A gripping new TV show is set to uncover the gruesome history of a hotel plagued by a host of horrific deaths.
Crime Scene: The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel hits Netflix today and explores the LA building’s deadly past.
It also covers the baffling disappearance of Canadian student Elisa Lam, left, who was staying there in 2013.
Here, James Moore reveals the places where some have checked in but never checked out…
Cecil Hotel, Los Angeles
There have been at least 16 grisly deaths at the hotel, which opened in 1927.
A string of tragic suicides included Pauline Otton, who leapt to her death from a ninth-floor window in 1962, killing a passer-by below.
There are unsolved murders, too. In 1947 Elizabeth Short, 22, known as the Black Dahlia, had a drink at the hotel days before her body was found cut in two.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
And in 1964 an unknown killer raped, stabbed and strangled Goldie Osgood in her room.
Chillingly, former guests include two serial killers – the “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, who murdered at least 14 people, and Jack Unterweger, who killed three sex workers in the city.
Then came the bizarre case of Elisa Lam. Her naked corpse was discovered floating in the hotel’s water tank in February 2013, weeks after she went missing when residents at the re-branded Stay on Main complained about the bad-tasting water.
There was no apparent evidence of suicide, physical trauma or sexual assault, and a coroner ruled her death an accidental drowning.
(Image: Getty Images)
But puzzling questions remained unanswered.
Just how she climbed a ladder to get inside the tank with its heavy lid, after apparently accessing the roof via a fire escape without triggering hotel alarms, has never been properly explained.
The mystery has sparked a host of theories ranging from a psychotic episode to foul play and even the paranormal.
Stanley Hotel, Colorado
In 1980 horror The Shining, Jack Nicholson plays a caretaker at the empty Overlook Hotel. Its deadly past haunts him and his family with terrifying consequences.
(Image: LightRocket via Getty Images)
Stephen King wrote the story after visiting the Stanley Hotel in the Colorado Rockies, where he had his own paranormal experience in room 217.
He dreamt that his son was being chased down the corridors.
The spirit of ex-housekeeper Elizabeth Wilson, injured in a 1911 fire, is said to haunt the room, with other residents reporting objects being moved and a cold presence. Guests at the grand building, built in 1909, have also heard blood-curdling cries at night.
In room 428, a cowboy hanged for murder is said to regularly appear at the end of the bed.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Elsewhere, the ghost of a former caretaker barks at people to “get out”.
The Adelphi, Liverpool
Staff have reported seeing a mysterious grey lady in Victorian dress in the basement and a ghoul hanging out of a window.
Other ghosts include that of Raymond Brown, 15, a pageboy who died in the 1960s after getting trapped in the baggage room lift.
(Image: Mirrorpix)
The Daily Star has projected an image of Piers Morgan onto the Houses of Parliament – and we’re asking you are we ready for #PMFORPM?
Last week the Daily Star jokingly asked the question on nobody’s lips: Would PM be a better PM than our current PM?
And it seems we may have inadvertently unleashed a monster. Shy and retiring Piers – no stranger to holding our politicians to account on Good Morning Britain – leapt on the idea.
His odds were slashed from 500/1 to just 20/1 in a single day.
So, are you Team Piers or Team Bozo? Take part in our survey!
The hotel, dating to 1826, also has links to the infamous White Mischief murder case, made into a film starring Greta Scacchi.
In 1941 Sir “Jock” Delves Broughton was acquitted of murdering the Earl of Erroll – who had an affair with Jock’s wife, Diana.
He never shook off the suspicion that he was the culprit and killed himself at the Adelphi in 1942.
‘Murder Castle’, Chicago
Serial killer HH Holmes is reckoned to have killed 200 people at his World’s Fair Hotel in Chicago, US. He installed secret pipes in rooms to gas his guests and chutes to deliver their bodies to a basement where he would dismember and dispose of them in ovens and acid baths. He was executed in 1896.
(Image: Getty Images)
Chelsea Hotel, New York
In 1978 the body of Nancy Spungen, girlfriend of Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols, was found stabbed to death at the hotel.
Charged with the 20-year-old’s murder, Vicious died aged 21 of a heroin overdose before he could be brought to trial.
Writer Dylan Thomas also fell ill at the hotel and died shortly afterwards in 1953 aged 39.
The Savoy, London
The luxury hotel was the scene of a horrific shooting in 1923 when wealthy young Egyptian Prince Fahmy Bey was gunned down by his French wife, Marguerite, in their room.
Despite shooting him three times with her own gun – once in the back – she was sensationally acquitted at her trial claiming self-defence.