Room 1046, part 3.: Identification of the victim

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 first part of the story was about the victim's last days and about his death. The second part was about the investigation. Read those first if you didn't do it yet.

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

Room 1046, part 2. : The investigation

Let's continue the story :

Ruby Ogletree from Birmingham came. A friend of her showed her an article in one of the newspapers dealing with the matter in the fall of 1936. The woman thought the occupant of Room 1046 may have been her son, Artemus Ogletree. She claims the man in the newspaper is very similar to his son and also the wound on the temple that the boy acquired as a child when he accidentally got hot fat on him.

Artemus was born in Florida in 1915 and left home to work in Los Angeles in April 1934 at the age of 19. After he arrived there several times he sent home money and Ruby communicated to him regularly by letters. The woman was able to give enough information to the police so that they could successfully identify the victim.

What is strange, however, is that the woman received letters from the man even after Artemus died. The first letter arrived with a Chicago stamp in early 1935 and was typewritten. This was weird because his son wasn't used to a typewriter, and he wrote it in a completely different style than they used to.

Another letter arrived in May stating that the man would be traveling to Europe that day. Both letters were posted from New York.

Three months later, the mother got a phone call from an unknown man who told her that her son had saved his life in a fight and that the man could not make a phone call because he fell in love with a wealthy Egyptian woman with whom he had moved to Cairo. And according to the story of the unknown man, Artemus could not write a letter because he lost his thumb in the particular battle in which he saved him. The phone conversation lasted for about half an hour, but Ruby felt that the man was lying, but he could know what had really happened to his son.

Later in the investigation, investigators discovered that Artimus Ogletree had also visited a third hotel in the St. Regis Hotel in Kansas City. There they rented a room with a man. It was suggested that this man may have been the certain Don the victim had spoken to in Room 1046, but no evidence was found.

The case was also dealt with by a researcher named Dr John Arthur Horner in 2012, who reported an interesting case. 8-9 years earlier while at work, he had received a phone call from an unknown person who was inquiring about Room 1046. The mysterious caller told the researcher he was working on systematizing the legacy of a recently deceased elderly person. There was also a box in the legacy that was full of newspaper articles related to the case. The caller said there was still something in the box that was mentioned in the newspaper articles, but he had not revealed what it was and interrupted the call.

So the occupant of room 1046 was finally identified but the culprit or culprits have not been found since.

I think the caller talking about the legacy could have solved the case, but in the meantime he was probably scared.

Who do you think might have been the killer or killers? Why did the man have to die? It would probably be much easier for the police today to deal with such a case, there could be plenty of clues in cell phones, but at the time, of course, there were still traditional phones. Nowadays, there are security cameras everywhere, surveillance cameras on the streets, all of which can be a great help in an investigation.

What do you think of the woman mentioned earlier who waited on the tenth floor that night and then went up to the ninth floor with another man? I thought she wasn't waiting for anyone on the tenth floor, she was just watching, surveying the terrain. Then, with that particular man, he took the elevator to the ninth floor, and from there on foot.

The woman and man left at about 4:15 a.m., and the victim was injured between 4 and 5 a.m., according to the autopsy. So the timing is pretty much right. Of course, they may have had nothing to do with the case. Who could have called the funeral home? And who could be the sister he mentioned in the phone call? If they had nothing to do with the murder, then why was he so mysterious?

The victim may have been in a clearly feared and awful state of mind, as shown by the way he sat in the dark for hours in his room. And of course that also means that he used a pseudonym. I don’t think anyone killed him because he had a lover next to his bride. Unless one of the women belonged to a mafia family. Because average people, even if they commit murder out of jealousy or revenge, are unlikely to do so. On the one hand, they were "skillful" as their identities were never revealed, and on the other hand, torture and the disappearance of clues seem to be "professional work."

Probably the killers took a bath after what they did, so the shampoo and towels disappeared. And a piece of the glass must have been missing because the killer used it. He was also missing from the man's clothes because there may have been pieces of fabric or hair from the killer. So an enraged bride probably didn’t become so brutal and thoughtful, thorough. What do you think?

Sources: FindAGrave , Buzzfeed , WebArchive