It was a dark and stormy night in downtown Los Angeles. Remember those rains which came down for months earlier this year, turning L.A. from the land of sunshine into a grey city of slippery sludge? Well, that’s when my parents came to visit me in Los Angeles from their home in North Carolina. They have visited me many times in the past 20 years, but this time was special — instead of renting an Airbnb, they were staying in a suite in downtown’s legendary Millennium Biltmore.
How lovely it was to find respite in the Biltmore, with its gilded, if slightly faded glamour, after another day of tourism ruined by the rain. We are a family of history buffs, so to know we were walking the halls of a century-old hotel which hosted the Oscars, political conventions, and — my personal favorite — the high society fashion shows produced by the eccentric Peggy Hamilton — what a thrill!
I have a long history with the Biltmore. As a historical journalist, I have written about it for years, and of course, I am fascinated by the legends of ghosts and ghouls that supposedly haunt its halls. A ghostly little boy has been seen on the 10th floor, while another boy, this one without a face, haunts the roof. There is a little girl on the ninth floor, and a nurse on the second. On a tour of the property, a hotel employee told me that his own beliefs had been shaken by the number of employees who had strange otherworldly encounters.
I know all about Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia, L.A.’s most infamous murder victim, who disappeared from the hotel lobby to her doom. On the night of Jan. 9, 1947, around 6:30 p.m., the immaculately dressed Short allegedly entered the Biltmore’s lobby, escorted by an anxious man with red hair. After he left, Short spent the next few hours restless and nervous, repeatedly asking the hotel clerk if she had any messages, and making calls in the phone booth.
Others in the lobby became fascinated with the striking woman in the pristine white gloves, who looked so desperate and alone. Short paced, made more phone calls. But the hours passed. Finally, she appeared to get in touch with someone on the phone. Suddenly her mood noticeably lifted.
Bell captain Harold Studholme reported that a little after 10 p.m., a person on Olive Street motioned to Short for her to follow them through the lobby windows. She walked confidently out the lobby doors and disappeared into the night.
The Black Dahlia: The Murder of Elizabeth Short pic.twitter.com/zVZ6wYcSD8
— spooky threadz (@threadsbymads) October 30, 2018
On Jan. 15, Short’s body was found in a vacant lot in Leimert Park. She had been bisected and drained of blood, a sinister smile carved into her face. To this day, her case remains unsolved.
For years, there have been reports that Short’s tortured spirit haunts the 10th and 11th floors and rides the elevators, staring straight ahead. According to historian Janice Oberding, Short’s ghost — as beautiful as ever, with luscious dark hair — never greets or even notices any mortal who crosses her path. She seems preoccupied, on edge, forever waiting for the mysterious person who perhaps caused her death.
So yes, I knew all the stories. But did I believe in this paranormal activity? Not really, but I would never be arrogant enough to claim I knew one way or another. I have made a career exploring mysterious, often creepy places, but it’s been more from an anthropological point of view. My true interest in ghost stories has always been what they tell us about the places, people, and times from which the legend sprang. Cold, hard history —- and facts — could explain it all away!
All that would change that night at the Biltmore. Exhausted after a day of driving with my parents in the rain, I was happy to spend a cozy night with them in their suite. The dated suite wasn’t exactly luxurious, but it was huge, with a sitting area, two beds, and large windows with views of a soggy Pershing Square. After a night of watching college basketball on the room’s TV while eating Subway sandwiches, we all turned in around eleven.
I went to sleep easily, my parents snoring lightly in the bed next to me. Then all of the sudden — I was awake. The room was dark and silent, save the rain pattering on the window. Yet I could barely hear the rain due to the thoughts that were loudly rushing through my head. But instead of my usual middle-of-the-night thoughts — about my schedule the next day, or the appointment I had forgotten to make — they were thoughts I had never had in my life.
To my horror I realized something was very wrong. The voice, cadence and vocabulary were not my own. It felt like I had been inhabited by an angry, vengeful, man from another time and place. When I think of the voice now, I see a sweating, haggard middle-aged man from the 1940s, hunched at a hotel bar spewing disgusting vulgarities, his humanity blotted out by his rage.
The thoughts came through me at a rapid pace. They were strange, hateful and violent thoughts. I tried to rouse myself, to “wake up.” I tried to sit up. But I couldn’t move. I felt as though two forearms were pressing against my chest, like a shiny face was breathing over me, dripping spit and sweat on my cheeks. It felt as if the entity was taking me over. I didn’t know what to do. I have experienced sleep paralysis before, but it wasn’t that. It was terrifying. I was out of control. I WASN’T ME.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the television in the hotel suite turned on, and instead of angry, incomprehensible words, a chatty, suave announcer was soothingly recapping basketball games on ESPN. The terror ended. I was myself again.
I opened my eyes, and saw both of my parents sitting straight up in their bed. “Did you turn on the TV?” we all asked each other.
No one had. It was 3a.m. “That’s so freaky!” my mother said. Then she chuckled — “Maybe it was a ghost!.” I was not laughing, and was now even more fearful — who the hell had turned the TV on? My dad got out of bed to turn off the TV, and then climbed back into bed. I wanted to say something more, but I resolved to attempt to forget it and go to sleep. I was exhausted, and felt as if I had just been engaged in a monumental fight.
I fell asleep quickly, but kept waking up periodically through the night, waiting for the TV to turn on again. In the morning I was shaken and confused. I remembered the violent rush of words, the terrifying feeling of pressure on my chest — but weirdly I could not recall anything specific the voice that inhabited me had said. To this day, I still can’t.
As I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, desperately trying to remember what the spirit had said, my mother hummed as she opened the heavy blackout curtains in the room. The sun was hazy and cloudy over Pershing Square, and the room felt once again like a normal hotel room. After a much needed cup of coffee and a day-old croissant, I told my parents what had happened. “I am never staying there again!” I said emphatically.
That next night, I stayed at my apartment in the Arts District, undisturbed by dreams or nightmares. I simply forced myself to put the night before out of my mind. I’ve always been a pro at conveniently forgetting things.
When I went to pick up my parents in the morning for another sodden museum day, they had news for me. The TV had turned on again at 3 a.m. It would turn on in the dead of night for the rest of their stay. They messed around with the TV, but could not discover any timer that had been set. Being the tight-lipped Southerners they are, they never complained to the Biltmore or told them what had happened. Neither did I.
After my parents went back to North Carolina, I decided to put my historical detective skill to good use. I pored over notes, books and blog posts, trying to figure out which of the alleged paranormal spirits of the Biltmore could have visited me. But none of the known ghosts of the Biltmore seem as malevolent, as evil, or as chaotic as what seemed to enter me that night.
Could it have been the spirit of the nervous red-headed man, who escorted Elizabeth Short into the lobby of the Biltmore that winter night of 1947? The unknown person who motioned her out of the lobby? A murderous traveling salesman, or a slighted mobster, a traitorous politician, who checked into the Biltmore many moons ago, and whose spirit never left?
I don’t think I will ever know. The Biltmore has given Los Angeles many gifts in the past century. To this cynical reporter, it’s given me a new perspective and a new healthy fear of things that go bump in the night. I now empathize more with those who say they have experienced the paranormal, and am not as quick to look to the logical to explain their experiences away. There are things all the research in the world can’t explain. And nowhere in L.A. is that truer than at the Biltmore Hotel.
