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The Queen's Hotel


601 Columbia Avenue (at Ocean Street) - Cape May, NJ




The hotel was built in 1876. The second floor was a gambling casino for gentlemen. The third floor was available for entertainment of a more intimate nature. A woman would sit in a rocker on the porch, sewing. If she saw a police wagon or patrolman coming, she would rock forcefully to alert those inside. There is also a secret door from one of the buildings on the main street to the Queens Hotel. Another door was the "entrance" to the hotel. Customers would enter through the business entrance, and then be shown through the other doors to the casino or the the third floor.
Queen's Hotel - orbs at second floor balcony

One of the rooms on the third floor is frequently found ransacked, with the decorations strewn over the furntiure and floor. In the same room, the toilet once exploded. When a plumber arrived, he found no reason for the explosion. Electricity has inexplicably gone out on the entire third floor. An electrician was called and the wiring and circuit breakers examined, but no cause for the outage was ever discovered.
Guests in the room have had someone bump their bed as they slept, as if someone were walking by in the dark. They have also smelled very strong perfume.
An interesting aside - the Queens Hotel has a more recent claim to infamy. William Bradfield, who was convicted of the murder of schoolteacher Susan Reinert and her children claimed to have been staying at the inn when the murders were committed.

Reinert's nude body, chained and battered, was found in the hatchback trunk of her car outside a motel in the Harrisburg suburbs in 1979. Her children, Michael, 10, and Karen, 11, were last seen with her in the car and have never been found. The investigation was the most extensive in the state's history and spawned 2 books, one a bestseller, and a television movie. Bradfield, sentenced to life, died in February 1998 in Graterford Prison. mini-series
The Charley Project page for 11 year-old Karen

And her 10 year-old brother Michael


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