to hand. We have the story of our Austrian murderer friend, the story from Joy Johnson, and from our Redditor. The story of Joy Johnson's father is tricky because she even mentions herself that the elephant in the room is he suffered from nightmares all through his life. And they were famous that he would be writhing and moaning in agony in the night, presumably seeing all kinds of night terrors. And then he goes on to describe in the Hotel Cecil what sounds like a textbook night terror, some kind of demon sitting on his chest suffocating him. Yeah, maybe one more vivid than others. But yeah, he didn't even really see a guy or a person, you know, not like that alleged third case where there was just a dude in the bathroom.

room and then in the case that you just mentioned are one from vklc starting to get a little colorful and i have my suspicions that vklc may have been inspired by some of the um real events in the past some of the other stories that happen at the hotel cecil i think that's fair to say which leaves us only with our uh serial killer friend in austria uh Austria who turned out wasn't actually turned evil by the Hotel Cecil, but had been killing from the moment he got out of prison for killing. Frustratingly, I think that's the only true story that we covered today. And it's the one I wish wasn't true. So Rory, if you had to come down on a yes or no, whether you think the Hotel Cecil is paranormal or not? I think there's been a lot of probably dark, mysterious, horrible things that have taken place.

But paranormal things, I'm not sure. I don't see any proof of. At the end of the day, folks, murder just isn't paranormal. Birdie f***ed up, but it's not paranormal. You're a coward. You're too scared to go investigate the Hotel Cecil yourself. Watch it. It is going to be a no from me this week.

Fair enough. I think it's going to be a no from me too. That makes it a double no on the case of whether the Hotel Cecil is paranormal. But it remains to be seen. You know, we will find ourselves in LA again. Maybe we will go have a look around. Who knows? Rory is recording this in advance,

but at the time that you're hearing it, he's actually staying in Skid Row as we speak. I will be in LA. I will be in LA when this episode does go out. So I don't know. I think I've got a day or two where I haven't got a hotel booked. Maybe I can get like a discount, Paranormal Investigators

discount. If you try that at like Premier Inn or Hilton, they kick you out if you ask for the Paranormal Investigators discount. But somewhere like the DeCecil Hotel? It might just find me. To be honest, that's probably where they make their money. They need to charge people like you through the nose.

I hope you enjoyed this investigation into the Hotel Cecil. Thank you to anyone who suggested it over the years took us a while to get there thank you to amy grisdale for researching this case and to cammy toman for editing it why haven't they sorry i know we just finished the case and everything why haven't they knocked this place down why haven't they knocked this place down yet one murder was enough to knock this place down not a history of murders and then a name change a reopening and more murders hotels are uh really uh poison chalice i think from what i understand it's like they're so big when they're falling apart like the hotel cecil you gotta spend tens of millions of dollars to make them good again.

Right. And the only alternative is demolishing it and building something else, which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Oh, all right. I see. So the problem is always cash. Okay. Yeah. That's most of life's problems, isn't it? It's cash. Let the murders continue. You're going to the bank applying for loans and they're like i'm i'm really sorry we just can't give you a loan for 100 million

dollars to rebuild this place and it's like all right all right can i offer you a free night in my hotel it's like no you can't i know what happens at the hotel i know what's gonna happen if i stay Make sure and bring all your worldly possessions. Guys, if you listen to This Paranormal Life before, you know the score, you know that we'll be back next Tuesday with a brand new episode. But what if you can't wait until then? Let it be known that over on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life, there is a whole back catalog of bonus content, bonus episodes that go into some of the most nuts paranormal cases in history. Those are all full length and waiting for you at patreon.com

forward slash this paranormal life. We don't just look underneath the rock. We pick up the rock and clobber you over the head with it. And what, what happens is manic hallucinogenic dreams. That's what a bonus episode is i think it would agree with that the links to the patreon and our social media platforms you can keep up with all things this paranormal life are all in the description of this here podcast swipe up on your app of choice and click the links uh we also got merchandise over on this paranormal lifeormallife.com. Oh, yeah. And if you are a member of the paranormal commune, we have an ongoing partnership

with the Cecil Hotel. You can get rooms there for zero bucks a night. So let them know. Get in touch. As I say, we'll see you next Tuesday with a brand new paranormal case. Until then, bye-bye.