Room 1046, part 1. : the last days and the death of a mysterious man

On the afternoon of January 2, 1935, at 1:15 a.m., an elegantly dressed man in his 20s walked over to the front desk at the President Hotel in Kansas City. He asked for an upstairs room, one facing the inner courtyard rather than the street.

The man, using the name Roland T. Owen, checked into the hotel as a Los Angeles resident for 2 days where he did not take any bags with him. The hotel staff had already noticed a horizontal scar above the man's ear on his temple, and they also noticed that he had so-called cauliflower ears. This usually occurs in people who do some martial arts, such as wrestlers.

He was given room 1046 on the tenth floor, where he was escorted by a bellhop named Randolph Propst. The man told him that he had spent the night before at the Münhlebach hotel, but found it too expensive. Arriving in the room, the man unpacked his brush and toothpaste from the pocket of his jacket and then they both left the room, the bellhop closed the door and the man left the building.

Later, a cleaning lady named Mary Soptic opened the room and saw the man sitting in the armchair in the room. The blinds were all pulled in and only a dim light was on. The woman thought the room was just empty so she apologized, but the man allowed her to do the cleaning. The cleaning lady went back to the room several times during the day and always found the man the same way, sitting in the dark room. Then the man combed his hair, picked up his coat, and left, but asked the cleaning lady to leave the door open because his guest would arrive soon. The cleaning lady did this, but when she later went back to change the towels in the room it was completely dark and the unknown man was lying on the bed half-sitting and fully clothed. Next to him in the nightstand was a note "Don, I'll be here in 15 minutes, wait for me". The woman then left and could no longer see the man that day.

January 3, 1935

The next morning Mary Soptic arrived to clean up around 10:30 but room 1046 was closed, so she thought the man had left the hotel because the door could only be closed from the outside. When the cleaning lady opened the room, the man was sitting in the couch again, silent in the dark. (That's the point where I thought I wouldn't have gone to clean the room while the man was there anyway. It's very bizarre.) Then the phone rang and the man said to the phone, "No Don, I don't want to eat. , I'm not hungry". He then inquired about the work of the cleaning lady, such as whether she cleans the entire tenth floor and whether the hotel also operates as an apartment hotel.

When the cleaner was done, she left the room and next time she returned at 4pm to bring new towels. Arriving at the door, he heard two men arguing about something inside, so she knocked first. A stranger's voice asked, "Who is it?" And the woman replied, but the man roughly replied, "We don't need it."

A woman named Jane Owen checked into the hotel at 6pm because she didn’t feel well after shopping and so didn’t dare go home. The woman was given room 1048. In the evening, she was also visited by his partner, who stayed there for about 2 hours. Jane later told police she heard a man and a woman quarreling loudly from room 1046 that night.

January 4, 1935

On the morning of January 4, Della Ferguson from the hotel’s telephone call center tried to call room 1046 by phone, it would have been a wake-up call. But the phone was not available and the light in the center was lit, indicating that the handset was not in place.

Then a bellhop named Randolph Propst (who led the man to his room the first day) went up to see what the problem might be. When he reached the room, its door was closed and the card "Do not disturb" were hung on the doorknob. This is strange again because if the door was closed from the outside, i.e. they left the room, why did it need this inscription? The bellhop began to knock and a voice from the room told him to go inside. But the man couldn't go in because he didn't have a key. After another knock, the sound asked him to turn on the light. But of course the bellhop was still out. Finally, he shouted through the door at the man to put the phone in place, then left. Based on this, the staff thought the man was drunk, so they waited another hour for the wake-up call.

So later the phone operator tried to call the room again but the phone was still out of place. Then another bellhop, Harold Pike, went up to the room and had the key. He went into the room where it was dark, but saw the man lying naked in bed. He still noticed dark spots on the sheet under the man, but he didn't turn on the lamp. He replaced the phone and left.

Two hours later, shortly after 10:30 a.m., another telephone operator again signaled that the telephone had moved away in Room 1046. Randolph Propst went up to the tenth floor again and went into the room where a terrible sight greeted him. The occupant of the room held his bleeding head, leaning on his knees and elbows, about 60 inches from the door. The bellhop turned on the lights and then he saw that the walls, the ceiling, the bathroom were full of blood. Randolph went to call for help, but when they went back with another employee they could no longer open the door because the man was lying on the floor in front of the door. But the injured man was soon able to get up and so the two employees were able to go into the room and notify the police, along with one of the doctors at the city hospital.

A cord was tied around the man's neck, wrists, and ankles. There were bruises around his neck and several knife stabs above his heart. One of the knife punctures pierced his lungs, and the blows to his head cracked his skull. All indications were that the man had been tortured. It's a miracle he was still alive.

The doctor asked him who had done this to him, to which the answer was : nobody. And when asked how he got his injuries, he said he fell in the bathroom. (Of course, that doesn't explain the knife stabs and cords. I think the man might still was afraid of his attacker. There's no other logical explanation for why he lied). The doctor also asked him if he wanted to commit suicide, but the answer was no.

Not long after, the man lost consciousness and fell into a coma. He was taken to hospital but no longer woke up. Shortly after midnight, a resident of Room 1046 died on January 5th.

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Every little detail of the story seems essential, so I don’t want to miss anything. The article turned out to be so long that I divided it into three parts. The next parts of the story will be about the investigation and then the identification of the victim. I hope you will come back to read the sequel, which I will publish very soon because the other two articles have already been completed.

Sources: Pixabay, WebArchive , FindAGrave , Buzzfeed