Body found on a Gaslamp balcony

San Diego police, firemen, and paramedics responded to the report of a dead body on a balcony outside of a room on the ninth floor of the Marriott Gaslamp Hotel on K Street shortly after 6 a.m. Wednesday, November 18.

The occupant of that room, Carol Crego, a company official for a national transportation company, discovered the body when she opened the blinds early Wednesday morning. She believes that the body may have been there all night.

After checking into her hotel room at around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, she opened the blinds to see the view and some windows for fresh air. Around 5 p.m., two of her coworkers came to the room for drinks before dinner. As they stood around, one coworker pointed out a place where someone he knew worked.

“There was nothing outside there at that time,” Crego says.

After returning to her room at about 8:30 p.m., she said she turned on the television, got ready for bed, and began watching TV. Realizing it had been cold at night the past few nights, she closed the windows.

“When I leaned down to close them I noticed a shoe and a cell phone laying outside my window. My first thought was someone may have crawled over the ledge and was out there, which was a scary thought. It was completely dark; it bothered me thinking maybe someone was peeking in on me. I quickly closed the curtain.”

Not hearing any noise, she figured someone was goofing off and had thrown a shoe and someone’s phone up there.

More than eight hours after finding the body of the deceased male, San Diego police had no additional information to offer. An email from SDPD spokesman Travis Easter stated, “Homicide was not called out to investigate the incident. If there were anything more to this incident then a press release would be issued.”

Ms. Crego of Santa Barbara was here in San Diego for the last time on official business before retiring after more than 30 years of service with her company. She said, “It’s not the way I want to remember the beginning of my retirement.”