Final killer: The Mystery of Room 1046

This week, I will be talking about the mystery of room 1046. On another murder podcast I listen to called “Crime over Coffee: A True Crime Podcast.”

On January second, 1935, this mystery began when a talk man claiming to be Rowland T. Owen walked into the Hotel President. He was described as a 5’10” man with blue eyes and bushy hair. He had a facial scar, a head scar, and a cauliflower ear. He walked in and paid for a room in cash with a special request that the room faces the inner courtyard instead of the street. He complained to the front desk that the hotel across the street would charge him $5 per night, and that was too much. He asked for a three-night stay but carried no luggage except a toothbrush and a comb.

After he paid for the room, he was escorted to room 1046, set his stuff on the bathroom counter, took the key from the bellboy, and then left the room for an unknown reason. Later that day, a maid went up to his room to clean and reported that Roland had the room lit only by one lamp, had the blinds closed, and was sitting in a chair looking very nervous when she opened the door. Shortly after Mary, the maid, started cleaning the room, Roland got up and left and asked her to keep the door unlocked because he was expecting a guest. At around four p.m., she came back to the room with clean towels. The door was opened, so she walked in and found Roland fully dressed, lying on the bed staring into the darkness. Roland watched Mary as she cleaned very intently. When she was cleaning, she found a note that said, “Dawn, I will be back in 15 minutes; wait.”

The following morning, Mary returned to the room, but it was locked outside. When she got in, she found Roland sitting in his chair, meaning someone else had locked it. The room was lit up the exact way it was before. She worked in silence, and he just watched her. Mary said the phone had rung, and Roland picked it up. He listened to the person on the other line and then said, “No, Dawn, I don’t want to eat. I’m not hungry; I just had breakfast.” He then repeated firmly, “No, I’m not hungry.” He hung up and then questioned Mary about what she was doing at the hotel and where she had been in it. This made her uncomfortable, and she left the room. Mary returned later that day with fresh towels. When she got to the room, she could hear two men talking and asked if she could enter the room. The man who responded said they did not need any new towels and should leave. She said that he did not sound like Roland. She walked away but was confused because she knew there were no towels in the room because she took them from the room.

Mary told the police that Roland seemed either worried about something or afraid. The following day, the hotel operator noticed that Roland’s phone was off the hook without being used for 10 minutes. The hotel manager sent the bellboy earlier to go to Roland’s room to check things out. When he got there, he noticed a do not disturb sign on the door but knocked anyway. A voice from inside the room told him to come in. He tried, but it was locked, so he told the man inside that it was closed. The man responded by telling the bellboy to turn on the lights. So, he continued to pound on the door for several minutes, letting him know the door was still locked and he couldn’t get in. He then told the man to put the phone back on the hook after no response.

Later that morning, the manager noticed the phone was still off the hook, so she sent a different bellboy up to see if he could fix the situation. This bellboy went up and knocked on the door but got no response. The door was locked, so he decided to use his master key to unlock the door. He noticed naked Roland lying on the bed with dark stains around him when he got in. He just assumed Roland was hungover but never explained what he thought the stains were. He put the phone back on the hook and left. About an hour later, the operator noticed that somehow the phone was off the hook, again. So, the original bellboy went up to check things out again. He knocked on the door but got no response. He used his key to enter, and when he did, he found Roland kneeling in front of the door holding his head in his hands with blood surrounding him on the floor. The bellboy turned on the lights and noticed there was blood everywhere. He ran out of the room, looking for the manager to call the police.

When the police arrived, Roland told them that he had fallen against the bath. The police could tell this wasn’t true. Roland’s neck had strangulation marks, and his wrists and feet had laceration marks. Also, they could see that he had been stabbed with a knife multiple times, and one of his lungs had been punctured. It was also seen that his head was beaten by something. Roland made it clear that he had not been attacked at that this was all from the bathtub. The police said he had been attacked 6-7 hours before they were called in. This means that he had been assaulted before the second bellboy had entered the room for the first time. So, when someone said “come in” to the original bellboy earlier in the morning, it could have been the killer. He was taken to the hospital but died shortly after.

The room where Roland stayed was investigated, which led to more questions. There was not a single piece of clothing left in his room. All of the complimentary items were missing. They found a label from a tie on the floor and four fingerprints on the lampshade, apparently from a woman, but they weren’t ever matched to a person. They also found a cigarette that hadn’t been smoked, an opened bottle of diluted sulfuric acid, and a hairpin. There were two water glasses also.

After Roland died, the police put a sketch of him in the newspaper, asking if anyone recognized him. They got no answers except one that said that this man was not Roland T. Owen. The only part of his true story was that he went to the hotel across the street first. But, it was found that he bought a room there too under the name Eugene Scott. He checked into multiple hotels using this alias. That night, Robert Lane, who worked for the water department, saw a man running down the street about a mile and a half away from the President. This man was only wearing pants and an undershirt which was odd because it was cold out. The man had a deep scratch on his arm and cupped his hands, leading him to believe he was holding blood. Robert asked the strange man what happened, and all he said was, “I’ll kill him tomorrow.” The man asked to be dropped off at a taxi stand to catch a cab, so Robert did and never saw him again. It is believed that the man Robert found that night was Roland.

The woman staying in the room next to Roland told the police that she heard noises that sounded like multiple men and women talking loudly and cursing throughout the night. She considered calling down to the front desk but never did. There was a party going on in room 1055 that night, so it’s possible that was what she heard. The elevator worker said that prostitute came into the hotel looking for a man in room 1026. She never ended up finding that man. She did, however, end up finding a man on the ninth floor and had the elevator worker take them to the tenth floor. Then at about four a.m., she left the hotel. Fifteen minutes later, the man she was with left as well. No one knows who these two are, but she wondered if she meant to go to 1046, Roland’s room.

Many people gave tips to say they had seen Roland under other names and with many girls. They started looking into this Dawn guy to try and figure out who he was. They wondered if he was in a love triangle with Roldnad, which would explain the anger overheard by the maid and the hairpin found. But also, was the room cleaned enough for the hairpin to be a part of the murder. It seems as though the officers were grasping at straws to try and figure out what happened.

In March, a funeral was being held for Roland (who isn’t Roland) when an anonymous caller claimed to be Roland’s brother-in-law. He just said that this was Roland’s fate because he cheated on his wife. But they have no clue who this guy is, so they can’t find him to investigate. He then told investigators they were on the wrong track and that investigators could not bury Roland in a potter’s field. He paid for the funeral expenses by sending in a wad of cash. The funeral was only attended by the police investigating the case. An anonymous note was sent in with flowers that said “Love, Louis,” and cash was also sent.

Later, a woman called in saying that Roland was her long-lost brother Artemis Ogletree that left in 1934. He wrote letters to his mom, but he didn’t know how to type, and the letters didn’t match what they would expect from Artemis. After three letters, they got a call from a guy who said Artemis saved his life in Egypt, married a wealthy woman, and settled down. Pitcures were sent to the police of Artemis, and he looked a lot like “Roland.” But, based on the time frame, Artemis would have only been 17 when he died. In the sketch of “Roland,” he looks a lot younger. This theory doesn’t make sense. The letters were sent after his death, and he was apparently in Egypt.

The case is still unsolved, and there have been multiple times that it has been reopened, and no new information was found out.