NEW ORLEANS — A man was found stabbed to death in a Treme hotel room Thursday, New Orleans police said and their main suspect is a 25-year-old woman.
Police say that an arrest warrant has been issued for Megan Hall and that she has been identified by detectives as the suspect in the victim's death.
Friday morning, the coroner's office identified the victim as 62-year-old Patrick Murphy.
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania TV station WBRE said Murphy was the owner of a well-known jewelry store, Murphy Jewelers.
The death happened inside a room in the Empress Hotel in the 1300 block of Ursulines Avenue.
A source said the victim, a man from Pennsylvania, checked into the hotel about 2:15 a.m. Thursday. He was with a woman, apparently in her 20s, from Tennessee, the source said.
Surveillance video showed the man and woman go outside to smoke once, the source said, and the woman left at 3:42 a.m. She was alone when she left, the source said, and the man was not seen again.
At noon, a hotel employee checked the first-floor room after the man did not check out, the source said. That’s when the employee saw the man on the floor covered in blood.
He was pronounced dead on the scene, police said in a statement.
Other guests reportedly told hotel employees that they heard “tussling” in the victim’s room about 3 a.m., the source said.
Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Megan Hall is asked to contact NOPD Homicide Unit Detective Patrick Guidry at 504-658-5300, or to call anonymously to Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111 or toll-free at 1-877-903-STOP.