Laura Finley's Death At Old Biltmore Hotel In Downtown L.A. Perplexes Investigators: A Commenter Suggests The Place Is Haunted

millenniumhotels.com

The Biltmore: Nice, but haunted?

Any way you look at it, the death of 48-year-old Alta Loma resident Laura Finley is mysterious. She fell six stories down a stairwell at the circa-1923 Millennium Biltmore Hotel a week before Halloween.

And already people are saying that the legendary, grand venue has had its share of spooky tales.

County coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter told the Weekly, "We don't know if she fell, if she was pushed, or what. It was reported as an accident or a homicide. It's under investigation."

Following Finley's death Saturday morning, the story took some strange twists:

Her husband allegedly was under the influence of ecstasy that morning, and police arrested him on suspicion of possessing the drug. But not before he went on to perform an audition for the America's Got Talent folks, who were set up at the hotel.

Your wife just died and you do a song and dance? Joe Finley has said he was being treated as a person of interest in the case.

A man who claims to be Joe Finley's uncle said this in a comment on our original post: "How dare some one say my nephew was on drugs. As far as i know he wasn't. They were a loving couple."

Actually, according to our reading of a TMZ report, Joe Finley admitted to being on ecstasy. He reportedly said his wife dropped E too.

He says someone pushed his wife:

It was "not an accident," he told TMZ "... Somebody threw her off that railing."

Our commenter du jour, Marie, meanwhile, suggests that supernatural forces could have been at work:

I worked at the Biltmore ... There are many stories about ghostly presence on the 10th and 11th floor. I know when I used to work there lots of employees, even security, didn't like working the graveyard shift there due to a lot of ghostly presence. My sister used to work the 10th floor VIP lounge on the floor, and there have been ghosts touching and moving stuff around there. People might say ghosts don't exist. Try staying there. I know-- I have experienced it myself.

Creepy or just urban legend?