Gold Coast Murder

Not your usual murder scene:

• It’s been hailed as one of the “great small hotels in the United States,” but on Monday the Gold Coast’s glitzy Whitehall Hotel found many guests shocked and others checking out as police announced it was the site of a homicide.

  Housekeeping staff at the boutique hotel at 105 E. Delaware Pl. found the body of a 23-year-old Texas woman in a seventh-floor room, according to police and hotel guests.

  The victim had suffered a gunshot wound to the head, police said.

  “I’m scared. You don’t feel secure,” said guest Megan Cole, of Florida, as she left the Whitehall with her child in a stroller. Her family had been at the hotel three nights.

Tourists fleeing the "safety" of the Gold Coast. Well at least they already paid for part of their stay. Otherwise the damage from a high profile homicide like this might impact tax revenues in a highly negative fashion - you know, like Magnificent Mile wildings, Wrigleyville fights, assorted muggings and citywide "apple-picking."