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Really strange happenings at La Quinta on Saturday night/Sunday morning

Status: Closed
Assigned To: jallen (Police)
Ticket ID: 1361a7b0

My husband and I checked into La Quinta hotel on Saturday, March 25. We had arrived at approximately 2 p.m. and were told by the desk clerk (a female) that no rooms were available yet as they had been busy with an agricultural function. She suggested we go out and return in about an hour. At that time, she asked if we wanted an upgrade. We decided that we did because it was only $10. She said it was "on the house". I believe the room number is 131 but am not 100% positive. The reservation was made under the name Don Martin. We went to a restaurant/pub, Bert and Ernie’s, then we went back to the hotel at approximately 3:30 p.m. We were leaving for Canada the next day. I had 1/3 of a bottle of wine, and there were a couple of beers in the fridge. We consumed those and both fell asleep at approximately 7:30 p.m. I woke up at around 9 p.m., turned the light off, and fell asleep.
I was awakened at approximately 11 p.m. by a really loud bang on the floor from the room directly above us. It sounded like someone was throwing furniture on the floor. This was followed by the sound of something being dragged. There was then, what I thought at the time, hangars in the closet being manhandled. There was the slamming of a door and then the running of water. The running of water stopped for approximately 30 seconds to a minute, then there was the sound of water being drained. There was also a lot of very heavy walking going on. I fell back asleep then was awakened again, at approximately midnight, also by a really heavy bang on the floor of the room above us. There was a smaller bang subsequent, like someone had picked whatever they had thrown on the floor, and threw it again. Again, there was the sound of something being dragged, the raffling of hangers, the slamming door and the water running. The water stopped running, again for between 30 seconds and one minute, then there was the sound of water being drained. I was awake by this time and this same sequence, with maybe a few variations, continued every 30 minutes or so. I heard a man’s cough at this time, but you couldn’t hear any conversations.
At approximately 2 a.m., I went into the bathroom. At that time, I heard the door slam and the water was running. This time, you could hear something being submerged in the water. After approximately 15 seconds, it was unsubmerged, then resubmerged after approximately 10 seconds. I heard a man’s voice saying/asking if “it’s okay”. I heard a higher pitched voice that I assumed was female say something (couldn’t make the words out), and she laughed about something. Then I heard someone coughing. Whoever was coughing had a higher pitched sound, but I don’t know if it was a young boy, a young girl or a woman. I also thought I heard whimpering, but would not swear to that.
This occurred again after about 15 minutes and at that time, I went into full panic mode. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I contacted the desk clerk. I felt a strong sense of urgency that I had to act. I told him that there was nothing good going on in that room and that people are running water constantly for short periods of time and draining it. I honestly believed that someone was being drowned. I told him I was “completely freaking out”, which was the truth. He told me he would take care of it. I assumed he would call the police.

I heard a knock on the door at approximately 2:45 and heard some words being said. I had assumed it was the police. There were some soft footsteps then it became very quiet. I thought perhaps the people had been evicted or the police had taken them somewhere for questioning. After 3 a.m., I heard some very quiet footsteps and the sounds of someone cleaning the floor. I also heard someone going up and down the rug with something soft like a towel.

My turning on the light to see the phone woke my husband up. He heard a few of the thumps, but had slept through the whole thing. He told me not to use the bathroom or flush the toilet in case the people figured out that we had reported them.

The next morning, I went down to ask the clerk what had happened. He said he would normally just have called and told them they were making too much noise, but when I had said they were running water, he decided to go up himself. He said there was only a man and a woman in the room and he told them they were disturbing other guests. At that point, I figured my imagination had run wild and I was overreacting. I tried to forget this, but there are way too many discrepancies. I have never heard anything so completely chilling in my entire life.

Since then, that episode has haunted me completely. What really creeped me out was not what I heard (which was bad enough), but what was missing. Normally if it is drunks having a loud party, there are not a sequence of bangs and crashes, but you can hear talking, bottles, music or whatever. There was none of this. Until I went into the bathroom and aside from the man’s cough, I heard no talking nor music nor television. Since the people were still in the room after the clerk left, they were being extremely quiet. If someone had reported me for noise, I would be saying something to my husband. That didn’t happen. Also, if I spill coffee in a hotel room, I wipe it up. Other than that, I don’t normally clean the room other than discarding pizza or food containers, cans or tissues.

I may be making a mountain out of a molehill, but I wanted to relay this timeline while it is still fresh on my mind. If it is not pertinent, you know where the delete button is. If I can be of any further assistance, my name is Dianne Worley and my phone number is 403-283-4908 and my e-mail is dianne.worley@shaw. The night desk guy saw them if you required a description. The hotel would have their name, their licence plate number and their credit card.

Ticket History

Public
Closed
Updated By: jallen
Assigned To: jallen (Police)

Dear Dianne - this definitely seems weird. I have forwarded your submission on to our detective division, but it also needs to be submitted as an official police report before they can assign it, if that's the direction they choose to go.

Please just copy and paste your story into a report and submit it online. The link to do so is here: https://greatfallsmt.net/police/report-crime-online-gfpd-investigates-crime-247

This part must be done by you - we cannot do it for you. Thanks for the information!

03/27/2017 - 5:12pm
New
Assigned To:

Citizen request/question created.

03/27/2017 - 1:42pm

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