Short Stuff: Body Under The Bed

probably never know this. I doubt if they would follow up and let you know, but there could be a dead body under that bed. Yeah. And what's weird is

this as an urban legend, very widespread one. The you know, some friend of my cousin who he works with, went to Vegas with his wife once and got on an elevator with Eddie Murphy, right, and he had a dog and Eddie Murphy said, sit lady, and the wife sat down and Eddie Murphy said, no, I was talking to my dog, and then gave them paid off their mortgage.

It's right, Uh, No different than that that, Like, you know, your cousin's friend coworker went to Vegas and this happened to him what's weird about this, Chuck is Snopes is on the case, and God bless Snopes for doing everything they do. They said, not only has this happened, this has happened many times over. This is one of those

rare urban legends that is actually true. That's right. Uh, And a lot of hotels there are It's sort of a platform me box spring situation where there is a cavernous area under the box spring, but above that that platform that turns out is just right for storing a body. Yeah, every every criminal knows you want to store a body. Every motel in America has you covered pretty much. Should we go through some of these? I think we should,

because again, like this has happened many times um. One of the first one Snopes talks about happened in two thousand three at the Capri Motel in downtown Kansas City. And one of the recurring themes that I've seen, Chuck is management sometimes won't do anything. They'll be like, sorry, nothing, you's gonna be done, And this is the only room we have. You have to stay here, and people will stay there despite the stench of what turns out to be a decomposing body, like in this case, Yet a

dead thing is a very specific smell. I would not for one second even unpack my suitcase and give it a shot. Right. Well, this guy in Kansas City not only unpacked a suitcase after complaining about the room and being told nothing could be done about it. Um, he's stay there for three nights from July tenth to July thirte and finally checked out because of the smell. And I looked on those dates in two thousand three in Kansas City, it got up to around ninety so I'll

bet it was pretty smelling. And finally housekeeping was like, well, let's figure out what this is, and they lift up the mattress and there was a body in the state of advanced decomposition. July I'm sorry, June, sixty four year old named saw Hernandez was discovered inside and under her bed at the Burgundy Motor d I hate calling out these hotels, but I guess it is what it is, Room one twelve. Yeah, this gets really specific. Don't say they're in Atlantic City. In fact, it's Atlantic City, so

it may not even be there at this point. Yeah, I was wondering that myself, but a German couple, God bless him. They didn't know any better. They spent the night there sleeping over his body. They complained to the manager about the smell. They said, mind galt do something about it, and that's when they found the body. Yeah, German tourists are recurring motif in this urban legend come to life, because in in Florida there were two cases in Florida alone, and both of them were bodies that

were discovered after complaints from German tourists. So they have really bad luck with this kind of stuff. Lovely Pasadena, California, the Wonderful Colorado Boulevard Travel Lodge. In July, a woman was found under a mattress. They discovered her ten days later, after guests had complained for several days of a foul odor. At this point, I would think if someone says there's a bad smell, I would just immediately assume it's a

body and look. Yeah, you'd think it would be like a recurring kind of like column that pops up in like the Hotel Times or you know, Motel Industry News magazine or something like that, But I guess not, because it still continues. Um there this The Snopes traced it all the way back to I think two was there the first report that they mentioned. I don't know if it was the first time it's ever happened, but um, between two and two thousand ten they found ten cases.

And this is not just a body being discovered in a hotel room. Apparently that happens multiple times a day, every day everywhere in the world. I guess from what this looks like. But what Snopes is saying is like, no, we got to stick to the urban legend where somebody the body was discovered because somebody slept above it overnight. And at least ten times between eighty two and two and ten that happened. Yeah, and that's you know that

cut it off. Like you said in two thousand and ten, if you just google a dead body hotel mattress, that happens a lot. Still. Yeah, there was there was one then Austin last year, one the year before, somewhere else I can't remember, but they're kind of all over the place. It seems like an annual event, like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade or something. Yeah, one smells way worse than the other. I'll let you guess. Yeah, So do you

want to take a break and come back a little bit. Yeah, we'll come back in a second talk a little bit about another way that bodies find their way to hotel rooms. So what we talked about before was specifically, like you said, the urban legend of bodies under a mattress under a box spring. Uh. My thought was, like, how are they

getting there? The answer is they're they're all murder cases general pretty much murder or say like a couple of people are partying in a hotel and one of them dies and the other one doesn't want to like get questions, mattress man stashed the body. Yeah, Because I think there's two things about this, right, There's people like average people who check into a hotel. People like you and me, We stay in hotels. We stay in hotels, right, um,

sleeping unknowingly above just inches above a decomposing body. That's part one that's horrible. But I think the second part of it that makes it so horrible is like the indignity of having your body just stuffed under a mattress and a CD hotel, you know. Yeah, So I think those two things combined and the fact that it's actually happens in real life is just it makes it horrific. Well, one of the other ways a body very sadly can be found in a hotel and not under a mattress

is obviously, uh suicide. People apparently check into hotels to do this a lot for obvious reasons. You wanna you don't want your family to have a mess necessarily. Another reason is to avert exposure, maybe to the media. And I think it's just sort of gets buried in the news if it's just a random hotel suicide kind of thing. Casinos apparently had the highest suicide rate, uh, and Las Vegas has the high suicide rate in the country. I could see that if like you just lost a bunch

of money, that has something to do with it. They said, this is not all of it, but a lot of people show up in Vegas desperate and destitute, you know, trying to gamble their way back to you know, not necessarily even prosperity. Oh man, that's a sad scene you

just painted. Yeah, but you were joking in the thing about it being In the hotel industry, there was an article called how to Properly respond to a guest death in your Hotel published in a journal for hotel managers that I found, and they said a big thing in Vegas is they don't and most big hotels now don't let you just open the windows, but a lot of them do have balcony. Still Vegas they don't even have

balconies because of the suicide problem. So they said that leads some people to make a final leap, like in an atrium style lobby. And he says in this article that hotel managers should keep a very large, dark colored tarp made of impermeable material on hand and available at all times, just so you can run out there very quickly and covered that mess up. So, but not only the mess it's really dangerous. I mean people walk through atrium. Yeah,

that's really irresponsible. Yeah, you could land on someone obviously. Yeah, and I'm imagine that would probably kill both people. Yes, I would think so too. Uh. And you know, we did an episode on crime scene clean up times times out of a hundred. That's what's going on here. If something happens in a hotel room. There's a guy in a San Francisco based company called crime Scene Cleaners that he said that hotel chains are as big as clients

and that suicide cleanups is most of his business. I mean, it definitely makes sense in a very grizzly way, like not wanting to put your family through that, but unfortunately you're putting some housekeeper through it. Yeah. The good news is is that almost everything is is thrown away. That they're not just like pull the sheets and we'll you know, watch them. They're like this killo because still mostly good. Yeah, they like they don't rip up the part of the

carpet that's stayed. They kind of gut the place basically, sometimes even the dry wall. They get rid of all the clock, radio and everything. Because they were like, if there's a little tiny piece of brain that you don't notice on something that heats up like the electricity, that'll stink. Plus plus it could be haunted. Now it's obviously haunted. But those are in like decent hotels that uh you know, even like kind of cruddy hotel chains. I think still do a good job. That. The scary part is if

it happens in a really not great place. Because there's a Reddit thread called tails from the front Desk. Oh, I gotta get on that where No, don't do it, dude, You'll never tour again. You'll never leave your house. Because these are all insider stories. And this one guy was like, yeah, guy, uh died by suicide on my shift. The owner found out how much it costs for a professional cleanup, and he said to flip the mattress. No, yes, no they ever say where they worked. I don't know, anonymous. I

think it's probably this one was anonymous man. This is just a hotel house cleaner. Um. And the other thing, too, is I guess we can close with is when people decide to do this, oftentimes they pick like the best room, the nicest, sweet because you don't have to pay for it. Sure, yeah, yeah, that's that's so. Don't think if you're getting the high Roller suite that that room is safe from ghosts. Right. Wow, that's something else, Chuck, you really brought it. Thank you. Well.

Since Chuck brought it and we're out of info, that's it for short Stuff. So if short Stuff is out, Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.