Cecil Hotel Suicide Investigations – A heavy police presence was in the area of a popular Housing Complex in Downtown Los Angeles last week. A person allegedly jumped to their death at the well-known Cecil Hotel located on South Main Street in Los Angeles, California. The deadly incident happened on Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Law enforcement agencies were called to the scene on 640 S Main St after a man was reportedly seen hanging at the location. Law enforcement agencies responded to the scene for active investigation.
The identity of the man involved was not disclosed immediately. According to unconfirmed sources, the male was pronounced dead at the scene of the incident. Details on what led to the tragic incident are not known at this time. This is a developing story.
ALSO READ: The Terrifying History of the Cecil Hotel
The Cecil Hotel drew national news in 2013 with the inexplicable disappearance of Elisa Lam, a Canadian college student who was seen acting strangely on an elevator surveillance camera before disappearing. Lam’s naked body was later discovered in a closed water tank on the roof of the building. The mystery surrounding the foreboding structure sparked podcasts, films, and amateur research into the property’s history. The hotel’s original developers intended for the huge Beaux Arts-style edifice, which opened in 1924, to be a prominent destination for business travelers visiting downtown Los Angeles.
However, the economy collapsed five years later, and the anticipated influx of wealthy business travelers became a slow trickle. The motel, located just steps away from Skid Row, became a feasible lodging alternative for the local transitory population, which was estimated to exceed 10,000 persons in the 1930s. The first known death occurred a little more than two years after the facility’s inception when a man committed suicide in his room. Unfortunately, more suicides followed. A retiree staying in one of the residential rooms was discovered dead in her room in the late 1960s, likely the victim of rape, physical violence, and stabbing.
It is thought that Ramirez, also known as the Night Stalker and the Night Stalker II, Before his apprehension in 1985, serial killer Richard Ramirez, who was known to frequent Skid Row, was a resident of the hotel. Ramirez, also known as the Night Stalker and Valley Intruder, is thought to have committed several of his crimes while staying at the Cecil. Ramirez had over a dozen victims and was condemned to death 19 times, yet he died of cancer in prison in 2013. An Austrian serial killer was also apprehended after staying at the hotel in 1991.
Jack Unterweger was a magazine journalist who was meant to be in the red-light area on assignment. Instead, he strangled three sex workers to death. He hung himself after being arrested. The hotel changed hands in 2011 and attempted to rebrand as The hotel changed hands in 2011 and sought to rebrand as the Stay on Main, but retained much of its Cecil signage.
The city of Los Angeles designated the hotel as a “Historic-Cultural Monument” in 2017, and it closed for renovations the same year. The ailing property’s future is unknown. In 2020, Zak Bagans and the Ghost Adventures crew were the first to be authorized to film inside the Cecil Hotel to investigate what makes the towering structure so frightening.
News from SNBC13.com
