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Hotel Guest Wakes Up To 'Weird Feeling' That Turns Out To Be The Hotel Manager Sucking His Toes — He Says He Was Investigating The Smoke Alarm

Photo: Preto Perola, strelka / Shutterstock, Metro Nashville Police Department
Hotel manager David Neal and a frightened man and his toes

Many of us have thought about the possibility of someone entering our hotel room without our consent — especially nowadays as incidents like theft and hidden cameras in hotel rooms and Airbnbs become all too common.

But surely none of us have ever considered the possibility of what happened to one man recently in a Nashville Hilton hotel.

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A man has pressed charges after waking up in the middle of the night to a hotel manager sucking his toes.

Pete Brennan of Texas was in Nashville, Tennessee on a "typical work trip" when he awoke in his Hilton hotel room to find manager David Neal had let himself into his room.

Neal claims he was there to help the guest when he invaded his room at 5 AM that day, but the details of the situation make that seem… well, not just unlikely, but patently absurd. 

   

   

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The hotel guest woke up because he felt 'a weird feeling' that turned out to be the hotel manager sucking his toes.

Brennan says he awoke out of nowhere that morning with a strange sensation on his feet. When he looked down, he realized the "weird feeling" was the hotel's manager sucking on his toes, known as "shrimping" within the fetish community who have a thing for feet. This is apparently because of the way human toes' resemble shrimp, a thing I have never thought about even once in my entire life until now.

Anyway, the hotel guest said he recognized Neal right away because he had been to his hotel room the previous day to help him fix a broken TV. Police say the manager subsequently made himself a so-called "ghost key," a copy of the guest's room key card and let himself into the man's room to… well, suck his toes. Of course, Neal's version of the story differs quite substantially.

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The hotel manager claims he entered the man's room because he smelled smoke.

Ah, yes, the ol' "gonna go check the smoke detector so I can suck your toes" gambit! Who among us hasn't gone to investigate a potential disaster and then found ourselves sucking the toes of a sleeping person without their consent. Could happen to anyone!

That, of course, is absurd, but that's essentially what Neal told police. He said he let himself into the man's room to investigate after smelling smoke in the hallway and becoming worried about his welfare. However, the manager never filed any kind of report about smelling smoke, nor did any other employee or guest report having smelled smoke at any point that night.

Unsurprisingly, absolutely nobody is buying the manager's story, least of all the Nashville police. They arrested Neal near his home in Lebanon, Tennessee, and are currently holding him on a $27,000 bond for charges of aggravated burglary and assault.

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The hotel manager has a prior criminal record, and the guest has filed a lawsuit against Hilton Hotels.

As you might guess, Neal has since been fired from the Hilton Hotel in question after he refused to cooperate with law enforcement and make a statement about the events of that night. Accordingly, the hotel guest is now filing suit against Hilton for what he has described as a "sexual assault." 

The incident has also brought attention to Neal's rather checkered past. In 1996, he was indicted on second-degree murder charges following the death of his roommate. The following year, he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter after claiming he murdered his roommate in self-defense after a night out at a bar turned violent when they returned home. 

Prosecutors said Neal was heard giggling about the incident on tape while being questioned about how he shot his roommate multiple times while he tried to run away. Neal went on to serve five years in prison.

Brennan's lawyers also discovered previous charges against Neal for forgery and drinking and driving. One of Brennan's attorneys, Michael Fisher, expressed shock at "the fact that [Hilton] would put somebody like that in a position where they have the ability to clone keys, have the ability to get into a guest’s room."

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John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.