Guest Author - Kristen Baker
An Urban Legend is defined as an apocryphal story involving incidents of the recent past, often including elements of humor and horror, that spreads quickly and is popularly believed to be true.
Most of us have heard an Urban Legend or at the very least have received one in our email box. Urban Legends can start a variety of ways and often start with “I know this is true because it happened to my friend’s cousin’s girlfriend’s sister.” This should automatically trigger suspicion about the story or should it? Is it possible that these stories we have heard sitting around the campfire have some truth to them?
Let’s take a look at a very popular Urban Legend titled “Body in the Bed”. The synopsis of this story is that a couple on their Honeymoon checks into their Las Vegas hotel room only to discover a rancid smell in their suite. The husband picks up the phone and calls down to the front desk and states his concern about this odor. The Manager apologizes and sends the couple out for a complimentary lunch to compensate for the problem. While the couple is dining the cleaning crew heads to take care of the problem. The couple returns only to find the foul aroma still present and again calls the Manager to demand another room. As it turns out there is a convention in town and all the rooms are filled and all the hotels in town also sport a “No Vacancy” sign. The manager offers to completely clean the room and the couple gives the hotel staff two hours to rectify the situation. This time the entire housekeeping staff and the manager go up to the room and not only do the scrub it down they change all the linens, clean the carpet and they even changed the drapery. When the newlyweds returned once again to their room the smell was still present. The husband frustrated with hotel’s inability to take care of something as simple as a bad odor takes matters into his own hands and starts to tear apart the room. He stripes the bed and removes the mattress only to expose the dead body of a woman.
The above story has all the classic signs of being an Urban Legend. It has characters, a plot and a twist but does that mean it is an Urban Legend? Well, the answer is yes and no. There are media documented cases as current as 2003 of bodies found under mattresses in hotel rooms but none of them have been about a Honeymooning couple in Las Vegas.
Urban Legends Fact or Fiction? According to my brother’s friend’s girlfriend’s cousin the answers are out there. You just need to do your homework, research the story and find out for yourself if it is a fabricated story or if the truth lies beneath.
