Tag: Hotel Deaths
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Dead Body Found in LA Hotel's Water Tank
Guests at the historic Cecil Hotel in downtown LA had been complaining about low water pressure in their rooms. Eventually the cause was discovered---a body was at the bottom of the water cisterns, blocking water flow.
On Tuesday, a hotel maintenance worker discovered the body of 21-year old Elisa Lam inside a tank that helps provide water for the hotel after guests, according to CNN, complained that the water also "tasted funny" and had a "black color" when you first turned the tap on. The Canadian woman had been reported by missing by her parents a week ago. She was apparently staying at the $65-a-night hotel located near Skid Row, but hadn't been seen since the last week of January.
The hotel's cistern tanks supply water for room bathrooms, and are a washing and drinking outlet. The water is also used for cooking in the hotel--therefore the coffee shop has been shut down and is also under orders to sanitize its equipments before it reopens.
When the body was discovered, the hotel relocated guests of 27 rooms to another hotel, and for the others that chose to remain, the hotel made those guests sign a waiver that they acknowledged being informed of the health risks and were provided bottled water. Los Angeles County Department of Public Health's Terrance Powell, a director coordinating the department's response, said "Our biggest concern is going to be fecal contamination because of the body in the water," Powell said. He said the likelihood of contamination is "minimal" given the large amount of water the body was found in, but the department is being cautious.
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When Death Visits The Hotel, Can You Get a Refund?
Last week was not a good week for New York hotels and now it looks like the bad luck has shifted to Chicago after a 22-year-old woman was found killed in her hotel room at the Whitehall Hotel in the city's Gold Coast neighborhood.
The victim was found dead yesterday morning with a gunshot wound to her head. The homicide investigation is continuing but polices sources told the Chicago Sun-Times that the woman was arrested for prostitution just five days earlier. She also had a prior prostitution arrest in Texas back in April.
While murders and other horrifying deaths happen in hotels somewhat frequently, it doesn't mean that hotel guests are totally cool with staying there afterwards. In this case, the Sun-Times found a couple who had booked a week-long anniversary stay at the Whitehall but who promptly turned around at check-in and left in search of a new place after learning about the murder.
Another family told the Sun-Times they were thankful they were checking out the next day, after having dealt with police taking over the seventh floor for the investigation. We take that to mean the Whitehall wasn't issuing any refunds for the disruption. And that's actually a very common practice.
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Death Visits The Beverly Hilton Again
2012 will likely go down as one of the worst years in history at the Beverly Hilton.
Back in February, it unfortunately earned a spot on the Hollywood Death Tour map after Whitney Houston was found dead in a bathtub on the fourth floor just before a pre-Grammy party was to take place at the hotel. Not helping was the hotel's unwise decision to tweet about celebrities arriving at the hotel while Houston's body laid in the room for more than four hours.
Now death has visited the hotel again in the form of a murder-suicide which happened on Friday night. And once again the tragic event happened just before the hotel was to host a big Hollywood bash, the Daytime Emmy Awards.
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W Times Square Was The Last Stop For Pastor Tims
On Friday afternoon, the body of Florida megachurch pastor Zachary Tims was discovered inside his hotel room at the W Times Square after a hotel worker tried to go check his minibar. But judging from police reports, it wasn't the teeny liquor bottle-ettes that did him in.
While investigators are still determining the cause of his death, a "white powdery substance" was reportedly found inside his shorts. Tims struggled with drug addiction for years before finally founding his own church in 1996, and garnering a following of more than 8,000. According to the WSJ, the 42-year-old pastor was in town for a meeting.
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How Warrant's Jani Lane Ended Up at a Comfort Inn
When we heard the news that Warrant lead singer Jani Lane was found dead in a Comfort Inn of a possible drug overdose last week, we thought two things--one, How sad! We totally had a crush on him from the "Heaven" video. And two, how did he end up in the budget brand of Comfort Inn? True, Warrant wasn't necessarily aging well but you know, "Cherry Pie" was a big part of rock history. Shouldn't that have at least afforded him a place with room service?
Well, TMZ (who else?) has the answer to our question:
Lane had been kicked out of the Hilton Woodland Hills sometime in the last month -- after hotel employees noticed that he had torn his room apart.
We're told Jani was "not rude" about the situation -- and understood why he had to leave.
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Another Sad Rocker Death Happens in a Hotel
Glam band Heavy metal fans lost an important part of the 80s music scene today and sadly, like many tortured musicians before him, his last moments were spent alone in a hotel room.
Warrant singer Jani Lane was found dead at a Comfort Inn hotel in Woodland Hills, Calif, apparently from a drug overdose, according to TMZ.
Investigators found a half-empty bottle of vodka and prescription medication in the hotel room where Jani Lane died yesterday ... TMZ has learned. Sources tell us paramedics were called to the Comfort Inn in Woodland Hills, CA yesterday around 5:15 PM. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
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Tragedy Strikes Yet Another W Hotel, This Time in DC
UPDATE, Thursday June 30th, 4:38pm: A spokesperson for W Hotels released
this statement:
"The W Washington D.C. extends our sympathies to the family touched by this tragedy. While the investigation is ongoing and we continue to cooperate with the Metropolitan Police Department, we can confirm that the victim was not a registered guest at the hotel, and it is not certain whether she spent any significant length of time at POV prior to her death.
The Washington Post is reporting this as a suicide, quoting a D.C. police official speaking on the condition of anonymity. We ask that any questions regarding the case be directed to the Metropolitan Police Department at 202.727.4383."
This has simply not been a good week for hotels—especially the W. It feels like just yesterday that we wrote about the W Austin's forced evacuation due to kamikaze glass window panes (and now you can read the hotel's apology letter to guests here)—oh wait! That was just yesterday. We woke up this morning to news of a separate W tragedy—this time at the W Washington DC, where a woman fell to her death from the hotel's 11th-floor rooftop bar.
The W Washington was installed in 2009, replacing another hotel inside the 120-year-old building—but inheriting every square foot of the building's prime location (the hotel sits directly across the street from the White House). If you remember, we even gave their rooftop a shout-out two weeks ago when recommending places to see the DC fireworks on Jul 4. We have a feeling the mood this weekend—if there even remains to be any party at all—will be decidedly less festive than originally hoped for.
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Two Women Fall From W Atlanta After Guestroom Window Breaks
People accidentally falling to their death from hotels, while horrifyingly tragic, actually happens quite often. We don't have any numbers or stats at hand but since we're hotel news junkies, we can tell you that those types of incidents pop up rather frequently, like on a weekly basis.
We tend to stay away from those morbid types of stories, after all, there's not much else we can say except to comment on how tragic and preventable the fall could have been.
Yet the case of the two women who fell from the 10th floor of the W Atlanta is incredibly scary because the women weren't hanging out on a hotel room balcony or a rooftop. They weren't even outside.
Ciara Williams and LaShawna Threatt were celebrating Threatt's birthday at the hotel in a guestroom. Reports say the two women were leaning and hugging each other against the room window when suddenly it broke, plummeting the two women below. Williams survived the free fall with internal injuries and a collapsed lung. Threatt did not survive.
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Bizarre Murder Puts a Damper on 2011 for The InterContinental Times Square
Less than a year after the hotel opened and just a week after the ball dropped in Times Square, a horrifying and bizarre murder took place in one of the guest rooms at the InterContinental Times Square on Friday night.
Portuguese fashion journalist, Carlos Castro, 65, was beaten to death and castrated by his 20-year-old companion after getting into an argument. The NY Post reports:
His head had been bashed in and, in a gruesome act of depravity, his testicles had been sliced off — possibly with a broken wine glass — police sources said.
Castro had been found by hotel workers after another friend was concerned about his safety. The companion, who was initially identified as Castro's boyfriend, Renato Seabra, checked into Roosevelt Hospital with self-inflicted cuts to his wrists. Police later took him to Bellevue where he remains under observation.
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Some OC Hotels Continue to Be Dangerous
What it is about Orange County, California hotels? Way back in 2008 we asked if OC Hotels were, like, totally cursed because a string of strange incidents had happened at hotels down there that included a murder-suicide, a drugging and a body packed in dry ice.
Things seemed to calm down for a few years but so far, 2011 is not off to a good start. The LA Times reports that a man was stabbed to death outside the Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa
It was about 2 a.m. when Baker saw Robert Sickles, 27, of Mission Viejo and his friends leave the event. Baker flicked a cigarette at them, prosecutors allege, then got up and confronted the group. Baker pushed Sickles then pulled out a knife and slashed and stabbed him in the chest, killing him, according to police.
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Soho House Hotel Death Investigation Continues
Yesterday's tragic death at the Soho House may turn into a homicide investigation.
The NY Times reports that the dead woman found in an overflowing bathtub in room 20 was Soho House member and swimsuit designer, Sylvie Cachay. She had checked in with her boyfriend, Nicholas Brooks, just after midnight. The hotel was later alerted that water was leaking from room 20 into the room below it at around 3am.
Brooks is still being questioned by police and the NY Post reports that the duo were fighting when they checked into the hotel.
Cachay and Brooks arrived together at the Soho House at around 12:30 a.m. Sources said Cachay accused her beau of accidentally setting fire earlier in the night to her West 10th Street apartment by leaving lit candles behind her bed. "He's a stoner," she told the front-desk clerk, according to police. "He's always stoned. Who puts candles behind the bed?"
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Explosion at Grand Riviera Princess Resort in Cancun Kills 7
Seven people were killed yesterday and 15 more were injured in a freak explosion at the beachfront, all-inclusive Grand Grand Riviera Princess Resort in Playa del Carmen, just outside of Cancun. Five of the dead were reported to be Canadian tourists, including a nine-year-old boy while the other two were hotel employees.
From The AP:
[Attorney General of Quintana Roo, Francisco] Alor described a horrific scene in which the floor of the building was basically hurled through the ceiling by the force of the explosion, blowing out windows and sending fragments of aluminum window and ceiling panels frame over a wide area.
"Everyone said their hotel room shook. The glass at neighboring restaurants all cracked and blew out. The tiki hut that was in the area, that was on fire," said James Gaade of St. Catharines, Ontario, who was walking on the beach when he heard a loud explosion and saw smoke coming from the resort’s premium platinum lounge.
