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The Mysterious Case Of Elisa Lam

blessmycottonsocks said:
That rational explanation nailed it for me.
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Not seen the video...looks a bit ropey. However, as I think I've said before on this thread - it's probably about 99.5% likely that there is nothing "supernatural" or "paranormal" about this poor girl's death. She was unwell and disturbed. It was a bizarre incident but infinitely more likely to be just the result of her troubled mind than anything else.
 
Coastaljames said:
Not seen the video...looks a bit ropey. However, as I think I've said before on this thread - it's probably about 99.5% likely that there is nothing "supernatural" or "paranormal" about this poor girl's death. She was unwell and disturbed. It was a bizarre incident but infinitely more likely to be just the result of her troubled mind than anything else.
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If you're not in your right mind, then what seems reasonable to you looks bizarre to others, I completely agree. I also find this determination to find entertainment and weirdo conspiracy theories in this poor girl's death distasteful.
 
GNC said:
If you're not in your right mind, then what seems reasonable to you looks bizarre to others, I completely agree.
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Definitely. I've been there.

GNC said:
I also find this determination to find entertainment and weirdo conspiracy theories in this poor girl's death distasteful.
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Well...we're reading and replying on this thread mate...
 
Coastaljames said:
Well...we're reading and replying on this thread mate...
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Well, I haven't until now, and this may well be all I have to say on the matter. I'm conscious of feeling aggrieved on her behalf, which is not a good path to travel, especially when a mystery is involved, but I do feel sorry for her and think she deserved better than one step up from clickbait on YouTube.
 
GNC said:
If you're not in your right mind, then what seems reasonable to you looks bizarre to others, I completely agree. I also find this determination to find entertainment and weirdo conspiracy theories in this poor girl's death distasteful.
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Coastaljames said:
Definitely. I've been there.



Well...we're reading and replying on this thread mate...
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Yeah but some of us thought we'd put this one to bed. I've not watched the new you tube vid and probably wont.
 
i wandered into the kitchen at the old regents palace hotel on piccadilly circus, now sadly gone, in the very late early hours after a stag party 1996 ... wrong set of stairs and youre in the inner workings
 
Some claim she was murdered by being shut in the freezer.
 
escargot1 said:
Some claim she was murdered by being shut in the freezer.
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Except that it could be opened from the inside.
The video states that there was a latch on the inside and the outside, and that the door was not locked.
I think she staggered in and the door shut automatically. She sat down and fell unconscious. By morning, she'd frozen to death.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Except that it could be opened from the inside.
The video states that there was a latch on the inside and the outside, and that the door was not locked.
I think she staggered in and the door shut automatically. She sat down and fell unconscious. By morning, she'd frozen to death.
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That's what THEY want you to BELIEVE.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Except that it could be opened from the inside.
The video states that there was a latch on the inside and the outside, and that the door was not locked.
I think she staggered in and the door shut automatically. She sat down and fell unconscious. By morning, she'd frozen to death.
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All walk-in freezers I've seen over the last 40-50 years have a latch or push-bar (sometimes called a 'panic bar') on the inside of the door. It's a common safety requirement nowadays.
 
Me and my old flat mate lived in an ex hotel, The Melbourne Hotel in Cromer .. one night, a couple of drunk twenty or so year old women walked into our living room (we didn't lock our front door) .. they apologised and said they were looking for the ladies, me and my flat mate rolled our eyes at each other and I said they were welcome to use our loo but that this was our flat ..

I didn't know who they were so after the first woman went in for a pee, I looked outside to spot her mate brandishing a bit of wood as if we were going to attack them or something: :"You don't need that, I don't even know who you are ? .. you've just walked into my flat" .. after they'd both had a pee, they cleared off and that was that ..

.. about ten minutes later there was a knock on our door, turns out these girls were so drunk they'd nicked a surf board from my porch, taken it to a nightclub then open for a business in the basement of our building, had been caught and shamefacedly been marched back upstairs by the security guard of the club who we were friends with .. they apologised, I didn't call the police and got my surf board back (I don't surf, I can barely swim, it was a gift) and the world kept turning ..

I'm going with drunk girl walks into walk in fridge looking for the ladies, falls asleep and freezes to death because all the kitchen staff had gone home at that point and hadn't locked up properly ..
 
kamalktk said:
Reminiscent of Elisa Lam, this 19 year old from Chicago wound up in the hotel freezer. ...
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Let's see if we can close off this tangent ...

Death of Chicago teen found in hotel freezer ruled an accident
The Cook County Medical Examiner ruled the death of 19-year-old Kenneka Jenkins an accident caused by hypothermia after she entered a walk-in freezer in a Rosemont hotel on September 10, according to a statement released Friday.

The medical examiner said intoxication caused by alcohol and topiramate, a medication used for epilepsy and migraines, were “significant contributing factors” in her death. Her blood alcohol concentration was 0.112, which is higher than the 0.08 BAC typically used to rule if an individual is too drunk to drive. And the medical examiner said the amount of topiramate in her system was within prescription levels, but Jenkins was not prescribed the drug.

“When combined, the effect of either or both drugs is enhanced. Topiramate, like alcohol, can cause dizziness, impaired memory, impaired concentration, poor coordination, confusion and impaired judgment,” the medical examiner said in the statement.

After examining the body and reviewing security camera footage, the medical examiner said there was no one seen entering the unused kitchen area with Jenkins, and said there is no evidence there was any kind of altercation prior to her death. In its autopsy, the medical examiner said they did not find evidence any “date rape drugs” contributed to her death, and there was “no other evidence of external or internal trauma” to her body. ...
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SOURCE: http://www.aol.com/article/news/201...-in-hotel-freezer-ruled-an-accident/23235685/
 
The documentary that I helped Kickstarter months ago finally sent a link to a first trailer to backers. Backers have been asked not to send a link to the trailer, so I won't, but there is one interesting visual bit that I wasn't aware of. Directly across from the elevator is a mid-size oval mirror. If (as some have surmised) that Elisa was on some kind of psychedelic drug, I could see some of the strange movements she makes as being a performance for herself and human movement using the mirror.
 
I'd been vaguely aware of the name Elisa Lam, and that there was some kind of conspiracy claim behind her death. Bit I hadn't actually read anything about it until this thread popped up at the top of the board yesterday. I've read through quite a few accounts now. And it's bothering me.

Not because I see any evidence of the paranormal going on here. I don't believe that for a second. But I am of the mind to feel quite surprised that there has been less of an investigation of foul play here.

I find it very difficult to understand how a 21 year old woman ends up drowned in a water tank on the roof of a hotel, with so little in the way of credible explanation of how she got there.

The official conclusion appears to be that (for reasons unknown) she climbed in, pulled the heavy and difficult to move lid back over the top of the tank and drowned. But how DID she move that lid on her own? It's been described as being very difficult to have done that alone (especially from the inside of the tank) and yet it seems to be freely accepted that this is what happened.

And what of the "sand-like particulate" which coated her clothing. Where had that come from? To me that would immediately suggest that between her last know sighting and her drowning she had spent time somewhere else, in contact with something which got her clothes sandy or dirty. What was that? Why was that not followed up on?

I think it's very easy to write off a loss of life for such an individual on the grounds of mental health. Even in this age. But it doesn't explain how her life came to end in the way that it did. It doesn't sit right with me.

I've watched the video. I absolutely agree that the official police version appears to have been deliberately slowed down. Why that has been done, and by whom, is questionable to say the least. The jump on the clock (and the missing 50+ seconds) could easily be explained by motion activated recording in the elevator, but it's the chance that it has been tampered with at all which is going to raise suspicion.

I suppose Elisa Lam's gestures and movements could look kind of creepy at that lower speed. Like a Pinter-esque pause - when you draw things out for longer they do tend to become more uncomfortable.

But at the faster (more natural) speed it does just look (to me at least) like a young woman possibly playing a game with a third party, and having difficulty with the malfunctioning elevator of a creaky old hotel.

That was my immediate response. Not necessarily fear or genuinely anxious. But paying a game with somebody else, out on the foyer. Her gestures look deliberate - even the way she confidently bends to press the buttons on the elevator. She doesn't look terrified or disturbed to me. She looks to be engaging with somebody out of shot.

My gut says that there is somebody else with her out in that lobby. Maybe somebody she's just messing around with. Maybe even flirting with.

We don't know who else she spent time with during her stay. We can't say with certainty how she got up on that roof, into that tank and how that heavy lid closed. Or who closed it. Or why she was naked (I know that's as bit of a darker implication there, but I do think it's worth mentioning).

We don't even know that the clothes went into the tank at the same time as she did. Her clothes, watch and room key were all found in the tank. But she was unclothed.

Police dogs did not detect a scent for Miss Lam on the roof. The door to that roof was normally locked, but staff did have keys for access to it. It was also accessible by a fire escape - but we don't know whether she used it or, if she did, that she did so alone.

None of the details are in any way clear.

I mean, we know when she was last seen. But we don't know when she entered that tank, nor when she actually died. We don't even know that she was in the tank on the day when the search dogs were actually taken up there.

A search of the hotel was performed by police, but not all rooms. Because at that point they didn't have probable cause. Legally they couldn't. But sadly that also means that it is not entirely implausible that at the time of those searches Lam was still alive somewhere within the hotel. Maybe getting the very "sand-like particulate" over her clothes which would later be identified after her death.

I'm just so surprised that the notion of a third party being involved seems to have been so entirely dismissed, so very early on. Something really doesn't feel right about this to me at all.

I don't buy into 'mentally ill people do unpredictable things' as a definitive answer here. And I fully expect that if that detail had not come to light then her death would have been investigated very differently.
 
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I've said it before...I am completely bewildered that the police did not declare it to be a suspected murder and haul in the hotel staff for interrogation.
 
Elisa Lam and her visit to a book shop called The Last Bookstore

 
henry said:
lapd press conf on robbery/homicide investigation while she was still missing

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Thanks for posting that, Henry.

One thing which stands out for me:

‘The last persons to see her were the staff at the hotel’

Presumably in the lobby at the time of that elevator video.

Is it therefore implausible that Miss Lam had been involved with some member of the staff of the Cecil Hotel in the days leading up to her death? Somebody with a working knowledge of the hotel, who may have confined her to a room which would not be likely to be checked by police during their search? Maybe somewhere where the sand/dust got onto her clothing?

When we know for certain that she died in that tank, on the roof of the hospital, and that only staff had keys to access that roofspace, why have the police not investigated this further?

But then the guy taking this conference seems to know very little about Elisa Lam. Surely if you are still hoping that she may be alive you give as many details as you can to jog the memories of members of the public who may have seen her to come forward. He describes her as being Canadian - yet at no point even mentions that she is Asian. That to me is odd. No personal information, no description of her character or personality. Very little of actual use at all.

I also wonder how and why this became classified as a Robbery/Homicide investigation. I see no evidence of Robbery. No forced entry into her room, belongings still in place as she left them.

And if Homicide was seriously being considered it makes NOT checking every single last damned room in that hotel a clear dereliction of duty, in my book.
 
CuriousIdent said:
He describes her as being Canadian - yet at no point even mentions that she is Asian. That to me is odd. No personal information, no description of her character or perersonality etc ...
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you mean besides the photo of her ?
 
CuriousIdent said:
When we know for certain that she died in that tank, on the roof of the hospital, and that only staff had keys to access that roofspace, why have the police not investigated this further?
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The roof was accessible via the fire escape, so keys were not required.

CuriousIdent said:
I also wonder how and why this became classified as a Robbery/Homicide investigation. I see no evidence of Robbery. No forced entry into her room, belongings still in place as she left them.
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I believe her phone was missing/stolen.
 
henry said:
you mean besides the photo of her ?
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Which is on the board to the left of him, yes. But it's hardly a large image of her actual face. The press there can see it. But it's not really going to be a clear image to anybody else.

This is a press conference. It's not going to just be covered by cameras, this would likely have been picked up by local radio. All you'd get from this in audio form is 'we're looking for a woman from Canada, who's been staying at The Cecil. We've gotten involved because Canadian authorities have asked us to'.

It's oddly, scant detail to me. No description of her appearance. Of what she was last seen wearing. Her ethnicity. Her general demeanor. Any of the key details I would certainly expect if a police officer was trying to get hold of people who might have seen her.
 
Dr_Baltar said:
The roof was accessible via the fire escape, so keys were not required.
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That was determined to be likely (later on) as a way of explaining why the sniffer dogs picked up no scent on the roof access or on the roof.

The alternative option would be that at the time of that search Erisa Lam was not ON that roof. That she was, at that time, somewhere else. And that she and/or her clothes entered that tank at a different time.

Searches of rooms in the Cecil were far far from complete. The sand/dust/dirt on her clothes had to have come from somewhere. As far as I can see it has not been accounted for in any way.

The timescale of those final events in her life, as the police appear to have decided upon them, are completely unverifiable. There is no real evidence to support any theory of how she got up onto the roof. Nothing to prove that she used the fire escape. Or the roof access.

Just the assumption formed some time after her body was found, and largely to explain why she had not been found in a location which had already been searched.

Dr_Baltar said:
I believe her phone was missing/stolen.
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Yes. That is true. And then there was all the speculation over her Tumblr account - which continued to post content after her disappearance.

Though that is not actually all that unusual. Queuing content to post at a stated time and date is a regular feature of Tumblr (as it is with most blogging platforms). It would not be surprising for somebody to queue weeks worth of content up, to ensure the Blog appeared active while getting on with there own life. You have to assume Elisa had no idea she was going to die. She was intending to continue travelling, and had been buying gifts to bring home, at the end of her trip.

You would assume though, that an item such as a mobile phone is the kind of thing which somebody would keep on their person. It being missing from a hotel room would not be unusual. It would likely have been with Elisa. A compulsive on the move blogger.

So why did she part with it? And when? Has it ever been recovered?
 
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