Bad Hotel/Motel

If, like me, you are a fan of the Dan Bell hotel reviews for bad hotels/motels do you also wonder what review you could leave for discovering a dead body? 1 out of 5 stars, or is that bad taste? Well it all started with a small campfire style story…

 A couple book a night away and find the smell in their room to be over-powering and foul. Human beings tend to be quite inquisitive and a search shows up something truly awful… a dead body! Is there any truth to the claims? Well yes, I started with a Snopes article on his and went on to read up from there. So here goes:

 13^th July, 2003 a news article for WDAF Kansas City TV News (now expired link) says that a man complained about a bad smell and checked out early, after three days. The Capri Motel on Independence Avenue was the location, the cleaning crew then then found a body of an unknown male under the bed. It is thought the wood paneling masked the odour for a period. Police knew his identity but had to notify his next of kin.

 In 1999 Saul Hernandez of Queens, New York City was discovered dead, his body had been stuffed under the bed of room 112 of the Burgundy Motor Inn. A German couple managed to sleep there for one night, despite the smell, and it led to the discovery of the dead man when they complained the next day. The County’s Medical Examiner, Dr Hydow Park, concluded that death was due to exsanguination from chest and abdomen stab wounds. A follow-up article in the New York Times states a 17-year-old girl was charged on suspicion of murder.

 A slightly different way to report this one, in 1961 Jerry Lee Dunbar was born and sometime around May/June 1989 in Virginia he strangled two women and hid their bodies. Deidre Smith (27) and Marilyn Graham (29) were found murdered and left for guests to discover. Smith was found under the floor of a motel room on Route 1 and Graham under the bed in the Alexandria Econo Lodge (Murderpedia source). Dunbarr waived the rights to a jury trial, he was sentenced having been found guilty of both murders and sent to prison in 1990.

 CBS News reported a missing person found dead in a motel room, with a few frightening thoughts about the circumstances. Sony Millbrook reported missing on 27^th January 2010, after she failed to pick her children up from school. On 15^th March, 2010 homicide police were called to the room of a Budget Motel, Memphis, Tennessee when her body was found in the motel bed frame, she had been living there prior to her disappearance and after her room had been cleaned and rented several times. It had taken 47 days for her to be found and there are suggestions online that reports were made about a bad smell in between.

 Lakeith Moody was found guilty of strangling her to death and sentenced to life in prison. Moody was the father of four of Millbrook’s Children and was arrested several weeks later driving her car.

 Now don’t go thinking this is all exclusive to the USA either, poor Amphon Kongsong’s body was discovered in a hotel in Pattaya, Thailand. Two teenage boys of 14 years old and 17 years old were arrested for the murder of the transgender woman, the boys from Nakhon Ratchasima were tracked down by CCTV. The two boys had made friends with Amphon but she was apparently aggressive about the 17-year-old vying for sex, the fight turned lethal as he strangled her and the 14-year-old held her legs down.

 Having killed her they then stuffed her body under the mattress and a couple of tourists who used the room complaint about the odour, where upon her body was found.

 So, if you do get a funky smell in a room have I made you sufficiently paranoid?

 Sources: www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/bodybed.asp

www.bangkokpost.com

www.wreg.com

www.murderpedia.org

www.cbsnews.com

www.nytimes.com

www.thesun.co.uk

www.freerepublic.com

www.blumhouse.com

 

The First Ripper Victim

August 31st 1888 was an unlucky day for a carter named Charles Cross, it was an even worse day for the person he found, Mary Nichols. 3.40am he was making his way along Buck’s Row in Whitechapel London, he came towards the 1876 Board School (still dominating the street today) and spotted a dark bundle lying in a gateway on the left side of the street.

Mr Cross was hoping the bundles might be useful materials for his work, when he got closer he found it to be the prone figure of a woman. He wasn’t sure if she was dead or drunk and asked another carter to come and see her, the other carter was Robert Paul. She was laying on her back with her legs out, and skirts raised over her waist. Cross felt her face which was warm but her hands were cold and limp. They were running late for work and unable to tell if she was near death or dead they pulled her skirt down and then headed off. They aimed to let a policeman know if they saw one.

Had the light been better, or they had been there at a later time, they might well have noticed the woman had been subjected to a murder most foul. Nichol’s had had her throat cut so callously and brutally that it nearly severed her head. This discovery was made by the beat officer, Police Constable John Neil, shortly after the carters had left and there was no one else around.

He flagged down PC John Thain who was passing at the end of the street by waving his lantern, Thain hurried off to get Dr Llewellyn and PC Mizen arrived having been approached by the carters. They got reinforcements and the police ambulance. At 4am the Doctor arrived and pronounced her dead, noting the severity of the wounds. He found her legs were still warm and told the police she had likely been there no longer than a half an hour.

Three slaughterers at the yard opposite saw and heard nothing; the first they heard was when PC Thain passed by to get the doctor. The three men were under suspicion but eliminated by the police later. Patrick Mulshaw, the night watchman working at the nearby sewer works heard nothing either. By now Dr Llewellyn was concerned by the number of spectators and the body was removed to the mortuary. As she was lifted up in the cart Thain spotted that the back of the woman’s clothing was soaked with her blood. This was presumably from the large cut across her throat.

With the details of little blood on the scene it led to the speculation that she had been murdered elsewhere and then dumped. The Times reported this as such but the coroner dismissed this notion. The wound to her throat and abdomen had bled out and been soaked up by her clothing, the wound to her abdomen was not noticed until the inspection at the mortuary. When the inspector came to the scene the residents were washing the blood up.

They set to trying to identify her as well only to find themselves being told about Polly, Inspector Spratling then noticed that her petticoats had the Lambeth Workhouse label on them. A resident of the workhouse was brought to see the body and was able to identify Mary Nichols, 43 who had been worse for wear and drank her doss money away more than once. Due to her wearing a “jolly bonnet” she felt she would easily make the money needed.

She had been killed with ruthless and silent efficiency, she had been left out to be found and with a budy place like Whitechapel the murderer could be lost in the movement pretty quickly. It was also a murder close to a slaughterhouse so blood on the hands of the murderer may well be dismissed by potential witnesses because of the local business.

The saddest part comes from her husbands last words when he saw her body. John Nichols and Mary Nichols may well have had a rocky marriage but he found the sight so distressing he whispered to her “I forgive you, as you are, for what you have been to me.”

The Shoe Fetish Killer

Jerome “Jerry” Brudos could be listed as a rather disturbing fellow to say the least,  he was a sexual deviant and necrophiliac (please don’t let me explain that one). His signature was to remove a foot or breast off the victim. He froze one of the feet from a victim and would remove it to dress it up in high-heeled shoes. The severity of his psychopathic tendencies has led him to be cited by forensic psychiatrists in those cases where the killer is motivated by lust.

At five he discovered his shoe fetish, he found a pair of black patent leather, open-toe high-heels. His mother found him dressed in them and burnt them. His hatred for her most likely set in at this point.

He continued with what seems to have been the harmless fetish but it escalated when the family moved to Oregan. At 17 he held a woman at knife point and ordered her to remove her clothes whilst he photographed her, he was then arrested and committed to Oregan State’s Hospital mental ward, disagnosed with “early personality disorder” but he went on to collage and then to the military in 1959. Seven months later he was medically discharged.

His habits of hit and run attacks on women continued, he would pull off their shoes. Despite the strange and violent life he did get work as an electrician and married a 17 year old girl that he got pregnant. He would persuade her to walk round the house nude with high-heels on as he paraded around in her underwear.  They had two children and settled in a Portland suburb.

She was unaware of the continued hidden life, 1967 he started to break into homes and a woman found him rooting through her clothes. She was choked until unconscious, raped and then he fled. Not long after this his habits turned fatal, he killed a 19 year old girl, Linda Slawson who knocked on the door as a saleswoman. He killed her and froze one of her feet, he weighted her  body and then dumped it in the nearby river. She was reported missing by her parents and her car was found two weeks later but as there were no records of her calls the police had little to go by.

The second killing was 16 year old Stephanie Vikko, her remains were found in a wooded area nine months later. Jan Whitney was the third victim, her car had broken down and he got her in the car, strangled her and then drove her back to his garage where he had necrophiliac sex with the corpse and cut off her right breast. She was kept in the garage for a couple of days before dumping her in the same river as he had previously.  The fourth victim was Karen Sprinkler who went missing in 1968, her mother alerted the police when she failed to show up and her car was found. He had abducted her, raped her, strangled her and cut off both breasts. He had taken photo’s of her dressed up and then performed necrophilia on her before dumping her in the river.

The fifth and final kill was a month later, he posed as a Police officer and lured in 22 year old Linda Salee from a shopping mall to his car. She had gone to get a birthday present for her boyfriend and failed to show. Three weeks after she was reported missing, a fisherman in the Long Tom River in western Oregon hooked onto something large. They fished up her body that had been weighted down with a transmission box from a car. The autopsy showed the cause of death as strangulation. A few days later they found Karen Sprinkler and then in 1969 Sharon Wood was in her company basement car park, a man tried to hold her up at gun point and told her not to scream. She did as ordered and gave him the high-heels.

Because of the age of all of the women targeted the police looked to the students for leads, one told them she had dated a man with a very keen interest in the case. It was Jerry Brudos. He was put under surveillance and then take in only to be released a few days later. After a woman identified him as trying to drag her into his car they again brought him in. When they did a body search showed him to be wearing women’s under clothing. When he was questioned he immediately confessed. One of the photo’s used for evidence also had his reflection in the mirror. After it became clear an insanity plea was not going to work he pleased guilty, at this time Oregon had no death penalty.

His wife was pulled in for investigations but after an acquittal she changed her name and moved with her two children. The Oregon court had turned down his appeals and finally after 37 years in prison he was found dead from natural causes on 28th March 2006. The only explanation ever provided for kills, “letting off steam.”

Personally I prefer gaming…