Conditions harsh at South Jersey's Golden Key Motel

"If you have a death wish, stay here."

That's a headline from an online review of the Golden Key Motel, a beaten-down, one-story building that wears a peeling coat of pink paint in Egg Harbor Township, just outside Atlantic City. The quote lingered as I slid my driver's license and $40 through a slot in the thick glass partition that separates customers from the clerk in the closet-sized lobby.

"Why do you need to scan my ID?" I asked.

"The police ask us to do it," the clerk replied with a smile. "Bad things happen here sometimes. But it's good."

Bad things happen at all the shabby motels on the Black Horse Pike here, but the Golden Key might be the most infamous place to rest your head in the state. Four prostitutes were found dead behind the motel in 2006, and it doesn't help that the case hasn't been solved. Last month, the Atlantic City couple accused of kidnapping and murdering a casino tourist for $300 were arrested there.

My room, 115, is a few doors down from theirs.

Room 115 was almost all bed and smelled as if 10,000 cigarettes had been smoked there and the ashes rubbed deep into the carpet's purple and green diamond patterns for further insult. Of the three locks on the door, I managed to get one of them to work. Barely.

I told my wife that. "Come home," she said.

Moldy bathroom, bubbling wallpaper, and mouse crap aside, the room wasn't as bad as I envisioned and certainly much brighter. The television had HBO and although I slept awkwardly in an uncomfortable chair for only an hour in my jeans and sneakers, the bed sheets appeared clean.

For most of the night, I waited for death, mayhem, or some kind of action to visit the Golden Key. I pictured thugs busting the door in and debated over what I could throw at them before jumping through the window. About 8:30 p.m., an EHT police cruiser sat behind my car, one of two in the lot, for several minutes before pulling away.

There were plenty of people at the Golden Key, though, shuffling down the walkways or smoking outside, probably suspicious of the guy with the shaved head and pointy beard peaking out of Room 115. One of them told me he was staying with his out-of-work family. He said people believe that the prostitutes were slain inside a room, but it wasn't mine.

About 11 p.m., the headboard in the adjacent room began banging against my wall in a steady, unmistakable rhythm for an impressive 20 minutes or so. It was the most action at the Golden Key all night.