Mystery Location No. 61: July 23, 2017

Second Clue: lost things

Third Clue: blonde

Jul 25, 2017 20:21:15 GMT -5 jason said:

Pat hasn't posted anything recently and she usually gives her opinion about the Mystery Location every week. I hope she hasn't died.

Pat is visiting some people in New Jersey. She'll be back this weekend.

This is the Sheraton Gunter Hotel, 205 E. Houston Street, San Antonio, Texas. (San Antonio is named for St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost things.) Before it was purchased by Sheraton, the 12-story hotel was the site of a gruesome murder. On February 2, 1965, a man checked into Rm. 636 of the Gunter under the name John Knox. Afterward, maids and other hotel staff began to see him with a tall, pleasant blonde woman whom they assumed was Mrs. Knox because they both came and went from the room. After a few days, Knox went to Sears & Roebuck and tried to buy a meat grinder, but there weren’t any in stock and he was told he’d have to wait until one came in from the factory.

On February 8, the "Do Not Disturb" sign was on the door and because it had been there for two or three days, the maid thought it had been left there by mistake. She opened the door and entered and there she found Knox gathering up a bundle of bloody sheets and blankets. He held his finger to his lips signaling her to be quiet and ran out of the room carrying the bundle. The room and bath were a bloody mess and bits of flesh were all over the bathroom floor, where it was assumed that he was trying to flush the woman down the toilet bit by bit.

Police tracked Knox to Rm. 536 in the St. Anthony Hotel a few blocks away. He had requested Rm. 636, but it was in use. As officers knocked on the door, a shot rang out and the man (who turned out to be Walter Emerick, was dead by the time they got inside). There was a lot of construction going on in San Antonio at the time and it is assumed that he disposed of the remaining body parts in the wet cement. The woman was never identified.

It is said that following the murder, people began seeing the ghost of a blonde woman with her arms outstretched in the vicinity of Rm. 636 and photos taken in and near the room often showed the face of a woman.

When the hotel was renovated, the chintzy Sheraton changed many of the generously-sized guestrooms into tiny bathroom-sized spaces that are barely big enough for a bed by making two rooms from one and Rm. 636 is now Rms. 220 and 221. Apparently Lee has never stayed at the Sheraton Gunter; if she had, she wouldn’t have said "Most guests have no complaints about their accommodations." Some of the rooms are so small, they barely accommodate a bed and some of the baths so tiny it’s hard to close the door from the inside. The hotel also has super-thin walls so it's noisy and there's a "dog floor" and if you happen to be near the dog floor, you'll hear the freaking dogs barking. Take my advice and if you visit San Antonio, pick another hotel.

Jul 26, 2017 16:06:51 GMT -5 natalie said:

I think I know the location but maybe tomorrow's clue will leave me feeling more confident.

Was the Sheraton Gunter Hotel the place that you were thinking of?