THE Cecil Hotel has a long and sordid history and has housed some of the country's most notorious serial killers.
A new documentary focuses on the mysterious death of Elisa Lam, whose body was found in a water tank atop the hotel in 2013.
Where is the Cecil Hotel?
The Cecil Hotel, which was erected in the 1920s, is located in downtown Los Angeles.
It was built with great ambition, but everything changed during the Great Depression.
The budget hotel would become a place to sleep for people who were down on their luck.
“At the Cecil there would be pensioners, single people, drug and alcohol users. It was just where poor people lived," Kim Cooper, who conducts tours of the hotel, told The Sun.
The hotel was called "The Suicide" by many residents because of the series of deaths that took place in the early years, according to Mental Floss.
The hotel also inspired a season of the anthology series American Horror Story, with Lady Gaga playing a kind of vampire.
Is the Cecil Hotel still open?
The hotel is no longer open.
It was announced in 2016 that the hotel would have a $100million renovation.
“We are gutting the entire building,” Matthew Baron of Simon Baron Development told the Los Angeles Times at the time.
“We are going to redevelop it from the doorway to the roof and everything in between.”
Baron added: “We really think it’s a fantastic location – the center where everything is happening,”
Will the Cecil Hotel reopen?
There is no word on when a possible reopening would take place.
Who are some of the Cecil Hotel's most infamous guests?
The Cecil Hotel has had a lineup of notorious customers – including at least two serial killers.
Richard Ramirez, known as the Night Stalker, killed at least 14 people and attacked dozens more before he was captured.
It is believed he stayed in the Cecil Hotel in 1985 – the same year he was apprehended.
"The Night Stalker didn’t prey on people here, he just hung out because he fit in," said Cooper.
Ramirez spent 23 years on death row after being arrested and he died on death row in 2013.
Six years after Ramirez stayed in the hotel, another twisted killer spent time there.
Austrian journalist Jack Unterweger stayed at the Cecil Hotel in 1991, possibly because of its connection to Ramirez, according to Medium.
Unterweger targeted prostitutes and killed women in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Los Angeles, according to authorities.
His murder spree is believed to have stretched across four countries.
He was actually paroled after doing time for murder, and was later convicted of 11 murders by an Austrian court and sentenced to life in prison.
He would hang himself in prison.
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