Motel owner spied on couples having sex for decades

A Colorado motel owner says he has secretly watched hundreds, maybe thousands, of guests having sex in his rooms.

Gerald Foos wrote to author Gay Talese in 1980 and said that he spied on couples for decades and took detailed notes on what he saw. Talese lays out all the voyeuristic details in this week’s New Yorker magazine article, “The Voyeur’s Motel.”

Foos told Talese that his wife helped him cut holes that looked like ventilation vents in the ceilings of more than a dozen rooms at the Manor House Motel in order to satisfy his voyeuristic desires. He was never caught.

Foos said he started spying in 1966, and though he was often excited, there were times that he was so bored he fell asleep. His wife sometimes brought him snacks, Foos told Talese.

Foos said he kept written records and statistics in hopes of contributing to sex research. He knew, for example, “what was done; what was said; their individual characteristics; age & body type; part of the country from where they came; and their sexual behavior,” Foos wrote in a letter to Talese.

The Denver District Attorney’s Office told the Denver Post that the statute of limitations has passed for any crimes Foos may have committed.

While Foos went undetected for decades, Talese writes that he almost got caught on his first attempt at spying decades ago when he went to Colorado to interview Foos.

Talese said he was spying on a couple with Foos and leaned closer to get a better view. When he did, his necktie slipped through the hole in the ceiling and dangled close to the woman’s head. “I realized my carelessness only when Foos grabbed me by the neck and, with his free hand, pulled my tie up through the slats,” Talese writes.

Foos, who lives in Denver with his second wife, sold the motel in 1995, the Denver Post reports. He got in touch with Talese again after the Aurora theater shooting in 2012 and agreed to let his story go public, according to the Post.

“He’s hoping to come clean 30 years later and find redemption,” Talese told the Post.

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 1:35 PM with the headline "Motel owner spied on couples having sex for decades."