Chapter 78: Love For Ever, Lousie-The Murder in Room 1046

0:00 Hi guys. I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and welcome to the next chapter in the Book of the Dead. Brought to you by dark Cast Network indie Podcasts with a Twist. Are you tired of hearing about the Ted Bundys and Jeffrey Amazon true crime podcast? I thought so? Who got something just for you? I'm Pat and I'm Darcy, and we are the hosts of Pod of Terror, a true crime podcast that dives into lesser known cases from around the world. Grab a glass of wine and join us every Thursday as we discuss the most vile, despicable human beings on the planet. It will be a dark and twisted journey, So don't forget your drink. You're gonna need it. We're looking forward to say in your next Thursday. Hello, Hello, Welcome to the next chapter in the Book of the Dead. Lisa, it is not with me. She was in a car accident. She's fine, but she's very sore and she's not up to it, which we respect.

1:11 So it's just going to be me today. She should be in the next one. But the case I have for you today is a rabbit hole case. It's a case that I deep dived and it's a case that honestly, while I spent two weeks reading articles and reports, I could probably spend months reading even more. The problem with this case is that while there is a lot of information, a lot of it is the same and yet slightly different. So before we jump in, though, I want to tell you about the Hotel President in Kansas City, Missouri. There is a historic hotel that has stood the test of time called the Hilton President Kansas City, and you can find this hotel thirteen twenty seven, thirty five Baltimore Avenue when it opened in nineteen twenty six. This hotel, originally named Hotel President Quote, reflected the opulence of Kansas City during the nineteen twenties. It was the location for the nineteen twenty eight Republican National Convention, whereby Herbert Hoover was nominated for president. It hosted many esteemed guests such as Bob Dylan, Charles Lindsberg in four different presidents. Its lounge, opened at nineteen forty one, hosted elite entertainers like Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davies Junior, and the Marx Brothers, just to name a few. After sitting empty for twenty years. It was saved from demolition when its doors closed for good in the nineteen seventies, and received

2:46 a multimillion dollar renovation before becoming part of the Hilton franchise. I'm sure you're asking yourself, Courtney, why am I sitting here listening to an overview of some hotel in Missouri. This is a true crime podcast, and it is I gave you some background on this historic hotel because its history is marred by one of America's oldest onsolved murders. The Hotel President is famous for being the location of the murder of a young man, otherwise known as the murder in Rooum ten forty six. This is a case with a lot of complex layers and has been debated for decades. This case begins in nineteen thirty five in Kansas City. Prohibition had ended just two years prior, and the city was still booming with the voracious nightlife that was never actually impeded during Prohibition. Jazz clubs were open until the wee hours of the morning, and crime ran rampant Under the regime of Tom Pendergast, a city so rich in history and with a nightlife that was in a league of its own was captivating and drew in many people looking for an adventure. Once such person was a young man by the name of Roland t Owen. On January Tewod, nineteen thirty five, a young man walked into the Hotel President and requested a room. He was described as being in his twenties or thirties, tall and husky, and had a very distinct scar on the left side of his head where no hair grew,

4:18 although he had attempted to hide this with a combover as well as a cauliflower ear for those who don't know. According to the National Library of Medicine, cauliflower ear, otherwise known as wrestlers or boxer's ear, is quote a deformity caused by blunt force auricular trauma. A hematoma forms on the outer ear, disrupting the cartilage and blood supply and producing necrosis and inflammation fibrocartilogenus overgrowth the curs, forming the characteristic cauliflower appearance. This cauliflower ear led staff at the Hotel President to believe that this young man was maybe an up and coming boxer.

5:00 The man introduced himself as Roland t Owen and gave los Angeles as his home. He was then given the key to room ten forty six. According to all reports, Roland had shown up at the hotel present without any luggage. He brought with him only the clothes he was wearing, which included a long black overcoat. According to the Cacy Library, although Roland carried no luggage, a bell boy named Randolph Props was designated to show Roland to his room. According to an archived article via the Kansas City Library, Randolph and Roland chatted together on the way up to the tenth floor, where Roland was to stay, and he told Randolph how he had stayed the night at the Meal Box hotel but left because they were charging five dollars a night, to understand why he would have left whenu factoring inflation, five dollars equates to one hundred and fourteen dollars and forty six cents, which is a lot of money to spend on a hotel room in nineteen thirty five, although considering that the average hotel room costs for a night in Kansas City now is around one hundred and forty three dollars according to budgeteartrip dot com, that's actually a really good price.

6:08 However, since Roland had no luggage with him, you could assume he might have been strapped for cat I actually found an advertisement from the President Hotel from that year, and they were advertising rooms starting at two dollars a night, so around forty five seventy seven, the Mulebach Hotel was double the price, so you could see why Roland switched. Roland had also mentioned to Randolph, according to the Kansas City Star, something about never throwing a party again. Roland had apparently said, quote, I don't expect to ever give another party again, and when Randolph laughed and said he would change his mind, Roland said, quote, no, last night's was my last party, which sounds like ominous foreshadowing to me. Roland and Randolph made it up to room ten forty six, and Roland was showed inside a room overlooking the court.

7:00 Once inside, Randolph watched as Roland pulled three items from his pocket to put them away. All he had brought with him besides his clothing was a comb, a brush, and a tube of toothpaste. Roland and Randolph then left together, with Randolph actually going back to the room to turn up the lights and lock the door. He then handed the Keita Roland, and they went their separate ways, with Randolph going back to work and Roland leaving the hotel. Around noon, a maid named Mary Sooptik went up to room ten forty six to clean it and was surprised to see Roland sitting in the room, as when she was lost at work, a woman had been staying there.

7:40 She told him she would come back later, but Roland, who was sitting in the room with the curtains drawn and only a small lamp giving a little bit of light, told her that she could come in, but asked her not to lock the door as he was expecting a friend to come bye in a few minutes. In a statement made to police, Mary said that based on his actions and expressions quote, he was either worried about out something or afraid, and that he always kind of wanted to keep in the dark. While she was cleaning, Roland brushed his hair and laughed, reiterating that Mary keep the door unlocked as he was expecting a friend. Around four pm, Mary came back to the room with fresh towels and saw that the door was unlocked and the room was dark, but Roland was lying across the bed fully dressed. On the desk was a note that she read by the lake coming in from the hallway. It said, quote down, I will be back in fifteen minutes. Wait on the third. The next day, Mary went back to the room to clean it again, but the door was locked, so, assuming Roland had left the room, she unlocked the door with her key. Once inside, she saw that Roland was inside, sitting in the dark. Then the phone rang and Roland answered. According to Mary, Roland said, quote, no, Dawn, I don't want to eat. I'm not hungry. I just had breakfast. After the person on the other end spoke, Roland repeated that he wasn't hungry. Then Roland started chatting with Mary about her job in the hotel, and after a bit, Mary left.

9:11 At four pm, Mary again came back with fresh towels and heard two men argue it. Mary knocked and identified herself, but one of the men dismissed her and said they didn't need any towels. But Mary thought that was odd because Roland did need towels. She had taken them all with her when she cleaned that morning. According to an article for Kansas City Magazine, the arguing could be heard well into the night with a guest telling police that she heard a lot of noise and it sounded like a male and a female quote talking loud and cursing. According to the Casey Library, this guest seemed to be a woman by the name of Gene Owen, no relation to Roland. Jeane Owen was in Kansas City to shop and meet up with her boyfriend. She ended up getting a room at the Hotel President, Room ten forty eight.

10:00 She told police that she heard a lot of noise which sounded like it was on the same floor and consisted largely of men and women talking loudly and cursing. When the noise continued, I was about to call the desk clerk, but decided not to so. Jeanne heard some sort of disturbance in the night, loudly enough that she was going to complain and thought better of it, which, to be fair, I'm the same way. Sometimes making complaint isn't just it's just not worth the hassle. Now, January third was a busy night in Kansas City. A lot of things were going on in and around the hotel, and I'm going to walk you through this activity because it may be relevant to the story. It also may not be, but no one knows for sure, so it's worth mentioning just in case. According to multiple reports, a man named Charles Bloker was the elevator operator working the graveyard shift the night of January third, and he had a busy night. He said there was a very boisterous party going on in room ten fifty five, so that kept him quite busy, people going up and down from the tenth floor to the lobby. However, he also remembered a woman coming by in the middle of the night. Now, not all reports mention her, but according to at least three different sources, Charles had seen this woman come by the hotel many times a night to visit with different guests, so he believed she was a commercial woman, which is another name for a sex worker, and

11:33 on January third, she came by and asked for directions to room ten twenty six. However, a short while later she had come back to the elevator saying her client was not in room ten forty six, which was odd. However, according to the Casey Library, this was the stame in Charles gave to police quote, I took a woman that I recognized as being a woman who frequents the hotel with different men in different rooms. It is my impression from this woman's actions that she is a commercial woman. I took her to the tenth floor and she made inquiries for room ten twenty six. About five minutes later after this, I received a signal to come back to the tenth floor. Upon arriving there, I met this same woman, and she wondered why he wasn't in his room, because he had called her and had always been very prompt in his appointments, and she wondered if he might be in ten twenty four because the light was on in there. She remained about thirty or forty minutes. Then I received a signal to go back to the tenth floor. I went back, and this same woman appeared there and came down in the elevator with me and left the elevator at the lobby. About an hour later, she returned in company with a man, and I took them to the ninth floor. I later received a signal to go to the ninth floor at about four or fifteen a m. And this same woman came down from the ninth floor and left the hotel. In a period of about fifteen minutes later, this man came down the elevator from the ninth floor, complaining

13:03 that he couldn't sleep and was going out for a while now. He described the man as being about five foot six, slender, about one hundred and thirty five pounds, wearing a light brown overcoat, brown hat, and brown shoes. The woman was described as being about five foot six with black hair, weighing about one hundred and thirty five pounds, wearing quote a coat of black Hudson seal or imitation Hudson seal. The coat had a collar with a light first strip and the collar stood up. So obviously there's some conflicting stories about what room this woman was actually looking for. Some people said ten twenty six. Allegedly the police reports is ten twenty six, but some people speculate that she was really looking for room ten forty six and Roland wasn't there now.

13:48 That same night, according to Alabama dot Com, a Kansas City Water Department employee named Robert Lane was driving down the street when a man matching Roland's description flagged him down, thinking Robert was attacks. Robert said the man was wearing only an undershirt and bottoms and had a long scratch on his arm. Now, I don't know what time this was, but if the man really was Roland, that means that at some point during the night Roland left his room, which would explain why the woman, if she was looking for Roland, couldn't find him. However, that couldn't be corroborated by anyone on staff. No one saw Roland Lee. Again. These two accounts could mean nothing to the case, but they have never been confirmed. Otherwise, what happened next is slightly different depending on the source that you read. According to the Case magazine, sometime in the middle of the night, the telephone operator on duty saw that the phone in room ten forty six was off the hook, so a bellboy was sent up to ask the guest to put it back.

14:52 The bell boy was refused to entry when he knocked, and he asked through the door for them to hang up the phone. Around seven am, Della Cole, she is also named a Stella Ferguson in another source, took over the board and saw the phone in ten forty six was off the hook, so she sent another bell boy up. This one yelled through the door and was told the phone would be hung up. Around eight thirty, the phone was still off the hook, so bell boy Harold Pike, knocked on the door and went inside. There was a naked man allegedly sleeping on the bed, presumably passed out drunk, so Harold hung up the phone and left. Two hours later, another bell boy was told that the phone was off the hook again and went up to room ten forty six. This is where he walked into a crime scene. However, the Washington Harold has its slightly different.

15:41 According to this news report, a bell boy went up to room ten forty six at seven a m. Because Roland had requested a wake up call at that time, but the phone was off the hook so no one could call him. He knocked on the door, entered, told the man in bed that it was seven, and hung up the phone, and then left. Round ten, the bellboy went back up because the phone was off the hook. He discovered the man still in bed and the room smelled like liquor. The bellboy hung up the phone and left. At noon, the bellboy went back up because of the phone. He used his key card to open the door because it was locked from the outside. The bellboy noted the shades were drawn and it was dark, so he turned on the lights and what he saw made his jaw drop quote. Blood had spattered the walls, the floor, the bed covers, and the furniture. A chair was overturned, the telephone had been knocked from the bedside stand. In the bathroom was Roland's naked and slumped over the bathtub. He had been stabbed multiple times all over.

16:45 He had been bludgeoned over the back of the head, and around his neck was a tightly knotted cord. A physician and a detective were summoned and they asked Roland who had done this to him, but all he said was nobody. They asked how he had been hurt, and he said he had fallen. They asked if he had tried to commit suicide, as his wrists were cut, but Roland denied this as well. He was immediately transported to Kansas City General Hospital, but it was too late. Roland's injuries were too severe, and he died after slipping into a coma on January fifth. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, police had nothing to go on, as I said, Roland had been found nude, but whoever had killed him had taken his clothes with him. Additionally, the few items he had brought with him were gone, as well as the soap, shampoo, and towels provided by the hotel. The only things that police could find in terms of evidence was the label from a necktie, a hairpin, an onn smoked cigarette, a safety pin, and they found two glasses in the room, one of which they found a small set of fingerprints on that they believed belonged to a woman, but since fingerprint analysis was decades away, there was nothing they could do with these prints. Additionally, Kita Roland's room was missing. The only thing police could determine for sure was that more than one person had to have attacked Roland because he was well over six feet tall and over two hundred pounds.

18:11 Additionally, upon examination of his body, it was discovered that Roland had severely damaged knuckles, meaning he had put up quite a fight. Doctor Harold Flanders, who had tried to save Roland, came to the hotel to examine the scene, and he determined, based on how dry the blood was in the room, that the attack took place six or seven hours prior, so around three or four o'clock in the morning, which based on at least what Gene Owen was saying that matches up with her version of events, hearing arguments between men and women in the middle of the night. The other problem that police were facing was that they couldn't find any record of Roland t Owen existing.

18:57 There was no record of him anywhere in Los Angeles, and police were starting to think that Roland was a fake name. Police spoke to multiple hotel staff members and guests and learned that Roland had gone to the Meal Boch Hotel before checking into the hotel president. Hence, police look into this and discover that a man matching Roland's description had stayed one night there, but checked him under the name Eugene Scott. He had also checked in with a man named Donald Kelso, as you remember, Roland spoke to a man named Don on the phone and had also loved to know, telling Don he would be back in fifteen minutes, but police couldn't identify who Don was. Now the two check in cards were examined by C. T. Smith, who was the president of the Kansas City Business College and ct was an expert in handwriting. He determined that based on the signatures, Roland and Eugene were the Samet person after talking with the staff of the meal Bok. According to an article for the Kansas City Times, they said that when Roland checked in, he carried a small bag with him, As you remember, he didn't have a bag at the President. But police could never find this bag that the staff spoke about.

20:14 To this day, no one knows what happened to it. So police are geting nowhere at this point. Weeks are going by and they are no closer to finding the murderers as they are to finding out Roland's real identity. So many people come to view the body, including Robert Lane, who said that Roland was definitely the man who flagged him down, But this didn't give the police any additional insight. A national search was launched, and Roland's picture was posted in newspapers and even barber magazines in the hopes that a barber would recognize him from his unusual scar. While they received many calls from people claiming that Roland was a relative, none of the callers seemed to be genuine.

20:56 According to an expose in The Washington Old published in March of nineteen thirty five, eleven weeks after Roland's murder, When no genuine relative came forward to claim his body. Kansas City police announced that Roland would be buried in a pauper's grave. This is when things get interesting. According to that expose, one of the newspapers that published that story received a call from a woman. According to The Washington Herald, the woman said, quote, you have a story in your paper that is wrong. Roland Owen will not be buried in a pauper's grave. Arrangements have been made for his funeral. When asked who she was, the woman allegedly said, quote, that makes no difference. I know what I'm talking about. When the mystery woman was asked what happened on the night of Roland's murder, the woman allegedly said, quote, he just got into a jam, and then she hung up. This same day, James mcgilly, the owner of Melody mcgilly undertaking Establishment, received a phone call from a man. It was reported that the man said, quote, don't bury Owen in a popper's grave. I want you to bury him in Memorial Park in Kansas City. The man said he would wire money to pay for the funeral expenses, and he claimed that Roland had come to Kansas City to meet a woman. When asked what happened to Roland on the night he was killed, the man said, quote, well, he didn't play the game fair and cheeters usually get what's coming to them. Then the man hung up.

22:26 It's also worth mentioning that many reports claimed that the man requested Memorial Park is the burial location so that Roland would be close to the caller's sister, but that was not substantiated. Two days later, a special delivery arrived at the money to pay for Roland's funeral. The money was wrapped in a pat from a magazine. The same day, W. H Oberg, owner of the Rock Floral Company, received a call from an anonymous man saying he wanted to purchase thirteen American Beatie roses on behalf of his sister for Roland's funeral. The day after the call, the florists received the money as promised, with a card for the arrangement that said quote love Forever Louise Now. Police did analyze the magazine that the money was wrapped in, as well as the card, and they did find prince the ones on the card potentially belonging to a woman. So, according to the Washington Harald, the police's theory was that the woman Louise, was whom Roland had come to Kansas City to meet, and the caller was her brother. The police theorized that the mysterious Don was the murderer, and that he might be the caller as well, but with no evidence to back this up and no trace of where this Don was, police had only that a theory. It was a well fought out theory, though at least to me, very plausible. According to the Washington Harald, the theory goes that Louise and Roland were either engaged to be married, or

23:57 Louise wanted to get married, and Roland either wouldn't propose or wanted to call out the wedding, or perhaps he was even being unfaithful. Based on the remark from the caller about cheaters getting what they deserve, they believe Louise and Don went to the hotel and threatened Roland, and he thought they were bluffing. On the fourth, Don and Louise came back to the hotel and Don attacked him, leaving Roland for dead. Police believed that Louise, upon finding out that Roland had died, refused to allow him to be buried in a pauper's grave and forced her brother to fund the funeral. As I said, it's a really great theory, they just can't prove it. Meanwhile, in Alabama, a woman named Ruby Ogletree was very worried about her son Artemis.

24:48 He had left home in nineteen thirty four at seventeen, although some reports say nineteen with his friend Joe Simpson to travel to la and for a while. He sent her many handwritten letters talking about job prospects and where he was going next. However, in January of nineteen thirty five, weeks after Roland Owen's murder, she received a typewritten letter saying that Artemis was traveling to New York. Now, two things were odd about this one. The tone of the letter was strange because it was very detailed. Artemis usually sent his mother very simple letters. This is what I did, this is where I might work, this is where I'm going next. This letter was highly detailed. The next thing that was strange to Ruby was that the letter was tight. Artemis didn't know how to use a typewriter. In April, another typewritten letter came saying that Artemis was going to France and In August of nineteen thirty five, Ruby received a call from a man named Godfrey Jordan, who claims he had met Artemis in Cairo and he had saved Godfrey from a quote band of thugs.

26:00 According to the Kansas City Magazine, Ruby was incredibly unnerved and knew something wasn't right. By November, she had written to state departments to inquire if her son had gotten a passport. She spoke to customs authorities to find out if anyone matching her son's description had tried to sail without a passport, and she had even contacted the American consulate in Cairo as well as the FBI. According to the Kansas City Magazine. In January of nineteen thirty six, she had even written to President Franklin Roosevelt asking for his help in finding her son, saying, quote, I fear he has fallen into some gang or something has happened to him. He has always been a good boy and has high ideals. I simply must find some trace of him if he is in trouble, I want to know. In the fall of nineteen thirty six, Ruby finally got her answer when a friend of hers gave her a copy of the May nineteen thirty five issue of The American Weekly, where they featured the story of Rolin t Owen, along with the picture taken upon his death that featured his distinctive scar. Ruby knew right then the fate of Artemis. She contacted the Kansas City Police and told them that the man murdered in the President Hotel was her son, Artemis Ogletree. She explained that the scar on his head was from a terrible accident when he was a child involving hot grease. She sent the Kansas City Police letters and photographs to substantiate her claims, and Roland t Owen was finally given his real identity back. However, that begged the

27:33 question who was sending the letters to Ruby. She started getting one she knew weren't from her son in January, after his murder. In nineteen thirty seven, police believed they might have found the murderer after a man named Joseph Ogden was arrested in New York for the murder of his roommate Oliver Senecal. According to Casey magazine, Ogden had spent time in multiple prisons and had been institutionalized twice, one being in Birmingham, Alabama, where Artemis was from. Additionally, one of Ogden's aliases was don Kelso. Kansas City police believed that Ogden's handwriting samples were a match to the don Kelso signature found of the Meal Bough guest card, but when the FBI reviewed the case in nineteen fifty, they debunked this as false. The handwriting was not a match, and Ogden was deemed innocent of Artemis's murder. Now, Ruby wholeheartedly believed that she knew who killed her son, or at least had a hand in his death, and that was Joe Simpson, the man that Artemis was traveling with. She claimed that she confronted Joe in December of nineteen thirty nine. According to the CAC magazine, Ruby said, in correspondence to the KCPD quote, he did say he did believe the case would never break as there were no clues and left nothing for the g men to work on. I said, Kansas City can well boast of it being the perfect crime. He laughed and said, quote it is. They'll never get the ones who killed him. Ruby says she

29:06 eventually quote look Joe square in the eyes and told him I would know the voice that talked to me from Memphis. He turned red, dropped his eyes and was nervous. But the police, it seems, did not believe what Ruby said was credible, because, as far as anyone knows, nothing came of her accusations, which is strange to me that they never investigated the man that was traveling with Artemis before his death. But that was it. The case was left open, and it turned real cold, real fast, with no answers as to who killed Artemis and why. Except in the early two thousands, John Arthur Horner, who worked for the Kansas City Library, received a phone call from someone asking about Artemis's case. The caller claimed that they were helping to pack up the belongings of an elderly person who recently passed away.

30:02 The caller came across newspaper clippings about the murder, as well as a mystery object that was mentioned in the newspaper clippings. However, John Horner said that the caller would not elaborate and ended the call, adding another layer of mystery to a case that many people referred to as the perfect murder. Now, it's been like ninety years and this case has not really been looked into since the nineteen fifties when the FBI went over it again. As far as I can tell, police really didn't look into the call that John Horner received. Obviously there was no evidence to go on because the killers took everything with them, And even if they could do something with the fingerprints now, which for all I know they did the women's fingerprints that the police found initially at the crime scene, I'm assuming there was nothing to compare it to. I wholeheartedly believe that their theory is correct. I don't know if Dohn Kelso is really Joe Simpson though, and I shouldn't say it's correct, but I think it's very plausible. It is a really great theory that they came up with, one that just based on the phone calls that everyone was receiving, seems to make the most sense. You know, was this mystery woman that came to the Hotel Louise? You know? Was this man that showed up with her when she came back to the hotel, John Kelso or Joe Simpson,

31:36 I don't know. No one is probably ever going to know. Again, this is one of those cases that you could deep dive and probably go on forever pulling out so much information. But as I said, a lot of is it is the same but slightly different, like in the two different articles that differed on how Artemis's body was found. This is one of those cases that you kind of go back and think about because there's so much to it and yet nothing to it. At the same time, there was nothing to go on. But they have all of this information, it's just not telling them anything. It is a story where they have a middle, but they don't have an end, and they don't have a beginning. They don't know where he came from or why he arrived in Kansas City in the first place, and they don't know who kills him either way. As always, the sources will be below in the notes. Check them out if you're interested in this case. There's a lot of them. There's twenty or so sources that I used, but I think it's worth looking into. A lot of true crime enthusiasts have looked into this case in the past, and maybe one day it will be solved. Is it likely after almost a century, No, but it's possible. Anything's possible. Thank you so much for listening. As I said, Lisa, we'll be back in the next one, hopefully if she's feeling better, so send your well wishous that she makes a speedy recovery again. She's fine, no broken bones, nothing like that, just a

33:06 lot of soreness and headaches, but she's okay. I am working very hard to try and go back to weekly episodes instead of bi weekly episodes. I'm really going to try and grind. I have some time off coming up for the fourth July, so I'm really hoping I can really dig deep and work on a bunch of cases so I can't get back to weekly uploads. Maybe get the Patreon up and running again. It was just too much, I think at once for me working in retail going through the holiday season and the burnout was pretty incredible. But we'll see what happens. I will keep you updated and I'm going to try and be more active on social media as well.

33:51 But as always, thank you so much for listening and have a wonderful rest of your week and I will see you in the next episode. Bye, guys, Thank you so much for listening to this chapter of the Book of the Dead, and don't forget that you can always connect with us on Instagram. You can connect with us on Twitter and you can absolutely connect with us on Patreon. We also have a merchore as well that we have frequent discount codes coming out for so that you guys can get March hand drawn by myself at a better cost. We hope you have a lovely rest of your week and just remember please be kind and don't forget to always stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant. Bye guys, Bye,