December 07, 2007
HPD says hotel was empty when it was imploded

Remember the Crowne Plaza implosion, and how some people thought that a video recording of it showed a person entering the building just before the big boom? Well, HPD says that didn't happen.


The Houston Police Department opened an investigation into the possibility someone might have been inside The Crowne Plaza Hotel at 6701 South Main after receiving an amateur video apparently showing the figure of a person running across the hotel's eighth floor just prior to its implosion on Nov. 11.

The Cherry Demolition Company immediately stopped work on the site to cooperate with HPD's investigation, police said. Employees painstakingly removed debris while investigators and cadaver dogs searched for any signs of human remains, they said.

In the course of the investigation, HPD homicide investigators examined more than 100 photographs taken before and and during the implosion that clearly showed no one was in the building at the time, police said..

The entire site of the demolition has now been cleared and no human remains were found, police said.

At one point, cadaver dogs responded to material believed to be blood, but investigators determined the blood came from an employee injured before the demolition, they said.


Good to hear. Now we'll see if that settles the question or if the story turns into a full-fledged urban legend.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 07, 2007 to Elsewhere in Houston
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