Okay, still catching up and by far not completely in this case, but I got a few first impressions. Please don't take that as complete profile and I consider it far from "stable". And all I say in the following is IMO (just to clam down the usual posts following that all I say is only IMO anyway). And be warned - even first impressions can be multi-parters:
1.) I think Elisa Lam was in that tank since she disappeared. Usually small bodies, and she was petite and light weight as in she had not much volume, have because of that small volume not much buoyancy (dive physics 101). Now such a tank has, when water is used a slight currency working basically from the surface to the outlet into the pipes leading down. So at the time, the body was fresh, not decomposed, physics indicates, that if the force of that currency is higher than her anyway little buoyancy, her body would go down and at some point block the outlet into the pipes. That would cause temporarily flow problems for fresh water in the lower stories.
This is also consistent with the noise Bernard Diaz claimed to have heard. The tanks are metal, so are the pipes. A harsh metallic noise, like slamming that hatch shut would be transferred through the pipes like through a speaking tube. The more the emptier the tank.
In the following half day, up to about 2 to 2 1/2 weeks, decomposition does it's work. Decomposition means aside of other things, gas. Gas creates buoyancy. The body stays up because after some gas comes together, F(buoyancy, upwards) > F(currency downwards). And I really would like to know whether I can insert OO Math here ...
So, for the next weeks, there are no unusual problems with the water flow. However, when decomposition progresses, tissue dissolves and therefore the gas concentrations become untight. The buoyancy of the remains will decrease and therefor the current when someone is using water will be stronger than the buoyancy. Therefore, the blocking starts again. Up to here, that's pretty simply physics.
2.) The concentration of bacteria and poisonous byproducts of decomposition would be in such a tank system low. First of all, the tank is quite big, so it would take time till any concentration is high enough to become dangerous and would show up in symptoms on those who used the water. And in fact, this point of concentration will not be reached because there is always water going out (people use water) and fresh water coming in (when the tanks refill). Additionally, the permanent outflow of water and the periodical refill plus the water covering most of the body would render cadaver dogs effectively worthless. So it is no surprise, the dogs couldn't find a thing, especially not at a time, when the body was still fresh because, as pointed out in 1.) the body would have been UNDER water.
3.) The flooding, Bernard Diaz mentioned, can't be caused by the body itself. The system providing fresh water has to be necessarily a closed system ni the sense, that faucets block usually any outlet in the floors under the tanks. Otherwise there would be always flowing water. So this flooding can only be caused by waste water. Back-flow from toilets, sinks, tub-outlets, in short everything, used water goes out. Which is physically separated from the fresh water coming out of the faucets.
Now, it can be coincidence, but IMO, it would be a little too much of it to have flooding exactly the day, a dead body is put in the tank on the roof. So something went down the waste water system, stuck there for a time, then disappeared. I haven'T seen any reports, any janitor has used Drano or something similar harsh chemical on those pipes that day and no reports someone snaked it out. But, given the clothing, Elisa Lam was wearing in the elevator video, I can see nothing, that would stuck in a pipe and survive a good aggressive pipe chemical pipe cleaner for long. And for sure no heavy clothing except for the shoes, which look to me more like sandals than flip-flops (no expert there though), that could resist such a chemical in-pipe-treatment for longer.
It's some assumption on my side now, but if a dead body pops up in a tank nude and at the same time, something blocks the waste water pipes, the idea that it was clothing appears IMO not too far. However, if I am right, that would mean, either Elisa Lam wasn't killed on the roof or the unsub returned down to dispose of her cloth. There is no access to the waste system from the roof, no toilet house, no bathroom. Only the floors under the roof have toilets. Given, that the flooding was in the area of third and fourth floor and the improbability that cloth, even ripped to pieces, would make it far through such an old plumbing, the entry point is, IMO, most likely in the area fourth to sixth floor. Which would place the unsub in the part of the Hotel known as The Stay if I understand the descriptions right.
4.) The "official" access to the roof leads through a locked door with alarm system. Now the point is, everybody expects a door supposed to be locked is actually locked. And the alarm system hot and active. But we talk here about a roof and there are also fire escape ladders. Those are also expected to be secured by the very same alarm system, right. And still we hear, sometimes people lived in the elevator room. So, how did they come up there without cause alerts? Some long time residents appear to have been up there quite often. I don't know, having a beer, smoking, talking, whatever. The point is, a lot of people knew, the alarm system wasn't actually active. Or had at least significant gaps. And if people go up there, for entirely hapless reasons, other people can watch them. Which means, the access to that roof, neither by physical obstacles, nor by alarm system nor by lack of knowledge. is so limited as it appears on the first glance. You don't need to be an employer to know that. Any longtime resident, anybody who knew longtime residents and visited them often enough could have known, there was a way to get up without causing an alert. And every guest, despite the obvious attempts to separate those two kinds of clientele, could have made contact with longtime residents.
5.) Elisa Lam, as alone traveling women, was there for almost a week before she disappeared. It is impossible, she never changed a word with anybody. She maybe didn't start big friendships, but at least, she was there and said maybe "good morning" or "hello" to someone. And this most likely happened in the lounge of The Stay. She lived, if I understood right, on fourth floor, four to six are guest rooms and share that lounge. So whoever, she made contact with, he used that lounge. She would on her own, not be the kind of person, IMO, to go to the floors with the longtime residents. Some of those are pretty spooky. And the flooding the day she disappeared, indicates IMO, the entry point of her cloths into the waste water pipes was somewhere 4th to 6th floor.
6.) There was a lot about drugs and depression and mental disorder. Elisa Lam was diagnosed with MILD depression. Even if those were connected to an underlying bi-polar disorder (which as far as I can see was more rumor than actually confirmed), depressions that lead to suicides bring people to jump from roofs, slit their wrists, hang themselves or any other kind of straight forward suicide. Drown in a water tank would be a new one. So, IMO, the way she was found contradicts a suicide theory.
Now, I read, her behavior in the elevator would indicate a psychotic break. But one of the most significant symptoms, nerve twitching was missing. That doesn't include a short term break caused by drugs (whether taken voluntarily or not), but it contradicts a psychotic break caused by an underlying long term mental condition. And schizophrenia? Well, if schizophrenia sets on, it would be admittedly age appropriate, but then that is all. I can't see her in the video looking over her shoulder and even when she hides in the rh-corner of the cabin, her body language appears rather relaxed to me, playful, not panicky. So, if any drugs were involved, it would be the kind, that makes rather a little incoherent, maybe undignified, loosing inhibitions. Does that sound rather like roofies than hardcore recreational drugs?
7.) Her glasses! She didn't have her glasses with her. She doesn't wear them on the elevator movie and they were found later in her room. Now, for someone, who is actually as blind as a bat, that would be something next to unthinkable. But for someone only half as blind as a bat (like me), it sometimes happens. One goes quickly over to somewhere, knows, no need to read a thing there ... so fine. Susan Rancourt, one of Ted Bundy's victims, went to the campus laundry without her glasses, just as an example.
That makes me think, she was on her way to somewhere or on the way back. She showed some weird behavior, even it doesn't appear panicky to me. We will see in some weeks, what comes back from the lab. But there are some little key pieces. She had no glasses with her, so it was near and she didn't expect to be there long. And she had no towels or vanity bag with her, so she wasn't on the way to a shared bath. The only reason to assume, she was on 14th floor or any of the higher up floors is, she pressed that elevator button, it went on and off immediately again. Which could be cause as easily by something stuck in the elevator door. Kids doing mischief with elevator doors in my youth used chewing gum paper in the light beam for that thing.
So, putting all of that together, I think (translated: IMO), she was on the way back (if at all she was already in that playful mood that was caused or not caused by drugs) and the place she was, was a normal hotel room. Given, as earlier pointed out, that her main area to socialize in the hotel was the lounge of The Stay, I would guess, a hotel room somewhere on floor 4 to 6.
8.) There is a time discrepancy in all of that. I don't think, one can place a body without terrible risk in that tank in the time between early afternoon and midnight. Because since so many people know and occasionally use that roof, the probability to run in a sunbathing long term resident who wants to ask whose body you are carrying around is just too big. Thus, IMO, Elisa Lam was put in this tank either January 31st before noon or February 1st after midnight. However, before noon means, there would be, if not on the roof, but in the hotel itself, some traffic. Thus, if it was Jan 31st, short time after the elevator video, Elisa was alive when she was brought up. Only, I can't imagine, how to make her going up there. At least the body language in the elevator video doesn't indicate to me actual and acute threat. So my bet would be, she was killed in a hotel room and transported up there later. If someone could find, what Bernard Diaz actually said about the time of the flooding (all I find is "the day, she disappeared, which can, depending on his lifestyle easily include the time into the morning hours of February 1st), we could pinpoint that better. But each of those solutions to the problem would indicate, the unsub is a good observer and at least on an instictive level someone knowing about his fellow human beings and their behavior.
9.) Either way, the unsub would have to transport her or her body in one of those two time windows. Which either way would not only be a display of physical strength but also nerves made from steel. Together with the way, he had to estimate correctly the times and milling ways of other people in the hotel, this has the first few hallmarks of someone with an anti-social personality disorder at least in a secondary diagnosis. Psycho- and sociopaths can't "feel" social behavior, they learn early in their youth to simulate it. How? By observing "normal" people, their behavior, their patterns. That doesn't mean, this is a serial killer, I think, rather not (I think = IMO). But it is someone who is cold because he is emotional so distant, he can keep his nerves even under what would be a stressing thing for normal people (like killing someone). Half of the rapists, who kill for the first time, run away screaming "oh gosh, what have I done". Not this guy. He makes a plan and works it.
10.) Cause of death. The coroner has to wait for tox, maybe DNA (I doubt that, the body was too long in water), maybe micro-fiber. But that tells me already, there is no "obvious" COD. No gunshot wounds, no stabbing, no broken hyoid bone, no blunt force trauma. Nothing that obvious. Which reduces the possibilities basically already now to poisoning (waiting for tox) or asphyxiation (micro-fiber of lungs and bronchial system). Now, poisoning takes a little time and is pretty uncontrolled. Asphyxiation, for example by pressing a pillow on the victim's face calls for some strength but otherwise is very controlled. So, my bet is, somewhere 4th to 6th floor on January 31st, a pillow had bite marks. Which of course wouldn't be recognized by the room service.
... to be continued in the next post
