CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013 - #3

[smeinzer]

Thanks for all of this insider information, excellent. So what is the appeal of the hotel? I mean you know LA or live there as you say not sure which and you wanted to stay in a hostel there? (Just trying to understand the sociology of this - as you get older (me) it can get harder to connect or reconnect with youthful attitudes - and then things change of course. Locally does it have any sleazy glamour like the old Chelsea in New York?

Haha I can totally see why you are questioning this. I lived in LA for 7 years and moved away for a few years for work and am in the process of moving back. I was in town for a few jobs and meetings, the first of which were in DTLA. I am also really interested and inspired by sketchy industrial urban environments. When booking my hotel I used an iPhone app called Hotel Tonight which is usually a good source for high end last minute good deals on hotel bookings. The way the service works is you wait till noon on the day you want to book and then you can see what offerings are available for that day in a given area. I was in the market for a place that cost about $100-$125/night but nothing fit that bill on the day I was looking to book and they had this place called Stay on Main available for $65/night so I thought it would be a good and interesting option. I knew the area was close to skid row, as I have shot a documentary on the LA homeless population in that area but I thought it would be an interesting change to stay in the heart of downtown and experience the gritty LA that scares a lot of people (and it was fun and interesting, I'd do it again. I wouldn't recommend that my sister do this though)

 

[Turk February]

I read that the timestamp jumps 2 minutes there. Ive watched it countless times and cant decipher it because at the time of the jump the timp stamp actually jitters about 3-4 times.

The only information I have on the timestamp is just opinion and that is IMO you can clearly see 1:23AM around the 1:20 mark of the video.

Sorry, I don't see what you're seeing.

Are you able to take a screen capture and outline it for all of us?

 

[branwynbreeze]

An interesting read if you understand Chinese...LINK. it says a Chinese man Mr. Ren, who currently resides in L.A., checked in Cecil around 2/23 with his friends to carry out their own "investigation" and got a room on the 14th floor, and he took a snapshot of the panel in the elevator that EL walked in. The button for the 15th floor was dug out. The "door hold" button is said to be working fine and can keep the door open for a long time. (The door hold button doesn't work in the other elevator though.)

Did I read it correctly that her body was found nude, broken limbs with lid locked?

Great read, thanks!

 

[Turk February]

Did I read it correctly that her body was found nude, broken limbs with lid locked?

Great read, thanks!

CBSLA, the first media outlet based in Los Angeles first broke the news of a -body- (they did not immediately identify it as Elisa Lam) was found by a maintenance worker floating face up, nude, in a 3/4 water tank on the rooftops at Cecil Hotel with aerial news coverage on TV.

 

[Chorley8]

Anyone know what else she did in Toronto besides 1. go to set (apparently, the photo) of the George Stromb. show 2. go to BMV books (not sure which one biggest one is Spadina Bloor but also Eg. and Yonge and I think Dundas and Yonge)? this on an earlier post I think from the N.N. posts.

Anyone catch anything else e.g. where she stayed? Ditto for San Diego where she stayed etc. can't find anything myself.

 

[Turk February]

Anyone know what else she did in Toronto besides 1. go to set (apparently, the photo) of the George Stromb. show 2. go to BMV books (not sure which one biggest one is Spadina Bloor but also Eg. and Yonge and I think Dundas and Yonge)? this on an earlier post I think from the N.N. posts.

Anyone catch anything else e.g. where she stayed? Ditto for San Diego where she stayed etc. can't find anything myself.

I recall her staying at a hostel in Toronto.

http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/...red-for-cheerful-and-charismatic-personality/


Teika Steins, manager of Planet Traveler, said Lam stayed at the Toronto hostel for about a week in early December and she never noticed any odd behaviour from the University of B.C. student.

“Her personality was very contagious,” she said. “She had a very charismatic personality and we were drawn towards it. She’d run down the stairs, bouncing up and down.”

“We have a lot of people come and go, but when you have people like Elisa who are cheerful all the time and very welcoming to people, you just remember them,” Steins said, adding Lam joined her and other hostel staff for dinner at one time.

 

[smash the stack]

On her 2nd attempt to press all the middle row column buttons, she actually presses the DOOR HOLD button multiple times, disabling it and enabling it and then actually ends up pressing it for the last time which unfortunately enabled the DOOR HOLD once again -- resetting the timer again.

Agreed.. so, if you don't mind, go from when you think she hits it the last time and resets it and tell me the time you come up with in relation to when the door actually closes.

I am keeping in mind that we may have lost some footage due to motion detection.. possibly.

 

[ThinkHard]

In the second thread I mentioned that I think the killer chose putting her into the tank or forcing her into the tank herself to buy himself the most time to escape. I imagine he disposed of the body that night and checked out THE MORNING of Feb 1st. The police would have checked into this and am sure know who theyre looking for now.

They just wont call it a suicide or homicide bcos the cause of death is OD.

This is all IMO but I believe it very strongly.

The biggest reason I lean on the side of
Disagreeing with your theory, is that I do not see why/how a random guest would know of or think of hiding a body in the water tanks.

I'm also having trouble, short of being a psychopath, understanding what the motive this random guest would have to murder elisa.

 

[hopeitcanhelp]

Totally a different color wallpaper of the 14th floor then what was shown in this video here. It was uploaded on July 4th, 2012.


Tour of the Cecil hotel: The BEST hotel in downtown Los Angeles. - YouTube


Fast forward to 2:12 on the video and see them enter the 14th floor at the Cecil Hotel. The wallpaper is light green where as the picture taken by the Apple Daily reporters show the wallpaper on the 14th floor as being light orange.

The 15th floor in this picture above is red/orange in color.

So....was she on the 15th floor or 14th floor?



Elisa Lam Video - YouTube



Also, notice in the CCTV video that there is no mirror on top of the wooden crossbar on the floor Elisa Lam is in. She has to be on the 15th floor in my opinion

There is no way to say there is no mirror, we don't see it. But we DO know that on the 15th floor there is a mirror, and if that article is right the 14th too.

And again I am 10000% certain she kept looking into the mirror in the video. Personally, the colors in the video match the 15th floor much more than 14th.

 

[Fei]

Did I read it correctly that her body was found nude, broken limbs with lid locked?

Great read, thanks!

Yes, that's mentioned in the article too...someone who claimed to be a colleague of EL's uncle-in-law said so. Not sure if it's true.

 

[Turk February]

There is no way to say there is no mirror, we don't see it. But we DO know that on the 15th floor there is a mirror.

And again I am 10000% certain she kept looking into the mirror in the video.

I hope smeinzer will be able to recall if there was a mirror next to the elevators on the 15th floor.

 

[ceefry23]

I don't think you can jump to that conclusion just yet. That still does not disprove her being on the 15th floor already and then the elevator going down the 14th floor after. I'm just not convinced yet.

Believe what you want Turk but this is the evidence I believe shows us clearly that she is on the 14th floor.

1) She Presses 14 and it doesnt light up (I know you think it does but to me it definitely does not).

2) We have many reports that she was on the 14th floor, including these most recent 2. One which shows a floorplan for the 14th floor. If they didnt believe her to be on the 14th floor why show that floorplan?

3) A user just posted a picture showing that the 15th floor button wasnt even there. Meaning elevator access to that floor would be limited.

4) If she was on 15. The elevator would move to 14 (which looked the exact same as the previous floor) then it would move to 10 which for some reason looked different?. Im pretty sure we all agree that only middle buttons light up.

I dont buy that. The reason the last floor we see looks different is because its a Stay Hotel floor. Floor 7.

Explain to me why you think the first two floors look the same then the third one looks different?

Also if the elevator has no button for the 15th floor, Elisa and the Perp might of had to get off at 14 and walk up. When she wants to leave she goes the way she came. Down the stairs to the 14th floor and into the elevator (Not realizing im sure she could summon the elevator to the 15th floor from that floor)

It also explains why she is looking in both directions. Both sides have stairwells that the perp could have possibly been coming down from.

It makes me suspect she snuck out of his room while he was going to the washroom or something and he found he in the elevator. Making her embarassed for being caught as well as kind of shy n cute acting.

 

[ace]

Not sure if this is allowed for posting but

@ 830pm PST The Vancouver Cantonese channel, OmniTV, has released information that there is a suspect. All it said is the hotel worker has a key to her room. To me that's not very strong evidence but just another theory like many of you have already guessed so far. Where did this tv channel get their sources from would be interesting to know... from LE?

I have yet to find any reference to this suggestion that there is a suspect.... Nothing mentioned on the omnitv vancouver website or their twitter account

Reference:
https://twitter.com/search/KarenSoO...ang OR DougCheng OR SunnyChiuBC OR OmniNewsBC

http://www.omnibc.ca/news/?language=5
...

 

[Turk February]

Agreed.. so, if you don't mind, go from when you think she hits it the last time and resets it and tell me the time you come up with in relation to when the door actually closes.

I am keeping in mind that we may have lost some footage due to motion detection.. possibly.

On her 1st attempt or 2nd attempt?

If you are talking about the 1st attempt, I still believe the elevator door closes due to her pressing the DOOR HOLD button on that exact moment at 3:13 in the CCTV recording when it was about to close.

 

[Buckeye lady]

Did I read it correctly that her body was found nude, broken limbs with lid locked?

Great read, thanks!

I wonder where they got the info that her limbs were broken etc. I did not see that in any of the news reports. Did anyone else?

 

[smeinzer]

The 15th floor button was dug out on the elevator Elisa was in? Strange.

Was it recently done before the CCTV video done on late hours of Jan31st - early hour of Feb.1st?

Why was that button dug out to begin with? Was there somebody trying to cover up their tracks?

smeinzer, do you recall going on the elevator around Feb.7th-10th during your stay there at the Cecil Hotel/Stay At Main and notice the 15th floor button missing?

Elisa Lam Video - YouTube

I don't think you can jump to that conclusion just yet. That still does not disprove her being on the 15th floor already and then the elevator going down the 14th floor after. I'm just not convinced yet.

I can say with a good amount of certainty that both elevators had the 15th floor button while we were there. At least until "Elevator 1" went out of order and we were unable to access that elevator.

 

[broccoli]

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.

 

[ceefry23]

I hope smeinzer will be able to recall if there was a mirror next to the elevators on the 15th floor.

I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that every floor has those awful brown/orange color wall depending on the white balance of the camera taking the pic. And that every floor has a mirror like that.

Look at the picture of the 14th floor as posted by the Asian newspaper; it has a mirror. Now look at the picture you keep referencing of the 15th floor... Also has a mirror.

What has happened is the hotel renovated and im guessing floors 8-15 look all the exact same... conceivably all with the exact same floor plan to.

 

[Turk February]

Believe what you want Turk but this is the evidence I believe shows us clearly that she is on the 14th floor.

1) She Presses 14 and it doesnt light up (I know you think it does but to me it definitely does not).

2) We have many reports that she was on the 14th floor, including these most recent 2. One which shows a floorplan for the 14th floor. If they didnt believe her to be on the 14th floor why show that floorplan?

3) A user just posted a picture showing that the 15th floor button wasnt even there. Meaning elevator access to that floor would be limited.

4) If she was on 15. The elevator would move to 14 (which looked the exact same as the previous floor) then it would move to 10 which for some reason looked different?. Im pretty sure we all agree that only middle buttons light up.

I dont buy that. The reason the last floor we see looks different is because its a Stay Hotel floor. Floor 7.

Explain to me why you think the first two floors look the same then the third one looks different?

Also if the elevator has no button for the 15th floor, Elisa and the Perp might of had to get off at 14 and walk up. When she wants to leave she goes the way she came. Down the stairs to the 14th floor and into the elevator (Not realizing im sure she could summon the elevator to the 15th floor from that floor)

It also explains why she is looking in both directions. Both sides have stairwells that the perp could have possibly been coming down from.

It makes me suspect she snuck out of his room while he was going to the washroom or something and he found he in the elevator. Making her embarassed for being caught as well as kind of shy n cute acting.

And what if the other floors also had their wallpapers repainted like the 14th floor?

Don't forget that piece of new info.

 

[FutzBucket]

Has anyone compiled a file of facts we all can use as reference to better our working together?