Hi, all! Another newb here. I'm not entirely caught up in the EL threads (still working on the second thread), but I wanted to jump in with some ideas. My apologies if I'm repeating anything already hashed out...
First, I want to address the video. I think it's likely that Elisa made some new friends at the hotel and they were either trying to get to the roof, or were just coming from the roof. If they had been caught trying to get up there, that might explain why she pushes so many buttons on the elevator. Signs state that anyone not a guest of the Cecil is not allowed in the elevators. She may have pushed Cecil floor #s (10, 7) as well as her own (4) to throw off a security guard (make him think she was a Cecil guest vs a Stay guest) and get back to her own floor without getting into trouble.
To both the left and right are stairs that her friends may have tried. The stairs to her right do not have roof access, so the conversation at the end of the video could have been with a friend coming back and letting her know he/she couldn't get to the roof that way. Elisa explains to this person that the elevator is stuck, that she pushed a whole row of buttons (her hand gesturing up and down) but it still won't move.
It's also possible she was in the middle of a game of elevator tag. That would explain pushing a whole row of buttons, and peering out left to right to see if someone is there. Moving to the left side of the elevator (off screen), she'd be able to look into the mirror (if she is, in fact, on the 15th floor) to "catch" another player once the doors to the left elevator opened.
The pics of rooftops on her Tumblr (sorry, I don't have links; they were posted in the first thread, I think) may have been posted because she wanted to go up to the rooftop or had been to the rooftop and felt inspired...?
The tank:
I know it's a stretch, but it may be possible Elisa hid in the tank during a game of hide & seek or tag. It's not the smartest thing to do, but perhaps the thrill of the rooftop, the adventure of exploring the hotel, etc., put her in almost a hypomanic state and she didn't follow common sense? Or perhaps she entered the tank on a dare???
Someone linked an article about these kinds of tanks, and that article says that the water is actually suctioned out through pipes in the top (not the bottom) and the Cecil pictures show that there are, in fact, pipes running out of the top of the tank in which she was found. Could be she was in the tank (for fun, or as a horrible joke), when the water level rose, drowning her, and/or the pipes started suctioning. She may have been caught by her hair and drowned that way. That would leave no trauma marks on her body, yet still indicate to LE that her death was possibly an accident. Her belongings (like her phone, her flipflops, etc.) may have been suctioned that way, too, and gotten stuck, damaging and flooding the pipes. Her pals (really, strangers) may have just figured they "lost" her during the game and assumed she checked out the next morning. Or, may have been too scared to speak up.
I truly hope this was an unfortunate accident and not a brutal murder. My thoughts go out to her friends and family.
I look forward to checking out some of the other cases/forums on this site. I can't believe I never knew about this site.
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