November 6

Entry Nine: Elisa Lam

For today’s case, I give to you the most recent event we’ll cover. Occurring in 2013, Elisa Lam’s death is also the first of our topics that delves into the possibility of the supernatural. Either way, the young 21-year old’s is shrouded with mystery, and demands a closer look.

Elisa Lam. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind The Disturbing Death Of Elisa Lam,” by Natasha Ishak. ATI, 15 Oct. 2019.

2013: On January 26th, Elisa Lam arrived in LA. She was headed to Santa Cruz as part of her solo trip around the West Coast; a getaway from her studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where she was originally from. While her family was nervous about her being so far from home, she was always sure to ease their fears by calling them each night to tell them about her adventures from the day. All went well, and according to plan.

Of course, until January 31st.

On January 31st, Elisa never contacted her family, nor would she again.

On her final day staying at The Cecil Hotel, Elisa failed to update her family, thus prompting them to grow concerned enough to call the hotel staff asking if they’d check on her. Upon examining her room, Elisa was nowhere to be found, and she had never officially checked out.

Staff decided to take a look at security footage to attempt to locate Elisa, or at to get an idea of when she was last seen. What they found however, would prompt more questions than answers. The hotel video showed Elisa in one of its elevators on the date of her disappearance acting rather strangely. In the footage, Lam can be seen stepping into the elevator and pushing all the floor buttons. She steps in and out of the elevator, poking her head out sideways toward the hotel’s hallways in between. She peers out of the elevator another few times before stepping out of the elevator entirely, never to be seen again.

At the time of writing this, the video has 24,432,537 views due to how strange the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, as well as her strange behavior.

Two weeks would go by without another development in the case.

 

Hotel maintenance worker Santiago Lopez began to receive complaints about the water quality. Low water pressure, strange coloring, and a weird taste coming from the tap water were all reported, and he began to investigate the hotel water tank. Upon opening the tank, Lopez discovered Lam’s rotting corpse.

Rescuers try to remove Elisa Lam’s body from the water tank on the rooftop of the Cecil Hotel. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind The Disturbing Death Of Elisa Lam,” by Natasha Ishak. ATI, 15 Oct. 2019.

Nobody knows how Lam’s corpse (floating lifelessly next to the same clothes she wore in the surveillance video) ended up in the hotel’s water tank or who else might have been involved. It was ruled to be impossible to Lam to have climbed into the tank and closed the door on herself.

 

One of the final people to see Elisa Lam alive was the owner of a bookstore that she traveled to prior to her death. Katie Orphan, owner of The Last Bookstore was quoted with stating, “It seemed like she had plans to return home, plans to give things to her family members and reconnect with them. She bought things to bring back to them.”

Lopez gave a detailed description of how to get to the water tank (which presumably was the exact way Lam would have to get up to the tanks): Take the elevator to the 15th floor of the hotel before walking up the staircase to the roof. Then, first turn off the rooftop alarm (which only employees can do), climb up on the platform where the hotel’s four water tanks were located. Finally, climb another ladder to get to the top of the main tank.


In the end, Lam’s death was ruled accidental, and no further pieces of evidence have surfaced since. Theorists point to the hotel’s historically supernatural ties, Lam’s bipolar disorder (and her subsequent medication), and a 3rd party as all possible in her death. Either way, we may never understand the strange circumstances surrounding such a young woman’s death.

As always, the BuzzFeed Unsolved video delving more in depth with details and theories is provided here for further reading. Best of luck, until next time.

 


Posted November 6, 2019 by res5727 in category Uncategorized

37 thoughts on “Entry Nine: Elisa Lam”

  3. Paul Popovich

    Some questions not asked and others never answered (at least not fully)
    1. why did Elisa continue to stay at the Cecil if her interest was to tour the coast and meet people…what not move on?
    2. If she was in contact with her family, did she tell them she was frightened or disturbed? did they respond?
    3. there is video of Elisa trying to get on the elevator on the 14th floor. Is that the only security video of her? Did she ever get on the elevator at any other time? How did she get to the 14th floor?
    4. who was staying on the 14th floor at the time?
    5. if she was frightened about anythng, why didn’t she got to lobby to report it? Most people would feel safe in an open lobby close to the front door. If she was hiding from some thing or running from something, why not go to the lobby?
    6. is there evidence someone like her called the police?
    7. The police did a fly-over of the roof to look for evidence right after she disappeared? Did they take photos? Did they notice the lid had been removed from just one water tank?
    8. It is almost impossible to believe that someone like her could have/would have climbed the vertical fire escape ladder to the roof? There were no other places for her to hide (if she was seeking to hide)? No one from other buidings saw her or anyone else climb that ladder?
    9. It looks as though it would not have been easy to get to the ladder at the base of the water tank. also, it might seem dangerous to climb the ladder to the water tank.
    10. How did she know the water tank lids were removalable? Did she get instruction from someone on this?
    11. it would have been clear to her that if she were hiding from someone in the water tank, that her pursuer would easy see the lid had been removed and she would have been discovered.
    12. there were obviously better places to hide in the hotel or better places to find safety.
    13. she would have realized that once she was in the tank, she probably could not escaped death.
    14. The police’s explanations for her nudity are not convincing.
    15. She would have spent some time climbing the fire escape ladder and tank ladder, and spent some time exploring the area around the tank and on top of the tank (unless she had instructions from somone). So, her scent would be on the fire escape ladder area, the roof landing by the fire escape, the area around the tank, the tank ladder, the top of the tank and the lid. Did the search dogs detect her scent in any of these areas?
    16. Does anyone know if the video of her in the elevator had been tampered with or edited in any way?

    Reply ↓
  4. Ann

    1. Elisa continued to stay there because she needed a cheap place to stay- it was only 3 days, then she was off to the next city.
    2. Good question — we need it answered.
    3. Exactly!! We want ALL the footage
    4. Exactly again!!
    5. She probably did report it and they ignored her.
    6 and 7 we need to know.
    8, it is totally possible for her to climb to the roof.
    9, the tanks are each 10 feet high it is not easy to get to—- but young 29?year olds could do it.
    10. There is no way she could have known the kids were removable.
    11. Those water tanks had giant removable lids. Each one had a small hatch on top of the heavy lids, for maintenance. When they say “the lid was open” they mean the little hatch was open.
    12. She may have tried to hide behind the tanks, eventually climbing up to see an open hatch and slipping through.
    13. If 12 is what happened, she was trapped.

    I believe there was a special party on the roof that night. She heard about it and wanted to go. So she went up to the 14th floor- took the stairs to the roof and triggered the door alarm. That prompted a maid to get up there and tell her she was in an unauthorized area and to leave. Meaning to do as she was told, she borded the elevator and pushed the buttons- she was confused when the doors didn’t close- she looked out to see if someone was holding the buttons. She didn’t see anyone but- being playful she thought, I’ll hide. When she seems to kinda gingerly step out of the elevator -(perhaps thinking the maid was there — she looks to her left with her shoulders brought up to her ear lobes- saying, Iwas hoping you’d go into the elevator so ai could jump out and scare you- she jumps as she says the last part. When she spreads her stance, and steps back into the elevator with one foot-/she’s probably talking about how the maid said she had to get off that floor- when she steps in that “square dance” it’s probably in reaction to whoever’s in her left saying, you don’t have to go- I can show you a way up.
    She goes back in the elevator to make sure the door open button was pressed.
    She steps out again waiting for whoever to show her when the maid comes from the elevators right saying- hey!! Didn’t I tell you to leave?
    It looks like Elisa says, I am- perhaps she explains that she knows people on that floor, didn’t mean any harm when whoever was with her says—let’s go this way.
    She goes- whoever it is says give me your watch and I!ll tell you.,she does— he points out the fire escape stairs— she climbs up to the rooftop.
    I know it is common for people with bipolar disease to strip off their clothes in public. Not rings, not watches.

    Whatever happens SOMEONE threw her clothes and watch in later.

    I find it EXTREMELY odd that the police would release that video of Elisa.
    I find it EXTREMELY odd that Elisas smiles were pixilated— that a full minute is missing from the video— that the speed was changed

    The LA police are covering— II’d want to know WHY!!??

    Reply ↓
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