Elisa Lam story/Cecil Hotel:

“To the readers: This story was originally written as a script to one of our episodes, so the way it is written is not traditionally how I usually do a write-up, but the story is so odd, we here at Strange Uncles thought it would be a nice fit into our research page. To add, big thanks to my close friend Chris Kim, who was the co-host on this one when it was released. Thanks Chris! Open the Gates…

It’s amazing how something that was built to be used for a certain purpose, only turning into a legend of Haunted folklore in its own time, especially somewhere like LA, where people really don’t connect this area with ghosts and the macabre.  On this tiny slice of history, we go down the rabbit hole of the death of Elisa Lam, as well as a little morbid history on the Hotel where it all happened…..Open the gates:

The Bare Boned Facts:  Elisa Lam was a Cantonese woman born in 1991.  She was the daughter of two Hong Kong Emigrants that opened up a restaurant just outside of Vancouver Canada, where Elisa was a student of the nearby University of British Columbia.  In the January of 2013, Elisa took a solo trip to CA, that she told her parents was her “west Coast Tour”. It was reported (not proven), that the reason for the trip was to clear here mind.  Between dealing with School and bad relationships, she decided to blow off some steam. So, Elisa had a blog at the time, where she would blog out various things, and this included here “West Coast Tour” trip.  Starting in San Diego, she documented her trip to the Zoo, and made her way to LA, where she checked into the Cecil Hotel, which has now changed names to “Stay on the Main”, on January 26th.  During her whole trip she phoned home every day to keep her parents up to date and in the loop on her adventures. After five days of staying in LA, her parents didn’t get their daily call from her. This would be on January 31st, just for reference.  The last known sighting of Elisa (other than the elevator video, which we will cover later), was by a nearby bookstore manager.  She said Elisa was funny, laughing, and buying souvenirs for back home.  Her parents called the police, and flew out to LA to try and do what they could.  So the Police search started, where they brought in dogs, and searched as many rooms as they could.  Not EVERY room, because they needed “Probable cause” to search every room in the Hotel. Fast forward to the 6th of February where they police hung flyers around the neighborhood and fast forward again to the 16th of February, where Police released a four minute elevator surveillance footage.  Fast forward to the final timestamp of February 19, 2013.  Guests that were staying at the Cecil complained of black water, smelly water that was coming out of the taps. In steps Santiago Lopez, was one of the Cecil Hotels Maintenance personal.  He climbed up to the roof, climbed a ladder to gain access to each water tower,            and there, as he looked into one of them, was a body, naked, floating face up, with clothes floating next to it. And this was the body of 21 yr. old Elisa Lam.  Now, that unfolds the actual events and research leading up to the death…..Hold on to your panties, because we are covering the weird details and conspiracy theories around this.

*Let’s start pulling apart the video footage that was released by the LAPD, three days before her body was found. This video is a must-see tom help gain an idea of probable happenings to her death.  First, its just fuckin’ weird. At around 4 minutes long, it shows her entering the elevator, pushing a bunch of buttons, the door not closing, her stepping out and peaking around the corner, her entering again and hiding in the corner, ya da ya da ya da.   You have to watch it to get an idea.

*Autopsy: It took four months for the LAPD to release the report…. four months.  Not to sound gruesome, but here are some details. Lam’s body was found bloated, and moderately decomposed. Her clothes were found floating beside her with a “sand-like” substance coating them. There was no evidence of physical trauma, sexual assault or suicide.  The toxicology results were incomplete because not enough blood was preserved, but it did show traces consistent with her prescription medications plus sinus tab and ibuprofen, and a small, small quantity of alcohol.  It should be mentioned at this point, that Elisa was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.  diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. She had been prescribed four medications: Wellbutrin, Lamictal, Seroquel, and Effexor.  Sooooo, maybe she was off her meds and lost her shit? Also, other things are in doubt with the report.   It doesn’t say what the results of the rape kit and fingernail kit were, or even if they were processed.  Hmmm. And to pour salt in the wound, one page of the report has a form with boxes to check as to whether the death was accidental, natural, homicide, suicide or undetermined.  The "accident" box is dated June 15. BUT, three days later the "undetermined" box was checked instead. This was at some point in the three days before the report's release noted as an error, crossed out, and initialed… 

*Access: Lets discuss how the fuck she got up there and in there in the first place.  The investigators along with the hotel, verified that the roof was locked and secured.  If anybody was to go up there, or try and pry a door open, alarms would go off. Now, it has been proven that you can access the roof easier via the fire escape, but according to the hotel, even if someone accessed the roof from the fire escape, once they opened the roof door, it would STILL set off an alarm, and they reported to have no alarms, and their alarm records were checked by investigators to verify.  Then there’s the discussion of getting into the tank itself.

*Lawsuits and questions about why people didn’t leave:  It was reported but not proven, that when it was found the water supply had Elisa Lam in it, all residents were reimbursed and offered rooms for free at a nearby hotel.  With that being said, eleven of them stayed.  Also, on the lawsuit side:   Guests at the Cecil sued the hotel over the issue, and Elisa’s parents filed a law suit later that year…But, there Lawsuit was dismissed in 2015, which sucks.

*Other notables:   Her phone was not found either with her body or in her hotel room; it has been assumed to have been stolen at some time around her death. Whether the continued updates to her blog were facilitated by the theft of her phone, the work of a hacker, or through the Queue, is not known; nor is it known whether the updates are related to her disappearance.

*Let’s talk Cecil to tie this all in: Built as a business hotel in the 1920s, the Cecil fell on hard times during the Great Depression of the 1930s and never recaptured its original market as downtown decayed around it in the late 20th century. Several of Los Angeles's more notable murders have happened at or have connections to the hotel: Elizabeth Short, victim of the Black Dahlia murder, the city's best-known unsolved killing, supposedly made the Cecil her last stop before her death, and in 1964, Goldie Osgood, the "Pigeon Lady of Pershing Square," was raped and murdered in her room at the Cecil, another crime that has never been solved. Serial killers Jack Unterweger and Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker", both resided at the Cecil while active. There have also been suicides, one of which also killed a pedestrian in the front of the hotel. After recent renovations, it has tried to market itself as a boutique hotel, but the reputation lingers.  In 2015, the media speculated that the fifth season of American Horror Story was inspired by Lam's death.  In late spring creator Ryan Murphy said the next season would be set in a hotel in present-day Los Angeles. He was inspired, he added, by a surveillance video of a young woman who "got into an elevator at a downtown hotel and was never seen again." He did not use her name, but it was believed he was talking about Lam. So there you have it. Odd story indeed, and with the history of the Cecil Hotel, one cant help to think if there is just a bad atmosphere surrounding this infamous building.

Close the Gates…