So, you thought your primary worry when renting a hotel room was bedbugs, right? Dead Wrong!

Have you ever heard about the vacationing couple who complained about the smell of their Las Vegas hotel room to later discover the body of a murdered girl under their bed? Well, it’s happened, and on more than one occasion.

The first documented incident reportedly happened in 1982 when two car thiefs, Richard Kuklinski and Daniel Deppner, decided to dispose of their third accomplice, Gary Smith, by feeding him a hamburger laced with cyanide. Smith enjoyed his dinner, but death by poisoning took too long in Kuklinki’s eyes, and he eventually strangled Smith. Kuklinski and Deppner then stuffed Smith under the bed of their New Bergen, New Jersey hotel room. Gary Smith’s body was found four days later, on December 27th. During that time frame the room had been rented each night by different guests and cleaned by hotel staff numerous times.

The Smell of the Decomposing Body Didn’t Bother Dunbar

In 1989 Jerry Lee Dunbar disposed of two women, Deidre Smith and Marilyn Graham, in the same fashion. Dunbar discarded their remains in separate lodgings, one woman left in a crawl space under the floor and one partially hidden under a bed. The smell of decomposition didn’t bother Dunbar has much has the other guest, whose complaints about the odor led to the discovery of both bodies, he continued to lived with Deidre Smith’s corpse for 3-4 weeks after he placed her in the floor.

Documented cases of the “body under the hotel bed” have also been documented in Las Vegas (as the legend says), California, and multiple times in Florida. So next time you are booking your vacation just remember it’s not always what’s living in the bed sheets but what’s not living beneath them.

Happy Travels!