Few hotels have accumulated a history quite like the Cecil Hotel.
Opened in Los Angeles nearly a century ago, the once-grand hotel would eventually become associated with a disturbing string of deaths, bizarre tragedies, and even two notorious serial killers who called it home.
In this excerpt from Bob Cyphers’ California: Surf, Sand & Murder, we step inside one of the most infamous hotels in America.
If we are delving into bizarre Los Angeles murders, there is no better place to start than the Cecil Hotel, home to unexplained deaths and serial killers.
The hotel in 1924 in what is now the Skid Row neighborhood of Los Angeles, is surrounded by palm trees. Inside, visitors walked into a 700 room building, looked out stained glass windows, and walked on marble floors.
And then, well, things began happening.
In 1931, W. K. Norton checked in from New York. He was found dead in his room, a victim of poison capsules.
Unaware that she was pregnant, 19 year old Dorothy Purcell was a guest in 1944. When she gave birth to a baby boy in the bathroom, she thought he was dead. He soon would be, after she threw him out the hotel window. She was found guilty, but insane.
Then in 1962, Pauline Otten decided, after arguing with her husband, she could not take life anymore, and threw herself out the hotel window. A 65 year old man named George Gianinni just happened to be walking down the street at the time Pauline came flying through the air, landing on top of George.
Wrong place, wrong time for George.
In total, there were 16 unexplained deaths at the Cecil. But there was more. It was also the home to serial killers.
Richard Ramirez, the ”Night Stalker,” stayed at The Cecil Hotel during his killing spree. Hotel records show he paid $14 a night for a room on the top floor. He was a notorious guest, known for parading through the lobby in his underwear and later tossing his bloody murder clothes into the hotel dumpster.
And then another serial killer checked in, this one who left his mark worldwide. Jack Unterweger killed up to 15 people, leaving bodies behind in Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the United States.
The Cecil was finally shut down and the building was eventually sold in 2024.
More Dark Stories from the Golden State
The Cecil Hotel is only one stop on Bob Cyphers’ journey through California’s darker history.
In California: Surf, Sand & Murder, Cyphers travels from Los Angeles and the infamous Black Dahlia murder to small towns, highways, beaches, neighborhoods, and forgotten crime scenes across the state—revisiting serial killers, disappearances, unsolved murders, cold cases, and victims whose stories deserve to be remembered.
California may be famous for sunshine, beaches, and Hollywood dreams. But beneath the postcard-perfect surface lies another California entirely.
Get your copy of California: Surf, Sand & Murder from Genius Books.
