Room 1046

Type: True Crime

On January 2, 1935, a man entered the President Hotel in Kansas City.
He signs under the name Roland T. Owen .
He carries only a small bag, a toothbrush, a comb and no visible luggage.

The reception notices his strange behavior.
He refuses the porter service.
He requests a room on the upper floor, and insists on keeping the lights off.

He is placed in room 1046 .

What follows will never really be explained.

As the hours pass, the staff notice that the door is constantly locked from the inside , even when Owen is supposed to be away.
A maid claims that every time she comes in, he stands in the dark, sitting, as if waiting for someone... or something.

The next day, she finds a note scribbled on the phone:

“Don, I'll be back in five minutes. Just wait.”

But no one will ever know who “Don” is.

On January 4, shortly before noon, the telephone in the room remained off the hook for hours.
The staff sends an employee to check.

He knocks. No answer.
He enters with a master key.

Roland T. Owen is here.
Naked.
Sat.
Soaked in blood.
Fractured skull, broken ribs, and ligature marks on wrists and ankles.

And yet… he's still breathing.

When asked who attacked him, he simply whispers:

“Nobody… I fell against the bathtub.”

He died a few hours later in the hospital, without ever changing his story.

The autopsy revealed that he was tied up, beaten and stabbed .
But no items in the room were used.
And there is no sign of a break-in.
The door was locked from the inside.

And that's just the beginning.

Investigators discover that the name “Roland T. Owen” is false .
Man does not exist.
His fingerprints do not match any known files.

Even stranger: an anonymous caller paid for his funeral a few weeks later.
A bouquet of flowers arrives at the morgue with a card:

“Eternal love. Louise.”

No one will ever know who Louise was.
Nor who the man was.
Nor what he was doing in that room.
Nor why he was lying.
Nor how the killer got out... without ever opening the door.

Almost a century later, the case remains unsolved.

And room 1046 has been closed permanently.
But some hotel employees claim that on some evenings,
the red light on the old lock is still flashing...
as if someone was waiting.
Again.