A Night at The Ambassador

I'm sure by now that most everyone is familiar with the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee man who murdered and ATE his victims and was later killed in prison. As a student at Marquette University, I was a bit weirded out by the fact that the site of his old apartment building is only five blocks away from campus!

There is a hotel not far down the street from Marquette called the Ambassador. This hotel has seen its share of guests; from visiting bands who play "The Rave," a concert hall right across the street, to, reportedly, Jeffrey Dahmer.

Allegedly, he murdered several of his victims in that hotel. One wonders if they still haunt the halls and rooms of the old hotel. My girlfriend might know for sure...

Here's the story...

It was the night of my 21st birthday...just a little over a year ago. I had reserved a suite in the Ambassador that was to be the site of the afterbar party for myself and a few select friends.

I had made my triumphant return from the local campus bar a little after 2:00 AM. I, as you can well imagine, was lit up like a Christmas tree. My friends were in similar conditions. As it turns out, none of them were in any shape to go to the hotel room, so my girlfriend and I went, as I didn't want to let all the money I dropped on the room go to waste.

My girlfriend and I arrived at the room a bit later (time after this point was lost to me). We were both a little too drunk to party much more, so after spending a little time with each other, I passed out cold. I am a diabetic, so my girlfriend worried herself sober about my health. She stayed up a bit and watched over me. She then decided to get ready for bed herself after having convinced herself that I'd be ok.

As she got ready for bed, she came out of the bathroom and locked the door to the room securely...chain, deadbolt, and all. She then came to bed. As she got ready to go to sleep, she heard what she later described as a "knocking" noise. She couldn't pinpoint the location of the noise, so she wasn't sure that it was coming from in our room. She also heard a creaking sound, like the noise that is made when someone walks across a floor. Again, she couldn't pinpoint the noise, but was certain that she'd heard it. Since she couldn't figure out where was coming from, and passed it off as the "sounds an old hotel makes," she rolled over and went to sleep.

In the morning, she got up to go to the bathroom. As she approached the bathroom, she noticed that THE DOOR TO OUR ROOM WAS AJAR. The only thing that was keeping the door from being all the way open was the chain that holds the door closed. It was still hitched onto the door. She showed me after I woke up, knowing that this would surely peak my sense of curiosity. I, for some reason, must've blocked it out. I don't remember her telling me anything. I think my mind was more focused on getting home to watch the Chicago Bears/Seattle Seahawks game with my roommates than pondering the thought of having stayed in a haunted room. I just found this out when she told me this a few nights ago.

Being a firm believer in the supernatural, I subsequently "interrogated" the hell out of my girlfriend to find out if she experienced any other telltale signs of being in the presence of a ghost (i.e. feeling a cold draft, having the feeling of being watched). She didn't, and honestly wasn't too worried when it all happened. She offered the thought that maybe a maid could have opened the door to determine if the room was still occupied, and if it was ok to clean it. I personally don't think that any maid would do something like that unless the maid was certain the room was unoccupied. If a maid did open the door, why wouldn't she close it up? And furthermore, what were the knocking and creaking noises? Hotel plumbing? A visitor staying in an upstairs room? Or something else...maybe a visitor that will never leave?

I plan to go back to the Ambassador and spend a night there to see if I encounter anything odd.