Heartbreaking hotels from violent deaths to serial killers and 114 dead at tea dance

It's 70 years since Elvis Presley bagged his first No.1 hit with Heartbreak Hotel. According to legend, the song was inspired by a newspaper report about a lonely mans suicide.

He is said to have jumped to his death from a hotel window. But it wouldnt be the first boarding house with a tragic past, as the Daily Star reveals

Panic rooms: At least 16 people have suffered violent deaths at the Cecil Hotel, in Los Angeles, since it opened in 1924. Most have been suicides, but others have been more suspicious including the tragic case of 19-year-old Dorothy Purcell, who threw her newborn son from a window in 1944. She was acquitted of the murder due to insanity. Serial killers Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger have both stayed as guests.

Strong reservations: The Crescent Hotel, in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, was turned into a health resort in 1937 by millionaire con man Norman G. Baker. The quack, who had no medical training, claimed to be able to cure cancer with a secret formula made up of water, watermelon seeds, alcohol and clover. More than 40 patients died before he was jailed for mail fraud in 1940 and their ghosts are now said to stalk the hotel and grounds.

Vicious by nature: The Hotel Chelsea, in New York, has been the scene of two infamous tragedies. Poet Dylan Thomas was living there when he fell into his final, fatal coma in 1953, after slowly drinking himself to death. Then in 1978, Sid Vicious woke up on the floor of his room to find girlfriend Nancy Spungen dead from a single stab wound. He died himself, from a heroin overdose, before he could be tried for her murder.

Bomb shelter: The Europa Hotel, in Belfast, is known as the most bombed hotel in the world. As a hub for journalists and politicians during the Troubles, it was bombed 30 times by the Provisional IRA between 1970 and 1994. Incredibly, no-one was killed in the attacks and the hotel closed its doors just twice.

Danger zone: Around 1,600 people had packed into the lobby of the Hyatt Regency hotel in Kansas, Missouri, for a tea dance on July 17, 1981. When two overhead walkways collapsed on top of them, 114 were killed and 216 were injured. The rescue operation lasted 14 hours, during which 29 victims were pulled from the rubble.

Trial by fire: The Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, was advertised as absolutely fireproof. That turned out to be a big mistake. The fire that broke out there on December 7, 1946, was the deadliest hotel blaze in American history, killing 119 people, including the buildings owners.

[Google Preferred Source Badge]Follow Daily Star: