The Death of Kate Morgan at the Hotel Del Coronado

In 1892 an woman going by the name Lottie Bernard checked in to the Hotel del Coronado in Coronado, CA. Within a few days she would be deceased and everything she told the hotel, including her identity, would be thrown into question. Who is the woman who checked in and why did she die? These questions would eventually be answered...or would they? And is it possible there's a ghostly connection? Plus history of the illustrious Hotel del Coronado,

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Dark Cast Network, The Light shinesBrightest on our indie podcasts. On November
twenty ninth, eighteen ninety two,a woman was found deceased on a western
staircase at the Hotel Del Coronado,just feet from the edge of the Pacific
Ocean. She was in her earlytwenties. Her death was ruled a suicide,

(00:21):
but there were many lingering questions atthe time, and many of those
still remain. Questions like who wasshe, why was she at the hotel,
where did she come from, andwhy did her life end. These
questions, along with sightings of herghost at this beautiful and historical seaside resort,
will add to the mythology that hassprung up around this event. We

(00:44):
cover that story, including the historyand sightings, in this episode of California
True Crime, the Hotel del Coronadoand the death of Kate Morgan. Now,

(01:26):
welcome to this episode of California TrueCrime with me to talk about history,
ghosts, and the event that startedat all are Charles and Sean.
How are you guys doing. I'mreally good. I'm good. I'm here,
I'm with you. Yeah, we'rein person. Yeah, we are
recording all three of us first timein quite a while at Snail Ranch Studio.

(01:48):
Before we get started, there area couple of things I wanted to
discuss. The first is that thisepisode does deal with suicide and self harm,
so please keep that in mind thismay be an episode you don't want
to listen to. But the otherthing I want to discuss very quickly is
that this episode was probably one ofthe harder to research. This event takes
place in eighteen ninety two. It'sa very confusing set of circumstances. So

(02:13):
I've constructed a timeline from newspapers,and we have used newspapers from San Diego,
where this happens, as well asnewspapers across the country. Because it's
eighteen ninety two, of course,newspapers can vary widely on information. So
we'll have a full or work sidedin places you can go, and links
to other places where people have coveredthis or talked about it. The Hotel

(02:36):
del Coronado actually has a whole historysection on their site, so if this
story interests you, it's just kindof the beginning of your journey to finding
out more about this event. Andwhat's amazing about this story is I think
that it really lends itself to mythologizingof this event. It's kind of confusing
when actually happens. There's not alot of answers, So this is actually

(02:59):
still a truly a remarkable mystery atwhich a real human is at its heart,
but that person is shrouded in questions, and it makes them almost imperceptible.
People may see her as a ghost, but she was already like a
ghost in her own story, whateverher real story. The public learned about
this woman in eighteen ninety two whenshe was found deceased, but what led

(03:21):
to a nationwide obsession with the womanfound at the Hotel del Coronado in Coronado,
California, started on Thanksgiving Day orNovember twenty fourth, eighteen ninety two,
when a woman described as quote beautifuland prepossessing checked into the hotel.
Coronado is a small town on atide island across the San Diego Bay,

(03:44):
directly across from San Diego, California. Its population in two and twenty one
was between nineteen thousand and twenty thousandpeople. Jessica, you to explain what
a tide island is. I thinkthat's kind of important to the story as
well as maybe for some of ourlisteners who aren't near a coastal line or
I've had experience with that. Yeah, it's really almost like a peninsula,

(04:06):
or basically like a peninsula, butthere are certain places where you know you'll
need a bridge to go over,but the land is connected, so there's
water on three sides instead of allthe way around, and then during like
high tides, it becomes even moreimpassable, correct I think so. Yeah.
The Hotel del Coronado isn't like mosthotels. It's a special place and

(04:30):
has a history and connection to manyof the things that people most associate with
California, that of the rich,the powerful, and famous. And here
to tell us a little bit moreabout its history is Charles. In November
in eighteen eighty five, a groupof five investors bought Coronado and North Island
around four thousand acres for the grandtotal of one hundred and ten thousand dollars,

(04:56):
which is crazy to think of,and if you're looking in San Diego,
it's some of the more wealthy property. One of the main investors and
really the driving force in all ofthis, was a man named E.
S. Babbitch who was a retiredrailroad executive from Indiana. So a lot
of these investors came from the Eastthat had that made their money in the
industrial started the Industrial Revolution with therailroad. The Coronado Beach Company was started

(05:21):
in eighteen eighty six and for thesole purpose of supporting the development of Coronado
and the hotel. So the ideawas that we're going to develop this entire
area and the hotel will be thelynchpin and the draw for investors. The
Coronado Ferry Company built wharfs and storagefacilities as well as a ferry boat services

(05:41):
between Coronado and San Diego. Likeyou said, Jessica, most of the
day this is cut off and solow tide you can get stuff across.
So they built all of this infrastructurejust to build this hotel. The Coronado
Water Company actually pumped fresh water underSan Diego Bay, which I was super
fascinated by this that there's the onlyway to get freshwater at this place in

(06:02):
abundance. Was they actually built apipeline underneath the San Diego Bay. The
Coronado Railroad Company provided all the raillines into Coronado, and it also had
its own power plant and was largeand actually was the largest until the nineteen
twenties. So these five guys reallybuilt their own city kind of. At
this time in the middle of nowhere, there was a shortage of lumber in

(06:25):
the area, so the help thehotel was built through an exclusive contract with
a Dobier and Carson lumber company outof Eureka, California. What they would
do in Eureka is they would millthe lumber, well, they would,
they would cut the lumber down,but before it was milled, they would
ship it all the way down toSan Diego and Coronado and it would be
milled in Coronado. This would alsobuild their own kiln for bricks and concrete,

(06:49):
as well as a metal shop andironwork. So it's not like in
some of the other places we've talkedabout where industry is already there and they're
building some of these buildings. They'rebuilding the industry to build this building.
The hotel was built with water tanks, gravity sprinklers, as well as two
large cisterns to hold rainwater in thebasement, which was amazing because this means
it actually has fire suppressant at atime when none of that was really done

(07:12):
in a lot of buildings, soany new technological innovation of the time was
kind of folded into this construction.However, there were never any use for
these rainwater cisterns in the basement althere is plenty of stories of those basement
reservoirs being used during Prohibition to hiderum runners and bootleggers. It was also

(07:34):
the world's first hotel with electric lighting, and this was not installed by the
Edison Company, but was instead bymade their electric company out of Chicago.
This was also the home to thefirst outdoor lighted decorations, as they had
a Christmas tree with electric lights inits garden, and there's a lot of
stories that the Coronado was actually thefirst place that really gave rise to that

(07:58):
Christmas tradition of putting stuff up onyour lighting decorations and trees and decorating outside,
which we see a lot of.The first major crisis for this hotel
was really near its completion. Therewas there was a southern California land bust,
which means a lot of the investorsthat were they were all looking for
their money back because they built thishuge edifice, this monstrous hotel, invested

(08:20):
all this money, but the landaround it suddenly was worthless, so they
really were looking to try to pulltheir money out. But they got through
that, and the hotel has beenin continuous operation for one hundred and thirty
two years, with only exceptions beingthe COVID shutdowns. The only town the
hotel has actually ever been closed forbusiness. I think, and I want
to drive this point home. Oneof the amazing parts of the hotel itself

(08:43):
is that this is really built tobe a place for the rich. Yeah,
when you read a documentation and sourcesof how this place was built and
the money that went into it,this was not something and again we're talking
about the late eighteen hundreds. Thisis not a place people weren't The idea
of taking a vacation wasn't in amost people's mind. So this really became

(09:05):
a playground for the rich. Wetalked about the Delmonte in Seaside, California
before, when we talked about theAnti Fancase. This was like that,
except bigger. This was really supposedto be a Disneyland for the rich,
the best of everything. You comehere and forget your will, and it
really caters to the uber wealthy andWe're going to talk about some of those

(09:26):
things as we go through the story. But this was a place where I
guess at the time the uber richwould really travel around most of the year.
So there were hotels all around theUnited States and other countries. And
we're talking about people who would travelby rail, and they had their own
railcart, right, so when theycame to a resort, these resorts had
a place for them to store theirentire railcart. It just kind of blew

(09:52):
me away. And the Coronado Company, their real goal was to capitalize on
that, is that if we cangive them a playground where the rich are
going to will come and spend theirmoney, then while they're here, we'll
try to sell them land. Andit's that it's at draw come in,
check out, have a good time, and oh, by the way,
it's almost like a timeshare thing ofcome in, check out, stay at

(10:13):
our hotel, and oh, bythe way, we can sell you two
hundred acres here, you know,and one hundred acres here. But what
really threw a monkey wrench early onwas this southern California land bust. And
now, you know, turn theirsentry. People are starting to pull their
money out and again what fascinating meanthat was the main focus though, was
that they're very little affected during thenineteen twenty like the twenty nine crash.

(10:37):
So we're talking like this place isit really does cater to the rich and
becomes insulated from a lot of issues, inflation issues that other parts in California
have to deal with. And we'llhave pictures of it during like different times
of history up on our site.It's a really beautiful hotel. It is
currently a National Historical Landmark as wellas a California historically Mark. It's hosted

(11:01):
celebrities, politicians, leaders from aroundthe world, and it has seven hundred
and fifty seven rooms and in Hollywoodcircles. Back in the day, it
was just called the Dell. Andyou said, Charles that one of the
big reasons for that is the bootlegging. This is a party place you go
hang out. It's pretty close toLa and what would become Hollywood. This
was like a place that the likethe rich people could go away and get

(11:26):
away from. And again we're talkingabout like old Hollywood, and I would
I would hazard to guess even todayyou have celebrities and rich and they can
get away from here and kind ofget away from prying eyes. Even though
it is historical landmark, it's stillin operation and we will link to the
Hotel Coronado's website on our website CaliforniaTruecrime dot Com. It is still very

(11:48):
very pricey to stay there, veryexpensive to stay there. The whole island
is pretty special. Dough still hostsa lot of proposals. Our listener,
Kathy her parents, I believed married. I'm not married there, but we're
proposed to. And it's just akind of special place people go, kind
of magical, but like you said, it is. It's also a place
where a lot of TV shows andmovies have filmed, so we'll have a

(12:11):
list of those on our site.One of the ones that we go back
to you and is a movie withChristopher Reeve and Jane Seymour called Somewhere in
Time, which is loosely, looselybased on this event. But we'll have
a link to a list of famousmovies. Also. It's a filming location
like anywhere in southern California. Yeah, shout out to my sister for Summer

(12:31):
in Time being her favorite movie.It is really her favorite movie. Yeah,
Oh, I loved it. Asa kid. I haven't watched it
in years. But on November twentyfourth, eighteen ninety two, a woman
who will often be referred to bystaff, guests, and other witnesses during
the next few days as quote thebeautiful Stranger, checked into the Hotel del

(12:52):
Coronado. She was described often inthe newspaper with words like attractive, beautiful,
prepossessed, highly educated, reserved,and ladylike, and the newspapers go
to a lot of detail to describethis person in those terms over and over
again. Much is made of theway she dressed, of the way she

(13:13):
carried herself. She appeared to thosewho worked at the hotel as someone of
higher status, someone with money,and someone with good breeding. She was
dressed nicely and in quote fine clothes. There weren't a lot of specifics about
how she looked, you know,personally, she had darker hair. Again,
she was beautiful, but that isn'treally a super clear descriptor. She

(13:35):
told hotel workers that she was twentyone years old when she arrived at the
hotel. She registered at the frontdesk at the time. She had to
leave her name and the city whereshe came from at the time. That
she would have been there. Thehotel had a single female or female only
entrance and dining room. And Ihad never heard of this before, but
you looked some stuff up about it, right, Yeah, female only dining

(13:58):
room were called ladies ordinaries. Theywere actually really common, especially around this
time where you start to get apush of young, unmarried or unaccompanied new
women moving to a larger areas,specifically looking for jobs. So we are
at a time when before women suffrage, but women were moving out into the
workplace, leaving their homes again,especially young unaccompanied women. So to give

(14:24):
them a place that they could kindof eat and relax and rest away from
unwanted male gaze is one description theywould have these lady ordinaries. Sometimes whole
hotels or bedburgh or you know likeinns or boarding houses would only cater to
women. They started appearing in NorthAmerica usually around the nineteenth century. At

(14:46):
the time, it was frowned uponor even sometimes illegal for women to dine
alone or unaccompanied by a man.It was considered unseemly to be out on
their own, and so this wasa way that they could do that in
a acceptable way. They could dineby themselves or or talk with other women.
That's really fascinating. Yeah, it'sjust crazy to think it's not like

(15:09):
to segregate them. It's just twowell yeah, it's I mean in a
way, but that that they haveto do that for unruly men, like
you know, you can't just tellthe men to stop. You just have
to single out the women in theirown little room or rely on the men
not to be gross, right exactly, like why you know it shouldn't you

(15:31):
women shouldn't have to worry about that. But some of the advertisements and stuff,
it's it is very I will saypatronizing, but it obviously, but
it is on an upbeat, likeyou know, we you know, uh,
secluded, well protected, you know, for your convenience, that kind
of stuff. And it's interesting,but it might have been like that it
was pulled that the women actually wantit back then, I don't know,

(15:54):
like to have their own area.I mean, there's a lot of them.
They're successful. And again it's becauseI'm probably not the best one to
speak of this, but a womanat this time who's already struggling, leaving
the home, who's who's trying ina lot of cases, going for a
job or to travel or for businesshas already put on and treated terribly anyway,

(16:14):
so this might give them a wayaway from that. Well. And
I think when you think about theclientele of this hotel, I mean,
these are people who come from probablyrich families. At this time, they
would still be trying to protect theirworth for marriage, that kind of thing,
right, And as you said,people are moving on to the workforce,
but this is also the time whenwomen are already in the workforce.

(16:36):
They're just in lower paying jobs ofworking inside homes, their housekeepers and nanny's
that kind of thing. So inthere, you know, in this someone
you're going to say in your daughterahead or something like that, you think
you want her protected. It isvery different. And the ladies of Ordinary
at the Hotel Cordinado was not necessarilygeared towards working women. I mean,

(16:56):
these are for like you said,very rich, very up class, in
a social strata above. Also,she didn't have to pay the bill up
front, so she comes in,she signs up, she says where she's
from. I don't think they reallycheck your idea or anything like that.
And after ton of like after aweek or so, she might have to
come down and pay at least partof her bill. The stranger registered at

(17:17):
the hotel as quote missus Lottie A. Bernard, and she said that she
was from Detroit. She was givenroom three O two in the eastern wing
of the hotel. This room numbernow is three three two seven, so
if you go to the hotel andstay, that's the number she stayed in.
But as you can probably guess,one of the biggest questions about the

(17:40):
beautiful stranger will be her name.She registers as Lottie Bernard, but by
the time her stay ends, itwould become very unclear who this woman actually
was and if any of the informationshe had shared during her stay was true.
On that Thanksgiving day, the womanwho registered as Lottie settled into her
room. It was a dark andgloomy winter week that was very cold and

(18:03):
also a lot of rain. Notonly was Lottie by herself, but she
didn't have any luggage, just asmall bag that was referred to as at
times a purse, a hand bag, or a satchel. When asked about
her luggage, the woman said thatshe and her brother, whom she was
traveling with and whose name she gaveas Anderson had split up after an argument

(18:26):
in Orange, California. After theyparted, he went to either Los Angeles
or San Francisco. He had theluggage tags with him, so she couldn't
retrieve her luggage from the train station, but her brother was to meet her
at the Hotel Del Coronado within acouple days of her arrival, so she
told people there was nothing to worryabout. This stranger or a Lottie would

(18:48):
stay for a total of five days. During that time, she stayed mainly
in her room. Hotel staff wouldlater say that she spent those days very
unwell. She seemed to be sufferingfrom severe anxiety, and she told the
staff that she was very sick witha quote hopeless case of stomach cancer.

(19:10):
In fact, while she talked withother staff at the hotel, she mainly
communicated with housekeepers. And one ofthe things that wasn't said outright in the
articles, but seemed very clear tome from the interactions, was that there
was kind of a shared worry atthe hotel from the staff. They wanted
to take good care of her.There are many stories of them trying to

(19:30):
make her more comfortable, asking herif she wanted to see a doctor.
During her stay, she was veryweak, she had trouble walking. On
top of the stomach cancer, shealso told staff that she was suffering from
heart disease. And again this willall be questioned later, but she did
appear to the people there who wereworking there to be just very, very

(19:51):
sick. That illness, as Isaid, didn't just appear to be cancer
or heart diseases, but she wasalso suffering. In the newspaper, it
says she was very nervous all thetime. There was a lot of anxiety.
It appeared to everyone there that shewas very fragile and sick. On
top of being sick and alone,she was also on edge because she said
that she was waiting for a manwho was not only her doctor, but

(20:12):
also her brother. Each day shewas at the hotel, she checked with
staff at the front desk many manytimes to ask if a man had come
by the hotel looking for her,or if he had left any messages or
sent any telegrams. There are alsosome witnesses who said that the woman had
gone to other nice hotels in thearea asking about a man she was looking

(20:34):
for. This was something that seemedvery important to her and it definitely added
to her anxiety. On Monday,November twenty eight, eighteen ninety two,
after four days at the hotel,the woman went to the front desk in
the early morning, once again checkingif her brother had left her a message
or just been even by to lookfor her. She told the people working

(20:55):
there that he was meant to meether, and when they told her he
hadn't, she anxious replied, quote, oh, no, one comes to
me anymore. That afternoon, shewent into town, into San Diego.
At the time that she was there, Coronado, the city itself would still
be kind of being built up,so in order to go to stores and
things like that, she would gointo San Diego. Yeah, and as

(21:18):
we said, the Coronado Beach Company, which is really in charge of all
the construction. The offshoot is theCoronado Ferry Company, which and the Coronado
Railroad Company. Those are two ofthe big companies that are controlling travel in
and out of this Coronado area.So you know, obviously the ferry and
rail lines are the two main waysof getting back into San Diego. It's

(21:41):
a substantial trip because again, thepoint of being out here is kind of
the rich playground away from the hustleof San Diego. So when she arrived
into San Diego, she asked theconductor. So, I'm not sure if
that was the person who was onher ferry or perhaps when she got off
the ferry they had to drive somesort or go into some sort of train

(22:03):
or street car. A. Yeah, she asked this person if there was
a hardware store she could visit.He advised her to go to Todd and
Holly hardware store. The woman wasso weak and sick that the conductor remembers
having to pick her up out ofwherever they were, out of the vehicle
and put her on the ground himself. She also had a difficult time walking

(22:25):
and appeared to others who saw heras very very weak. Witnesses share what
they remember her doing in town,but despite the conductor sending her to Todd
and Holly's, there isn't any evidenceof her making it to that store.
They don't remember her coming in.She did go inside a store called Heaths,
which was a ship chandelry store.And Charles, you're gonna tell us

(22:47):
what that is? Yeah, Iwas really because I thought it was such
an interesting thing that she went intoa channeler store, which is an old
medieval term for somebody who makes candlesand also supplies those materials to make candles
with, so wick, oil,string, wax, anything that you would
make candles. What I didn't whenwe started to kind of diving into it,
what I didn't realize is that thatterm then changed around the seventeenth and

(23:11):
eighteenth century to start to become moreof what we would consider a general store,
specifically around areas that were close tomajor ports, because in the seventeen
eighteen hundreds, a nation's power wasreally developed over its navy, and these
channelers would start carrying everything that youwould need for naval voyages, so you

(23:33):
know, canvas, rope, oil, supplies, And as that goes,
then it starts to develop like aregular like what we would consider going to
like Target, Walmart or even youknow, a home depot or ace hardware
store. And then so by thistime it really is a place you could
get anything like like a five anddime I guess another term for that.

(23:56):
At heath store, she asked Heathif he had any pistols for sale.
Keith sent her to another store calledChicks run by Chick and I just named
these stores because I find it justkind of fascinating. What the I love
that it's chicks. Yeah. Atthis store, she is again described by
everyone who saw her as very weak, even nervous. She asked them if

(24:17):
they had a moderately priced pistol forsale, and she said she was shopping
for a Christmas present for a friend. Chick sold her a forty four caliber
American Bulldog Revolver and twenty five centsworth of cartridges. He also taught her
how to load and shoot the revolver. Yeah, and we've talked about the
American Bulldog Revolver before, and ifyou haven't listened to our episode on Little

(24:40):
Pete Ching, we actually kind ofwent into that. But basically, I'm
a Bulldog Revolver is a small revolver, this one chambered in forty four caliber.
It's five shot. According to theeighteen nineties Sears Roebuck it would sell
for three dollars and eighty cents,which is about one hundred and thir six
dollars in twenty and twenty three.Most likely twenty five cents of ammunition would

(25:07):
have been half a box, sofor fifty cents. Again, in the
same cheers. Robot catalog. Fiftycents of ammunition is one box or around
fifty cartridges of ammunition, so shebought the pistol and then half a box
of cartridges. At six thirty pm, she arrived back at the hotel and
again asked if her brother had arrivedor if any letters or telegrams had come,

(25:29):
and they had not. At somepoint she told the housekeeper that she
needed to take a long, warmbath for about two hours. The housekeeper
tried to convince her that this wasn'ta good idea because she was so sick
and week. They believed that thisbath would be very dangerous, but she
insisted. And this just reminds meof all the kind of like luxury items
at the time for the rich.Yeah, this was having indoor having an

(25:55):
indoor heated bathtub was a huge deal, because we are still talking about,
you know, the latter part ofthe nineteenth century and up until the mid
nineteenth century, even the use ofsoap and regular baths was not a common
thing. You still have some holdoverfrom the old idea of bathing too much
would make you would would tend tomake you sick. There's no indoor plumbing

(26:15):
and sewage systems in most major cities, or if they are their their rudimentary,
especially you know, for the averageperson, they may not. They're
still using chamber pots and and cesspitsand things like that. But it also
means that if you want to havea hot bath, and you want to
have hot water, that has tobe transported from outdoors indoors and then it

(26:37):
usually has to be heated on astove either burning coal wood and then transported
by hand. So this is ahuge expense. So the fact that this
this kind of expense was in ahotel, which means again it's it's that
eye towards opulence that the hotel Coronadowas trying to show the world. But
I think about all of the workthat the staff has to do, and

(26:57):
they're taking such good care of herat least, you mean, obviously a
lot of this is them, theywitnessed a lot, so, but all
the special things they need to dofor people and guests, but also the
caring for her because she's sick.And again at this point, indoor plumbing
is becoming a more commonplace. Sowe talked about the Cornado is sparing no
expense, So you do have indoorplumbing, you do have water water heaters

(27:21):
that are still having to be stokedby coal and wood. But this idea
that a hot bath is going tomake her feel wortholks kind of interesting of
you know, generally, if somebodydoesn't feel good, you say, oh,
well, why don't you take ahot, hot shower, take a
bath might feel better, and theirimmediate responts to no, I don't think.
I don't think it's good for you. They were very concerned about this
bath. It came across that thiswas something they thought could harm her.

(27:44):
Right at this point, the peoplewho come into contact with her describe her
as despondent and melancholic, as wellas sick and anxious. It does appear,
based on their descriptions, that herhealth, and specifically her mental health,
is deteriorating. I think it's reallyimportant just to read eight. This
is a time when that probably wouldn'thave come to a lot of people's minds.
She took a bath for about anhour and then sent for a bell

(28:07):
boy to rub her head. Shealso asked for a vial of whiskey.
It seems like there's a lot ofdescriptions of everything she's doing, but nothing
about her eating food. Like she'sbeen there for five days and from what
we know so far, the brotherhasn't shown up. She's very concerned about
this brother not showing up. Ifyou're freaking out having anxiety, you might

(28:27):
not eat. This could make hervery sick and week like everyone's saying.
And then to ask for some whiskeyalso, And you know, I think
with all these descriptions of week andsick, no one has said that she's
eaten any food. So yeah,and there isn't anything in the newspaper about
whether she ordered food or she wentdown to the the restaurant, or how

(28:48):
she was getting sustenance at all.Yeah, because you think that this staff
that has cared about her and caredfor her, they would have said,
oh, you know, she likethey didn't mention that she tipped or what
she was eating or any it's notsensational things like going to town to buy
a present isn't But she bought agun. They know exactly all of that

(29:10):
kind of stuff. They keep trackof that she ordered a whiskey, a
bellboy rubbed her head all And Iwon't say they're necessarily silicious details, but
it folds into a more of amore of a fantastic story that we I
think we all kind of know wherethis is going for so far our newspaper
or at the time writing. Itlends itself into more, like you said,

(29:32):
John, of whether it was sheeating or not, or any other
quote unquote normal things that a personmight do at a hotel. I think
it's also important to remember she hastold them that she's dying from stomach cancer,
so maybe some of that stuff didn'tseem too odd to them at the
time, or somebody not necessarily eatingfood that stach is stommach cancer, You
wouldn't make you hungry. You know, this is it. We've had this.

(29:55):
I'm trying to think of another episode. I know we have a classic
story when you research it where there'sa tone of information, like very specific
information, but you also feel likeyou learned nothing about the person, right,
I would go back to something akinto this time period is your episode
on the Animal to do There wasa lot of really concrete details about them

(30:15):
together, but then at the sametime not Yeah, and I think exactly.
I think for some of this time, especially too, when we are
talking about newspapers being the major formof both news and entertainment. They are
really looking more for a sensational,salacious story. And after this mysterious what

(30:36):
happens to this mysterious woman that becomesthe more of the focus other than what
did she have for breakfast? Oryou know, really, what were the
symptom do you know that? Like, what did you see that? Other
than her telling you you had herhad stomach cancer, which showing any outward
signs, was she acting in certainways? You know? The staff grows
even more worried about her. Afterher back, she looked very sick and

(31:00):
her hair was drenched to her roots, which they said was very abnormal for
to see a woman like that inthat state, and they believed that was
a sign that something was wrong.It was stated that it looked like she
had almost drowned again. This wasa worry for the staff initially when she
wanted to get into the bathtub becauseshe was so weak, they were worried

(31:21):
that she might actually drown. Butin the coming days it will be used
as a moment that staff comes tothink that perhaps she tried to purposefully harm
herself. The chief clerk at thehotel went up to her room himself to
talk with her. When he gotthere, she was in bed, and
he wanted to call the house physician. She refused and told him that her
brother was her doctor and she sawhim before she had arrived at the hotel.

(31:45):
It doesn't sound like this was thefirst time someone had tried again to
get her to see a doctor,but she kept giving excuses and reasons why
she didn't need to see him.The clerk also noted how cold her room
was and asked to light a firein the fireplace for her, but she
refused, saying that she was finethe way she was. At some point

(32:07):
during her stay, either on thisday or the days before, the clerk
had discussed payment with her. Itsounds like several things were kind of happening
all at the same time. Thewoman was sick and the staff was worried
about her, but she also hadarrived. You know, she read without
luggage, which was really odd.She'd spent several days there without luggage.
She had her explanation for that.But the more and more she got sick

(32:30):
and her brother hadn't come, itbegan to appear like something else was going
on. Her appearance as a womanof means I think put everyone off asking
a lot of those harder questions.It made her easier for them to accept
what she was saying as the truth. But at the same time, her
bill would becoming due, so theclerk suggested that she telegrammed someone to get

(32:50):
money. When exactly this happened inthe five days stay, I'm not sure
it's definitely something she did during thatstay, but at the time the time
period very little bit in the newsarticles. At any rate, she sent
a telegram to gel Allen in Hamburg, Iowa, asking for twenty five dollars.
A telegram was received back, butit was unclear if it came before

(33:13):
or after this Monday. That telegramcame from g. L Allen himself and
okayed the use of twenty five dollars. At some point on that Monday,
the woman burned all of her paperbelongings. This included some letters she had
with her pictures. Any information aboutwho she was was burned in her room.

(33:34):
Sometime after ten pm that night,in the pouring rain, the woman,
dressed in a black dress with ablack lace shawl, walked to the
western part of the hotel. There, she found a set of stairs leading
down to the beach, and itwas about fifteen feet from the edge of
the ocean. She drew the pistol, and it's believed she died by suicide
a shot entering her temple. Noone is known to have witnessed her her

(34:00):
death, but a little after eightam the next morning, an electrician passed
by the stairs and found the woman, who was known at the time remember
as Lottie Bernard, deceased on thestairs. The gun was lying next to
her. Her body was sprawled acrossthe steps, soaked by the rain and
frigid to the touch. So muchrain had fallen on her during that night

(34:21):
that the blood stains on the groundhad completely washed away. And I think
there are several reasons that the storyfrom here, especially the newspapers and across
it becomes a national story, becomesmore like a myth, which Sean is
going to talk about in a littlebit. But one of the reasons has
to be the way that it wasreported. I think the closest reporting I've
seen to this is probably the Emmilado case. Just the way the articles

(34:43):
are written, it's more like anovel and super poetic, and I have
an example of this. So thisis how it was described in one of
the articles I read, and Ijust want to give you guys a sense
of what it sounds like in thepaper, and all of the writing is
kind of like this quote. Nightbefore last, an attractive, prepossessing,
and highly educated young woman came downfrom her room at Hotel del Coronado,

(35:07):
and between two and ten o'clock steppedout upon the verandah, facing the ocean,
which was roaring at her very feet, lashed by the tempest that is
sweeping over the whole coast. Thelady was quietly and elegantly dressed in black,
and we're only a lace shawl overher head. It's like the beginning
of a Daniel Steel book. Yeah, it's very it's a romanticize Yeah,

(35:30):
so I can understand why eventually peoplekind of take this story in. I
mean, there's a ton about itthat's also odd, but yeah, it's
got It's got all those elements ofa good or the good start of a
mystery story. You know, it'sthe mysterious woman. Everybody likes her.
You know, she buys a gun, she's on her own, is she's
sick, isn't she sick? Youknow, goes out on her own,

(35:52):
waiting for a mysterious person, possiblyher brother. It's also like, it
seems like this scene could be inany Western, like the woman in Black
walking away where husband you know,yeah, just imagine reading that in another
state somewhere. You know. It'sjust like you're saying, it's a story,
but it's not necessarily news. It'sinteresting. I think again with the

(36:13):
emmilyd case or or some of theother older cases that we've talked about.
You know, little Pete Ching thatwas a newspaper writer. So I think
a lot of the what we've seenanyway, I think I can speak for
myself. But in this these newspaperarchives, when you start looking at some
of these old stories, they arewritten a lot more like that, especially
some of the headline stories. They'rewritten more like fiction, or they feel

(36:35):
more like fiction than they do anactual fact and figure, this happened on
this date, and this is thisis the done with it. For many
reasons, I think they only getone chance to make it heard. It's
not like how news is constant allthe time and repeated. Another thing is
is, you know, we can'tjust rush there with a helicopter filming everything

(36:55):
constantly, so you know, youget these stories mainly in hindsight, and
there they have time to write themout, and they want people to read
their newspapers. So I think,you know, I think it's just how
it was for everything, because it'sthe resources that they had at the time.

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(37:59):
on Spotify, Instagram, Twitter,and TikTok. The deputy coroner, a
man named Stetson, was immediately calledin the hopes that the scene could be
removed before most of the guests wokeup for the day. The body was
moved to Johnson and company undertakers,while the coroner took on the job of

(38:20):
determining the cause of death and findingfamily to inform. There wasn't much question
in those first moments who the womanwas, at least for the people on
the scene, right she had givenher name. A telegram was sent to
G. L Ellen in Hamburg,Iowa. This is the same man that
she had asked for money. Soit makes complete sense that this is the
first person that they contact. Theywant to have information about his relationship with

(38:45):
her, if you know, he'sher family, or if he can let
her family know what's going on.Again, he's in Iowa, and she
had said she's from Detroit, sothey're relying on him to know who these
people might be. So this iswhere it gets a little confusing. So
telegrams start kind of going everywhere.Sounds like Alan sent a telegram to a

(39:05):
man he knew named Harry Bernard.That man sent a telegram to the corner
asking for a picture and details ofthe victim in order to confirm that it
was his wife. But there wasa confusing thing about that telegram that came
the first is that he spelled hisname differently than the name she gave when
she came in. Both of theirnames are Bernard, but he spelled it

(39:28):
b E r n a r dinstead of the way that she signed in
b A r N a r D, and this would strike people as strange.
At the same time, there areissues sometimes with telegrams. People can
make mistakes, add letters, takeletters away, so it's kind of a
red flag, but they're not toosure. So that telegram was then from

(39:51):
Alan to Bernard was Hey, Ithink this is your wife, Bernard,
you might want to send this telegram. Yeah. So when g. L
Allen had received the request for money, he actually knew a man with the
last name Bernard. They had goneto school together. He assumed that this
was his wife, and so hesays that then he when he gets the
telegram that she's deceased, telegrams theman to let him know they don't live

(40:15):
near each other now, so thehusband, in theory, he telegrams the
Hotel del Coronado asking for a picture. And a lot of the confusion here,
I think also stems from the factthat people are trying to identify a
person who may or may not berelated to them from states away at a
time when that's just not as easyas now. Yeah, I love the

(40:37):
idea he requested a photograph, becausethat means the photographs has to be taken
and developed and then ship yeah,out of state to then be viewed then
and we're not talking about you know, megapixel high resolution pictures, and then
that determination has to be made,and then word has to go back to
say, oh, yeah, Ithink that might be my wife or not.

(40:58):
And we're also dealing with both Iowaand Michigan, like it's two different
states to try to deal with allat once. Because I can understand the
spelling error that makes sense, youknow, through telegram, you know that,
Okay, like you said miss aletter here there. So it seems
clear from the first moment that thecause of death was suicide, but the
coroner also wants to find out why. They also have to hold an inquest

(41:22):
to make sure that that's the right, you know determination. This inquest,
they talked to witnesses, they talkedto people who came into contact with her.
So on December first, eighteen ninetytwo, an inquest was held to
present evidence and make an official determination. At this inquest, there was even
more information given out that lead investigatorsto question the identity of the woman.

(41:47):
There was testimony to how they foundher room, of which there was very
little. Again, she didn't haveluggage, but they did find those burned
papers, which was very odd.They found her identification and her personal items
in the grate of the fireplace.They believed that this was an attempt to
hide her identity. So among thepapers they found was a partially burned envelope

(42:10):
with writing on it. This envelopewas addressed to a quote missus Lottie Anderson
Bernard and scrimbled on that envelope werethe words Coronado Lillian Russell. And if
that wasn't confusing enough, there wasalso the line scribbled quote, I don't
know any such man. In Herpurse was a little over twenty dollars that

(42:32):
would be about six hundred and fiftyfour dollars today. And during this inquest
there's testimony that in the room therewere also handkerchiefs with the name Lottie Anderson
on them. This is a pieceof evidence I can't confirm. Later,
another person who sees the handkerchiefs atdifferent corner will say that they actually said

(42:52):
Louisa Anderson. So at the inquest, he says they gave the wrong name.
The inquest again talks about her tryingto hurt herself while taking a bath,
and in the end, due towitness testimony, it was concluded that
her cause of death was suicide.But they don't know for sure who she
is, and they're waiting for peoplewho knew her to get in touch with

(43:12):
them because they want to know whatto do with her body, where to
send it so that she can beburied, and to let her family know.
In the meantime, this became abig story in newspapers across the country.
This is the story of an unknownat this time, beautiful woman who
died by suicide, and it justcaptures everyone, imagine, everyone's imagination.
And with that comes a lot ofspeculation. Why did she die this way?

(43:37):
Was she really waiting for her brother, why was she alone? Was
she really sick? And sort ofin response to that, people start contacting
investigators or reporters with their thoughts andtheir ideas, and even some saying they
had witnessed things. So an interviewwith an unnamed doctor in the San Diego
Union runs and this doctor speculates basicallyeverything, and they run this as an

(44:01):
article about this event. In thisinterview, the doctor tells the reporter that
there were only two possibilities about whathappened to her. That everything the woman
said was true when she came tothe hotel, or that she was portrayed
by a man who left her ruinand deserted. And I just think this
is interesting because there's no evidence thatthis physician knows the beautiful stranger, or

(44:25):
comes into contact with her, oreven has any medical contact with her body,
like when an autopsy or anything likethat, But the newspaper runs it
as it's possibly the truth, andlater when this kind of takes on a
life of its own, I thinkit's kind of interesting that there are people
at the time speculating already about whoshe is without information. Yeah, I

(44:47):
don't think it's much different than whatwe have now. You have people that
are portrayed as experts in certain fieldswho may not actually be experts in those
fields, stating conjecture in theories aboutcases or suspects without any backing it up.
But because it's framed in such away that then it becomes fact and

(45:10):
it gets repeated often enough, thenthat is the only thing that people hear.
I think it's how the newspaper framesit too. People are reading it
just as a story with how elegantthat one little snippet was that you wrote.
And then yeah, they come totheir conclusions. And this doctor probably
just wanted I bet it had likehis address to his doctor's office afterwards.

(45:31):
He wants he wants some attention maybe, and you know it's a it's a
good way to do it if you'rea doctor. Oh, I'll talk about
this. You know, we've seenit before too, with quote unquote expert
witnesses being brought in to testify attrial in areas that they themselves are not
experts at but they're recognized by thecourts. Or they didn't interview the suspect,

(45:53):
or they're only looking at a bitof the evidence and on all of
it. And like you said,Sean, the way it's framed, either
through newspaper, television, or socialmedia, then that's the story people here.
And a lot of this is basedon I think, thinking from the
time period, thinking about what thisguy assumes women are like, and then
also on science that hasn't quite developedyet. So this prominent physician does not

(46:16):
believe the woman he thinks that she'slying, and this is mainly because he
doesn't think it's possible for someone intheir early twenties to have stomach cancer.
He says, stomach cancer is rarefor people under forty and he's never seen
someone under thirty five with it,so to him, this is impossible,
and he uses that word. Healso didn't think she looks sick in the

(46:38):
face or that she was wasted awayenough to have cancer, and he believes
she was lying about being sick.Again, there's nothing to suggest that this
particular physician had any access to herbody or an autopsy or anything like that.
So with this physician saying that shedidn't look sick enough, is this
one of those cases in the Emiladcase where they would just put the body

(47:02):
out for everyone to look at.Yes, actually people, it's I don't
know if it's displayed quite the sameway, but there is a place where
people can go by. It soundedlike a window or something they could visit
and walk by and see the body, and the newspapers note that a lot
of people line up to do that. I'm just wondering if that's how he
says that she didn't look sick enoughin the face, so he probably was

(47:24):
just looking at her through that windowif that's his observation about her whole life,
which is pretty bold. Yeah forsure, especially since he doesn't know
when she was diagnosed or what shelooked like before, so it is interesting.
But yeah, he absolutely might havebeen one of those people who who
came by, and lots of peopledid. Also, we know that the

(47:46):
undertaker testifies at the inquest, whichmeans the undertaker has cared for her body,
and one of the chief roles onan undertaker is to make the body
look presentable. So maybe she didn'tlook as unquote sick as she should after
an undertaker took it and you know, made her look more presentable for a
public. This doctor goes on tosay that it's far more likely she was

(48:08):
pregnant, and that pregnancy and stomachcancer have a lot of symptoms that are
similar. He also says that shemay have been at the hotel so she
could take abortive drugs. Again,these are allegations that he has no evidence
of, and he even says hecan't prove them unless he were to do
a postmortem. But basically this entirelymade up gossipy interview is published, like,

(48:31):
you know, this is what thisperson of stature who knows what he's
talking about believes, right, AndI feel that I am not a doctor
and I'm nowhere close to it,and from the timeline and the newspaper stuff
that we got, I can makethose assumptions. It's an easy, it's
a soap opera assumption that he makesas a physician. And again, people

(48:52):
reading that in the newspaper would say, oh, yeah, I have that
saying, you know, that's whatI think too. And look, doctor
says it's true to be true,right. And one of the things because
of the time period, I mean, I didn't expect it, but is
kind of ignored is her mental healthor anything she may have been suffering from
or things she had gone through that'snever talked about. And again I don't

(49:15):
want to make those assumptions about hereither, but it seems like something that's
just kind of I mean, obviouslyfor the time period to makes sense,
but it's just something I thought alot about while reading this. But the
fact of the matter is based onthe facts that can be corroborated. None
of this, we have no evidenceof any of this we know, we
know a woman who's possibly Laudie Anderson, was at this hotel and she died

(49:39):
by a gunshot wound. That's it. But even leading up to it,
you said that people said she wasanxious, she was melancholy, So it
was there that she had mental issuesgoing on. But at the same time,
it's not like that no one thoughtof it as a reason why you
would commit suicide. And true,and even that idea of mental I mean,

(50:01):
she could have been sad for amillion reasons, the fact that she
didn't have money to pay for herhotel room, or you know what,
could have been a jilted lover orshe what I mean. And this leads
to that mythologizing of this story aswell as a lot of other ones,
is because there's enough facts that weknow that we can put her at a
time, at a place, doingcertain things, but there's enough holes that

(50:24):
we can kind of fill in withthat connective tissue with whatever story we want
to fit our our own personal narrative, and it becomes true for us.
And I think there's a lot ofstuff from what she told them to what
they even find that is in oppositionto each other. Because when she sends
a telegram to jail Hamburg and asksfor money. She actually has money they

(50:45):
find in her hotel room, andwhen he sends money to her, it's
not in the form of cash.It's more of like he's letting the hotel
know, yeah, I'll cover this, right, So that's not the cash
they find in her will tell room. So a lot of interesting, I
don't know, contradictory things going on. The last fascinating made up insight he

(51:07):
has is in regards to women's mentalhealth. He says women die by suicide
because of a love affair. Again, because suicide is rare, and especially
rare women this age. According tohim, they can't die from other medical
issues, that this has to bethe reason. But unfortunately, at the
same time, other people also popup who say they've witnessed her during her

(51:28):
stay. This leads obviously to evenmore gossip. A man named Charles Stevens,
who owned a business where you couldrent and ride horses called Star Stables,
came forward and said he remembered thewoman buying a pair of riding gloves
and renting a horse and riding iton the beach. According to him,
the horse that she was riding wasreally rough with her not under control,

(51:51):
so he had to ride out onhis horse to help her. He says
she didn't appear to be in anypain during the ride, which is what
you would expect with someone who sufferingfrom stomach cancer. And he gave her
his card and said she should comeback and he'd make sure she got a
gentle horse. No one ever findsthese writing gloves or the card that he
gave her on her person. Again, hotel staff says that during her stay

(52:15):
other than that one day, shewas mainly inside her hotel room. So
I mean, it's obviously possible,but or it's also possible that he threw
that out there as a cheap promotionfor his business at the area. Just
like the physician, it seems likea lot of these, yeah, but
again, if they haven't seen thebody itself. These are people who are

(52:36):
going off descriptions of what she lookedlike and how she acted. Things get
stranger and all at once. Peoplein Cornado are they're trying to figure out
what to do with the body,trying to find her family, and they
hear from g. L Allen thiswas the person who she had contacted to
get money from and he says thistime that he doesn't actually know Lottie and

(53:00):
Bernard. He says when he gotthe telegram asking for money, he assumed
that she was the wife of aguy he had known in school, and
he felt bad for her, sohe offered to pay. But he's never
actually met her, and furthermore,he hasn't seen or talked to her husband
since school. What he tells policeis that he thinks Bernard is a poker

(53:20):
player named John W. Bernard wholives in Kansas, but he denies knowing
Lottie and apparently an l A.Bernard had actually stayed at the Coronado recently,
so someone with the same last nameand the same spelling. That person
was a professional gambler and they hadleft the hotel in November seventh. So
during that stay, the gambler hadtold people that he had a sick wife

(53:43):
that he couldn't afford to bring homewith him back to Kansas. He actually
leaves for Kansas, a telegram issent to Kansas, but they never hear
from that guy either. So there'sa lot of people with this last name
going around, and they're not sureif they're related to the woman they have.
That's kind of crazy that that wholecoincidental everything right there. That a

(54:04):
man from Detroit thinks it's Bernard,who might have been a professional poker player
from Kansas who actually stayed at theCoronado weeks before. This is just it's
a crazy story. Yeah, youcan't. You could not make this up.
And when you're researching, one ofthe hard things about the past is
that instead of using someone's fullness,like John Bernard, they're using their initials,

(54:27):
their first name in their middle nameBernard. And so like, I
tried to look up who this glAllan was, and I think I narrowed
it down to you somebody in Iowawho could be. But it depends if
his name is George or if something'ssomething else, So it makes it a
little bit more difficult to research.At the same time, it's reported that
a family in Detroit, so thisis where Loudie Anderson or the Beautiful Stranger

(54:50):
said she was coming from, hasseen articles in the newspaper about the death
of the stranger and they have amissing daughter who they think sounds like the
woman in Coronado. Again, thisis based off descriptions, so as far
as I could tell I do havea picture from the Internet, but I
didn't see any pictures in the newspapers, so this is based off physical descriptions

(55:13):
given of the person. A fewmonths before the death and Coronado, a
working woman named Lizzie Wiley went missingin Detroit, and by working, I
mean she just she had a job. It was assumed that she had left
the area with a married man thatshe worked with at a bookbinder's. The
two were actually fired in September becauseof an inappropriate relationship. According to the

(55:36):
Wily family, they thought the twowere just friends, but when he left
for Detroit to go to California,their daughter left to run some errands and
never returned. The man they thinkshe's with is a man named John Longfield,
and he's considered a rounder with abad reputation quote even for one of
his class. And this will becomean issue for the people who attended the

(56:00):
Beautiful Stranger, as well as thenewspapers and police in trying to figure out
who she is, because now thequestion of class comes up, and everyone
describes the Beautiful Stranger as someone froma higher class, someone who was educated,
someone with money. She walked likeshe had money, and this person
from Detroit doesn't fit that bill.It seems unlikely that the stranger at the

(56:23):
Coronado could be Lizzie Wiley, butthere are some similarities, and Lizzie's mother
is convinced that it's her based onthe physical description. In particular, both
the deceased and her daughter have twomoles on their left cheek, and when
Lizzie Wiley's mother sees a description sentfrom the corner that includes that, immediately

(56:44):
she thinks this is her daughter.There's no way it's anybody else. A
witness also comes forward and says thatthey remember a couple arguing in Denver on
a train that fits the description.So while they're looking for the beautiful strangers,
one of the things that they thinkthey could do is possibly find her
luggage. So she didn't have aluggage tax. She was on a railway

(57:07):
at some point, So they startlooking at different different stops where they have
luggage that no one picked up.They actually find some in Denver that no
one picked up. I don't knowwhose it is. It will turn out
it's not this person's, but it'sone way they're going to try and figure
out what's going on, and peopleon trains across the country remember two people
arguing in Denver. The two peoplehave both had similar dresses. Even some

(57:30):
of the jewelry sounded similar to herfamily. A newspaper says that Wiley also
has an aunt whose name is LuisaAnderson, which one of the coroners says
is the name that were that wason the handkerchiefs. They are both in
their early twenties, they're both darkhaired, and while the family didn't understand

(57:51):
or have any connection with the nameLottie Anderson, they thought it possible Lizzie
Wiley chose that name because it wassimilar to her name, and it started
with an Ell and Anderson because heraunt had that married last name. So
they're just kind of thinking through whatmight be someone's reasoning for choosing that particular
name, And it makes sense.A mom loves as a daughter, and
then everything is two moles, anEll and an a to find anything to

(58:17):
help her find her daughter. Andthere are definitely some weird coincidences here.
A telegram was sent to try toconfirm the deceased was Lizzie Wiley, and
the Wily family said that family membersfrom Pasadena so that's Pasadena in California,
would be abut to see the bodyand confirm if it was her. No
one from that family ever shows upto ide the body. Long Fields,

(58:42):
that's the man that Lizzie Wiley's believedto have run away with. He is
married. His wife contacts him.She doesn't know where he is, but
she sends I found this very interesting. She sends a letter to him into
the Cleveland kind of area with hisname on it, and then the post
office found him for her to deliverthe letter. He tells his wife that
Lizzie isn't with him, but thathe knows where she is and can get

(59:06):
a message to her. He saysshe's fine, that she's you know,
she's not deceased. He tells herthat she'll ask her to get in contact
with her family. The coroner alsofinds out that Lizzie Wiley's ears weren't pierced,
but the deceased woman's were. Sothere are a lot of arguments kind
of in the paper with people saying, yes, this is who she is,
No, it can't be who sheis, so it's very confusing.

(59:28):
But again, one of the bigarguments in the paper is that there's no
way this Lizzie Wiley woman could beher because she's of a lower class and
also because she's less beautiful, andeveryone who has seen the beautiful stranger that's
a big that's a big part ofthe description of her. So it's a
very uncomfortable discussion in the newspaper.It's another time of victimizing people without intentionally

(59:52):
victimizing him. You're talking about thisother woman being not as beautiful. Back,
I know, you're calling woman ugly. She couldn't be the murder victim
because she's not pretty enough. Yeah, so this is very confusing. There's
so many different details, and somany people believe that it's, you know,
someone they know. And then inmid December it's announced by the police

(01:00:14):
that they have identified the woman inCoronado as a woman named Kate Morgan.
So not even anyone with a namethat we've heard so far. And it's
pretty crazy that for being eighteen ninetytwo, it's mid December already. This
was just Thanksgiving that this happened.That this hasn't even gone to Christmas yet.
You know, it's like it's prettyfast for how much is talked about

(01:00:35):
this and how slow everything was backthen, and it's interesting because it just
kind of comes out of the blue. Newspapers are printing articles that it's this
woman or this woman, and thenall of a sudden, this a completely
different woman. So it's a goodreminder that sometimes you don't know what police
are up to. So Kate Morganis not a name mentioned once in the
newspapers until this day it's positively announcedthat the cease woman is her. Investigators

(01:01:00):
were given the name Kate Morgan throughfollowing a couple of tips. So,
as you can imagine, this isa widespread story. People start sending tips
in and these tips come from LosAngeles and particularly from two families. They
both say that this is someone whothey believe had worked for them prior to
her death, and they believe thatthe descriptions that have been given are very

(01:01:20):
similar. Investigators want to confirm this, so they visit the family she was
working for just prior to Thanksgiving.They find at that location a lot of
her things, including some of herluggage. When police look into Kate Morgan,
they find sort of a web ofdetails that never really gives a good
picture of who Morgan was. Turnsout, Kate Morgan was from Hamburg,

(01:01:42):
Iowa. This is the exact citythat G. L Allen lived in when
he was telegrammed asking for money.And this is a very very small city.
I mean, I think I hadlike two hundred residents in it around
the time. In her items isa marriage certificate given out in Hamburg with
Thomas E. Morgan, dated Decemberthirtieth, eighteen eighty five, and it

(01:02:04):
says that her maiden name was KatieFarmer. There isn't a lot of confirmable
information, but the newspapers say herhusband was a gambler. Her family,
or rather her grandfather, was veryrich, but that doesn't always translate to
a particular person having money. Italso appears she has children, though how
many and where they are is notsomething that is confirmed. The family she

(01:02:27):
worked for a prior to her deathsaid she left their home on November twenty
third and promised to return to thehome, but never did. According to
the woman, when Morgan left,she only had a satchel and a shawl.
Adams, and the trunk of personalbelongings indicated Morgan had only been in
La a few months and that shehad traveled all around and stayed in places
like Chicago, Omaha, Cheyenne,Ogden, Sacramento, and Hanford. In

(01:02:53):
Hanford, she had worked for arelative named WT Farmer on his staff and
he gave her recommendations to other familiesin LA looking for house staff. So
she was working just in someone's homecleaning that kind of thing. During her
time, she also used other aliases, and investigators believe she didn't want people

(01:03:13):
to know who she really was,and it will come out that she has
a lot of different names that shewent by over various times, but there's
never an implication that she was committingfraud or had broken any laws. Yeah,
it might be, you know,she's technically in what they would call
lower class, if she's just aworking family. This might have just been
like she had the looks to belike the fantasy that she wanted to live,

(01:03:37):
so she would go to these placeslike Del Coronado and act like she's
very rich and then just you know, she could skip out on the thing
or something to do with this DLguy there might be like a thing.
But yeah, I didn't get theimpression that she was like doing criminal activities.
It was more of like it couldhave just been like she wanted to

(01:03:58):
live the life. Yeah, shedoes have rich family, so that might
explain maybe she early on she hadsome schooling or education and then yeah,
just decided to kind of do herown thing. And in her room,
just like the hotel, almost everythingindicating her identification was destroyed. The people
she worked for said she never talkedabout her past. Her trunk also had

(01:04:19):
a tin box with a name LouiseAnderson engraved on the front. Inside her
photographs of two men and four kids. There was a blonde cutting of hair
with a paper on which was writtenElizabeth A. Morgan hair. There were
also other pictures with names that havebeen erased or scratched off, and a
picture of herself. This picture willcontribute to some conspiracy theories because that picture

(01:04:43):
itself is very different from the womandescribed as a Coronado Kate Morgan in that
picture has kind of deep set blackeyes, very large ears, a large
open face, and coarse features,and her mouth is large as well.
And that's not my description, that'sfrom the newspaper. So again, this
picture is not what at the timewas believed to be classically beautiful, So

(01:05:06):
people think this cannot be the personwho was at the Coronado. But this
picture was just found among her belongings. Yeah, okay, so it might
not be her at all. Yeah, I mean that's completely possible as well.
People do look different deceased than alive, so someone might have looked at
it and misidentified. But it contributes, I think, to continuing conspiracy theories,

(01:05:29):
correct, Yeah, or just thedescriptions of the woman at the Coronado
were inflated because they were reported afterthe fact that she was dead, right,
And I think also I'm not sayingshe's a con person. She's going
by a lot of different names.But you know, people can carry themselves
in ways, and maybe a lotof things were assumed while she was at

(01:05:50):
the Hotel del Coronado. It's aplace where there you know, you come
there because you're rich, you knowrich people, and so perhaps some of
the stuff was just the way shedid her hair, the way she carried
herself. It seemed like she wasan upper class, beautiful person. Another
woman Morgan worked for in La saidshe gave the name at her house Josie

(01:06:14):
Brown. This woman is one ofthe first people initially when she hears about
what happened to contact police, andthat she told them she was from Detroit,
so she gives a different name andagain Detroit. This woman said she
had a sister named missus Anderson,and a young man who visited the house
actually came physically to their house.Apparently he said his name was doctor Brown
of Detroit and that he was KateMorgan's brother. With the new evidence and

(01:06:39):
belief, the deceased at the Hoteldel Coronado is Kate Morgan, a telegram
is sent to several different family membersinforming them of her death and asking for
instructions on what to do with thebody. A telegram is sent back from
a man named J. W.Chandler that simply states, quote your telegram
received regarding Kate more knee Farmer,bury her and send me statement. What

(01:07:03):
does NAE mean any in that statement? I don't. I've never seen that
that refers to her maiden name,so it was a name she was before
she was Cape Morgan. She wasKpe Farmer. And I think that's also
a big thing that contributes to alot of theories and continue conspiracy theories,
is that her family and the peoplewho knew her do not talk with the

(01:07:23):
press, and they're just like buryher. In San Diego and move on.
On December tenth, eighteen ninety two, approximately two weeks after her death,
Kpe Morgan was laid to rest inepiscopal burial service. There was no
music and only a few people attendedthe funeral ceremony at Saint Paul's Church.
Some people in the community sent flowers, but no one followed the hearst to

(01:07:45):
attend the graveside burial at Mount HopeCemetery in San Diego, California. You
know, after all saying all thatand what we were just talking about,
maybe she wasn't trying to con anyone, but she was running away from a
family that didn't care from her,and maybe they she used different names to
stay away from this family. Whoknows she was married? What if that

(01:08:08):
husband was horrible. I'm just,you know, making assumptions here, but
reasons why you would change your nameand travel across the country everywhere and not
staying it seems like for a longperiod of time in one area. So
I mean, I think there's justa million reasons, and especially there does
seem to be a lot of information, but so much not a lot of
information, and all of those allof those theories are equally plausible. I

(01:08:31):
think that's what that kind of isinteresting about these stories. Some of the
stuff that we've looked up on otherstories and when we were discussing which which
to cover in this case, someof them, the theories or the conjecture
are super wild about some stuff,and then there's one or two that are
way more obvious, like that seemslike it feels more true or could be.

(01:08:55):
This is all of the things thatwe've talked about so far are all
equally possible and equally viable. Andthis, unfortunately, because I think she
did it seems kind of clear shedidn't want to keep her identification a secret.
Is not the end of Kate Morgan'sstory. There are many theories about
what happened to the mysterious Kate Morgan. Some people refuse to believe that she

(01:09:16):
was Kate Morgan altogether. Some peoplebelieve Kate Morgan and Lizzie Wiley must have
come across one another and perhaps switchedlives in the ensuing years. People would
even question her death. One ofthe theories that's rolled was that she was
supposed to meet a man, orwas the mistress of a sea captain,
or perhaps killed by the man's wife. Whether her death might be a murder
is a common theory, perhaps forthe woman who wanted so dearly to not

(01:09:41):
be connected to a particular identity,these theories are moot. Despite her best
efforts, the woman's story and experiencesat the hotel continue to capture the imagination
of people who have heard it,and especially because there are a lot of
people who have claimed to see herghost and Sean is going to tell us
about that. So yeah, whenit comes to things like this, especially
old things and in the old bonesof the Hotel del Coronado, there's definitely

(01:10:08):
going to be ghost stories. Ifeel. According to many sites and sources,
there have been a lot of hauntingsthat have gone on, and we'll
get into it after, But it'snot just Kate Morgan at this place,
but with Kate Morgan, like youmentioned earlier, her room, it was
on the third floor and this iswhere a lot of sightings are. There
has been things like flickering of lights, television that turns itself on and off,

(01:10:32):
breezes coming from nowhere, scents andsounds that shouldn't be around, items
moving on their own accord, anddoors that randomly open just you know anything
there, but there's been a lotlike voices and footsteps too. Others have
heard like just things right next tothem around their bed that shouldn't be.

(01:10:55):
And other interesting ones is the sightingsof her are all like, you know,
sounds and stuff happen, and sightingsof Kate. They said they've seen
her in the hotel, in thehallways or on the beach where she committed
suicide. That's really interesting because thisis such a storied hotel. I mean,
it's huge, it's old, Iimagine you know, like certain things

(01:11:17):
like lights flickering. But it's alsointerestingly one of the few, if not
one of the only left structures orhotels built entirely of wood, and so
it might be different when you're stayingthere, like sounds and things might be
a little different thing you're used to. And she's not the only person to
have died at this hotel, sothat's kind of interesting, right. There's

(01:11:40):
also other sightings and weird things happenon the fifth floor. Supposedly, the
story is there was a maid wholived there and she was secretly dating the
owner of the Coronado, and whenshe found out that she was pregnant,
she committed suicide. So there's sightingsof that and another one that seems a
little far fetched, but with theparanormal thing, but there was an old

(01:12:02):
vaudeville and Broadway a performer named IsadoraRush and she drowned on the beach near
the Coronado, So it's kind ofnear, but it's not at the actual
beach. But they say that thismight also be a haunting presence. I
think going back to Kate though,and it's something that you found, Jessica,
that you found interesting, and whenI started digging into it too,

(01:12:23):
I found it very interesting. Justlike all of us when we get involved
in this research and stuff, itkind of takes us over for a while.
And I feel this might have happenedto Alan Meyer May. So mister
May was also he has a prettyprominent past as a White House aide under
Nixon, and he was also avery well known defense attorney. He kind

(01:12:46):
of got very involved in the deathof Kate Morgan and from his own find
a Grave it says quote in nineteeneighty nine, May became fascinated with one
hundred year old port of Kate Morgan. He insisted that he saw Kate's ghost
while staying in the room she diedin, first only as a pair of

(01:13:08):
glowing eyes in his television, andthen as an apparatus, stepping out of
the television to lead him by thehand to the stairs where she died.
So that's a very long sighting.I'm not I don't know much about sightings,
but that seems like a very longdrawn out thing. Following this experience

(01:13:30):
and extensive research, he claimed tohave determined that Kate had actually been murdered.
So there's a whole nother thing thatwe didn't even bring up while we
were talking about that. When hevisited the young woman's grave in San Diego's
historic Mount Hope Cemetery, finding itonly by tracing the plot number, he
was very upset that it only justhad a marker and didn't have a actual

(01:13:51):
tombstone. So he paid eight hundreddollars to have a headstone engraved with Kate
Morgan's name. He placed a statueof an angel at the grave, like
if he went on to like writinga book about this and everything. So
he got very very sucked into thiswhole story of Kate Morgan, and I
mean just with our newspaper, likewhat you presented to us. It's it's

(01:14:14):
quite a story, though. Yeah, I can understand why people think maybe,
especially because identifying someone at the timeand no one came out to do
so is always kind of suspicious,not suspicious, but like they could have
gone it wrong. But I dolike that he I mean, it's sad
that she didn't have her own headstoneand that he did that. And there
are if you guys go out ontoGoogle or you look this story up,

(01:14:38):
there are tons of sights. Iwould have told you anything that I could
confirm, but there's a lot ofconspiracy theories, and I know May is
behind some of them. There's aconspiracy theory that the bullet that was found
at the scene didn't actually match thegun, certain things like that, but
I couldn't find anything that suggested,you know, that there was actual evidence
of that. So it's just interesting. But there is a lot of stuff

(01:14:59):
out there to look at and lookinto well, not overestimating the power that
this story has to add to theHotel del Coronado's mystique. I think that's
one of the things that while we'vebeen working on you've really been researching,
and I know, talking to peopleabout Oh, what episodes are you working
on? And well, you know, Jessica's working on a Hotel del Coronado

(01:15:21):
episode about the murder. Oh,you mean the ghost that comes up more
often when you mentioned this, especiallypeople in California, I think that,
No, the hotel is immediately Oh, it's the ghost. You know it's
haunted. Well, a woman waskilled there. But also it's one hundred
and thirty two years ago. Youmentioned how many other people have died in

(01:15:43):
a hotel. In continual operation,things are going to happen people you know,
well, people who lived there beforeit was built. Oh oh yeah.
So go to the Hotel del Coronadosite. They have a lot of
interesting history articles and stuff about KateMorgan on their site. They've also written
a book on Kate Morgan and onthe hotel that we have ordered and will
come, so look into that ifthis story interests you at all. The

(01:16:06):
hotel has kind of its own Iguess historians, which is a pretty cool
job to have. If you orsomebody you know have had an experience at
the Hotel Coronado, or you've stayedthere and want to share your experience with
us, you can hit us upon social media at Cali true Crime or
on our Facebook discussion group California TrueCrime. Let us know what your experience

(01:16:28):
was, how your stay was,If you enjoyed to stay, do you
think it's worth how much you paidfor the room? We'd love to hear
from you. Thank you for listeningto this episode of California True Crime on
the Darkcast Network. For a fulllist of our sources, as well as
more information on this and all ofour cases, head to our webpage at
California and Chuecrime dot com, whereyou can support the show by joining our

(01:16:50):
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(01:17:11):
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