Katharina Buczek
And throughout much of his killing spree, he stayed in a top-floor room at the Cecil Hotel for only fourteen dollars a night.
After murdering his victims, Ramirez would even dump his bloody clothing into the dumpster behind the hotel before strolling into the lobby, often either only in underwear or completely naked.
Then, in 1991, another serial killer named Jack Unterweger also dwelled at the Cecil Hotel. He was known to strangle women using their own undergarments.
And since the Cecil Hotel was aptly positioned in Skid Row– where many women often walked the streets at night– Unterweger used the building as his home base.
Sinister Cold Cases Of The Cecil Hotel
Aside from the known patrons and perpetrators of brutal Cecil Hotel acts of violence, though, there are also a plethora of cold cases tied to the infamous establishment.
One sixty-five-year-old local, Goldie Osgood, is among the cold case victims. Goldie had earned the nickname “pigeon” because of her love of feeding the local birds in a square near the hotel.
Then, in 1964, she was found brutally murdered in her Cecil Hotel room. Goldie had been raped, beaten, and fatally stabbed. Her room was also ransacked.
And although one suspect did pop up on local police’s radar– who had been walking nearby with bloody clothing– they were later cleared by authorities. In turn, Goldie’s case has remained cold for over five decades now.
Another chilling cold case murder occurred more recently in 2013 when the remains of Elisa Lam, a Canadian college student, were found inside the hotel’s rooftop water tank. Elisa had gone missing three weeks prior.
And her body, which was without clothing, was only discovered because some Cecil Hotel residents had complained about lousy water pressure and the water “tasting funny.”
