The world of horror is littered with unnerving locations, places that draw from and have in turn seeped into the public imagination. There are the places of what we commonly call the natural world, seemingly imbued with a timeless spirit
that transcends the human imagination. The mystical Island mountain, the Luru, also known as as rock found deep in the Australian Outback, or the mythical rocky outcrops and abandoned mines of Cheshire's Olderly Edge in England, as evocatively portrayed in the work of Alan Ghana, to name but two. Then there are the places of the natural world that we often find portrayed metaphorically as extensions of our own site psychees. We often talk of the dark, foreboding forest or the ominous
deep black lake. We like to consider them Youngian or Freudian locations of the subconscious that hint at something terrifying, lurking deeper within or just below the surface, something unseen pulling at us, daring us to confront an unsettled past or innermost fear. Perhaps the psychological effect of these places is generated by our own projections. They become in the post modernist sense, not places but spaces whose ability to
unnervous is dependent on our own individual perspective. The fears supposedly encapsulated within them are our own to decipher and overcome. But in truth, as far as we know, such places don't declare themselves to have any emotional meaning whatsoever. The dark forest does not set out to be any more foreboding than a white sandy beach, And if it did, to ask if it intended to be ominous, eerie, or weird, would require us to communicate in a language that we
don't currently speak. Far more chilling, therefore, are those places that require us to cross a genuine threshold to enter, Places that constitute worlds that are resolutely not our own to interpret human constructions, locations that might not only house our darkest, unconscious fears, but physically embody those of others too.
You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith. In his Gothic masterpiece The Fall of the House of Usher, Maestro of the Macabre, Edgar Allan Poe, presents to us as stately building, as alive with eye like windows, and
as foreboding as any of its gloomy inhabitants. Its manifestation, which is also a metaphor for the Usher family themselves, is so inextricably linked with the souls of the eponymous Madeline and Roderick Usher, that, upon their death, it is immediately split in two by a great fissure from its roof to its base, before it crumbles to pieces. Moving from the realms of the weird towards something a little
closer to horror. If we travel along Route thirty nine towards Ashton, turn left onto Route five, past the small village of Hillsdale, and up into the high lands beyond, we might, if we are unfortunate, find ourselves chancing upon the gates of Hill House. This most unnerving of places marks the main location for Shirley Jackson's chilling classic The Haunting of Hill House, often considered one of the finest
haunted house stories ever written. In Jackson's novel, Hill House, seen of a number of troubling deaths throughout its eighty year existence, becomes the focus for a paranormal investigation led by psychical researcher Dr John Montague. Montague is aided by a group of assistants selected because of their past paranormal experiences in the hope that they will be especially receptive to anything supernatural that may or may not be occurring there.
It is primarily through the perspective of Eleanor, one of the assistants, that we become acquainted with the number of increasingly disturbing events that take place. However, as the novel reaches its tragic conclusion, we are left to wonder whether anything at all had occurred, or if we had merely
been witnessing the unraveling of Eleanor's mind. Doctor Montague insists the evil is the house itself, and whether it had been by design or simply the idea of the house's ghoulish history pressing in something of the building had got inside her head. A similar theme emerges in many true life cases of alleged domestic supernatural disturbances, such as those that took place at thirty East Drive in Pontefract or at number two hundred and eighty four Green Street in Enfield.
In these stories, we find the recurring notion that any new resident of the property is an invader, occupying a space that isn't theirs to occupy. At time times, it might seem that in some way or another, the property
itself has developed a spirit all of its own. For me, although Robert Clatworthy and Joseph Hurley's iconic Bates Mansion as depicted in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, comes a close second, the true House of Horror comes, complete with its own abbatoirs, bespoke skin clad interiors, and a fridge stocked with bloody meat. You may recognize it as the family home of Leatherface, disturbingly depicted in Toby Hooper's mesmerizingly deranged The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Leaving aside the more cerebral interpretations of Hooper's classic, such as it being a metaphor for the cannibalistic tendencies of capitalism, personally, on a simply sceral level, watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the first time was to be exposed to a level of horror previously beyond the comprehension of my teenage mind.
What all the aforementioned fictional buildings have in common is that they are locations so inextricably linked to their original occupants or to the unsavory events that occurred within them, they have become inseparable from them. There is the sense that, even if they were empty, they continue to incubate the things that have happened inside. They are places of events so unfathomably monstrous that no level of will can expunge
them from the space. Incidentally, Psycho and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre were partly based on the life of murderer Ed Geene, whose proclivity for manufacturing ornaments and furniture from human bone and skin can tee U news to shock the world. More than sixty years later, after Geene's conviction, it was decided that his house should be torn down. So incapable were the local community from separating the location from the events that had taken place inside, there was no other
option but to remove it entirely above all other locations. Surely, the hotel is the creepiest of dwellings, both in fiction and fact. It's little wonder when you consider all the daily comings and goings of hundreds of unrelated guests, not to mention all those who'd come before them, so many events and bodies criss crossing through time. The hotel is a chaotic clash of psychical intersections, all held together in
one singular place. Some may be familiar with HH Homes and his Murder Castle, formerly located on the corner of South Wallace and sixty Third near Jackson Park in Chicago. Holmes began construction of his two story multi purpose building in eighteen eighty seven, which was home to a variety
of commercial properties and private apartments. Five years later, he added a third floor with the apparent intention of taking advantage of the many tourists due to visit the city for the World's Columbian Exhibition later known as the World's Fair. That Holmes was a ruthless serial killer is in little doubt as to whether he really killed over two hundred people squirreling their bodies away in secret passages and channels that he'd built purposely into his infamous hotel. Is anyone's guests.
Holmes's Murder Castle was eventually burned down by the man himself in an insurance scam shortly before his capture in eighteen ninety four and subsequent execution two years later. Fans of Stephen King have the Stanley Hotel of Esther's Park in Colorado to thank for inspiring his most iconic location, situated overlooking Lake Esters in the shadow of the Rockies.
It was there, in nineteen seventy four that King spent a fortnight terrorized by nightmarish visions of his three year old son being chased through the hotel's corridors by something dreadful and unseen. As you may have guessed, these night terrors would inspire King to write The Shining, with the
Overlook Hotel replacing those disquieting halls of the Stanley. There will be few who've peered down the corridors of King's Overlook who don't feel something of those nightmares he experienced back in seventy four, or who fail to sense something of the strange and eerie in almost any hotel they've stayed in. Since there is one hotel that, for reasons we will soon explore, holds a special place in the
pantheon of hotels with a strange and sinister past. In twenty thirteen, this place became host to one of the most disturbing and tragic deaths of recent times, a mystery that remains to this day unexplained. Sarah Scandalesa's Facebook and Twitter pages. Again knowing her sister's avid use of social media, it seemed unuws usual that she hadn't posted anything in the last twenty four hours. Meanwhile, her father, David tried Elsa's number one more time as her anxious mother, Yena,
watched on. David held the phone to his ear and gazed out at the window as an afternoon sun threatened to break through the clouds. Concern rippled across his face when the call once again clicked through to voicemail. Ordinarily, it wouldn't be unusual that a twenty one year old woman on a solo trip to Los Angeles might forget to call home once in a while. But this was Eliza, and they had an agreement. She could take the trip on one condition that she called in with her parents
every day to let them know she was safe. And besides, Eliza was happy to do it, she knew how difficult the last few years had been on them. Sarah scrolled through Elsa's pages again. Her last tweet was from twenty seventh of January twenty thirteen, five days ago. It read speakeasy in block capitals, but that was back in San Diego. Then there were the photos from the zoo, also in San Diego, and finally, the live recording of a conan O'Brien show in La that she'd attended two nights back.
She seemed to be having a great time. Sarah told her parents not to worry, that it was probably nothing, but suggested they'd try calling the hotel just in case. Where did she say she was staying again, She said the Stay on Maine. David pulled up the number and called it, immediately, relieved to finally have a voice to speak with on the other end of the phone. Yina and Sarah watched expectantly as David spoke to the front desk.
Their relief at the prospect of finally getting some information soon turned to worry at the look on David's face as he hung up. Elisa had been due to check out that morning, he explained, only she'd never appeared and wasn't in her room with a new guests set to use it. The hotel would keep her things in the basement until she returned. He shouldn't be too concerned, they said, there could be any number of reasons why his daughter
wasn't there. David tried to remain optimistic, but couldn't shake the gnawing in the pit of his stomach. Something was wrong. Friday evenings were one of the busiest at Pause on Hastings Street, North Burnaby, the Chinese restaurant owned and run by David and Yena. It was a small but popular place in the quiet Vancouver suburb, distinguished by its large
yellow light box at the front. The family had arrived from Hong Kong in two thousand and three, and since then they and their restaurant had become a much loved asset to the local community, serving some of the best valued Chinese food that side of Vancouver. On that night of Friday, February first, however, Yina and David were finding it increasingly difficult to focus, and as the customers continued
to arrive, their distraction was becoming noticeable. Unable to hold off any longer, the pair decided to make the call. A short time later, David stood in the kitchen waiting to be put through to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to make an official report that his youngest daughter, Elisa Lamb, was missing. Though there was some relief to finally have the police involved, it was quickly tempered when they were told that nothing much could be done until the following morning.
That night, the Lamb family failed to get any sleep as they waited desperately for any contact from their daughter. Having made the call on a weekend, it wasn't until Monday that the Los Angeles Police's Missing Persons Unit was alerted to Elisa's disappearance, and it wasn't until the following day that a call was put through to detectives Wallace, to Nelly and Greg Stearns of the LAPDS Robberies and Homicides Division to formally begin the investigation. The timing could
not have been worse. The department would never want to be seen to prioritize one case over another, but it had been understandably distracted. Two days previously, in Orange County, a young woman and her fiance had been shot in their car after a night out. Such a killing was rare enough, but that the woman, twenty eight year old Monica Quan, happened to be the daughter of former LAPD
Captain Randall Quan had hit the department hard. When a manifesto claiming responsibility for the crimes appeared online the following day, written by former LAPD officer Christopher Dorner, all hell broke loose. Nonetheless, the Lambs couldn't have had a better person for the job than detective to Nelli, a man who knew only
too well what they were going through. In two thousand and seven, on a mild May evening, Wallace to Nelly, had just wandered out to his garage when a young girl trembling and with tears in her eyes approached the house. Wallis recognized her as his neighbour and a friend of his youngest son, Bryant. He recognized too the bloodstained cap
clutched in her hands, which belonged to Bryant. Wallace learned soon after that his eighteen year old son had been shot in the head at point blank range, only blocks away from their home. He died later that night. To Nellie, a diligent and methodical worker, listened patiently in his Los Angeles office to the missing person's officer on the other end of the line in Vancouver, making a note of
the important details. Age twenty one Chinese Canadian, five foot four with long black hair and brown eyes, and weighing approximately one hundred feet fifteen pounds. Name Elisa Lamb. Last known location stay on Maine Hostel on South Main Street, part of the Cecil Hotel building. To Nelly knew it Well. It's located on Seventh and Maine Downtown, formerly a major business and financial district, once referred to as the Wall
Street of the West. By twenty thirteen, it was home to the city's skid Row neighborhood, one of the largest stable populations of homeless in the United States. Although there are many who be quick to portray it as a no go area for that very reason, that wasn't an immediate concern to Tonelli. Yes there was crime there, much like any other bustling city of the world, but petty theft and drug dealing was one thing. The possible murder of a Canadian tourist, if that was what he was
dealing with, was quite another. In fact, due to a recent relaxing of development laws, the area was experiencing a quiet upturn in fortunes and had become an increasingly popular location for tourists keen to take advantage of its comparatively low rates. As for the Cecil Hotel, that remained something of a local oddity, a stubborn but long since faded
paean to a distant, more glorious past. It's hard to imagine it now, but the Cecil, built at a cost of one million dollars, was once considered one of the more glamorous establishments of the area. Opened in nineteen twenty five to great fanfare in all its Beaux Arts grandeur, the Cecil, comprising of seven hundred rooms across fourteen floors, was opulently decorated throughout with marks, bubble, and pretty mosaic patterns. Its lobby a grand Art Deco fantasy of the finest
stained glass and brass. No more than five years after opening, however, a global depression triggered by the Wall Street Crash took hold. Within ten years, many of the city's banks and businesses had gone under, taking with them the vibrant nightlife and
movie theaters of Downtown's Broadway district. As the wealthier residents of Downtown LA flocked to the suburbs in the forties and fifties, the region's bubble had well and truly burst over the next fifty years, Although you might have still found fragments of its former majesty peeking out from under its yellowed and peel wallpaper, the Cecil eventually became home to a number of transient and low income residents. Its
once pristine facade steadily fading along with its prices. In two thousand and seven, three floors of the Cecil were given over to a team of designers hoping to capitalize on Downtown's recent gentrification. The following year, the Stay on Maine opened its doors for the first time, covering floors four to six of the original building. It promised a
boutique hotel experience for the cost conscious traveler. Despite some early teething problems, the Stay on Maine quickly established itself as one of the better low cost hostels in Los Angeles, and it was easy to see why it might have appealed to Elisa. But there was one other thing about the Cecil, something that you wouldn't find on any hotel listing, something rather unsavory. The first to die was forty six
year old W. K. Norton. His body was found in his room in November nineteen thirty one after ingesting poison capsules. Next came twenty five year old Benjamin Dodditch, found by a maid one morning in September nineteen thirty two, dead from a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the remnants of which remained stained on the walls for months. Former Army Medical Corps Sergeant Louis Borden fifty three, was
found dead in July nineteen thirty four. After Borden checked in one evening, he proceeded to write suicide notes to various members of his family, then slit his throat with a razor. The first of the jumpers was Grace maygro in March nineteen thirty seven. She dropped from the ninth floor of the hotel, only for her four to be broken by telephone wires strung across main street below. She later died at a nearby hospital. In January the following year.
Marine fire fighter Roy Thompson had been staying at the hotel for several weeks when maids discovered he hadn't been in his room for days. He was found dead on the skylight of a neighboring building, having presumably leapt from the top floor. Robert Smith and Helen Gurney jumped from the seventh floor in nineteen forty seven and nineteen fifty four, respectively.
Julia Francis Moore did the same from the eighth in nineteen sixty two, and later that year police investigated what they assumed to be the double suicide of twenty seven year old Pauline Otton and sixty five year old George Giannini. However, they later concluded that it was Otton who leapt from the building and accidentally collided into Giannini on the street below, killing him instantly. In December nineteen seventy five, a still unidentified woman is believed to have leapt to her death
from a twelfth floor window. Then there were the other suicides through poison. W. K. Norton's being the first Navy officer erwin Neblett in nineteen thirty nine and Dorothy Scheiger the year after, both found dead in their rooms by staff, And although there is no putting a grade on such a litany of tragedy, perhaps the most shocking death to occur at the Cecil was that of a newborn baby
in nineteen forty four. Nineteen year old Dorothy Purcell had recently moved in with Cecil resident thirty eight year old Ben Levine when she found herself going into labor. Unaware that she had even been pregnant, and not wanting to disturb Levin, she stumbled to the bathroom and almost immediately gave birth to a baby boy, apparently in a state of post natal shock, Dorothee believed the child to be
dead and threw it out of the window. In the summer of nineteen sixty four, retired telephone operator and full time resident of the Cecil, Goldie Osgoode, was found raped, stabbed, and beaten to death in her room. Her murder remains unsolved to this day. All in all, fourteen deaths by
unnatural causes, and that wasn't everything. According to former Cecil hotel resident Raoul Enriquez, in late July and August of nineteen eighty five, when rates had dropped as low as fourteen dollars a night, he lived next door to a man on the fourteenth floor who introduced himself to him as Richard. Richard said he was from Sia Dad Juarez
in Mexico. This Richard would turn out to be twenty five year old Richard Ramirez, who between April nineteen eighty four and August nineteen eighty five brutally murdered at least sixteen people, raping and mutilating many of his victims before his eventual capture and arrest. His horrific crimes often perpetrated after walking into people's homes at random would land him
the nickname the knight Stalker. Then in nineteen ninety one, it is thought that Jack Untervega stayed at the Cecil Hotel over a period of time in which he terrorized, raped, and murdered at least three women. Untevega had previously been convicted for murder in Austria after strangling an eighteen year old woman to death in nineteen seventy four. While in prison, he began to write about his experiences, reflecting on the
nature of his crime. His work earned plaudits from the country's literary elite, with his novel Purgatory even becoming a best seller. By the time of his release in nineteen ninety he was a national celebrity and widely heralded as a model of rehabilitation. A year later, Unterevega was commissioned to write a radio piece about sex work. It was during a research trip for this piece that he murdered
the three women. Having gone on the run after committing the murders in Los Angeles, Untevega was eventually caught and arrested in Miami in February nineteen ninety two, when it transpired that he had in fact killed at least eight
women since his release in nineteen ninety. Some have suggested that Untervega decided to stay at the Cecil because of its association with Richard Ramirez, as if the hotel had effectively drawn him in with the screams of its past, a sinister siren call broadcast on only the rarest of frequencies. There are some, too, who claim it was no accident that Ramirez himself found its way to the Cecil, nor why so much dead and depravity had been concentrated in
this forgotten corner of La. They say there was always something unsettled about the place, something dark and unfathomable that lingered within its many dimly lit corridors. To some, it seemed sometimes as though the building itself was alive. You've been listening to part one of Unexplained Season seven, episode fourteen, If These Walls Could Scream. Part two will be released next Friday, January twenty sixth. This episode was written by
Richard McLain smith. Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, were also produced by me. Richard McLain Smith Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories never before featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and
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