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Aurora motel owner spied on guests having sex

Posted at 8:26 PM, Apr 05, 2016
and last updated 2016-04-05 22:26:14-04

Best-selling author Gay Talese has penned a tell-all about a former Aurora motel owner who claims to have spied on many of his motel guests while they were being intimate in their rooms.

The article, in The New Yorker magazine, says Gerald Foos purchased the Manor House Motel at 12700 Colfax Avenue in the mid-to-late 1960s, specifically to spy on his guests.

The building, which stood across the street from what is now the Anschutz Medical Campus, has since been demolished.

Talese wrote that he received a note from Foos in 1980 explaining that he had “important information” he wanted to share, in hopes that it might be included in a future book.

Talese wrote that Foos invited him to Colorado to “inspect” his motel operation.

The motel owner explained how he installed vents in the ceiling above each room and how it took months to “foolproof” them to perfection.

After installing each vent, Foos would hover above it in the attic and would have his wife lie on the bed below to see if she could see him through the louvres.  If she could, he would adjust them.

He also laid carpet in the attic to keep squeaks to a minimum.

Foos apparently began watching guests in 1966.

The New Yorker magazine article says that between Thanksgiving and January of his first year, Foos observed 46 sex acts and kept notes.

The article details much of what Foos claims he saw, including this account of a threesome.

They were a “very polite, very organized couple with [a] male companion,” he wrote.  All three disrobed.  The husband snapped photographs as his wife and the other man had sex in various positions.  When it was over, “They all three laid quiet on the bed and relaxed, discussing vacuum cleaner sales.”  Foos learned the companion was a sales rep for the firm.

Talese wrote that if he hadn’t witnessed one of the events himself, when Foos took him up to the attic, he would have had a hard time believing the motel operator.

Motel operator claims he witnessed a murder

Foos began sending Talese many of his notes.  Among them, an entry from 1977 in which the voyeur claimed to have seen a murder in Room 10, but didn’t immediately call police, because he didn’t want to describe how he witnessed the killing.

His notes indicated that a young couple was arguing over drugs and that the man had accused the woman of stealing them.

“The male subject grabbed the female subject by the neck and strangled her until she fell unconscious to the floor.  The male subject, then in a panic, picked up all his things and fled the vicinity of the motel,” he wrote.

A maid discovered the body the next day.  That’s when Foos called police and gave them the drug dealer’s name, description and license plate number.

He wrote that police came back later and told him that the drug dealer had been using a fake name and had been driving a stolen car.

Claims habits are research

Foos reportedly described his voyeuristic habits as research.

According to the article, he kept a tally of what he had seen.

In 1973, he noted that of the 296 sex acts he had witnessed, 195 involved white heterosexuals, who favored the missionary position.  He counted 184 male orgasms and 33 female orgasms. 

He also categorized the participants/customers:

  • 12% of all observable couples at the motel are highly sexed.
  • 62% lead moderately active sex lives
  • 22% are of low drive sexually
  • 3% have not sex at all

MORE | Read the New Yorker magazine article

When asked about invasion of privacy, Foos told Talese, “There’s no invasion of privacy if no one complains.”

The article states that by the late 70s, Foos grew jaded about what he was seeing through the vents.

He began writing about how he felt about himself and his infatuation, as a young boy, with his aunt.

Foos, who now lives in Brighton, told Talese that he didn’t want to say anything about his proclivities until he felt the statute of limitations had expired.

He didn’t answer his phone today, but told our partners at the Denver Post that he couldn’t say anything since he was under contract.

Aurora Police say they have no record of the homicide Foos told Talese he witnessed in one of the hotel rooms.