Man who bought hotel so he could spy on people having sex for more than 20 years claims he's a 'sex researcher'

An obsessive voyeur who bought a hotel in the US so he could spend decades watching people have sex through peep-holes disguised as ceiling vents told a journalist he wants to be seen as a 'scientific observer' in a disturbing new report.

Gerald Foos bought a 21-room hotel in Aurora, Colorado in 1966, cutting rectangular holes in the ceilings so he could lie on his stomach and watch people in their most private moments.

He was married twice during his life, and both wives supported his self-professed 'uncontrollable desire to peer into other people's lives'.

In 1980, Foos contacted American journalist Gay Talese after reading 'Thy Neighbor's Wife - a study Talese had carried out about sex in America.

Foos himself had penned an unsolicited 'report' about the acts his guests engaged in behind closed doors, that he witnessed without consent, and was compelled to contact Talese to let him know of his 'findings'.

It would be the first contact of more than 20 years of correspondence between the two men.

In a report published today, Talese describes receiving the first letter from Foos, saying he was "deeply unsettled by the way he had violated his customers’ trust and invaded their privacy".

The letter read:

Dear Mr. Talese:
Since learning of your long awaited study of coast-to-coast sex in America, which will be included in your soon to be published book, “Thy Neighbor’s Wife,” I feel I have important information that I could contribute to its contents or to contents of a future book.

Foos told Talese he was 'trying to identify significant social trends' in 296 sexual acts he'd witnessed and recorded. He noted that 195 involved white heterosexuals who preferred missionary position.

He said he noted 184 male orgasms and 33 female orgasms. Only three percent of his guests failed to have sex, he said.

Foos attempt at a 'scientific' report found 62 per cent of people he watched while hidden in the ceiling led 'moderately active sexual lives'.

Twelve per cent were 'highly sexed', and 22 percent exhibited a low sex drive.

"The reason for purchasing this motel was to satisfy my voyeuristic tendencies and compelling interest in all phases of how people conduct their lives, both socially and sexually... I did this purely out of my unlimited curiosity about people and not as just a deranged voyeur," the man wrote to Talese in one of his initial letters.

Foos trusted Talese so much with his perverted obsession that he showed the journalist 15 years worth of detailed documentation of the acts he witnessed.

Disturbingly, one of the instances documented suggested Foos had witnessed a murder.

"The male subject grabbed the female subject by the neck and strangled her until she fell unconscious to the floor," Talese reports Foos had written in the journal he saw.

After years of correspondence, Foos told Talese he was ready to tell the story in 2013.

He emphasised he wanted to be referred to as a 'sex researcher and social observer' rather than a Peeping Tom, despite never having had permission to watch anything he spent decades viewing from a secret nook inside his hotel attic.

News break – April 8