First Morgans Hotel Group CEO Edward Scheetz tore out the Philippe Starcke lobby at the Royalton and made it the most boring place in the world. Then he quit to work out some personal stuff after a 23-year-old shoe saleswoman from Colorado was found dead in his Las Vegas apartment.
The very married Sheetz was sharing that residence with a Columbine High School drop-out named Michelle Hatchel. He came home one day to find her "different funny colors," according to a 911 tape that the Times says is all over the internet, but which we sure can't find. She had overdosed on cocaine and oxycodone.
[O]n her last night alive Hatchel sent text messages to friends, sometimes while hiding in a closet in Mr. Scheetz's apartment. In one message, sent at 10:36 p.m. on Aug. 28 to a friend named Miko, she wrote: "Things r really bad ed has been so mean 2 me." An hour later, in a message to a friend named Gina, she wrote, "I cant belive how much coke he does all the time all day long."Possibly even worse than all this? Scheetz' bizarro decision to appoint Lance Armstrong, a man best known for riding bicycles and Ashley Olsen, as a director of the company.
Royalton Shakeup from Top to Lobby [NYT]