four_seasons
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you can't assume they meant coming on too strong at clubs though..
CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013 - #3
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NJ - Andre Rashon Karim Keith, 62, Vineland, April 23, 2024- Latest: realanastasia
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you can't assume they meant coming on too strong at clubs though..
four_seasons
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Thanks so Anansie for taking all the time and translating all those chinese posts for the guys here...
walklikeacat
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Nope. I can´t make an connection to sorarchives.
princessofmirth
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I'm new to all this, but this may just be my old reporter's intuition, but I have the feeling something big is being held back from us. If this is strongly suspected as a death by misadventure, why aren't the hotel's public relations team (if they have one) assuring the clients they will be safe? They are refusing to answer any questions at all about the incident.
The video of Ms. Lam seems, IMHO, to be very selective, as though it has been edited in some way. Is there a reason for this?
This is another terrible chapter in the long saga of the Cecil, yet, they are raising the price of the rooms? ( As per the Chinese reporters from Apple)
Are there any other crimes here we haven't uncovered?
There are a few more questions I have, maybe you can help me out.
Am I missing something??:waitasec:
The video of Ms. Lam seems, IMHO, to be very selective, as though it has been edited in some way. Is there a reason for this?
This is another terrible chapter in the long saga of the Cecil, yet, they are raising the price of the rooms? ( As per the Chinese reporters from Apple)
Are there any other crimes here we haven't uncovered?
There are a few more questions I have, maybe you can help me out.
Am I missing something??:waitasec:
I used to live by the Cecil and its a beautiful building. it would be a shame if it was demolished, mainly because LA has demolished too much of it's history already.
But it isn't an outlier. There are also other historical hotels in the area that house transients and felons. You can't tear them all down. For better or worse they make up the character of the neighborhood. And the neighborhood would have to get A LOT nicer before any developers considering investing money there profitable.
They probably should stop pulling the bait-and-switch on guests as being some kind of European hostel though.
figured out how to search..
http://offenders.sorarchives.com/sex-offender-search/
go there type in "640 S Main St" and click search now!
there are 5 results total
this guy hasn't been posted yet..
http://www.sorarchives.com/offender...65f0734f8654fa56-list&page=1&rows_per_page=20
So 5 perps live in the building total. I wonder what other kind of criminals may live in the building that aren't on any registry...
FiveFelines
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No, I think she actually wrote something to the effect of "I hope the guys at the club aren't aggressive, trying to avoid creepers, Mexican guys are the worst" in her tumblr. Ill try to find the link. My understanding is that when Chinese press reported that, it Google-translated back to English as "Mexican stalkers" but she never actually wrote that. Kind of like a game of telephone.
Turk February
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Cecil Hotel management and other PR departments in there have remained very mum and non-talkative regarding questions about Elisa's case and the whole issue about the water supply.
They even didn't notify guests about Elisa Lam's body being in the water tank, or the cause of the low water pressure being distributed to the hotel leading to the disgusting taste of the water, and small sprouts of black liquid shooting from the water pipes. Guests were notifed from all of this through media reporters.
Also, Cecil Hotel made guests sign a waiver form that if they decided to stay there, they would not be able to sue the hotel for any negligence as well as they were responsible for their own actions for staying there -- 'at their own peril'
Those that wanted to leave early would not be refunded their money. Cecil Hotel truly disgusts me. They are barely taking any responsibilty for their negligences.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/02/20/bc-elisa-lam-los-angelese.html
CBC News has obtained a letter to hotel guests asking them to vacate the premises and advising them not to drink or use any water at the hotel under any circumstances "due to an unexpected emergency."
"The hotel has been asked by local authorities to ensure that the water services at the premises be immediately terminated," the letter reads. "There will be no drinking water, nor water suitable for washing, bathing, showering or use for any purpose whatsoever over the next two to four days.
"Should you remain on the premises, you do so at your own risk and peril."
princessofmirth
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My thoughts exactly...And what about Security/Hotel Staff?
BunnyHop
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My translation of Chinese forum http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-free-3077181-101.shtml#ty_vip_look[VB调查]
Okay me and Brandon finally reached the roof.
Before we did this, we looked at the floor plan and saw that there are 3 fire escape stairs in this hotel. But I thought that the fire escape stairs on the front of the building as well as the middle of the building are not that worth trying, so me and Brandon decided to take the fire escape stairs at the back of the hotel (on the part of the hotel building marked C on the floorplan shown below in the photo)
This is the reason why I chose the fire escape stairs on part C of the hotel.
On part A of the hotel, the fire escape stairs face the main street and opposite the hotel, there are several skyscrapers. On part B of the hotel, the fire escape stairs are directly facing the guest/residential rooms on part C of the hotel. Therefore it is more likely that the perpetrator and Elisa used the fire escape stairs on part C of the hotel - for privacy.
Facing the fire escape stairs on part C of the hotel is a car park and some lower buildings. No other high rise buildings facing these stairs for another good 1000 metres or so. Therefore for any crime to take place on these fire escape stairs at night, the likelihood of being seen by someone is very minimal.
This is a video we took when we were up on the roof : ¶¥Â¥_ÔÚÏßÊÓƵ¹Û¿´_ÍÁ¶¹ÍøÊÓƵ ¶¥Â¥
As can be seen on our video :
1. Going up to the roof is not a difficult accomplishment. You just need the guts to do it. Because the ladder that leads to the roof from the fire escape stairs is completely vertical, those who are afraid of heights or are timid would probably not dare to attempt climbing it.
2. In regards to the graffiti, we can see several areas on the roof which have graffiti on them. We can thus surmise that quite a few people have climbed up to the roof. As regards to the rumours surfaced on the internet about claims that Elisa's death was some cult/satanic murder, we think the likelihood is quite low. Reason being that if it was indeed cult/satanic related, then there should only be a few graffiti marks up here confined to one or two areas that all relate distinctively to this cult/satanic practice. Yet we saw a variety of different graffiti made in several different spots on the roof, which thus leads us to conclude that these graffiti were more likely the works of hotel staff, guests or residents in this hotel.
3. The loft/attic up on the roof is for elevator equipment and storage. It has 2 levels within it - upper and lower level. The upper level of this room is locked - the sound of machine humming can be heard coming from it. This is for the machinery. The lower level of the loft/attic is not locked - very dark inside with no light - there is a large ventilation pipe inside. On the floor is some black plastic bag, and some trash.
According to the video, we can glean the following information and conclusions :
1) If Elisa and the perp willingly went up to the roof in the first place, it wouldn't be difficult to dispose of her body in the tank.
2) If the perp had moved her body to the roof from downstairs, by carrying her on his back for example, it is difficult, but not impossible. After considering the possible risk of accident/mishap from carrying me on his back and attempting to transport me up to the roof from below, me and Brandon decided to abandon our initial plan to test-drive the theory that Elisa's body could have been carried up to the rooftop by the perp (wanting to dispose of her body)
3) There was really a lot of different graffiti on the rooftop, which lowers the possibility that this was in any way Satanic/cult related.
4) There is a loft/attic on the rooftop. Which makes it possible that Elisa could have been imprisoned there for a while before her death.
5) In the picture I posted earlier on :
It can be seen that police and other personnel were standing by the door of the loft/attic. So I believe that the police have already checked round the lower unlocked level of the loft/attic.
Although both upper and lower levels of the loft/attic had their doors shut, I was able to open the door to the lower level.
Inside here, there is a large ventilation pipe and lots of different tools.
I tried opening the door to the upper level of the loft/attic. It was locked.
Here is another video we took while on the hotel roof - its to do with the water tanks. Ë®ÏäÌØд_ÔÚÏßÊÓƵ¹Û¿´_ÍÁ¶¹ÍøÊÓƵ Ë®ÏäÌØд
From this video, we can glean the following information :
1) There is a ladder right beside the tank (where Elisa was found). This wooden ladder looks very old. It looks very weather-beaten, therefore it must have been left here permanently. I climbed up this ladder with ease, and upon closer inspection, it seems this ladder has never been moved from this spot. This can explain why Elisa's body was found in this particular tank - because the wooden ladder is always right next to it.
2) At the BOTTOM portion of this water tank, there is an outlet where the water flows OUT into the rest of the hotel. This water outlet does not measure any larger than one palm-width across - the diameter not more than 10 centimetres across. Police say that the likelihood of Elisa's clothing being sucked into this outlet is very minimal. If her clothes did get sucked out through this outlet, it would result in pipe blockage.
At the TOP of the water tank, there is a piped outlet where water flows INTO the tank.
As per our web friends have suggested, another way of getting to the top of this water tank is via the red ladder on the side of the loft/attic. I climbed up this ladder rather easily. It is nearly 90 degrees vertical, but with a slight incline.
But if one tried to carry the corpse on one's back and climb this red ladder, it is more difficult. More difficult than climbing up the wooden ladder on the side of the water tank.
After coming up to the roof of the attic/loft, I noticed that the television receiver and the chimney all had some graffiti written on them.
After walking to the side of roof of the attic/loft, I can see the top of the water tank.
This tank is located the closest from the side of the roof of the attic/loft.
There is a drop from here to the water tank of not more than 2 metres.
Its not hard to go down to the tank from here.
Also, as Brandon said to me, it would be possible to lower the body down into the water tank from the rooftop edge of the attic/loft. Because this water tank is the closest to the loft/attic. The other tanks are further away. Regardless of the fact, it is still considerably difficult to attempt such a feat.
However, one could also first climb down from the attic/loft rooftop edge onto the water tank first, before disposing of the body in the tank.
This is the water tank next to the one Elisa was found in. It has a lid on, but the lid is not locked.
From my observation, the lids on the outer water tanks appeared to be slightly smaller in size compared to the lids on the tanks closer to the attic/loft building.
We also discovered 2 more things whilst standing on the roof of the attic/loft :
Yes. We found empty beer bottles on the roof of the attic/loft building. One under the chimney. The other under the dish.
My first thought : Someone had been drinking at this spot.
My second thought : Could Elisa have been to this very spot to drink too?
My third thought : Such crucial evidence might have Elisa's fingerprints on them. Why didn't the LAPD take them back for further investigation?
My fourth thought : No matter whether the police had taken all evidence back, or whether the police failed to find these 2 pieces of evidence - Why would there still be people coming up to the rooftop of the attic/loft to drink after the discovery of Elisa's body here?
My fifth thought : After such a grim discovery at the hotel, who would still wish to come up here to have a drink? Other than the murderer himself?!
My above thoughts are not comforting and throw up lots of suspicion.
If the police cannot even find such crucial evidence, if the police failed to bring crucial evidence back for further tests/investigations, then what can we say about the competency of the LAPD? Are they doing their jobs properly?
If the police did not find such evidence when they were searching this place, if this evidence wasn't present at the time, then who else would still dare to come up here to have a drink, apart from the murderer himself? Coming back to where the murder had taken place in order to relive or savour the murder scene in his head all over again? If that's the case then how sick is this murderer indeed?
We are almost finished with our field report of the Cecil hotel. I have more pictures that I haven't put up, but if anyone is interested, I will supply these additional pictures to them.
Hopefully the reader would have gotten some useful bits of information from what we have shown here. Before this trip, there were lots of "ifs" and imaginary scenarios offered to us. As our investigation deepens, we will come upon different ideas and follow different leads. This is a good thing.
As for me and Brandon, we have developed our own inferences from our field work today. Let me list them below.
First of all however, let me answer a few questions from our friends online.
1) The question of Elisa's footwear / sandals.
The hotel does not provide sandals/flip flops for guests, so the sandals/flip flops she wears in the video cannot have been given to her by the hotel.
2) The M level of the building is the Mezzanine area. It is right above the Lobby. There is a canteen and a lounge. The B level is the basement. When we reached the B level we could hear sounds of hotel staff chatting and laughing. Before we went it was suggested to us that there might be a room on the 15th floor where Elisa's body was stored. We investigated the 15th floor ourselves and did not find any such suspicious room.
3) There are reports saying that Elisa's body was found with all four limbs broken. Upon investigation, I've found there were no official reports of Elisa's limbs being broken. There was only official report saying that Elisa's limbs looked abnormal, which may be a result of her body being suspended in water and subject to water currents for an extended period of time.
4) The opening at the top of the water tank where Elisa was found was not small. Me and Brandon found we could each easily fit through the opening. Perhaps a very obese person may not fit through - but otherwise, any normally-sized person (even one who is slightly plump in appearance) would probably fit through that opening easily. Even if Elisa had been murdered first before her body was disposed in the tank, it would be possible to fit her body through the tank easily.
Now that we have addressed some of our web friends' most pressing questions, we shall go into our own inferences from the field work we accomplished today.
1) How did Elisa's body end up in the tank?
a) She could have wanted to end her own life. Climbed up the wooden ladder on the side of the water tank, open the lid and jumped into the tank.
Point of suspicion : If she did commit suicide, then its very hard for her body to achieve the kind of position in which she was later found - i.e. head pointing downwards towards the tank base, feet pointing upwards towards the tank top. This is because when one tries to die by drowning, the body's instinct is to struggle to breathe, and thus the resulting body posture of a drowned person is normally head pointing upwards towards the sky, feet pointing downwards.
b) Elisa committed suicide by jumping from the top of the attic/loft roof into the water tank opening. In actuality, this is not as easily done as our web friends might imagine. The thing is, there is a distance of about not more than 2 metres from the attic/loft roof to the water tank. And the top of the water tank is not smooth/straight, and there are gaps and openings in between. For a girl to attempt to do this is extremely difficult - this is my opinion after personally inspecting the place.
c) Elisa's body was disposed of into the water tank by the perpetrator by climbing up the wooden ladder first. This is a more probable scenario. Because it's much easier to do this via going up the wooden ladder, than from the roof of the attic/loft building. It would also be easier to push the body into the tank slowly and surely by doing it this way. One man would be able to do this on his own. If it's a two man job, it'd be very easily done.
d) Elisa's body was lowered into the tank from the rooftop of the attic/loft building. This is considerably difficult. It doesn't matter if the perpetrator tries to do this by first jumping off the attic/loft building rooftop before disposing her body, or by dumping her body straight down into the tank opening from the roof of the attic/loft building. Quite impossible for one man to do this on his own. But may be possible if there were two men involved.
From the above we can surmise that :
1) It's easy to enter the water tank.
2) Even easier to climb up the water tank from the wooden ladder leaning on it.
2) How did Elisa end up on the roof of the hotel?
From our own field work today, we deduce that most people (those who are familiar with the place) would find it easy to go to the rooftop. All they need is guts to do this. Besides, from the things we saw on the roof, we can surmise that quite a number of people have gone up there before. From the graffiti, we can surmise that some people go up there on a very regular basis.
Besides, someone was drinking beer at the rooftop.
Therefore there are a few possibilities as to how Elisa ended up going to the roof :
a) She could have gone up there herself via the fire escape stairs.
b) She could have gone up there with a member of the hotel staff. The hotel staff would have the keys necessary to unlock that locked door at the top of the flight of stairs inside the hotel, and the staff member would know how to disable the alarm.
c) She could have followed someone up to the rooftop. This person she followed could have been a hotel member of staff, or a guest at the hotel (leaning towards a guest who is very familiar with the place).
d) Her dead body could have been carried by a member of the hotel staff up the hotel stairs through the alarmed security door onto the rooftop (one man would be able to do this on his own, and two men would accomplish this very easily).
e) Her dead body could have been carried by someone up the fire escape stairs onto the rooftop (it would be of considerable difficulty for one man, but not impossible. and for two men, it would be doable for sure.)
From the above info, we can surmise :
Any hotel staff or regular guest to the hotel can go up to the rooftop.
One man can commit the crime and dispose of her body on his own.
Two men (or more) can easily do this.
It is more likely for Elisa to have ended up on the rooftop via the fire escape stairs (whether she was dead or alive at the time)
It is far more likely for Elisa and her murderer to have gone up together (alive) to the rooftop via the fire escape stairs.
3) Where could Elisa have been prior to going up to the rooftop?
The CCTV footage is the last we see of Elisa's movements. From the footage we see that she exits the elevator to the left. Thus she might have :
a) Gone back to her own room via the hotel stairs by the elevator. Because the layout of the hotel is such that the stairs are "open plan" and unobscured from the guest rooms, a single girl may feel relatively daring enough to go down those stairs on her own even on a late night.
b) Gone to a room on the 14th floor. (whether she was forced to or willingly did so)
c) Gone to a room on the 15th floor. (whether she was forced to or willingly did so) From our field work today, we know that it takes a maximum of 10 seconds to get to the 15th floor from the 14th via stairs. Thus we cannot eliminate the possibility that she did go to the 15th floor.
d) Why posit a possible 13th floor? Because it isn't logical. We can already confirm she was staying on the 4th floor of the hotel. So if she wanted to go downstairs, or pretended to go downstairs, she wouldn't have gone up one floor and then took the elevator down to go downstairs.
e) She may have been on the 15th floor wanting to get into the lift. Someone on the 15th floor is trying to dissuade her or not allow her to go back to her room. She walks down to the 14th floor to take the lift. After that the person on the 15th floor comes down the stairs to the 14th floor as well to find her. This is a possibility we cannot dismiss either.
f) Since there is a maximum of 10 metres between the elevators and both flights of stairs on either side, and the floor heights are very low, going up and down the floors via stairs is a very convenient and fast method. It is very hard to deduce if the person she was seeing is living in the room on the right or the left side of the elevator on the 14th floor.
I personally measured the time it took for me to go up the stairs from where the 14th floor elevator was situated to the where the 15th floor elevator was, and then went back down to the where the 14th floor elevator was again. This did not take me more than 1 minute to accomplish.
g) Elisa could have returned to her room on the 4th floor, got killed, the murderer then transported her body to the 15th floor. Time taken to do this shouldn't have taken any more than 10 minutes. If the perpetrator is a healthy, fit and strong man, he may take as little as 4 to 5 minutes to do this. And then after that, he disposed of her body into the water tank.
I shall not be discussing Elisa's behaviour in the video here, as there has already been extensive discussion of that prior to this post, and I have already made my opinions clear regarding why she acted the way she did.
I shall end this post here. I will post more if I have any more to say. Do take your time to pore through all this information.
VB调查
Best summary yet!!! Thank you!!!
:yourock:
snipped by me:
"Going up to the roof is not a difficult accomplishment. You just need the guts to do it. Because the ladder that leads to the roof from the fire escape stairs is completely vertical, those who are afraid of heights or are timid would probably not dare to attempt climbing it."
I was very daring in my younger days and did some dumb things.
I would never have climbed that fire escape ladder 15 floors up. I may have gone up the steps to the roof. Once there, I would never have gone near the edge or near those water towers. I suspect it's quite windy up there as well and very scary.
FiveFelines
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When I searched yesterday I could only find two. Egads, they're multiplying!
four_seasons
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i think they got to the 15th floor and found the window of the fire exit open and climbed up...
Turk February
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There is a poster here named 'smeinzer' who stayed at the Cecil Hotel (stay at main hotel) during Feb.7th to the 10th.
smeinzer reported the security guards may have been hired from a 3rd party security company due to their jacket logos.
smeinzer also mentioned only seeing security hang around on the lobby floor.
Because the elevator door is in that direction. She wants to keep one eye on the elevator door, just in case it starts to close. She could be talking to herself in a normal manner (drug-induced or not), or to someone that is or isn't a perp. There are shared facilities there, so there could have well been someone there.
BunnyHop
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@anansie
Thanks again. Kudos to those guys who went there at their own risk to provide those videos. I'm amazed that after the fact they were able to even go up there with little or no security.
I suspect staff/security/insiders/owners. Sad, very sad. I wonder how many other victims.
Thanks again. Kudos to those guys who went there at their own risk to provide those videos. I'm amazed that after the fact they were able to even go up there with little or no security.
I suspect staff/security/insiders/owners. Sad, very sad. I wonder how many other victims.
Turk February
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Good point. Though I believe she was talking to somebody on the right side hallway
We also could assume she either:
A. Went inside elevator #2 (the left side elevator)
B. Walked to the stairwell to go up or down (depending what floor she really is on, 14th or 15th)
C. Went to the fire escape in the hallway and climbed up the rooftops (but why?)
princessofmirth
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I stayed at the Cecil, about 8 years ago. One night was enough for me. I clearly remember someone knocking on the door, trying to sell me some crack. From what I gathered, and this is entirely speculation, there seemed to be a different set of rules for the staff/long term residents, and the hotel clientele. The SRO residents and staff seemed to me to be more "chummy" and they would not have to show ID to guards, etc.
In my mind, and I am not saying this may still be the case, if a resident had indeed done harm to Elisa Lam, they may have a confidante in the staff.
This is my opinion, and conjecture based upon my stay and news stories of the hotel.
Turk February
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Then again, we need to determine who was staying on the 14th (or 15th?) floor during February 1st when that CCTV video was recorded.
I'm sure by now the alleged perp. responsible for Elisa's death would of high-tailed it out of the Cecil Hotel and out of the U.S by now after a 19 day getaway opportunity.
Also, you never know if that perp. could also be observing this forum as well!
BunnyHop
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The guys were very brave and excellent. I was referring to their comments about one needs to be very brave to climb that ladder 15 flights up, and their summary.
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