In January 1935, a young man using the name Roland T. Owen checked into room 1046 at Kansas City’s President Hotel and died under brutally strange circumstances. Later identified as Artemis Ogletree, he left behind false names, missing clothes, mysterious calls, and a case that still refuses to explain itself.
The case is best known as the Room 1046 mystery, but what gives it real staying power is how much detail survives while the answer still doesn’t.
After checking in under an alias, the victim drew attention almost immediately: he carried barely any belongings, asked for an internal room, sat for hours in near darkness, and was overheard in scenes involving a note to “Don”, a strange phone call, and the name Louise. The next morning he was found gravely injured in the room, having suffered a skull fracture, attempted strangulation and stab wounds. Before dying, he told police that nobody had harmed him, which was, to put it mildly, not especially convincing.
The episode follows the case beyond the killing itself, into the later discovery that “Roland T. Owen” was really a 17-year-old called Artemis Ogletree, the baffling letters sent after his death, and the unanswered questions around Don, Louise and the people who may have known far more than they ever admitted. It is a cold case with plenty of clues and almost no generosity in how they fit together.
What Happened in Room 1046 at the President Hotel?
On 2 January 1935, a young man checked into the President Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, using the name Roland T. Owen. He asked for room 1046, an inward-facing room, and told staff he had previously stayed across the street at the Muehlebach Hotel. He arrived with almost nothing: just a comb, hairbrush and toothpaste. Staff soon found his behaviour odd. Maid Mary Soptic repeatedly encountered him sitting in darkness, fully dressed, tense and apparently waiting for someone. On one visit she saw a note reading, “Don, I will be back in 15 minutes. Wait.” On another, she overheard a phone call involving the names Don and Louise, with a woman shouting, “Put down that pistol.”
By the following morning, things had turned vicious. After repeated failed wake-up calls, hotel staff entered room 1046 and found the guest badly injured. He had been beaten, bound and stabbed, with blood across the room and bathroom. He was taken to hospital and died later that night. Even then, he told police that “nobody” had done this to him. Investigators also found that his clothes were missing, the phone carried prints that were not his, and the name Roland T. Owen led nowhere. Another hotel had apparently known him under a different alias, Eugene K. Scott.
The story grew stranger after his death. A mystery caller paid for his funeral, hinted he had been killed over an affair, and flowers arrived signed “Love forever. Louise.” Later, a woman named Ruby Ogletree recognised the dead man from press coverage and identified him as her son, Artemis Ogletree, not Roland T. Owen at all. She had even received letters after his death claiming he was still alive. Decades later, the case remained open, complicated further by a 2003 call from a man who claimed a relative had kept materials tied to the murder but then refused to cooperate. That is why Room 1046 endured: not because the case lacks clues, but because it has too many that never quite settle into one clean answer.
Why This Story Matters
The Room 1046 case still matters because it sits in that particularly maddening corner of true crime where the evidence feels tantalisingly close to coherence. There is a timeline, there are witnesses, there are names, there are later letters, and there is even a real identification. Yet the central question remains untouched: who wanted Artemis Ogletree dead, and why were so many details left hovering just out of reach?
It also lingers because the case is not only about a murder. It is about identity, concealment and the way a person can vanish into paperwork, aliases and rumour even after a violent death in a busy hotel. The later reveal that the victim was just 17 makes the story sharper, sadder and harder to file away as mere noir oddity. Nearly a century on, Room 1046 still feels unresolved in the most irritatingly human way possible: not empty of answers, just cruelly short of the final one.
What You’ll Hear in This Episode
A sharp walk through the Room 1046 mystery, from the President Hotel check-in and the killing itself to the false identity of Roland T. Owen, the later identification of Artemis Ogletree, and the clues that made this cold case famous for refusing to behave.
Topics Include
The President Hotel in Kansas City in January 1935
Roland T. Owen and the false identity trail
The note to Don and the name Louise
The attack inside room 1046
Artemis Ogletree and the letters sent after death
Why the Room 1046 case remains unsolved
Resources and Further Reading
Murder of Artemus Ogletree - Wikipedia
The Creepy Murder In Room 1046 - Youtube
The Man Who Locked Himself In - Criminal
The Owens Case - Kansas City Mag
The case is best known as the Room 1046 mystery, but what gives it real staying power is how much detail survives while the answer still doesn’t.
After checking in under an alias, the victim drew attention almost immediately: he carried barely any belongings, asked for an internal room, sat for hours in near darkness, and was overheard in scenes involving a note to “Don”, a strange phone call, and the name Louise. The next morning he was found gravely injured in the room, having suffered a skull fracture, attempted strangulation and stab wounds. Before dying, he told police that nobody had harmed him, which was, to put it mildly, not especially convincing.
The episode follows the case beyond the killing itself, into the later discovery that “Roland T. Owen” was really a 17-year-old called Artemis Ogletree, the baffling letters sent after his death, and the unanswered questions around Don, Louise and the people who may have known far more than they ever admitted. It is a cold case with plenty of clues and almost no generosity in how they fit together.
What Happened in Room 1046 at the President Hotel?
On 2 January 1935, a young man checked into the President Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, using the name Roland T. Owen. He asked for room 1046, an inward-facing room, and told staff he had previously stayed across the street at the Muehlebach Hotel. He arrived with almost nothing: just a comb, hairbrush and toothpaste. Staff soon found his behaviour odd. Maid Mary Soptic repeatedly encountered him sitting in darkness, fully dressed, tense and apparently waiting for someone. On one visit she saw a note reading, “Don, I will be back in 15 minutes. Wait.” On another, she overheard a phone call involving the names Don and Louise, with a woman shouting, “Put down that pistol.”
By the following morning, things had turned vicious. After repeated failed wake-up calls, hotel staff entered room 1046 and found the guest badly injured. He had been beaten, bound and stabbed, with blood across the room and bathroom. He was taken to hospital and died later that night. Even then, he told police that “nobody” had done this to him. Investigators also found that his clothes were missing, the phone carried prints that were not his, and the name Roland T. Owen led nowhere. Another hotel had apparently known him under a different alias, Eugene K. Scott.
The story grew stranger after his death. A mystery caller paid for his funeral, hinted he had been killed over an affair, and flowers arrived signed “Love forever. Louise.” Later, a woman named Ruby Ogletree recognised the dead man from press coverage and identified him as her son, Artemis Ogletree, not Roland T. Owen at all. She had even received letters after his death claiming he was still alive. Decades later, the case remained open, complicated further by a 2003 call from a man who claimed a relative had kept materials tied to the murder but then refused to cooperate. That is why Room 1046 endured: not because the case lacks clues, but because it has too many that never quite settle into one clean answer.
Why This Story Matters
The Room 1046 case still matters because it sits in that particularly maddening corner of true crime where the evidence feels tantalisingly close to coherence. There is a timeline, there are witnesses, there are names, there are later letters, and there is even a real identification. Yet the central question remains untouched: who wanted Artemis Ogletree dead, and why were so many details left hovering just out of reach?
It also lingers because the case is not only about a murder. It is about identity, concealment and the way a person can vanish into paperwork, aliases and rumour even after a violent death in a busy hotel. The later reveal that the victim was just 17 makes the story sharper, sadder and harder to file away as mere noir oddity. Nearly a century on, Room 1046 still feels unresolved in the most irritatingly human way possible: not empty of answers, just cruelly short of the final one.
What You’ll Hear in This Episode
A sharp walk through the Room 1046 mystery, from the President Hotel check-in and the killing itself to the false identity of Roland T. Owen, the later identification of Artemis Ogletree, and the clues that made this cold case famous for refusing to behave.
Topics Include
The President Hotel in Kansas City in January 1935
Roland T. Owen and the false identity trail
The note to Don and the name Louise
The attack inside room 1046
Artemis Ogletree and the letters sent after death
Why the Room 1046 case remains unsolved
Resources and Further Reading
Murder of Artemus Ogletree - Wikipedia
The Creepy Murder In Room 1046 - Youtube
The Man Who Locked Himself In - Criminal
The Owens Case - Kansas City Mag