Murder on the Rue Dauphine

The housekeeper got no answer when she knocked on the door. She knocked again. Still no answer. She took out her passkey and unlocked the door.

"Housekeeping," she announced as she peeked into the room.

Only silence greeted her.

The housekeeper stepped inside. It was 11:00 a.m.

The man's body lay on the floor, facedown between the two beds. He was naked except for a pair of socks. The floor, the walls, the bedspreadsall splattered with blood. The room was a slaughterhouse.

Blood from the crime scene.

Holy... Jesus.

The maid bolted from the room. She summoned security. They called the police.

When New Orleans police detectives arrived at the hotel, they posted hotel security guards at the elevators and the stairwell entrance, effectively sealing off the entire fifth floor.

Tourism is the lifeblood of New Orleans. The Chateau Le Moyne is a nice hotel set deep in the historic French Quarter, the city's biggest tourist attraction. The murder of a tourist, especially one killed at an upscale hotel in the French Quarter, is always a high-priority case in the Crescent City.

Chateau Le Moyne Hotel

The crime scene was a mess. There were sex toys and condomsused and unusedscattered around the room.

Veteran detectives on the scene could sense that this investigation was going to get messy.

The cause of death was obvious. The victim had been stabbed, repeatedly.

Long-time New Orleans Coroner Dr. Frank Minyard went to the crime scene.

Dr. Frank Minyard

"It was a horrible, horrible scene," Minyard told The Times-Picayune newspaper. "There were so many stab wounds I couldn't count (them) all. There was blood on the walls, on the bedroom floor, on the bathroom floor, all over the place. It was horrible."

What no one suspected at the start of the crime scene investigation was what a strange and unexpected turn the case would take once the police identified the naked, blood-soaked body lying on the floor.