CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013 - #1

[ShyGamer]

<rsbm>

Sometimes it can be reporter interpretation.

We heard/saw that they had to cut into the bottom of the tank to remove her body, but I don't recall any other officials or MSM reporting that she was "found" there by either the maintenance man or officials. I seem to recall just a simple reference to them not being able to get to her body through the top of the tank. Whether that was because the opening was too small to allow removal, or because she was in fact at the bottom ???

Could be. Maybe the water caused bloating of the body?

 

[ThinkHard]

Ok so IF she were in the hotel for some days prior to be taken to the roof, and IF there are cameras all over it , how could that person make that journey undetected ? CA has a lot of rolling blackouts, but not this time of year, correct? Has there been any electrical disruption lately that would leave all cameras off ?

Ya know, when someone was mentioning the fire escapes along the outside of the building, I was wondering if those fire escapes ran directly in front of any windows that would be windows to guest rooms, opposed to windows of hallways. I would think if a fire escape was in front of a guest rooms window, it wouldn't makes for a very good view. And perhaps the rates if those rooms would be cheaper. And perhaps long time residents would prefer the cheaper rooms.

I wonder if a long time resident, happen to have a room with direct fire escape access let lead to the roof? And what if one of these residents with such a set up also happens to be one of the long time residents who are registered as a sex offender?

Could they then not lure her to their room, and get her to the roof without ever having to worry about going past security cameras with a body?

 

[ThinkHard]

Very interesting, the local news reported her body being found at the bottom of the tank. By your description, she couldn't have been in there for more than a few days.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti.../bc-elisa-lam-los-angelese.html?autoplay=true

And if the tumblr account of hers is correct (according to the date stamp of the last tumblr entry), then she couldn't have been in there for more than 48 hours.

.

Or that the water stayed cold enough to keep her body down there longer. I know LA can cool off a lot at night....but I don't know what water temps would be considered cool enough to keep her body down, and if those tanks would have somehow been regulated at all.

 

[Deleted member 96356]

This is such a strange case, seems like every day it raises more and more and more questions...

- when looking at body decomposition, would a coroner be able to determine whether the decomposing occurred in water or not? i.e. whether she went in the water after decomposition began, or it was all water decomp?

- would they be able to give a "not fewer than" days estimate for the decomp, as well as the "as many days as" estimate? they've said as many as 19 days, but I wonder if they also know the minimum days required?

- way back in this thread it was mentioned that someone on the Find Elisa Lam facebook page had posted that she told them she had found farm work in CA; that site is down now, but it seems odd to me that no one else is reported as having heard about any farm job; kind of a weird detail for someone to invent, or even to misunderstand Elisa saying to them...

 

[Stratford258]

I'm unclear as to whether those dogs were given her scent, or were just generally searching for a person/body? Seems to me that IF dogs were given her scent, the dogs would have signaled her presence on the roof, not just inside the tank. Assuming, as you point out, that she was there before the search and not after. And that these dogs were even working with her scent. I don't know what kind of dogs were used?

Does anyone know more about search and rescue dogs' capabilities? Are we sure they were search and rescue dogs, not cadaver-only dogs?

If Elisa was in the hotel during the time she was missing, how it is that the dogs did not find her anywhere in the building?

Whether she was alive or dead, it doesn't make sense that dogs that are trained on her scent would not find her.

 

[Kaliste]

Welcome to all the new members! Hope you will all jump into other threads while we waiting on more info about Elisa. Fresh insight is ALWAYS welcome!

For some reason this made me think of "Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?". Who put Elisa in the water tower. Hmmm...

 

[kunibob]

Don't rely on Tumblr dates -- you can queue as far ahead as you want. Some of the posts there are atypical of a normal queue pattern, but could still be explained by her manually assigning dates/times to them.

As well, I'd recommend against putting too much importance on the things she reblogged. I reblog stuff because it looks cool, or for artistic inspiration, or because I think something in it is quirky or pretty. It means very little. Sometimes I'll forget I've reblogged something. It's a very spontaneous thing.

 

[serenerelief]

Actually, the mod who deleted my thoughts discussing my similar impressions of Elisa's social media presence said the violation came in speaking of social media accounts that WERE NOT linked to. I am assuming you are talking about the nouvelle-nouveau Tumblr or one of the accounts linked in the "Etc." section of that page? If so, these are absolutely verified to be hers in a post I made earlier today, linking to Twitter posts mentioning Elisa's case specifically and connecting her to a screenname I was able to link to that Tumblr page.

And for the record, I think sharing pertinent information posted on social media accounts is every bit as relevant to this website as any non-"minutiae" like deconstructing every second of the surveillance video. A lot of us are here for the first time because this case has moved us, and we don't want to see it go unsolved like so many similar cases do, and sharing possible insights into Elisa's life could provide pieces to the puzzle that weren't previously in place. I realize the CSI viewer in all of us wants to catch the perp in the shadow of the elevator door, but in real life a successful investigation is much more dependent on the mundane, the decidedly non-dramatic. I have major doubts that any of Elisa's family were aware of her social media posts, or if they even would have been able to recall her screen names had they been even somewhat tuned in to her online activities.

I second this. The blog is verified if you take the time to look through the Tumblr, and I believe this is a crucial piece of evidence for insight into her mindstate and thus the case in general.

 

[gitana1]

He said he had seen her the previous Saturday (which would have been Feb 9). She would have had to make it back to the Cecil unseen by all who knew she was missing.

I'm pretty familiar with that area. It's full of homeless and busy Hispanics and others who rush through and do not pay attention to anyone or anything. It's totally possible that Elisa wandered the streets unnoticed and then snuck back into the hotel (or at least onto it's roof). If she was psychotic she could have felt paranoid about entering it or felt it was necessary to make sure no one was spying on her from the roof.

 

[SCHMAE]

Ya know, when someone was mentioning the fire escapes along the outside of the building, I was wondering if those fire escapes ran directly in front of any windows that would be windows to guest rooms, opposed to windows of hallways. I would think if a fire escape was in front of a guest rooms window, it wouldn't makes for a very good view. And perhaps the rates if those rooms would be cheaper. And perhaps long time residents would prefer the cheaper rooms.

I wonder if a long time resident, happen to have a room with direct fire escape access let lead to the roof? And what if one of these residents with such a set up also happens to be one of the long time residents who are registered as a sex offender?

Could they then not lure her to their room, and get her to the roof without ever having to worry about going past security cameras with a body?

Good thinking. I would add be on one of the very top floors so that it was not too for a climb. Because also if you scale the entire height of a building, toting an adult female, over your shoulder , that would take several minutes and in that time someone from somewhere would likely see. Hmmm.
This is a really sad case

 

[PopeReal]

Joined this site because of this case. I was thinking about it all night. Watched the video several times, and at this point my guess is that she wasn't drugged or really acting that strangely.

I can't hear what she is hearing, so I just can't jump to the conclusion that she is going crazy or something like that. Her actions seem exaggerated yes, but I think many people would do that if they were scared, nervous, or anxious.

I think the video itself of someone being quirky while they appear to be alone makes her look crazy or drugged. But if someone is in the hall or there were sounds coming down the hall suddenly her actions don't seem strange at all. Couple that with the fact that the elevator isn't starting (for whatever reason) and it would make sense that she suddenly is anxious.

 

[Sillybilly]

Does anyone know more about search and rescue dogs' capabilities? Are we sure they were search and rescue dogs, not cadaver-only dogs?

If Elisa was in the hotel during the time she was missing, how it is that the dogs did not find her anywhere in the building?

Whether she was alive or dead, it doesn't make sense that dogs that are trained on her scent would not find her.

I used to do volunteer work with cadaver dogs and their handlers (no expert though). IIRC, we have some handlers on WS, so will try to track them down (pardon the pun) and see if they'll join the thread to answer all those questions. Actually, i think i saw one of them on the board a while back.

 

[EAS]

If the 2-week timeframe of her body being in the tank is only an initial estimate, or just what LE is comfortable releasing as info at this time, I'd say it seems pretty plausible that she may have been alive and posting up until somewhere around the 2/18 timeframe. The elevator vid is creepy when we associate it with someone missing/deceased, especially as the last-known footage, that is clearly evident. But what if that's not the key to her disappearance? It's bizarre to say the least-- consider the remote possibility that this incident resulted in nothing immediate, but maybe an encounter later on? Maybe an interaction with hotel staff, or a resident.

Also, when the hotel staff notified law enforcement on Feb 1st that she hadn't checked out-- I'd love to know what happened directly thereafter-- can anyone post info/link? Clearly, they must have searched her room, and turned up belongings-- was anything missing? A laptop? She had to have been posting on her tumblr and twitter via computer somewhere or personal laptop during her travels-- there are lots of posts from various stages of her journey, she rarely (if ever?) misses a day. She mentions losing a phone on Jan 27th, a loaner/gifted blackberry from a friend. Therefore, posting from a phone wouldn't be plausible, as posts continue after that. I know LE has said they didn't want to talk about a cell phone, in one interview. Could she have gotten a tracfone? Did they find a laptop? Her parents didn't hear from her -starting when?- Jan 31st? What was she using as a cell between the 27th and 31st? Or was she emailing?

She mentions traveling cheaply (staying in hostels, stuffing herself with a $3 meal in San Diego, evidently staying at a very low-priced hotel in LA) so I doubt this is the kind of girl who would lose a gifted/loaned phone, and then go out and buy a new one afterward. I'd think she'd probably defer to email, or get the cheapest available thing.

If LE did find a personal computer, I'm extremely curious what would be on/in there. If not, provided she had one, could it have been stolen? Or could it have snuck away with her if she just decided to disappear, allowing her to post up until 2/18?

Furthermore, if she did queue, why queue posts ahead of time so they would go up until the 18th? If she was traveling alone, it seems plausible that she'd be spending some time with her computer daily-- from her backstory and her own posts, it seems she was aware of how much time she spent on the internet and seemed to use it as ways to comfort herself, address her fears and feel connected.

I saw that she reblogged a lot of stuff. It's pretty easy to tell what is reblogged and what is actual content. When I delved into the archive, I went looking for her original posts. You can also start to cross-reference through tags, which was how I was able to get some backstory on her other trips before this. The reblogged items are, obviously, not written by her own hand, but provide some valuable insight as to what she felt important to share, and what she related to as she was going through her breakups and her challenge to find herself. Not every Harry Potter post is going to tell us what she had going on in her mind, but it speaks to her interests, where she saw herself in the world, etc.

Just some more thoughts/conjecture.

 

[kunibob]

The Tumblr queue auto-empties at regular intervals until it's empty. When something looks vaguely interesting, you throw it in the queue, and eventually it posts. Some people keep huge queue backlogs of 500+ entries or more, so it's no surprise to me that hers kept going for three weeks.

Again, I recommend not reading too much into the contents of her reblogs. Much of it will be based on what comes up on her dashboard, which is where the people she follows have done their posts/reblogs. If someone were to look at my Tumblr right now and draw inferences from my reblogs, they'd get a very false impression of what I'm actually like. Only her original posts are a good indicator of what's on her mind.

You can easily tell most of the reblogs because they'll have another user name/quote on them. The ones that are just pictures, you have to click to view the individual post, where it will say if it was reblogged from someone else.

Hope that helps!

 

[x_files]

Locks on these door dont mean sheet.
I used to work in A Casino and there were alot of restricted areas but the doors were always Propped open or a piece of cardboard slid in because ppl would go and smoke in the halls or use these areas as a short cut to get somewhere else.

The roof im sure was used for pot smoking and a roof top view of the city
Id guess it was used alot by visitors and employee's.

I do not feel she put herself in that tank.
I dont think she was mentally ustable.
Someone Killed her JMO

I think we are seeing someone do something to this girl on that video what we dont know but someone is there and knows not to walk in front of that elevator!

Your comment about hotel casinos and propped open doors made me think of tv series "The Killing." The girl overheard a shady deal and was murdered.
Hotel Cecil has enough shady residents to keep the police busy.

 

[skyfitsheaven]

New here, and have been devouring everything i can about this case. I do believe the tumblr listed before is hers, there is just too much of a coincidence that there is another Canadian girl who is also planning a trip to LA.

Some thoughts:

1) I would not read too much into the diagnosis of bipolar in so far that this is a pretty typical diagnosis of a young, privileged girl who was a bit different. If you search Tumblr for "bipolar" you can find many similar young girls with artsy interests.

2) I don't think she was psychotic or in the midst of an episode when she got into the elevator. I live in the Bay Area and grew up in NYC, I've seen many homeless folks freaking out in the street and she just looked drunk. She was a very small person, maybe she had had too much, or maybe she had been roofied or been experimenting with drugs. Psych meds and alcohol can lead to interesting consequences.

My personal elevator theory is that she met a hotel guest she was partying with and was hanging out in their room (on the 14th floor), things got bad and she decided to go back to her own room. They followed her and convinced her go back to their room. When she is counting and talking, it looks like she might be trying to convince them of the reasons she has to leave (she is slated to check out 2/1), so maybe she is counting those things. He convinces her and we never see her again.

There are so many unanswered questions in this case. Where is her phone? If she did lose her phone, I imagine she bought another one. A burner phone from Walgreen's costs around $50. At the very least, she must have used the Internet to upload photos from San Diego and chat with friends back home. Who was she talking to?

My gut feeling is this perp is someone who knew this hotel well (former employee or frequent visitor, maybe a john?), who befriended her, and is an experienced rapist or sex offender. Dumping someone in a water tank is not the first place many would think. She was naked, none of her clothes or glasses were found and he managed to keep her hidden for a while. I just don't think this was an accident.

Sorry for the long post as a first-timer! I'm a woman who travels alone frequently and this case really hit home. Nothing like this has ever happened to me. I'm very lucky.

 

[Buckeye lady]

If the 2-week timeframe of her body being in the tank is only an initial estimate, or just what LE is comfortable releasing as info at this time, I'd say it seems pretty plausible that she may have been alive and posting up until somewhere around the 2/18 timeframe. The elevator vid is creepy when we associate it with someone missing/deceased, especially as the last-known footage, that is clearly evident. But what if that's not the key to her disappearance? It's bizarre to say the least-- consider the remote possibility that this incident resulted in nothing immediate, but maybe an encounter later on? Maybe an interaction with hotel staff, or a resident.

Also, when the hotel staff notified law enforcement on Feb 1st that she hadn't checked out-- I'd love to know what happened directly thereafter-- can anyone post info/link? Clearly, they must have searched her room, and turned up belongings-- was anything missing? A laptop? She had to have been posting on her tumblr and twitter via computer somewhere or personal laptop during her travels-- there are lots of posts from various stages of her journey, she rarely (if ever?) misses a day. She mentions losing a phone on Jan 27th, a loaner/gifted blackberry from a friend. Therefore, posting from a phone wouldn't be plausible, as posts continue after that. I know LE has said they didn't want to talk about a cell phone, in one interview. Could she have gotten a tracfone? Did they find a laptop? Her parents didn't hear from her -starting when?- Jan 31st? What was she using as a cell between the 27th and 31st? Or was she emailing?

She mentions traveling cheaply (staying in hostels, stuffing herself with a $3 meal in San Diego, evidently staying at a very low-priced hotel in LA) so I doubt this is the kind of girl who would lose a gifted/loaned phone, and then go out and buy a new one afterward. I'd think she'd probably defer to email, or get the cheapest available thing.

If LE did find a personal computer, I'm extremely curious what would be on/in there. If not, provided she had one, could it have been stolen? Or could it have snuck away with her if she just decided to disappear, allowing her to post up until 2/18?

Furthermore, if she did queue, why queue posts ahead of time so they would go up until the 18th? If she was traveling alone, it seems plausible that she'd be spending some time with her computer daily-- from her backstory and her own posts, it seems she was aware of how much time she spent on the internet and seemed to use it as ways to comfort herself, address her fears and feel connected.

I saw that she reblogged a lot of stuff. It's pretty easy to tell what is reblogged and what is actual content. When I delved into the archive, I went looking for her original posts. You can also start to cross-reference through tags, which was how I was able to get some backstory on her other trips before this. The reblogged items are, obviously, not written by her own hand, but provide some valuable insight as to what she felt important to share, and what she related to as she was going through her breakups and her challenge to find herself. Not every Harry Potter post is going to tell us what she had going on in her mind, but it speaks to her interests, where she saw herself in the world, etc.

Just some more thoughts/conjecture.

I believe it was reported that her phone, computer. money and other belongings were all left behind in her room so how could she post unless she did so from a library?

 

[OCSlacker]

Ya know, when someone was mentioning the fire escapes along the outside of the building, I was wondering if those fire escapes ran directly in front of any windows that would be windows to guest rooms, opposed to windows of hallways. I would think if a fire escape was in front of a guest rooms window, it wouldn't makes for a very good view. And perhaps the rates if those rooms would be cheaper. And perhaps long time residents would prefer the cheaper rooms.

I wonder if a long time resident, happen to have a room with direct fire escape access let lead to the roof? And what if one of these residents with such a set up also happens to be one of the long time residents who are registered as a sex offender?

Could they then not lure her to their room, and get her to the roof without ever having to worry about going past security cameras with a body?

Yes, some rooms do have fire escape access. If you do a search on YouTube for " Cecil hotel" themichelle201 posted a video. Fast forward to 2:08 and it gives a view of the fire escape. I Believe the video is taken in room 14H of the hotel

 

[BlazerJH]

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting on here because it is the first time I've felt I've had anything worthwhile to contribute. I spent a lot of time looking at the Tumblr account this morning and found quite a few interesting / possibly relevant things.

You can see a lot of her original (not reblogged) Tumblr posts here:

http://nouvelle-nouveau.tumblr.com/tagged/LIFE

1. It appears she was headed to Santa Cruz to do something with WWOOF, which provides the initial reason for her to be in CA

http://nouvelle-nouveau.tumblr.com/post/38458710384/insomniasss-more-i-figured-out-where-i

http://wwoofusa.org/Farms?LOC=CA

2. She has been depressed because a couple months ago her boyfriend broke up with her and she seems desperate for friends and possibly desperate for a boyfriend:

http://nouvelle-nouveau.tumblr.com/post/37884347158/more-this-came-out-of-nowhere-my-boyfriend

http://nouvelle-nouveau.tumblr.com/post/39592334436/i-think-im-having-that-delayed-breakup-meltdown

http://nouvelle-nouveau.tumblr.com/post/38288453259/of-course-its-not-a-competition-to-see-who-ends

3. She wasn't sleeping well and was getting more and more emotional:

http://nouvelle-nouveau.tumblr.com/post/39160279976/more-i-have-a-jumble-of-emotions-and-its

4. There is a new guy she is interested in, she doesn't say if he is in CA or elsewhere however she provides some descriptive info about him:

http://nouvelle-nouveau.tumblr.com/post/40549046425/more-so-theres-a-guy-im-interested-in-but

5. The guy she is interested in recently got a tattoo on his left wrist:

http://nouvelle-nouveau.tumblr.com/post/40825008672/more-so-the-boy-i-am-interested-in-he

6. She posts some odd things that to me indicate she may have had a recent altercation with someone, but the last entry I've linked below could also be interpreted as borderline suicidal:

http://nouvelle-nouveau.tumblr.com/post/40665271673/more-my-main-faults-are-that-i-talk-too-much

http://nouvelle-nouveau.tumblr.com/post/40067473296/more-i-really-need-to-be-removed-from-society

7. Throughout the Tumblr there is a strong theme of depression and bipolar characteristics. She appears to suffer from hypomania at times and the tag on this entry references sleeping pills, so she may or may not have been using them recently:

http://nouvelle-nouveau.tumblr.com/post/34350935794/adventures-in-hypomania-part-ii

8. She mentions in various places that she does not drink and does not do drugs although she can see why people would drink or do drugs as an escape.

One thing that is a bit crazy is that there is another Tumblr linked under the ETC section and when visiting that Tumblr it calls itself "a style supplement to nouvelle-nouveau" So one would assume that Elisa controlled both accounts. However the most recent post on there was only 14 hours ago so clearly this one is either operated by someone else or has been set up with some sort of automated posting program:

http://bruitdefond.tumblr.com/post/43711093546

http://bruitdefond.tumblr.com/

I notice that all of the recent posts on Bruitedefond are reblogged from images that were added to the source blog at least 1 month ago. So these fashion posts that are still being added could have all been set up by Elisa about 1 month ago as well.

And all of the recent entries to the nouvelle-nouveau Tumblr were reblogged from other sites with the newest originating from the source blog approximately 3 weeks ago. So theoretically Elisa could have automated all of these approximately 3 weeks ago. Which means she must have been using Tumblr fairly regularly even on her trip to compile all of these postings. That would mean she had a laptop or cellphone, which hopefully police have recovered and could get some info from.

So now that I have linked to all of that, I see a few primary possibilities:

1. Elisa either went to CA to meet with this new guy she was interested in, or he was a new person that she just met while already in CA. This guy could possibly be involved either through intentionally harming her or by accidentally harming her by introducing her to a drug overdose, etc. I would hope the police have a good idea who he is and have already interviewed him.

2. Elisa was so desperate to make more friends that she took risks and went to unsafe clubs, was too friendly with strange people in the building, etc. and this possibly opened her up to being taken advantage of or drugged.

3. She was possibly in a hypomanic state and couldn't sleep so she was exploring the whole building, crawling up the fire escapes, etc. and went into the water tank in this hypomanic state

4. Sadly she seems very depressed in many of her Tumblr entries. I don't think it is impossible to rule out the possibility that she committed suicide and went into the water tank intentionally. However one of her Tumblr posts was telling someone to never commit suicide, so obviously at most times this would clearly be out of the question for her.

I wouldn't rule out that she is sleepwalking in the video footage from the elevator or having some sort of reaction to sleeping pills or alcohol mixed with sleeping pills. However a big question in my mind about the video footage is how did she get to such a high floor in the first place if she was staying on the 4th floor? There should be video footage of her riding up the elevator to get to that higher floor. Maybe there is this footage and it hasn't been released, or maybe the police were never able to locate her on that footage. But if we could see how she reached that 14th or 15th floor (sorry I can't remember which we decided she was on) and if she was alone when riding up the elevator it may shed details as to her state of mind and any companions she may have had on the way up.

Hopefully I didn't break any forum rules by posting all those Tumblr links. If I did, mods please feel free to edit this post to remove the links.

 

[Deleted member 96356]

Does anyone know more about search and rescue dogs' capabilities? Are we sure they were search and rescue dogs, not cadaver-only dogs? <snip>

If they were looking for a missing person, why would they use cadaver-only dogs? At that point they didn't even have probable cause to search rooms.