Ep. 44: Cecil Hotel
Gina (00:10)
Hello. Welcome to I Scream, You Scream. I'm Gina.
Kathryn (00:15)
I'm Kathryn
Gina (00:16)
And for the month of August, we are telling stories about curses, which is going really well.
Kathryn (00:21)
So well, it's going better than our last recording, but today still kinda sucks.
Gina (00:25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, today was still a little
bit fraught with terrors. ⁓ And we are also having each other's least favorite ice cream, which also turned out pretty well for us. Because I can't stop, stop talking about it, it is almost our one-year pod-aversary, which is incredibly exciting. And if you're feeling very generous, the only thing we have on our birthday list this year is that you leave us a rating or a review, preferably a five-star one. But you know, you can be honest.
Kathryn (00:53)
That'd be great.
Gina (00:54)
We can take the feedback, but maybe on our birthday you can sling us an extra star, maybe just for fun. But until then, let's grab a spoon and dig in.
Kathryn (00:58)
Yay. as a reminder, what are we eating? were you assigned? I don't even remember what I gave you. That's right, yes, and I am eating chocolatey chocolate.
Gina (01:10)
⁓ Pistachio.
Mm-hmm. This is good. you still having the Ben and Jerry's?
Kathryn (01:19)
I think mine... mm-hmm.
We’re slowing down over here. I still have half that pint and Phil hasn't even cracked into the flavor from last month. So we still have it from last month. I'm not sure if he's clear in understanding that he's allowed to. I don't know. Or if like he doesn't know it's there. I don't know. I'll have to ask him. ⁓
Gina (01:43)
Maybe he's erring on the side of caution, just to be safe.
Kathryn (01:45)
I think he is. Did I ever tell you about that time we were talking about how that honey I used to bake was, it made this honey cake I made like too sweet. Did I tell you that? Yeah. And he just looked at me and was like, yeah, I don't have that as
Gina (01:57)
I think so,
Kathryn (02:03)
part of me. Like he was like too sweet. What what does that mean? It's desserts. What are you talking about? Yeah.
Gina (02:04)
hahahahah
Tom is the same way. Tom has the biggest sweet tooth ever and I think it's so cute. There's something about a man with a sweet tooth.
Kathryn (02:14)
I thought I did. It's truly, I don't know why, but it's fun. think it's, I mean, it's, I do know why it's the stereotype of women like sweets and men like meat, blah, blah, blah. But I thought that I had a sweet tooth until I met him and I was like, I just like dessert. Like a normal amount. He is like, you have to hide things from him or it will be gone the next day.
Gina (02:21)
Mmm. Burritos. Yeah.
Hehehehehe
Kathryn (02:37)
Back to the topic at hand, we do have to rate this. I'm gonna go first.
Gina (02:41)
Yes, okay.
Kathryn (02:45)
because I feel... I don't feel bad about mine, but I think it will surprise you. This isn't my favorite. I don't love this. I'm going to be generous and say three. I think it's probably more of like a two, two and a half, but I'm not mad about eating it, so it's like a... it's a solid fine. It's a three.
Gina (02:52)
Hmm.
Ooh.
Okay, so my mission to get you to not enjoy it was successful.
Kathryn (03:10)
It just, so that's okay. That's why I forgot why I brought up things being too sweet. That is why I brought that up because Phil, I do have that where I don't like when things are so sweet that it's like, ugh, this is just too rich for me. I don't like a rich, rich, rich chocolate thing.
Gina (03:25)
Yeah.
Kathryn (03:31)
But it's fine. mean, I'm happy to eat it. I'm going to finish this bowl, but it's I would never choose this as like my favorite.
Gina (03:38)
That's my beef with chocolate, man. Chocolate is good for like a bite, but when you have a bowl of it or a huge slice of something where the only flavor and texture is chocolate or chocolate adjacent, it's just too much. It's like, I don't know.
Kathryn (03:40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
I agree. I love chocolate. All of my favorite desserts have chocolate in them, I don't ever want a double chocolate chip cookie or a double chocolate chip muffin or like any double chocolate. I'm like, no. But I love when there is chocolate in it.
Gina (04:05)
Mm-mm.
Same. Like chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate strawberries. That's my favorite shit. Yes, same. Mm-hmm, yes. my god, yeah, yeah.
Kathryn (04:10)
I love a chocolate pretzel. Yes, I love a chocolate pretzel so much, especially if there's a little caramel on top. my god, stop.
Ooh, that'd be a good ice cream. Chocolate caramel pretzel ice cream? my god, my mouth, salted caramel. my mouth is watering. rate yours. I am the prize. This is gonna be a long episode today, so we gotta keep it rolling.
Gina (04:23)
Salted caramel. my God. Yes. Okay, we need to keep our, yeah, okay, okay, yes,
So mine, I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I will say I think it's more of a product of the brand of ice cream that I bought rather than the flavor. If you have hackney gelato, by you, anyone listening to this, go out and fucking buy it. Cause this was.
Kathryn (04:43)
Mm. Okay.
Gina (04:51)
Really goddamn good. I'm gonna give it a four.
Kathryn (04:52)
That's good. Is it?
⁓ nice. Nice. Was it just straight pistachio or was there any specific other? Nice. Okay.
Gina (04:56)
Mm-hmm.
No bits,
but the bit that I really like it because I'm a big pistachio fan, like I like pistachio nuts and I feel like a lot of pistachio ice cream, it tastes like pistachio but like a sickly sweet version of it. This tasted sweet initially but then it ends on like a very kind of salty nutty flavor which is exactly what I want when I'm thinking pistachio, yes. So kudos.
Kathryn (05:06)
Yeah.
Yeah, I got that.
important yeah
good what did we have we had a I think Phil got muffins I think it was muffins from the store and he got me a chocolate chip and he got himself a pistachio and in the spirit of this month you were eating pistachio I was like oh I'll give it another try.
Not to be a child, but I literally spat it out. I hated it. I hated it. It was so bad. I mean, it was good to somebody. It just was not my taste. I'll say that. Yeah, I just couldn't. It is. It absolutely is. Yep.
Gina (05:48)
Ha ha ha ha!
you
I feel like pistachio shit's getting more popular. Like they have, yeah, like the pistachio spread, like how they have Nutella, there's like a pistachio one now.
Kathryn (06:03)
Yep.
Yeah, it's like the, you know how every few years there is a green thing that is very trendy. It spinach for a while, avocado, kale. It's pistachio. Pistachio is in. Yeah, every few years there's a new green thing that people just fucking love. It's not for me.
Gina (06:12)
Kale. I never thought-
⁓
okay. Actually on the topic of having too much of a sweet thing, I don't know why talking about green stuff triggered this in my brain, but can I tell you something funny? So Tom somehow came into possession of a kilogram of strawberry licorice and a kilogram. It's just over two pounds.
Kathryn (06:29)
gosh.
Yes, of course, always.
you
I muted myself when I coughed.
Why does he have so much licorice??
Gina (06:45)
So he went with his dad to this food place where it's basically, they sell a bunch of food that, it's like maybe a day past its best buy date. And if somebody doesn't buy, it's still perfectly good. It's just gonna get wasted and thrown away if no one buys it. So they sell it for a discount. And he went there with his dad this week. And it was, think, towards the end of them being open when they're just trying to get people to take stuff.
Kathryn (06:58)
Mm-hmm.
yeah.
Gina (07:12)
And as Tom was walking out, some lady was just like, hey, do you want some sweets? And he was like, uh, I don't really need them. And she was like, here, take them. Handed him this huge fucking box. So now I have 2.2 pounds of strawberry licorice that I don't know what to do with.
Kathryn (07:23)
green.
I mean, I guess you're gonna have to eat it. Just have a party, have a licorice party.
Gina (07:32)
⁓
I did think about that. I could put it in like little gift bags for people.
Kathryn (07:37)
Mm-hmm.
could save it for wedding favors Hey, Yeah. Sure people have eaten weirder things. All right. Yes. I know truly we're not gonna get through this episode. It's gonna be so long.
Gina (07:43)
Here's my two or three year old licorice. It's antique, it's vintage. That is true, yeah. But anyway, back to, again, let's refocus here.
Do you wanna let our friends know what we're doing next month now, or do you wanna wait until the end of the episode?
Kathryn (08:09)
Let's do it now because I'm going to forget. I'm going to like wrap up and bounce.
Gina (08:12)
Okay.
All right, sweet. Do you want to do it do want me to do it?
Kathryn (08:16)
Sure. Next, I'm like forgetting, let me reference. I'm already like, what? All right, thank you. See you all later. ⁓ Okay, so next month, theme is, it's not what it seems. Take from that what you will. We certainly have and will. have a lot of different stories next month.
Gina (08:39)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (08:40)
⁓ the ice cream flavor is magic shell. We're going to be eating magic shell syrup stuff on top of whatever ice cream we choose. ⁓ yeah. And that's it. I'm excited. Yeah. I don't know.
Gina (08:45)
Yes.
topping. Yeah. And if you're, if you're not familiar with the term magic shell, cause I don't know how common, I don't know how common that is. That's just what Kathryn and I call it. It's me neither, but it's the thing of when you have a scoop of ice cream and it's kind of like almost chocolate syrup that you pour over the top, but then it hardens into a hard chocolate, like a shell, like a magic shell of chocolate.
Kathryn (09:03)
I don't know what it's actually called.
Yes.
Gina (09:17)
So that's what
we're doing. The flavor next month, we're just picking whatever flavor we want. It's the magic shell that counts, as they say. Yes.
Kathryn (09:24)
Yes.
Excellent. All right. Well.
Gina (09:27)
Great,
so you have warned me a couple of times how fucked up this story is, and I gotta know.
Kathryn (09:34)
Yeah, it's, I told Gina it's so, it goes so deep that I actually remembered to write down my content warnings this time, which we all know I am not good at. So buckle up. I know a lot of people are very familiar with this story, particularly here in the United States, but I'm very, very excited to know that Gina, you are not familiar with this because
Gina (09:43)
Yeah
Mm-mm.
Kathryn (10:02)
I have gone down so many rabbit holes with this over the last several years of my life. I'm like very excited to talk about this and also a little scared because I do feel like I have cursed myself in researching this topic so we're all gonna just do our best. I'm as emotionally stable as I can possibly be. Anyway, here are the content warnings. So...
Gina (10:10)
Okay.
god.
a great sequence of words.
Kathryn (10:32)
Okay, so this list is long and I feel a little like self conscious about some of them, but I'm trying to cover all of my grounds. So the list is we've got severe mental health and emotional health issues, pretty graphic suicide, substance abuse, murder, lots of death in various forms, pregnancy loss, infant death, drowning, kind of accidental cannibalism. I'll go into detail, don't worry. Honestly, probably other things too that I am forgetting. Just be prepared for everything with this one. This story is nutso but so
Gina (11:04)
What the fuck?
Intro to the Cecil Hotel
Kathryn (11:14)
⁓ and just buckle up, listen at your own risk. No judgment if anyone plans to skip this one except you. Sorry, Gina, you gotta stay. So today we are talking about the Cecil Hotel.
Gina (11:23)
It's okay. I'm curious.
Kathryn (11:29)
Gina and I have talked about this. There is a lot of discussion on this hotel's name. Some people call it the Cecil Hotel. Some people call it the Cecil. Some people call it Hotel Cecil as opposed to Cecil Hotel. It's because of the signage on the side of the building did say Hotel Cecil. So a lot of people over the years have referred to it as that.
Gina (11:46)
Mm.
Kathryn (11:52)
The official listed name that I found most often is Cecil Hotel. But call it what you will.
The building, just as a little bit of background, was designed by a man named Loy Lester Smith, which let me make sure that's not a typo and it's not supposed to be Roy. Hold on one second.
Gina (12:11)
When?
Kathryn (12:15)
Loy Lester Smith. I did not practice saying that out loud and I felt like I was stuttering, so I had to double check. It's not Roy, it's Loy Lester Smith. So he designed the hotel in the Art Deco style,
Gina (12:19)
Loy.
All right, cool.
Kathryn (12:30)
it was designed to appeal to the middle to upper middle class back in the 1920s. So think family vacations, people visiting friends or family, men on business trips, things like that. It wasn't quite a luxury hotel, but it wasn't just a dinky roadside motel either.
It was kind of like an elevated middle-class hotel. It was made for the people who were fancy enough to go on vacation in the 20s, but not fancy enough to stay at something like The Ritz. So kind of like a nice middle ground, but a beautiful hotel. It opened its doors in 1924, and it was very successful for several years. LA in the roaring 20s was kind of the place to be.
Gina (13:03)
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kathryn (13:18)
vaudeville was still very popular at the time out there, Hollywood and the film industry was on the come up. It was just very exciting and it was growing very rapidly and there was just a lot going on, a lot of reasons for people to want to visit and stay in Los Angeles. So this was a very popular spot for people who were, you know, coming in for shows or parties, events, just kind of passing through for like a long weekend or something like that.
And because it was such a popular spot for people to stay while they were visiting LA, there were a lot of people just passing through, lot of transients. There wasn't a lot of permanent residents, particularly in this part of town. that kind of slowly started to lead to an uptick in crime in the area. The first big
I guess I should say like notable recorded crime on record for the hotel specifically was not necessarily a violent crime. It was three years after the hotel opened in 1927, a man named John, I think it's Croneur was staying at the hotel and he was basically on the run from the law. He ended up stealing a diamond hairpin from someone at a nearby hotel and he ran from the police and was hiding out at the Cecil where he was eventually arrested in his room. So not like the biggest deal in the world compared to what will happen at the Cecil in the future, which we will get to. But after this, you know, like once crime kind of starts happening, people start kind of staying away and being like a little more hesitant to frequent particular locations. So after this, the hotel's reputation did start to dip a little bit. Remember, this is supposed to be a safe place for families specifically.
It's like riddled with jewel thieves, apparently not a good look. And shortly thereafter, travel in general slowed down quite a bit when the economy went on the downswing, ultimately crashed when the Great Depression hit a couple of years later. So at this point, no one was traveling. Businessmen didn't have so much business to travel for anymore. Families couldn't afford to go on vacation and the hotel basically lost their entire clientele because that middle class kind of wasn't working out anymore. Like their whole demographic that they were targeting wasn't traveling at all. At the same time that this was happening, we also started to see the development of the region of Los Angeles that is known as Skid Row. So for those who don't know, Skid Row is a 50 block stretch near or I guess in I should say in downtown Los Angeles, downtown Los Angeles is pretty big. So I think that is still technically considered downtown. It is officially known as the Central City East neighborhood, but it was given the name Skid Row when people with low or even no income started to move in. The name comes from the expression ⁓ for parts of town where people are quote on the skids. So there's a huge ⁓ population of people living in poverty down there. And over the years, people would come and go. And eventually, people started to make kind of permanent residents there. It's very well known ⁓ as having a lot of tents and, kind of temporary structures for housing. So these people have homes, they just happen to be like,
Gina (16:58)
Mm.
Kathryn (17:04)
homes in the streets.
there is a huge issue with substance abuse issues, a huge police presence, ⁓ and it just kind of grew to be known as a very dangerous part of town, particularly to those who are unfamiliar with the city. So it's like, you know, when you have a hotel with people who are not from the area and you're coming into an area that people there already don't even feel safe in, it's kind of like, you know,
Gina (17:25)
Mmm.
Kathryn (17:31)
it's a mix that doesn't mix, you know what I mean? ⁓ Over the years, there were very tragic and brutal instances of deaths and other forms of violence in and around the hotel. And like I said, word just kind of began to spread and it very quickly grew to give this hotel a reputation that was very different from what...
Gina (17:34)
Yeah.
Kathryn (17:57)
the original owners intended for it to have. Ultimately, there were so many instances of death and violence that a lot of people thought it was kind of out of the ordinary, even for a, know, quote unquote dangerous part of town. And that is how rumors slash beliefs slash whatever you want to call them grew in regards to the hotel itself being actually cursed.
And that energy just kind of grew as more deaths tended to happen. So I am going to go through, big trigger warning for like everything about to go through, because I am going to go through and talk about some of the most notable deaths that have happened at the hotel.
The first deaths at the Cecil Hotel
The first recorded death at the Cecil actually happened before the economy crash.
So the first instance on record is that of Percy Ormond Cook, who was a wealthy realtor from Providence, Rhode Island. He owned an apartment building in LA and he had basically all the money in the world. He was very successful. I bring that up just because, you know, the economy was on the way to crashing. So he was by all intents and purposes doing well. But in January 1927, just three years after the hotel opened, he was found in his hotel with a self-inflicted gunshot wound and a note. So this was shortly after the jewel thief situation. He was taken to the hospital where he would later die at the age of 57. And the note read, in part,
Gina (19:12)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (19:38)
"Money cannot buy happiness. I have tried it and I have found that it cannot be done. I have lost my wife, my son, my home, and I am doing the only thing left for me to do." It would later be reported that his wife had left him and I'm not sure if he was in LA when he got the news that she was like leaving him or whatever or if he traveled out there because he had property there and just for whatever reason ended up at the Cecil, I'm not quite sure. These early stories, there's not a lot written on any of them. Some of these stories have like maybe a few sentences in a newspaper clipping, like there's not a whole lot of information in these early ones. So that's pretty much all we know about that again, this kind of contributed to people's
Gina (20:09)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (20:30)
negative connotation toward the hotel. And then a few years after that, it was quiet for a few years. But then in 1931, a man named William Kelly Norton was reported missing from his home in Manhattan Beach, California. William and his wife Mary Courtney were missionaries in India, and together they had adopted I believe it was two girls and a boy on various missions when they went to India.
Everything appeared to be fine. Again, this is another thing that everything seemed normal. They were financially, I don't want to say well off. I don't know if they were rich, but they were certainly comfortable. ⁓ And
Gina (21:12)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (21:15)
I'll say secure, they were financially secure and they appeared to just have a happy home and things seemed normal. About one week after his family reported him missing, a man who had checked into the Cecil under the name James, I think it's Willis or Willies, it's W-I-L-L-Y-S, ⁓ who was said to be from Chicago was found.
Gina (21:35)
Hmm.
Kathryn (21:39)
dead by one of the maids and this man would later be identified as 46 year old William Kelly Norton. So he basically checked in under a fake name and died by suicide. It is presumed by many that he was likely involved in more than just missionary work. ⁓ These are all just I'm going to say rumors. Again, there wasn't a lot reported on this. This was just speculation. ⁓
Gina (21:47)
Okay.
Kathryn (22:09)
but a lot of people were having trouble kind of rectifying, like this guy seems to have the perfect life. You know, what was happening under the surface that we don't know. And that's the thing, we don't know everything that was going on and there isn't a lot of information, but a lot of people think that perhaps he had been living a double life. And especially when you're international, like he was, there's a lot of space for question mark, a lot of space for...like doing weird shit, basically, especially when you're doing like missionary work so far from home, who knows what he was doing or what ended up happening. Then the following year in September 1932 is when a death was reported that seemed to make people a little more suspicious of the hotel.
Gina (22:41)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (23:02)
itself and that's kind of when rumors about the Cecil being cursed and or haunted really started gaining a lot of traction because these first two were weird and strange and oh it's a bummer these people are dying in this hotel but at least they could be kind of explained away. This one in 1932 was a little bit more mysterious. 25 year old Benjamin, I think it's Dodich, was found in his room by a maid of the hotel named Carrie Brown and he had just checked into his room a couple hours prior and he also died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. This one he had left no note which
doesn't necessarily seem that suspicious, but it just felt very quick, you know, like it would the other two kind of stood for a while and they were there for a while and ⁓ they kind of had time to work through But that kind of gave people some pause and we're wondering like, okay, was this someone else did something to him or, you know, what else could this have been? was significantly more suspicious was the fact that there were several other people at the hotel at the time that he would have died by gunshot wound and not a single other person said that they heard anything at all. That is weird. So so that's kind of what gave people like everything I just said it was like, okay, this person's very clearly
Gina (24:32)
Hmm, that's weird.
Kathryn (24:45)
you know, deceased via gunshot and nobody heard anything. ⁓ People were already kind of ⁓ hesitant toward the Cecil at that point. It had been open for several years and it had had a negative reputation for a measurable amount of time at that point. But that really amplified it. This is when the rumors really started to gain traction about the hotel itself.
Gina (24:51)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (25:13)
After this third death, the subsequent deaths at the hotel would grow to be more and more, I'm going to say unhinged as the years went on. Part of that, I think, is due to like the economic downfall and just all of the people passing through, a lot of them had severe mental health issues. ⁓
Gina (25:22)
Okay.
Kathryn (25:35)
Part of it is also due in part, I would say, to the growing reputation that the Cecil had and people picking and choosing. I don't want say what they want to see, but once you think something is cursed and somewhere is haunted, it's easy to pick up something that might be normal and turn it into something a little darker. I will say I've said this at this point multiple times in this recording, but I think we're going to edit it
Gina (25:54)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (26:03)
out a lot of it out because I'm like struggling to get through this recording. I do believe that the Cecil is cursed. But I also think that that is due to like all of the negative things that happen there versus it is cursed therefore these negatives things happen. I think it's like kind of a mix of both. ⁓
In any case, this is me taking a little bit of a mental break before I dive back in to talk about these deaths because I'm struggling. So here we go. I'm gonna list a few more. The next very notable one is in 1934, a 53-year-old man named Sergeant. It's either Louis or Lewis, I don't know. I'm gonna say Louis D. Borden died by suicide.
Gina (26:32)
Okay.
Kathryn (26:56)
And this, sorry, I don't know. Like he basically, I don't know if I should say it on the podcast. I don't know how dark we want to get. Basically, he like took a razor to his own neck, which I'm sorry, content warning, yes. I'm like, yeah, that's, anyway, okay, sorry. That's like a brutal That's the graphic suicide that I warned us about earlier, so.
Gina (27:10)
Ooh, Jesus Christ.
That's rough.
Kathryn (27:23)
Sorry if I'm like making this too dramatic, but I'm just like, ugh, that's awful. Like that was just such a horrible way to go. I bring that up and I do think it's important to talk about how graphic it was because these are all things that people are hearing about at this hotel. And it's like, keep in mind, this is in...
Gina (27:27)
No, not at all.
Kathryn (27:45)
the 30s where mental health was not even anywhere near a thing. So it's like you hear someone doing that and it's like, demon, you know, like, who would ever do something like that? Like nobody in their right mind would do something like that. But like, people didn't understand people not being in their right mind unless something evil was part of it. So all of this is contributing to the cursed reputation of the Cecil.
Gina (27:49)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Ninth Floor Hauntings
Kathryn (28:16)
So another, I guess, form of suicide or death that the Cecil is very well known for is people jumping from the building. A couple years after this sergeant died by suicide, a 25 year old woman named Grace Magro
either fell or jumped from one of the windows on the ninth floor. this one
is notable because she was the first one to fall from the building and over the years several more people would jump and most specifically it is noted that a lot of people jump from the ninth floor So that kind of led to a reputation on the ninth floor that perhaps there is, you know, something going on there. There's a something haunting the ninth floor that would cause people crazy experiences and lead them to jumping. I'm definitely going to say the ninth floor was probably haunted. Again, whether it was before or after, I don't know, but I certainly believe that it is now, even if it wasn't to begin with. Of course.
Gina (29:29)
Mm-hmm.
Dorothy Jean Purcell
Kathryn (29:33)
Not everyone who jumped from the building went from the ninth floor. It was just a pattern that happened often enough for people to start talking about it.
I will say one of the most heartbreaking stories of someone falling from the building happened several years later in 1944. I'm going to give a content warning because this is the baby one and this one like massively fucked me up. So content warning for many things for this one. ⁓ A 19 year old woman named Dorothy Jean Purcell.
Gina (29:59)
⁓
Kathryn (30:10)
who is originally from a small town in Iowa, checked into the hotel with her 38 year old boyfriend, Ben Levine. Already no Yep. Already no Exactly. So Dorothy, I'm gonna say allegedly, did not know that she was pregnant at the time she checked into this hotel and she ended up going into labor in the bathroom while Ben, her boyfriend,
Gina (30:19)
Hmm, okay.
Kathryn (30:40)
slept in the middle of the night and she would give birth to a little boy. She... yeah, I know, like alone in...
Gina (30:47)
Well, there's a lot about that that's like what fucking what? That's insane.
Kathryn (30:50)
immediately do want to pause because I kind of want to pause on that. yeah. Yeah. A 19 year have to say woman because legally she was but like a 19 year old girl. Sorry. didn't know she was pregnant, gave birth alone in the bathroom while her boyfriend who was 20 years her senior slept.
Gina (30:53)
Yeah, we can pause. What the fuck?
Yeah.
And he like, yeah,
conveniently did not wake up for any of the must have been a really deep sleeper. Okay.
Kathryn (31:10)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Literally the age difference between her and her boyfriend is the age difference between her and the baby she was giving birth to. I just want to like paint that picture for everyone. Yeah. So it does get worse. So just yeah. She said that the baby was not moving when he was born and she was rightfully scared because she
Gina (31:15)
It's fuckin'.
That is horrifying. Oh my God, ew, all right.
Kathryn (31:39)
didn't know she was having a baby. This guy apparently didn't know she was pregnant. ⁓ And now here she is alone in a bathroom with a baby that she believes was stillborn. So she got scared that she was going to get in trouble either by the boyfriend or because this baby is gone. she content warning throws him out the window thinking that he is stillborn. He was found
and an autopsy was performed and it was concluded that he had not been stillborn because there was air in his lungs. And I do want to pause and say, like, we don't know if that means that he was alive when he went out the window, but it does mean that he was alive when he was born, but there is like too much of a question mark.
Gina (32:27)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (32:34)
of course, to do nothing. So she was arrested and she was charged with some things, say murder, other places say manslaughter.
but either way, she was charged with something. That's what's important. Yeah. several psychiatrists testified and pretty much everyone was in agreement that she was not mentally stable, particularly in that moment. So she was found innocent by reason of insanity.
Gina (32:44)
But she was charged with something, yeah.
Kathryn (33:04)
Basically, they were acknowledging that this was a traumatic event no matter what happened and they believed that she did what she did not because she was trying to just like get rid of this baby. It's because she was like having a traumatic moment and like lost herself essentially in that moment,
so she was found innocent. But that was just, I mean, that energy alone, I think would be enough to give the hotel the reputation it has, because that is fucked up from top to bottom.
But don't worry, there's so much more. We're not even close to being done yet.
Gina (33:39)
Okay.
Kathryn (33:42)
was a woman who was, I'm gonna say, quite brutally murdered in 1964. I'm not gonna give all the details on this one. We'll list all of our sources and where you can find information if anyone is interested in learning more on anything that happened here.
But this one was another kind of particularly dark one because this woman's name was Goldie Rogers Osgood. And she was very well known and kind of beloved in the community. She was known for feeding the pigeons down at the nearby park. So she had the nickname Pigeon Goldie, which like, I don't know, like that these all cut deep, but it's like she was a staple in the community. And that's
Gina (34:15)
Hmm.
Pigeon Goldie.
Kathryn (34:30)
anyone who has one of those in their town, it's like almost like a famous person dying. like even for the Cecil people were like, what the fuck? Because at this point, this is 30 years later from the previous story. So it had had a negative reputation for a long time at that point. So it was kind of just like,
Gina (34:39)
Yeah.
Kathryn (34:53)
The fact that this is such a notable one kind of paints a picture of like she was very important to the community. And that was just a big loss. Not like the other ones weren't, but she was just known. Other people were passing through. She was there. Like that area was her home, you know? So that felt a little more personal to people, which added again to the darkness.
Gina (35:08)
Yeah.
Kathryn (35:16)
So now I'm going to promise that I'm not going to just keep continue rolling through these deaths. There were officially 16, I'm going to say violent deaths recorded at the Cecil 16 official deaths, also quite violent at the Cecil. Cause I'm not saying the other ones weren't. It's just...
Gina (35:34)
What?
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (35:39)
there was just a fucking lot that went on there. And there's a lot of question marks of, you know, ⁓ maybe someone was murdered, and maybe they weren't, we'll get to all of that. But not all of them happened within the Cecil. The area around the Cecil is also pretty notorious for having very negative energy.
example, back in the 30s, I think it was just after that initial William Kelly Norton case, ⁓ there was an instance of a truck driver who got
Gina (36:07)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (36:13)
pinned against the outside of the building by a truck. Yeah, I don't know if it was his or if it was someone else's that ran into his or what, but it was just like a bizarre out of the blue, this shit doesn't happen anywhere. But of course it would happen at the Cecil kind of thing. Another instance of that happened in 1962.
Gina (36:15)
God.
Yeah.
Kathryn (36:37)
A woman named Pauline Otton She jumped from a window of her ninth floor room. In doing so, she landed on an elderly man who was just standing outside minding his own business. And both of them ended up dying. Yeah. So like just these weird fucking like things. It's like you can't, you don't really believe it unless you see it. You know what I mean? Like these are the things that don't, that's like a, it's not funny, but that's like some cartoon shit. Yeah, exactly. Like,
Gina (36:56)
my God.
The chances of that happening, that yeah, that is so
low likelihood.
Kathryn (37:16)
Exactly. that was, like the energy people had toward the Cecil because the likelihood is nearly zero, but of course it would happen at the Cecil Hotel. You know what mean? That's kind of like how it was. So by this point in the 60s, it's extremely well known.
Gina (37:27)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kathryn (37:39)
the Cecil is an unsafe place to be and people are like 100 % sure at this point that this place is fucking cursed and nobody wants to be there. And like, it's just the reputation is what it is at this point is no longer what it was meant to be in the 20s. And it was around that time that it had kind of converted from like a short stay people kind of passing through type hotel to a longer term.
Gina (37:50)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (38:09)
I'm gonna say kind of like a hostel, like a lot of people, you know, people living in Skid Row, if they came across some money, they'd buy a room at the Cecil for like a couple of weeks, or, you know, there was a lot of like, ⁓ a lot of sex workers would rent rooms there and stay there for weeks on end. And that's where they'd meet clients, you know, like a lot of people that was like their home base. ⁓ It came to be known as the suicide instead of the Cecil by its long term residence because that is just what the reputation was at that point.
Gina (38:30)
Mm-hmm.
Serial Killers at the Cecil Hotel
Kathryn (38:36)
So at this point it's known as the suicide, but suicide is not the only cause of death the building is known for. One of the most notable residents of the Cecil was Richard Ramirez, who stayed there in the 80s. And are you familiar with Richard Ramirez? Okay, I wasn't sure. Yes, so he, yeah, so he was ⁓ his, what are the, his like nickname or whatever, alias, whatever people called him, moniker, yeah.
Gina (39:05)
Yes. I mean, it's ringing a bell. He was a serial killer, wasn't he? Yes.
moniker whatever
Kathryn (39:23)
was the Night Stalker. And he yeah, there's a very, I don't want to land on him too much because I don't love giving him attention. But his story is interesting, not because of him. But it's an interesting, his arrest was interesting. And I'm sure many people are familiar with him. But if you're not highly recommend
Gina (39:36)
Hmm.
Kathryn (39:50)
There's a documentary on him that was very popular a few years ago. That's probably why it rings a bell for you. ⁓ Anyway, he stayed there in the 80s for I think just a couple of weeks, like while he was committing the crimes that he was committing. And it is said there is a rumor that many people believe holds quite a bit of weight. they are just eyewitness accounts and I don't know how much ⁓ proof there is to this, but some neighbors in the Cecil saw him on at least one, maybe a few occasions walking through the hallway of the Cecil covered in blood.
Gina (40:34)
Yuh!
Kathryn (40:34)
And he would basically disrobe in the hallway, throw his bloody clothes in the garbage chute and like fuck off back to his room. And nobody said anything because it's the Cecil and like weird shitty things happened at the Cecil. So it was like, there's some bloody guy who cares. Right, exactly. I don't know if that story is true. If
Gina (40:47)
Yeah.
Don't be a rat, yeah.
Kathryn (40:58)
Anyone out there has like reputable proof. The only sources I could find were like Reddit and tabloid-y type things. It's very much feels like just a rumor, but I don't know where it was originally stated. So if anyone knows, ⁓ feel free to let us know. He's not the only serial killer that stayed there. I don't know how to say this guy's name. I'm realizing in this moment, this is another one I've only ever read it. I think I said that about something in my last episode. ⁓
I'm familiar with him, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone say his name. Jack Unterweger? I don't know. He's Austrian. And his story is interesting. I'm not as familiar with him as I am Richard Ramirez, but basically he was in prison for a little while for murder in Austria. And while he was in prison, he became this like literary
Gina (41:34)
I don't know of this person.
Kathryn (41:55)
I don't know. He basically got out of prison and had this very successful career as a writer. So he was in LA. Exactly. Yeah. He was in LA on assignment for some as like a journalist, committed a whole bunch of crimes, killed a lot of people. And he did so from the Cecil Hotel. And that one's particularly dark, not that the other ones haven't been, but his target.
Gina (42:02)
good for him.
Kathryn (42:25)
⁓ demographic was sex workers. So the Cecil was kind of like, awful. That's hunting ground. And honestly, like, that's something I can't even go into. Like, I wanted to like do a whole thing on that, because that's a problem to this day. But that is something we'll talk about that someday. Right now is not that I'm like too weighed down by too much stuff from this episode already. But you know, I want to. ⁓
Gina (42:30)
that's horrifying. It was just a hunting ground.
⁓ we can.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (42:53)
But that's what the Cecil was. It was a place where people who were deemed unlookforable would go missing. That is just what the situation was.
Gina (43:04)
Mm-hmm.
Jesus.
Kathryn (43:08)
So again, like all of this is to say, like there's just so much negative energy. What there is another rumor I wasn't going to bring up, but I'm going to bring it up because we're talking about like what did or did not happen there, especially with these big names. ⁓ There's another rumor that I could not officially confirm or deny by any of the sources I found. But it is said that, Elizabeth Short, the woman whose death was known as the Black Dahlia murder. Do you know that one? Yeah. So that one we might do an episode on one day because that's another one that I was just so obsessed with when I was little, but like all these like super dark ones. We'll do them someday, not anytime soon.
Gina (43:36)
Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Mm-hmm. ⁓
Yeah.
Kathryn (43:53)
It is many people claim to have seen her at the Cecil Hotel bar the night that she went missing. I don't know if that's true. I don't think anyone knows whether or not that's true. That's another just kind of... I wouldn't be shocked either, but I also am like that just seems like something that someone would blame the Cecil.
Gina (44:06)
I wouldn't be shocked.
Kathryn (44:16)
on, you know what I mean? Like, this big, because that was a big mystery for a very long time. And it's still a mystery in certain ways to this day. So any mysterious thing that happens in LA, people are like, Cecil, you know what I mean? So I wouldn't be surprised. And I would be surprised, I guess, like, I wouldn't be surprised either way. I'll phrase it that way. So all of this is just kind of a little taste of all of the numerous things that have gone on there.
Gina (44:16)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Elisa Lam
Kathryn (44:45)
I will say, of course, it would not be a podcast episode about the Cecil Hotel if we did not bring up the case of Elisa Lam. Are you familiar with that? I'm sure you're familiar with this case. I don't know if you know it by name. I'm sure you probably will recognize this one. So this one happened in 2013.
Gina (45:01)
No. Maybe like maybe once you start telling it, it'll, yeah.
Kathryn (45:14)
And this is something that puzzles people to this day. We'll go into it a little bit deeper as to why. But just as some background, Elisa was originally from Vancouver, British Columbia. And she was born to immigrants from, I believe it was Hong Kong, China. And she
Right off the bat, I want to say like she did have some pretty significant mental health issues.
She was enrolled in college, but because she had been struggling with her mental health so badly for several years, ⁓ she did end up dropping several classes. And I don't know if she ever I don't know if she dropped out of college or if she graduated and then took a break. I'm pretty sure she like took a break from class. I don't know if she graduated first. I think she took a break from going to school and decided to go on this like tour de California from her home in British Columbia. She was taking the train down to California. Honestly, so gorgeous. Like this is a very sad story. But if it had not ended the way it did, it would be just
Gina (46:25)
I bet that was gorgeous.
Kathryn (46:35)
the most lovely experience, I'm sure. So at that point, before she left, she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression, and she was on several medications for both of them. So that's a very important detail because there's a lot of like haunted type possessed rumors about the story, which we'll get into. So out of fairness, like we do need to make it clear that she did, she was known to have like hallucinations and kind of like breakdowns every now and then and things like that, ⁓ which kind of show up pretty regularly within this on this tour day California, she ends up in LA and she books a room at the Stay on Main, which was an extended stay hotel or hostel, whatever you want to call it.
That had previously been called the Cecil Hotel. So at this point, they have rebranded. They were trying so hard to distance themselves from what they were. Two years prior in 2011 is when Cecil changed his name to Stan Main and they...
Gina (47:30)
my God, okay.
Uh-huh.
Kathryn (47:47)
they had done some renovations, but not a ton. It really just came under new ownership and was basically the same thing. Probably slapped up like a coat of paint and that was it. ⁓ But the name of the hotel changed, the reputation did not. Like people to this day still call Stan the Cecil because that is what it was for 90 years before it changed, you know? So.
Gina (47:58)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kathryn (48:14)
She ends up at the Stay On Main and is assigned a room with some other young women around her age and they all immediately start complaining to management that Elisa is acting super weird. She had been leaving them notes that said things like go away and stay away from me and at a couple different points locked them all out of the room. So she was just acting very erratic and very paranoid.
After a few days, she got bumped to her own room, on January 31, after she'd been there a little while, she calls her parents to give them an update and let them know that she's planning on moving on to another part of California. And that was the last time they would ever hear from her. She never contacted them again. They never got like the confirmation that they got or that she got to where she was going. So they call the police in LA and they start looking for her. And that is when they uncover elevator security footage, which is now infamous. And I knew this is what it was going to be. Yeah, yes. Yes. So to this day, this is some of the most like I'm going to say mysterious footage and most like, I want to say like rumor or speculation inducing piece of video evidence for any crime.
Gina (49:18)
yes, yes, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember this.
Kathryn (49:42)
basically ever. mean, this is a top 10 for sure. Basically, for those who have not seen it, I think it's something we can probably stitch in. It's like public domain, I believe. I don't think we'll get in trouble if we share it. If nothing else, we will link it in the show notes so that anyone who hasn't seen it can take a look. But basically, if you're not in a spot to look at a video right now, she can be seen on the camera in the elevator.
Gina (49:53)
Okay.
Kathryn (50:09)
very clearly in distress. She's like talking to herself. She's like looking around. She's like pressing the buttons on the elevator. She's like trying to get back to her room. It seems like she's running from someone, but nobody is there. The other thing is the elevator's door... the elevator doors never close before she starts hitting all the buttons. So a lot of people are like, okay. It's very clear quote unquote that, you know, she's being chased by like some entity or whatever. So that's kind of where the supernatural paranormal whatever argument comes in, because no one ever comes for her. Keep in mind, she could very easily have been hallucinating. ⁓ She was known to have hallucinations when she wasn't taking her medication.
A lot of people just note that it's strange that the elevator was also acting strange. This is a million year old building, so it could have been an electrical issue. You know, like this is just like the discussion around the situation where it's like, you know, it appears to be one thing, but it also appears to be another thing at the same time, you know, so it's just very confusing and very strange to see. It’s also the first real, tangible, detailed video footage we have on the Cecil that already has this very spooky and cursed reputation. So it kind of was just like, a lot of people were like, see, it's haunted. You know what I mean? Like it just was very shocking. And the fact that it was at the Cecil.
Gina (51:51)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kathryn (51:58)
like made a lot of sense to a lot of people familiar with the Cecil's reputation. But yeah, so she's kind of like, it looks like she's dodging something. And then at a certain point, the elevator never closes and never goes anywhere. So she just gets out and walks away and you never see her ever A couple of weeks later, on February 19th, guests in the hotel started noticing there was something weird going on in the water. At first, people started complaining that it tasted very strange. And then eventually the water turned black. So a maintenance worker, a maintenance worker went up onto the roof to check the water tanks and inside one of the tanks, he found Elisa's body. So
Gina (52:32)
Mmm.
Kathryn (52:49)
So sorry, but that's the accidental cannibalism that I content warned at the beginning. ⁓ A lot of people, very rightfully so, were like super fucked up by that. Like that is a absolutely horrendous thing for anyone to experience, most notably like, man, that was one of those things. I'm just like.
Gina (52:52)
Mmm.
god, yeah.
BLEH
Kathryn (53:13)
my heart goes out to her family, that maintenance worker, like just like that is just an absolutely astonishing thing to experience.
Gina (53:19)
Awful.
Kathryn (53:22)
the fact that she was found where she was and how she was is also kind of astonishing to a lot of people because was absolutely no way she could have gotten up there by herself. But the autopsy showed no signs of physical trauma of any kind.
Gina (53:38)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (53:49)
lot of people argue this, that there were signs that could potentially have shown trauma, but you know, the other side of the argument is these were, I'm not going to go into detail about any of that, but the other side of the argument was that all of the signs people were pointing to are also things that could happen after two weeks worth of decomposition. So it just continued.
Gina (54:15)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (54:18)
to be a, well, it could be this or it could be that. This is another one I think we've talked about this, think all through curses month some people are like, okay, this is proof that it was paranormal because how could she have gotten up there? what was she doing in that elevator? Like, how did she end up here? And like, no other security footage caught her getting onto the roof and getting into this tank by herself, et cetera, et cetera.
Other people are like, okay, well, could have been a maintenance worker, you know what I mean? Like it just was one of those, there is never going to be an answer, unfortunately, which like is its own type of heartbreaking. And I absolutely hate also found that she did have her medication in her system.
Gina (54:47)
Yeah.
Kathryn (55:02)
which kind of is a rebuttal to her hallucinating due to not being on her meds. So people are like, okay, who was she running from and what was happening in that elevator? But on the other hand, the amount of medicine that was in her system could have shown that she had stopped taking it like a day or two prior. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just like, we just don't know anything for sure.
Gina (55:22)
Because it's not like you take the pill and you immediately like it takes a couple of days or even a couple of weeks once it's in your system of regular use for it to take effect. So she had stopped taking it a few days prior and then started it would still be in her system and even if she started retaking it that doesn't mean that she would feel better right away. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Kathryn (55:32)
Right.
Right. It would still be in her system. Right.
Right, exactly.
And that brings up the question of like, if the medicine was still in her system, theoretically, it would still have been working and therefore she wouldn't have been hallucinating. But that is dependent on, that's different from patient to patient. I don't think there's any way they can conclusively say that she was or was not hallucinating as a result of not taking it. You know what I mean?
Gina (56:08)
Yeah.
Kathryn (56:11)
every single piece of evidence doesn't really prove anything in this case, which in and of itself feels to a lot of people very mysterious and supernatural and just cursed. However, you want to... it feels cursed because it's like even if she didn't die as a result of the curse, there's like a prevention from getting the answer, which is just...
Gina (56:28)
It feels very cursed,
Kathryn (56:40)
horrendous, you know?
So. ⁓ That kind of brings us I don't want to say to the end of the story, ⁓ because there is so much more that has happened at the Cecil. But that brings us to the end of all of the research I have the emotional capacity to conduct. ⁓ Where do I stand on the Cecil? I definitely think it's cursed. It's absolutely haunted. I'm 100 % certain of that. There's just too much negative energy. The things that we've talked about are a very small percentage of everything that has actually happened there.
Gina (56:55)
Mm-hmm.
The Cecil Hotel Today
Kathryn (57:12)
There's just a lot that I really don't want to go that deep into. As far as modern day Cecil lore, it is no longer open in any capacity, even as the stay on main. In 2017, they were converted to a public housing building to try to combat the increasing unhoused population in LA.
But they had several issues with like they had like a rat infestation, cockroaches, mechanical issues, electrical issues. They had a significant black mold problem. So they basically had just so many issues, which is another thing that's like black mold can cause issues. But also a lot of people say,
Gina (57:47)
You
⁓ god.
Yeah. Uh-huh.
Kathryn (58:07)
that black mold can develop in high paranormal energy situations. So that's another one that like, that's like a trope, cliche. I don't know. Basically, like, black mold is symbolic of negative energy. So a lot of people think that if you have a like demonic or curse location, like black mold can be a sign of that.
Gina (58:14)
I didn't know that.
Kathryn (58:32)
It kind of it just depends on which way you want to look at it. It's either one way or another. Like the weird shit causes mold or the mold causes you to see or feel weird shit. You know what I mean? But that is that you'll notice. Oh, you don't watch horror movies. Yeah, there's a lot. That's like a symbolic thing that shows up in a lot of stories like that. Yeah. So they ended up closing for renovations in 2021 and they just never reopened their doors.
Gina (58:44)
Yeah, that's interesting.
Mm-mm.
Okay.
Kathryn (59:02)
because there was just too many problems. So their Yelp page was updated in August 2025 to say permanently closed. Yeah. I was like, I was searching high and low, like, you know, because one thing I wanted to discuss is like, would, would you ever go to the Cecil?
Gina (59:04)
Probably for the best.
Hmm? ⁓
⁓ fuck, okay. Well.
Kathryn (59:27)
I'm gonna be honest, I don't know if I ever would. So I was just gonna say I'm very confident I know what your answer is. I would definitely drive by, absolutely. ⁓ I don't know if I would want to ever go, but it's closed. I would definitely drive by for sure,
Gina (59:27)
No. No, I wouldn't.
Mm-mm.
I don't even know if I would drive by.
Just that it's because like the with the woman falling on the old guy and the truck driver getting pinned against it. Like I still wouldn't feel safe outside there. That just, yeah, fair. Okay. Yeah. But no, that is, it's funny that you say that because as like you were kind of getting to like the wrap up section, I was thinking like, would I ever go there? Like, do I think it's cursed and would I go there? And I was like, I don't know because I don't really, I still haven't defined what my relationship took.
Kathryn (59:56)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. I wouldn't feel safe, for sure. I just, yeah. Valid.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (1:00:18)
curses is. Like, I don't understand how they work or what I believe about them, but I definitely wouldn't fucking go there, which I think means I believe in curses. Because just in case, you know what I mean?
Kathryn (1:00:19)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Well, it's one of those, yeah, it's like when people say they don't believe in ghosts, but then they get very scared of horror stories or, you know, ghost stories. And it's like, well, if you don't believe in them, then why are you so scared?
Gina (1:00:37)
Yeah. Why are you scared? Yeah.
Kathryn (1:00:40)
I'm significantly more likely to go somewhere that is known for having ghosts than...somewhere that has an actual physical black mold problem. Like, that's like just because it's not cursed doesn't mean it's safe to go. You know what I mean? So I think that that's part of it. Like, yeah, I don't know. But I will say, right? Oh my god, truly, absolutely not. Oh my god, that's like my biggest I'm so scared of mold.
Gina (1:00:53)
Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want to go on a black mold tour? Sorry, go ahead.
Kathryn (1:01:11)
one of the things that I have to find this guy's name, we'll put it in the show notes. I totally spaced on looking for it before the show. And I don't have the energy to find it right now. But we'll put it in the show notes. There was this guy on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, just all the things he made videos, he lived in an apartment across the street from the Cecil. So for many years, he would like post these videos of weird things that he saw, like in and around the building. And that is honestly what made me like so obsessed with this story because he saw some weird shit. Even if they were staged, even if these were just his friends pretending to be ghosts, there were some things I was like, sign me up the shit spooky as fuck. Because at the time he was making these videos. ⁓
Gina (1:01:41)
⁓
my God.
Kathryn (1:02:05)
was when they were closed down for renovations. So it was not a safe place to be. And there were many instances of like, you know, he'd see someone go in the building and never come out. And then he'd go down and you could see like all the other exits were blocked off with like construction stuff, just like weird things like that. You could see shadows of people in the hallway and blah, blah, blah, blah. Of course, this could just be people breaking and entering because that's what you do with broken down legendary buildings. But it was just, I don't know. That is I said earlier that the Elisa Lam footage was not the only footage, this is what I'm talking about. There's a lot of people, there's not a whole lot of other official security footage, but there's a lot of people in, you know.
Gina (1:02:36)
Mm.
Okay.
Kathryn (1:02:53)
the internet video age that have their own kind of proof, quote unquote, of weird shit going on there. So we'll link it. I was that was like a rabbit hole that I fell down so deeply for a long time several years ago. We have very spooky. I do believe that it's cursed. And that's the story of the Cecil Hotel. be a long time to get through this.
Gina (1:03:01)
Mmm.
You
Fuckin' Christ,
that's- I know you warned me, but I'm still like, holy fuck. We picked the wrong episode to drink wine during. It should have been this one, yeah.
Redhead the Whale
Kathryn (1:03:22)
Yes.
I know, it should have been this one. I just unfortunately have things to do later tonight. I was gonna propose it, but I was like, I need to like be normal for, I know, I know. I'll probably make a cocktail for myself afterwards. But all of this is to say would love if you could perhaps tell me something to make me feel a little bit better. ⁓
Gina (1:03:33)
Jesus.
Well, I know what I'm doing after this, you know what I mean? It's alright. ⁓ fuck.
Cool.
Oh, I have just
the thing.
Kathryn (1:03:55)
Lovely.
Gina (1:03:56)
I'm gonna tell you a folk tale.
Kathryn (1:03:58)
Ugh, yay.
Gina (1:03:59)
about an evil whale. Okay, okay, are you ready? So, once upon a time, a few men went out into the waters of an Icelandic peninsula. When it was time to return, they realized they were missing someone. But the one missing was kind of a dick, so they left him behind and returned home. This is like part fairy tale, part me just saying things. Okay.
Kathryn (1:04:01)
my god, okay. What? Yes.
Those are fairy tales, should be
Gina (1:04:29)
The following year, the same men returned back to the same place. And who did they see but the man who was missing? So they took the man back to the town and life continued as usual. The townsfolk went to church one day where they saw a cradle outside the building. In it was a baby and a note that read, the father of this child will make sure it's baptized.
Everyone in the town immediately turned to the man who had been missing for a year and said, hey, was this you? Did you get someone pregnant while you were gone? And he was like, no, this is just like some random baby. It's not even mine. But he was lying. For while he was gone, he had met an Elven woman and she had gotten pregnant with his child. Before he left her to return home, he had promised her that he would get their baby baptized.
And as soon as the lie left his lips, the Elven woman suddenly appeared out of nowhere. She turned to the man pointing at him and said, I cast a spell on you that you shall become the worst of evil whales in the sea and wreck many ships. I know I like the idea of an evil whale.
Kathryn (1:05:45)
my god.
I've never heard of an evil whale. This is fascinating. Huh.
Gina (1:05:53)
Me neither. Yeah. So
the Elven woman seized the cradle with the baby and vanished into thin air. man was overcome with the curse and sprinted towards the water, jumping off a cliff into the sea where he turned into the worst of evil whales. And he was called Redhead because he had a red cap on him. Redhead the evil whale. Mm-hmm. Yeah. ⁓
It gets weirder, but like in the most wonderful way. Redhead sank 19 ships across the coast and harmed many people in doing so. And two of the men he killed were the sons of a blind pastor. The blind pastor was overcome with grief at the loss of his sons and anger, but he was also cunning and patient. Soon after he lost his sons, he asked his daughter to take him down by the fjord.
Kathryn (1:06:21)
funny.
Okay.
Gina (1:06:51)
So she guided him down and when they arrived, the pastor stuck his walking stick into the ground, leaning on it and waiting. He asked his daughter what the sea looked like. She told him it was mirror smooth and calm. The pastor waited a while and then asked her again, what does the sea look like? And this time the daughter said that she could see a black stripe coming up the fjord heading straight for them. When she told him that the stripe was close, the pastor asked her to lead him inland and the stripe kept pace with them, heading to the end of the fjord as it grew shallower and shallower. When the fjord turned into a river, the daughter watched as the stripe, which was Redhead the whale, struggled to follow them through the river, squeezing itself in between the banks. The pastor and his daughter clambered up a mountainside with Redhead in pursuit. They climbed to the top of a waterfall and the daughter looked on as the whale climbed the waterfall with them, causing the earth to shake with a thunderous roar. The pastor and his daughter didn't stop until they reached a lake, now known as Whale Lake. When Redhead reached them, he died of exhaustion. No one has seen Redhead since that day, but impressively sized whale bones have been found near the lake's shores, leading many to believe
The tale of Redhead is true.
That's my story!
Kathryn (1:08:22)
my gosh.
Wait, I bet it's true.
Gina (1:08:25)
It's fucking awesome, isn't it?
Kathryn (1:08:26)
That's wild.
that was a
lovely story. I loved that story.
Gina (1:08:30)
Yeah, a little bit of levity. I enjoyed it. Tom, it was in a book of Icelandic folk tales that Tom picked up while we were on vacation and he was reading it in bed one night and he was just like, hey, can I tell you about this story that I'm reading? And I was like, yeah. And he was like, it's about an evil whale named Redhead. And I burst out laughing. I thought it was like the funniest thing in whole fucking world. And then he read me the story and it's just fun. But not funny in like a ha ha, your culture is silly way. Funny in like a.
Kathryn (1:08:32)
Yeah, that was good.
Okay.
Honestly, that is amazing.
Gina (1:09:00)
An elven woman cursed a whale to become evil and have a red cap. That is so cool. Hell yeah.
Kathryn (1:09:02)
Yeah.
I love a fairy tale. love a classic fairy, like what fairy tales were originally. Like some of, have you ever like read a book of just like Grimm's fairy tales before they were all Disney-fied? Amazing. They're so good.
Gina (1:09:13)
Mmm, the dark ones?
Yeah, I'm a big fan.
Kathryn (1:09:25)
were so like fairy tales are so violent. Cinnamon is so upset right now. I'm sorry if you can hear her. Yeah. Well, thank you for telling me that very dark and adorable evil whale story. It did.
Gina (1:09:27)
So violent, so dark, yeah.
It's okay.
I hope it helped a little bit. Okay, well,
I hope you have the most restful, peaceful rest of your day. Yeah.
Kathryn (1:09:50)
Thank you. And
I hope that for you as well. Cinnamon, go away. Sorry.Gina (1:09:54)
Well, I don't have far to go. It's dinner time and then bed. All right. Well, until next time, little spoons and little cinnamon, keep it cool.
Kathryn (1:10:05)
Keep it creepy!
