Right on the heels on my colleague’s column the other day about the worst hotel rooms ever comes the ultimate example in a “ripped from the headlines” (or at least, internet) example.
Seems police found the body of a woman who had been missing since late January in the bed frame of the Budget Inn motel room she had rented.
How do you top that? Many of us have reported staying in rooms with bugs, nasty tubs, and lousy views, but at least five people can claim they got a room with a corpse – since that’s how many times the management told police the room had been rented since Sony Millbrook of Memphis had disappeared. A boyfriend is considered a ‘person of interest’ in the slaying, but of equal interest is how hotel maids somehow missed a stinkin’ body for over a month? (Or maybe not, if you’ve seen the housekeeping skills on evidence at some establishments).
After a missing persons report was filed that listed the room as Ms. Millbrook’s last known address, management at the facility told police the room had been locked and her belongings moved for non-payment at about the time she was last seen. Memphis police have since admitted they did not check the room at that time.
It was not until a foul odor was detected and police were called to the motel again on March 15 that the room was searched and the body was found. Hotel staff told the police the room had been cleaned ‘numerous times’ since January 27.
You gotta wonder how no one – not even the guests – noticed that something was amiss. Like maybe the bed was too lumpy, or the carpet had a few stains. Of course, these are rather routine complaints, heard all the time in hotels, that only become macabre when a dead body shows up.
Now, I have to admit, that checking in the bed support is not on even my extensive list of room checks. Courtesy of other bad experiences I have learned to check to see if a room has hot water (or even any water), heat, windows that can be locked, and the usual sundry list of accommodation necessities. Over the years I’ve also been subjected to the unwanted presence of more than a few -lizards in the tropics, a bat in Vietnam, a cat someone forgot in Canada, bed bugs in Indonesia, and more generic pests like roaches.
I’ve also stayed in a number of hotels and inns that claim ghosts among the occupants (the Hotel Coronado, the Colonial Inn in Concord, Mass., a guest house in Salem, Mass.). However to the best of my knowledge, I have never bunked with the dearly and recently departed. Once I was almost AMONG the departed – gunfire rang out in the entry way as I was preparing to go inside and register. Needing a few hours sleep during a long drive, I had no other alternative but to stay. While a curiously bored clerk waited for police to arrive, I skedaddled to my room, which was thankfully arranged for the other side of the complex. Still, a few uneasy moments passed before I fell asleep.
In fact, the closest I’ve come to this unreal, Law & Order-like horror is stepping over a chalk line to get to the front door, but that was at a hotel in a city noted for crime, and the body had long since been taken to the morgue. Hotel clerks the world over must be as inured to crime as cops — the clerk there rather blithely apologized to me for ‘the inconvenience.’ I dared not mention the inconvenience of the poor bloke that died.
Meanwhile, back at the Memphis Budget Inn., in a room now hopelessly contaminated for investigative purposes, police probably have few clues to go on in building a case. If you’ve stayed in Memphis lately, don’t surprised if the police have a few questions for you.
