Gerald Foos's Spying

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When you open up a newspaper and come across an article about a man who precisely bought a motel to spy on his guests, you would think that was the latest movie coming out in theaters. Wrong. Gay Talese was a New York blogger who wrote about and personally knew this man, Gerald Foos. Gerald was a married man and father of two who owned the Manor House Motel in Aurora, Colorado. After purchasing the motel he watched his guest through the attic for more than two decades. While Gerald claimed his peeping to be “research” I would have to disagree. Many individuals, including myself, find this unsettling and an invasion of one’s privacy. Gerald Foos was believed to be a voyeur from the very start. When he was a young child he began spying on his …show more content…

The voyeuristic activities gave Gerald a strong sense of power. He never tried concealing his strange obsession of watching others from his wife, Donna. When Gerald and Donna purchased the Manor House Motel they began creating six by fourteen inch louvered screens to act as faux ventilators to spy through. Once everything had come together Gerald began spying on his guests. Over the years of doing so Gerald took notes in his journal of everything he saw while observing his guests, conducting it as “research.” Gerald later contacted Gay Talese, a New York writer and blogger. He wanted Gay to write about his discovering’s and findings of human behavior, but wanted his name anonymous. Gay flew from New York to Colorado to see this motel “lab” for himself. While he knew he was not going to write about the motel due to Gerald wanting his name anonymous, he still was curious. Gay had signed a typed document stating he would not reveal Gerald’s name unless given permission to do so. After Gay’s visit, Gerald sent him all the notes he had wrote in his journal and continued to write about more things he discovered in …show more content…

One argument that I spot Gay uses to defend Gerald is claiming it was almost understandable why he never reported the murder after he witnessed it. Gay states in his article “He was also desperately protective of his secret life in the attic. If the police had grilled him and decided that he knew more than he was telling, they might have obtained a search warrant, and the consequences could have been catastrophic.” This statement Gay writes is practically defending Gerald and his voyeuristic ways, along with not reporting the murder right away. This statement leads me to believe Gay wasn’t as disturbed as he claimed he was in his article and didn’t see much wrong to it. The murder should have been reported by Gerald as soon as he left the attic, because it was the right thing to

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