This is the sad story of a girl full of hopes and dreams, a girl who wanted to see the world, experience everything, to see the magic everywhere. A girl whose young life was suddenly cut short and for whom justice has never been done.
Her death was ruled as accidental drowning in the end but, in my opinion, there are too many loose ends, inconsistencies and obvious coincidences that cannot be ignored.
Elisa Lam, a popular student from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, was feeling overwhelmed by a debilitating condition which gave her dreadful mood swings. Elisa suffered from Bipolar disorder, which sometimes stopped her from leading a normal life like any other 21-year old. It appears, therefore, that she decided to travel solo down the West coast of the USA via rail and bus, stopping at San Diego and finally arriving at Los Angeles on the 26th January 2013. It would seem that this expedition was her way of proving to the world that she could do it, that she could be like everyone else.
At the time, among the few ordinary tourists looking for a budget stay in Los Angeles, the hotel otherwise housed plenty of folk similar to the type sprawled outside all over Skid Row. Between 1984 and 1985, the infamous hotel was also home to notorious serial killer Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, who terrorised Los Angeles and San Francisco over fourteen long months. Unlike other serial killers, who usually follow a pattern of predilection, Ramirez killed randomly, his victims dissimilar to each other, giving the police a real runaround. And all the time, after a killing spree, he would “go home” each night to the Cecil Hotel, his base.
And perpetuating his own personal spate of dreadful crimes, during 1991, was yet another serial killer, Jack Unterweger, who also used the Cecil as his macabre base. Ironically, he was writing for an Austrian magazine about crime in LA, and he even took part in a ride-along with the police through the city's red light districts. With his cover as journalist, he managed to murder three sex workers before he was caught.
The Cecil Hotel truly does seem to attract all the depravity and evils of the world. Not only have serial killers chosen it as their home, but, since it was opened in 1924, the doomed hotel has seen 18 violent deaths – 8 were ruled as suicide, 2 murders and the remainder were undetermined.
Elisa checked in on the 26th January with the intention of staying till the 31st, when she would, presumably, travel on to Santa Cruz. When she failed to contact her parents on that day, she was reported missing and the LAPD initiated a search for her. After a week, the search became more extensive, with the use of flyers, online images and the K9 unit (police dogs).
Her body was eventually discovered inside one of the hotel's rooftop water tanks. On the 19th February, hotel maintenance worker Santiago Lopez, went to investigate reports of low water pressure and of dark-coloured, foul-tasting water. Elisa was floating face-up inside one of the massive water tanks.
And this is where the journey deep into the twisting rabbit hole commences.
Even with only the most basic of details, this case still cannot be classified as straightforward accidental drowning. Let's start with the preliminary points. The water tank was decidedly huge. It measured 4ft by 8ft and was supported by cement blocks. Without the aid of a ladder, it would have been impossible to climb to the top. After looking at various photos, I did notice a step ladder that was obviously used to check the tanks. Now here is the thing - was the step ladder already placed against Elisa's water tank on that fateful night? And if the ladder was already by Elisa's water tank when the maintenance crew found her, then it might perhaps explain how she got into the tank. But if the ladder wasn't there, how on earth did Elisa climb all the way to the top of the tank by herself?
Now, the initial report by the LAPD (interview on Netflix documentary “Crime Scene – The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel”) was that the hatch was closed. However, Santiago Lopez, the maintenance worker, told the cameras that the hatch was open when he went to check the water tanks, although, in my opinion, he didn't look very convinced. And if this is true, how come the police with the dog unit didn't notice this when they, allegedly, went up on the roof to look for Elisa? According to the Netflix documentary, police claimed they did not go near the water tanks when they were searching for her. Why not? Were they trying to delay the discovery of the body? If it's true that Elisa walked by herself all the way to the tank and then dropped in, you'd think the K9 unit would have picked up on her scent all the way to the tank, especially with an open hatch, right? The body would then have been found straightaway. No, my money's on no scent and a closed hatch.
Of course, Elisa suffered Bipolar Disorder 1, which would fully explain this unusual conduct. Bipolar 1 is quite extreme, and a person suffering from this could have harsh psychotic episodes, with disturbing hallucinations. The LA police claimed that she hadn't been taking her meds regularly, which could have been a catalyst for such a psychotic episode, where logic disappears and fantasy becomes reality.
On the fateful day that Elisa disappeared, she had been exhibiting particularly uncontrolled behaviour. She seemed to have been alone all day. The only person who claims to have seen her is Katie Orphan, the manager of The Last Bookstore. In an interview with CNN, she said that Elisa “..was outgoing, very lively, very friendly”. Apparently, she was extremely chatty (on an escalating hypomanic episode, perhaps?), talking about a book she wanted to get and whether it would be too heavy to carry on her travels.
Up to this point, it would logically follow that this weird behaviour was due to a psychotic episode. Naturally. However, there are a few alarming red flags that I simply cannot ignore. If you watch the video closely, you will notice that the time stamp at the bottom left hand corner of the screen has been scrambled. On top of this, after analysis it turns out that the footage was also slowed down. Why was this necessary? It's also evident that some sections of the video were edited out – when the lift finally closes, the door jumps about 6 inches. In total, as much as 53 seconds have been removed. Who or what was in that footage? Was it perhaps doctored so that it wouldn't show the person responsible for Elisa's death?
When I watched the Netflix documentary, it struck me how cagey the police were about the video alteration. Regarding the scrambling of the time stamp, cuts, edits and slowing down of footage, they stated that they couldn't confirm what their media department might have done before the video was shown to the public! On the other hand, they confirmed, without a doubt, that the hotel never tampered with the footage before handing it over to the police, and that they have the original video in their custody. In other words, they are incapable of unarguably defending their media department, yet practically swear by the Bible that the hotel staff are innocent. What are they hiding? Incidentally, why couldn't they show the video in its original form to the public? What are we not allowed to see? The murderer, maybe?
On the day that she disappeared, Elisa was generally seen on her own. The only people she, allegedly, had any contact with were the bookstore manager … and two men who delivered a package to her later that day. It is assumed that the box contained the book she had apparently ordered earlier at The Last Bookstore. There is no mention anywhere of the police tracking down and interviewing these men. Did they actually deliver the book? Or something else?
The episode with The Last Bookstore wouldn't seem that important if it wasn't for the creepy coincidence with the postcode. Hold tight for this journey because it's hard to believe that this could actually happen in real life. The Last Bookstore shares its postcode with the area where Elisa is buried. Yes, that's correct. But it's not possible, right? One is in Los Angeles, California, and the other is in British Columbia, Canada.
Nevertheless, if you look in WHOIS, where domains are registered, you will see that the registrant for The Last Bookstore's website in LA is Private and their postcode is clearly close to Elisa's burial plot (Bookstore – V5G 4W9 // Elisa's grave – V5G 4S2). As it happens, it's a 6 minute drive from the address of registrant (Suite 212, 3602 Gilmore Way) to Elisa's grave.
When I started putting the pieces of this labyrinthine puzzle together, some of the fog started to clear.
After Elisa's death, Los Angeles, particularly Skid Row near the Cecil hotel, was riddled with a huge outbreak of tuberculosis. A curious coincidence is that the test for TB is literally Elisa's name in reverse. LAM (Lipoarabinomannan) ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay), and even spookier is the fact that the University of British Columbia, where Elisa was studying, was pivotal in research on TB.
Is it possible that Elisa was infected with TB as an experiment? And if so, was the body left undiscovered in the tank intentionally to ensure the infection was properly spread through the water system? If that is the case, disposing of her body in the tank was the fastest and most effective way to spread TB across Skid Row! A lot of people from the area were renting at the Cecil.
And let's not forget that Xenon Pharmaceuticals and Life Labs are in the same building as the registrant of The Last Bookstore, and they all sit in the same area as the university. There is a definite connection here!
Some internet sleuths reckon that Elisa may have been some sort of biological weapon – to reduce the numbers in Skid Row. This makes sense as the US Government could be making money from that area if Skid Row was wiped clean. But I think there is an even more sinister objective too – test out the virus on the homeless in Skid Row first to ascertain how quickly people die so that it can later be used to wipe out populations on a large scale in enemy countries. It's definitely food for thought.
When I watched retired LAPD detective, Greg Kading (Netflix documentary “Crime Scene – The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel”) in the episode “Down the Rabbit Hole”, I noticed how he lowers his head, giving you the feeling that he wasn't being sincere. I had to rewind a few times, just to make sure, but there was no denying that I saw what I saw. As he bowed his head, he said “Investigators also had to fingerprint anywhere that was potentially touched by an assailant, but ultimately nothing was revealed that would have pointed to a potential suspect.” I don't think he quite believed it himself...
And now we come to the elusive Coroner's report. Why did it take so long to release the autopsy result? The autopsy was initiated on the 21st Feb 2013 and was finalised and released on the 19th June of that year. Granted, if a toxicology report is requested, the autopsy takes longer than normal – about 4 to 6 weeks. But not 4 months, surely! Again, what were they hiding?
The coroner claimed that there are bubbles, foam or liquid present in the airways when a person drowns. He didn't locate any of the above. Only some brown fluid was mentioned in the autopsy report as having been found in her lungs. But that is not water from the tank. It turned out to be her own natural fluid, like mucus, already present. And then he quickly adds that the absence of said elements doesn't prove that she didn't drown. Seriously?
So, after considering the previous point and the lack of water in her lungs, it might be safe to assume that the reason why the K9 unit failed to detect Elisa's scent on the roof was because she was killed before going up to the roof, and was carried up to the water tank. Her scent would, therefore, only be found around inside the hotel and even up to the fire escape window, as was the case. It might also explain the absence of any kind of extraneous fluid in her lungs. She was dead before she hit the water.
The police and the hotel staff can shout to the four winds that there isn't anything suspicious about Elisa's death - that there was no foul play. But I am not convinced. There are several points that contradict this –
(b) Why was the time stamp on the video garbled, and why had the footage been slowed down in some places?
(c) She supposedly drowned and there was no fluid in her lungs?
(d) What's up with the bizarre postcode coincidence?
(e) Elisa was a student of the University of British Columbia, where extensive research on TB is carried out. Her name is an exact replica of the test for TB, and shortly after Elisa died, there was a huge outbreak of TB in the Skid Row area surrounding the hotel.
And it's incredible to see how a bundle of internet sleuths on the Netflix documentary (“Crime Scene – The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel) are all of a deeply fixed conviction that there's more to Elisa's sad death than meets the eye. All the way up to episode 3, they are convinced and even put forward, what I think, are very valid reasons for believing she was murdered.
They each admit they were wrong and that Elisa's death must surely have been accidental. I'm sorry but this sounds dreadfully scripted, and I suspect that these people were (paid off/warned/threatened?) into publicly admitting how wrong they were about everything that they truly believed in!
So, this last piece of information completes the puzzle and, invariably, pushes me even deeper into the notion that poor Elisa was unwittingly involved in some conspiracy, and that she was eliminated when she had fulfilled her purpose … or to fulfil her purpose.
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