On January 7, 1973, Walter Sherwood Collins Sr., 56, the general manager of the Downtown Howard Johnson’s Hotel in New Orleans, was fatally wounded during a calculated attack by 23-year-old former Navy sailor Mark Essex. Essex entered the hotel armed with a .44 magnum carbine, shot Collins and the hotel’s assistant manager Frank Schneider among the first victims, and also killed a young couple who were guests.

Essex set fires inside the 17-story hotel and then moved to the roof, where he continued shooting at people on the streets below. A massive police response followed; sharpshooters firing from a borrowed Marine helicopter killed Essex on the rooftop. The siege left nine people dead, including five police officers, and twelve wounded.

What details about Collins’s life or the hotel’s operations that day might help clarify his movements before the attack?