America's Best Inn
America's Best Inn (originally the Birmingham Airport Motel) is a 143 room motel located at 5101 Messer Airport Highway near the Birmingham International Airport.
The motel was constructed in 1961. A ground testing facility used by the Hayes International Corporation was relocated for the access road to the new terminal and motel project by the City of Birmingham. The motel restaurant was known as The Aeronaut, and its bar was the Flight Lounge.
The hotel featured the Aeronaut Restaurant.
The motel, then known as Airport Inn Motel, was the site of a triple homicide during a robbery over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2005. Brandon Deon Mitchell was convicted of the murder of Kim Olney, 28 (the desk clerk), John Aylesworth, 42 (a truck driver), and Dorothy Smith, 58, who was visiting from Queens, New York.
References
- "New road routed over noted site" (October 1961) The Birmingham News - via Birmingham Rewound
- Velasco, Eric (November 18, 2006) "Mitchell's jury urges life term in slayings." The Birmingham News
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