- This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we cover the creepy death of Roland T. Owen. I gotta say, this one
really gives me the willies. - Gives you little goose pimples? - Yeah, I don't like it. There's, I read about this one at night. Much like some of you watch this at night, and I was not a fan of
some of the small details. There's things in this that just-- - Rustles your jimmies? - Rustles my feathers, yeah. - Ruffles your feathers. - Ruffles or rustles, it could be either. - I don't think so. - [Ryan] Yeah I think it could be rustles. - All right. - Well rustling you can like
rustle through the brush. - Agree to disagree. - Sure, whatever. On Wednesday, January
2, 1935 around 1:20 p.m. a man calling himself Roland T. Owen checked into the Hotel President in Kansas City in room 1046. Witnesses say he was aged
anywhere from 20 to 35 with brown hair, a scar on his
scalp visible above his ear, and a cauliflower ear. He was nicely dressed in a black coat. The bellboy, Randolph Propst
helped Owen to his room, where he reported that Owen
seemed to have only packed a brush, comb, and toothpaste. The maid, Mary Soptic. (laughs) - [Shane] What's her name? - [Ryan] Oh God, I know what you're, she's a maid, her name
is Soap-dick hahaha. - [Shane] I'm trying to move pa-- - What a really funny big
laugh you got out of that. Yeah look how happy you are! Oh man, what a gem of comedy
we've made here today. The maid, Mary Soptic,
said Owen allowed her to clean while he was in the room, but asked that she not lock
the door on her way out because his friend was about
to visit the room very soon. Soptic said that Owen kept
the shades tightly drawn and the lights off with the
exception of one dim lamp. Other staff members who entered the room also mentioned this detail. - I don't want to be in the room when they're in there, that's scary. - Yeah. - I imagine him just sitting in a chair in the corner just a shadow man. Clean it. Clean the room. - You, I think you're
getting Anton Chigurh vibes from this guy. - Fluff the pillow. (Ryan laughs) - [Ryan] According to the maid Soptic's statement to the police,
she felt that Owen was quote "either worried about
something or afraid." End quote, and that quote "he always wanted to kind
of keep in the dark." End quote. At four p.m., Soptic
returned with new towels, finding Owen laying on the bed, completely dressed in the
dark with the door unlocked. She also saw a note that read
quote "Don, I will be back "in 15 minutes, wait." End quote. It's weird right? - [Shane] Yeah, I would
not go back into that room. - [Ryan] If you were the maid? - [Shane] No. - Yeah I think that's a
good instinct to have. If you see a guy laying
on a bed in the dark, awake, just like looking at you I think that's your cue to leave. The next day on January 3, Soptic came back to clean the room at 10:30 a.m. She noticed that the door had
been locked from the outside and assumed that Owen locked
it as he was leaving the room. However, Owen was sitting
inside, again with the lights off which meant that someone else had locked the door from outside the room. While Soptic was still in the room, Owen answered a phone call and said quote, "no Don I don't want to eat. "I'm not hungry, I just had breakfast." End quote, repeating quote
"no, I am not hungry." End quote. - [Shane] What hotels allow you to lock a room from the outside? - [Ryan] This hotel did. - [Shane] It's weird, I would imagine you could just call the
front desk and say hey-- - I'm locked in my room.
- Let me out of here. - [Ryan] It's just my
thought is who is this person that's locking him in the
room or who is he waiting for that he's sitting in
obedience in the dark? - [Shane] Well if this guy's a weirdo to begin with, he's got weird friends. - [Ryan] Okay I guess that's fair. - [Shane] Weird attracts weird. - [Ryan] Soptic came back around four p.m. to deliver fresh towels. She heard two male voices
from inside the room. When she knocked, she heard
a rough voice say quote "who is it?" End quote. When she explained that
she had fresh towels, the man said quote "we don't need any." End quote, even though there were no towels left in the room. During the night, a woman
staying in room 1048 would report hearing loud
voices, both male and female cursing on the same floor. Though there was apparently a party going on that night in room 1055. Now things begin to get very strange. The next morning on
January 4 around 7:00 a.m. the hotel phone operator noticed that Owen's hotel room phone had
been off the hook for a while without being in use. So, she sent the bellboy
Propst upstairs to 1046. Despite the locked door
having a don't disturb sign, Propst knocked a few times and
heard a low voice say quote "come in, turn on the lights." End quote. However, the door was locked and no one was getting up to let him in. So after knocking
repeatedly, Propst said quote "put the phone back on
the hook" end quote, assuming that Owen was drunk. Around 8:30 a.m. about
an hour and a half later, the phone was still off the hook and another bellboy, Harold
Pike let himself into the room with the passkey using only
the light from the hall, the bellboy Pike observed that Owen was in bed, naked, and seemingly drunk. He also noticed that the bedding
was darkened around Owen. The phone stand was kicked
over, so he fixed it and put the phone back in the receiver. - [Shane] They went in there
and they saw this person on the bed with a dark, dark stains all around them and were like chill. Those are your sheets! - [Ryan] He's obviously making himself into a sundae, nothing to see here. - [Shane] Right! - [Ryan] Let's go back
down to the front desk. - [Shane] Don't just leave, stupid. - [Ryan] At approximately
10:30 to 10:45 a.m., the phone was once again
out of the receiver. They sent the original bellboy Propst to resolve the situation. When he opened the door, he stumbled upon a truly horrific scene. Here's his statement to the police. Quote "when I entered the
room, this man was within "two feet of the door
on his knees and elbows, "holding his head in his hands. "I noticed blood on his head. "I then turned the light on. "I looked around and
saw blood on the walls, "on the bed, and in the bathroom. "This frightened me, and I immediately "left the room and went
downstairs." End quote. - [Shane] It seems like
everyone kept checking in to be like let's make sure nothing horrible is happening here. (Ryan laughs) Oh, seems like it might be. We'll give it another hour. Then an hour later, okay yep-- - [Ryan] This murder's not ripe yet. It's not ripe yet for the plucking. - [Shane] Yeah. - [Ryan] Also the way they found him-- - [Shane] Imagining that
is truly horrifying. - He said he was within
two feet of the door on his knees and his elbows
holding his head in his hands. - Like? - No not like that! He's not taking glamor shots. Nice of you to come in. I'm dying. - Just blood? (laughs) - [Ryan] Owen was discovered
with extensive injuries. He had been tied up with the cord around his neck, wrists, and ankles. It appeared he had been tortured. Blood had even gotten on the
wall and ceiling above the bed. - [Shane] I'm a little
tired of people being so aghast that blood is on
the walls and the ceilings. Of course blood's gonna get everywhere. If a person is beating
the shit out of someone-- - [Ryan] It's also just,
it's also I mean come on, it's a visceral thing to imagine that someone's getting beat so heavily that blood is spattering
everywhere like a Tarantino flick. - Well yeah, well that's what happens. If you put your finger in a
cup of blood and just went. (laughs) - What okay wait a sec-- - There's blood on the ceiling. - [Ryan] He had been hit
repeatedly on the head and his skull was fractured. He'd also been stabbed in
the chest several times. His lung was punctured. There was bruising around his neck that could mean he was strangled. Remarkably, Owen was
somehow still alive though. One of the detectives
to arrive on the scene would ask Owen about anyone else who had been inside the room. Owen responded quote "nobody" end quote. Although he was hardly capable of talking and not fully conscious. He explained quote "I fell
against the bathtub" end quote. - [Shane] Hell of a fall. (Ryan laughs)
- I know! (laughing) So in this scenario, he
falls against the bathtub, rolls over into the bed, and then starts bouncing up and down so the blood splatter goes
onto the ceiling and walls. - [Shane] Yeah, and
probably bouncing on the bed so hard that he hits the ceiling a few times and breaks all his bones. - [Ryan] And fractures his skull. You know I bounced my head off the bathtub and I thought I'd go for a
little bounce in the bed. - [Shane] Jesus Christ. And tied himself up somehow? (Ryan laughs) - [Ryan] After this brief exchange, he was completely unconscious
and was taken to the hospital. According to a doctor, the
injuries on Owen's body had occurred six to seven hours prior to Owen being discovered. - [Shane] That's a long time to bleed. - [Ryan] That means that by the time, when they first went to go
check on him when the phone was first off the hook, he was already injured at that point. He was already bleeding out and still said come in, turn on the lights. Unless of course it wasn't him, it was Don waiting to do more murdering. Detectives found no weapon
nor any of Owen's belongings in the room, therefore removing
suicide from the equation. Four fingerprints were
found on the phone stand, potentially from a female. Owen would die after midnight on January fifth at the hospital. When Owen initially
checked into the hotel, he mentioned he was from Los Angeles, but Los Angeles authorities
were unable to find any record of a Roland T. Owen, bringing into question whether that was the victim's real name. His body was placed for viewing at Melody Mcgilley Funeral Home. As the story spread, more and more people began reaching out to
Kansas City authorities to see if their missing loved one could be Owen, to no avail. Next police focused on the mysterious Don that Owen referred to several
times while at the hotel. Don was also conceivably
the man with the deep voice that the maid heard
through the hotel door. Nevertheless, the police's
search returned no results. Owen's upcoming burial was announced by the Journal-Post on March third to be in a potter's field. However, the Melody Mcgilley
Funeral Home received a call from an anonymous individual who said they would send the money necessary for providing Owen with a proper funeral. Somebody knows who he is and
my suspicion, what if it's Don? Here 'cause like he--
- And Don is a very tough love kind of guy. - [Ryan] I suppose, there's two reasons why he would not give
up his killer, right? Love, or maybe he was
being entrapped somehow. Like maybe there was some
kind of leverage against him. - [Shane] You think this
was a lover's quarrel? - [Ryan] It could have been. - Hoh.
- Why would he pay for his funeral if he killed him? Or like and if it wasn't
the killer who's paying for the funeral, why wouldn't
that person just step forward and be like yeah, that's fucking Jerry. - [Shane] Right, the plot thickens. - [Ryan] It does indeed. - [Shane] This is a thick-ass plot. - [Ryan] This one's thick. - This plot is thick as hell.
- Juicy as a juicy peach. - [Shane] Oh it's a juicy peach all right and I've got juice running down my chin. (Ryan laughs) - [Ryan] Sure enough, on March 23 money, bundled in a newspaper, was delivered to the funeral home from
an anonymous sender. Funeral flowers were anonymously arranged with the Rock Flower
Company along with a card that said quote "love
forever, Louise" end quote, placed on Owen's grave. - [Shane] Yeah I'm just
gonna start sending flowers to people's funerals and
say "love forever, Louise." - You should just say
"love forever, Shane" and a picture of yourself. Like that. - But then people are
gonna ask me questions like why'd you do that? And I'd say eh, it's a funny joke and they'd say this is a funeral you know? (laughs) - [Ryan] Skipping forward
about a year and a half later, in 1936, a friend of Ruby Ogletree found an American Weekly piece
chronicling the Owen case. Upon looking at the magazine, Ruby would correctly
identify Owen as her son who left Birmingham in 1934. Owen's actual name was Artemus Ogletree and he was only 17 years old. - [Shane] Sounds like a Harry Potter boy. - [Ryan] What? - [Shane] That sounds like
a little Hogwarts student. Artemus Ogletree?
- Oh, oh okay. I thought you were referring
to the contents of the case, it sounds like the story of Harry Potter. - [Shane] No, things
turned out better for him. - [Ryan] Yeah I think he went
on to have great adventures. - [Shane] Yeah he wasn't brutally
murdered in a hotel room. That would be a rough end to that tale. - [Ryan] Ruby Ogletree,
his mother, had actually received three letters from
her son in the spring of 1935. However, these letters were
delivered after Owen's death and were typed, according to a sensational newspaper account of the murder case. This was especially suspicious because Artemus didn't know how to type. This article also reported
that the letter's tone was quote "slangy and unfamiliar" end quote to Ruby Ogletree. - [Shane] Is it weird back then that you could just pretend to be someone? - [Ryan] You could still do that today. - [Shane] Nah. - [Ryan] I bet you I could
check into a hotel right now and say my name is Ricky Goldsworth. - [Shane] But then they're going to say do you have a credit card sir? - [Ryan] And I'll be like
oh yeah, this is my friend. I'm just putting a, just a deposit-- - That's not gonna fly, they're going to put handcuffs on you right away. Where'd you grow up Ricky Goldsworth? - Oh I grew up down the road. - Where, no, what city? - Oh New York City. - You grew up in New York City? - This is happening in New York now. - What's your mother's
name, Ricky Goldsworth? - Lucy Goldsworth. - What's her maiden name? - Lucy Gold. (laughs) - See, crumbling. - Well I wouldn't stumble like that. I'd have a prepared response. - You'd be firing 'em off? - I'd be firing 'em off and I'd be like what's the fucking holdup? (laughs) I'm trying to check into a room and you're giving me
a goddamn inquisition? Is this how you treat all your customers? - All right. - Who do you think you are? - That's fair, okay that's fair! - And I'd poke him in the chest like this. - At this point I'm giving
you a room, all right? You did it, you win. You win, Ricky. - [Ryan] After some time, it was revealed that Artemus Ogletree had also stayed at the St. Regis in Kansas City with another man, possibly Don. In the early 2000s, Dr. John Horner, the author of an exhaustive account of the murder case published by the Kansas City Public Library received an out of state
call about Artemus Ogletree. The caller claimed to
find a box containing newspaper articles about
the Ogletree murder in a deceased elderly person's belongings. According to the caller, there was something else in the box. Something else that had apparently been referenced in the newspaper articles. Unfortunately, the caller did
not say what that item was. After that, the case would
have no further revelations and would disappear into obscurity. And with that, let's
get into the theories. The first theory is rather simple, that the man referred to as Don beat Artemus Ogletree to death
in room 1046 and acted alone. As mentioned before, it came to light that shortly before his death, Ogletree had stayed in a different Kansas City hotel with
another man, possibly Don. Don was also conceivably
the man with the deep voice that the maid heard
through the hotel door, but even if this theory is true, the police were never able to figure out who Don actually was. The second theory is that the
unknown Don didn't act alone. This theory relates to an
observation by Charles Blocher, the elevator operator
the night of the murder. His observation also
perhaps sheds a little light onto who Don could be. The night of the murder,
Blocher saw a quote "commercial woman" end quote,
going to the tenth floor. The elevator operator
estimated that the woman was 135 pounds, and about 5 1/2 feet tall. She had dark hair and was wearing a quote "coat of Black Hudson seal
or imitation Hudson seal" end quote. - [Shane] What is the commercial,
what a commercial woman? - [Ryan] She looks like she was dressed in very nice clothing, so they
called her commercial woman. - [Shane] What? - [Ryan] Anyways, I
didn't make up the name, that's what they called her. - [Shane] She looked
like the Pin-Sol lady. - [Ryan] Yeah sure,
yeah she was hanging out with the Brawny guy. - [Shane] She was next to a big, tall bald man in a white t-shirt. - [Ryan] Yeah it was her,
Brawny, and Mr. Clean. They all went and they just
went off on little adventures. Blocher claimed this woman was looking for room 1026 to meet a
man she was unable to find. It's possible that this woman
was looking for Ogletree, and had mistaken room 1046 for 1026. This commercial woman was also seen with a man from the ninth floor, a man that the elevator operator said was the same height and
weight as the woman. Some speculate that this
man could have been Don. If you'll recall, there were fingerprints potentially from a female
found on the phone stand, and a woman staying next door in room 1048 reported hearing loud female
and male voices cursing, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect that this commercial woman and
the man from the ninth floor could have been responsible for what happened to Artemus Ogletree. However, there was nothing
official on the woman or the man beyond what little was on the internet, and my own personal speculation. The third theory comes from
many sensational articles published in the following
years that suggested Ogletree was killed for being
unfaithful to his fiancee. I'd like to call to mind the announcement in the Journal-Post that Ogletree would be buried in a potter's field, the announcement that appeared to prompt an anonymous caller to
fund Ogletree's funeral. According to a sensational article, published in the Newcastle Sun, called Mystery Murder in Room 1046, that sequence of events
went a little differently. The article states that a
woman called the local paper to say 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," end quote. - [Shane] I'm gonna start using it. - [Ryan] A pauper's grave? - [Shane] Well just a pauper's
as sort of a descriptor. Like if I get a subpar salad. - [Ryan] Oh, this is a pauper's salad. - [Shane] I will not
eat this pauper's salad. - [Ryan] Or if you get like a hotel room that just has a view of the
parking lot or the freeway. I'm not gonna sit in
this pauper's hotel room. - [Shane] Front desk? Yes, I will not accept this pauper's view. - [Ryan] This is Ricky Goldsworth, you know what the deal is. Do you want me to come down there again? Didn't think so. - [Shane] Man that guy's scary. - [Ryan] Yeah he's really scary. When asked to identify herself
and what actually happened to the man still known
as Owen at the time, she replied quote "never mind, I know "what I'm talking about, "he got into a jam," end quote. Before hanging up the phone. At the same time, a man
called the funeral parlor where Owen was held, and said quote "don't bury Owen in a pauper's grave. "I want you to bury him
in Memorial Park Cemetery. "Then he will be near my sister. "I'll send funds to cover the
funeral expenses" end quote. - [Shane] These people hate paupers! - [Ryan] I think maybe that may have just been slang for the time. - [Shane] Was it? - [Ryan] I mean it seems,
unless these two people just love saying pauper's, either way the more important detail to
mine from that is the fact-- - Sister's grave.
- Sister's grave. - [Shane] Did they look into
the cemetery and see what-- - [Ryan] We're gonna
get into that right now. - Great.
- Well kinda. The man apparently explained
that Owen had jitled a girl he was engaged to, and that in room 1046, Owen the man and the jilted girl had a quote "little meeting" end quote. Before hanging up, he said quote "cheaters usually get what's
coming to them" end quote. Shortly after, the Rock
Floral Company received a call asking for quote "13 American Beauty roses sent to Roland Owen's funeral" end quote. The voice added quote "I'm doing this "for my sister" end quote. - [Shane] These poor
people at this funeral home are just trying to make
a nice little occasion for this brutally murdered man, and they have just this
cartoonish cast of characters calling them up to deliver
these grisly, grim messages. If I'm working at that home
I'm just, I'm getting fed up. - [Ryan] You want to come do the job? You want to do my job? How about I be you and you be me. - [Shane] Show up, why
don't you bury them asshole? (Ryan laughs) Stop just calling me, I'm busy! - [Ryan] It's fucking annoying. - [Shane] You know how hard it is to reconstruct this man's skull? - Other than that, the mysterious death of Artemus Ogletree has
been left to collect dust on the shelves of investigators, with no other possible leads or clues. To this day, it is unknown
what truly happened in hotel room 1046. Was Ogletree held prisoner? Was he actually punished
for cheating on his fiancee? The case will unfortunately
remain unsolved. (eerie music) After I read about this case,
I was in a weird head space so I watched clips of people falling on YouTube to go to sleep. - You watched people falling-- - Yeah like a compilation
of people falling down. That's what I did. - That's a weird way to make yourself-- - Well you know what? Better to think about
that then think about a guy in prayer hands
bloodied on the floor. (laughs) On his hands and knees bleeding to death. All right, well that's that. - You think they cleaned that hotel after? - Sure, oh that maid
probably had to clean it. - I don't even want to think about that. - Anyways, get out of my house. (eerie music)
Bellboy Propst, it fits too
Oh my gosh this is everything, that has to be one of my all time favorite moments from the show.
I'm facing a dilemma. Its buzzfeed, so its automatic trash, but it also has a survivor reference.
That unsolved crime over there, that ones yours.
What time is it mentioned?