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

[anansie]

I would assume that there are stairways on every floor.

Yes I know there are stairways on every floor but are they all in the same location on all the floors? I'm guessing yes but just wanted to know for sure lol

 

[techboss]

What about this 1994 movie. I have not watched it myself personally.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121859/

Movie is in Cantonese. Maybe suspect motivated from the show? A hk dude?

 

[broccoli]

Would you say the reverse video of her would be more accurate, timewise? I'm trying to watch the seconds on Youtube and the counter on the video.

Elisa Lam Video (in Reverse) - YouTube

The speed in the reverse video does seem much more accurate. I've got a loud clock in my living room, and I'm able to time the videos by listening to that and watching the CCTV, which is easier than watching two clocks at once, lol.

Could be LE slowed the video down so that we'd have a better look at her face.

 

[Fei]

Some video clips from Mr. Ren (aka Mr.Yam) (Sorry just checked and noticed Four_Seasons has posted them a few pages ago )

[ame="http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTE4ODQ1NTU2.html"]Visiting 14th Floor for the 2nd time[/ame]
(They went from 10th floor to the 14th using the stairway which doesn't have rooftop access- It seems that only the one on the other side of the elevators has rooftop access. )

[ame="http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTE5MjQwNDcy.html"]Door Hold Button Test[/ame]

One more pic for the 14th floor evacuation plan, which shows clearly stair 2 has no roof access while stair 1 has.

 

[broccoli]

Glad we're talking about time of death/rate of decomposition, because something's been bothering me for a while now. My personal belief, for cause of death to be accident/suicide, is that it needed to happen on 1/31 and the hatch needed to be open. But this is problematic for a couple reasons. LAPD searched the roof sometime after she disappeared, so why did evidence not lead straight to the tank? And smeizner visited the roof on the 7th I believe, so why didn't he smell anything? Even in cold water with slowed decomposition, 7 days is more than enough time for putrefaction to set in. Or the tank was closed and evidence of her on the roof was covered? So, I'm personally currently leaning heavily on foul play.

She could have been placed in the tank alive on the 31st, and taken at least an entire week to actually die. If the hatch were closed, nobody would smell anything rotting. If it were open, and she died on day 6, it would be too soon for smeizner to smell anything.

I wish we knew if the hatch were open or closed. It seems LE's immediate claim that it could have been an accidental, not necessarily foul play, would indicate the hatch was open. A closed hatch would definitely indicate foul play.

 

[Dwyn]

Based on the small, out-of-context photo of the postcard, it looked like it was something to do with the movie Drive and Ryan Gosling. I think "pilgramage" was just a colourful term for a little exploring around her celebrity crush/a movie she liked.

Often movie fans will do a movie pilgrimage and visit all the spots where it was filmed. here is a list of the shooting locations for "Drive" :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780504/locations?ref_=tt_dt_dt several of which are in downtown L.A. This movie was also mentioned in her blog, possibly the nouvelle/nouveau one. Something to the tune of the last few minutes of that movie is what relationships should be like (paraphrasing from memory). I plan to watch this movie tonight, maybe there will be another clue as to her state of mind.

 

[CuriousB]

I just rewatched the video and it does, in fact, appear to be slowed down (someone mentioned this earlier). Track the seconds on the CCTV with the seconds on YouTube, and there's a discrepancy. The video is moving more slowly than real time.

You're right! I just timed it and 60 "seconds" in the video took about 1m20s in real time.

This may be significant! I had the impression that she was NOT worried or panicking, but maybe this will look a lot different if the video was sped up to real time. Does anyone have video editing software that can do this so we can see what it might actually have looked like?

 

[Qrious]

The speed in the reverse video does seem much more accurate. I've got a loud clock in my living room, and I'm able to time the videos by listening to that and watching the CCTV, which is easier than watching two clocks at once, lol.

Could be LE slowed the video down so that we'd have a better look at her face.

I read a post on YouTube that says every 3s of the actual footage is converted to 4s for the police video.

I assume this is done for the police to deliberately slow the video down to see more closely.

 

[CuriousB]

She could have been placed in the tank alive on the 31st, and taken at least an entire week to actually die. If the hatch were closed, nobody would smell anything rotting. If it were open, and she died on day 6, it would be too soon for smeizner to smell anything.

I wish we knew if the hatch were open or closed. It seems LE's immediate claim that it could have been an accidental, not necessarily foul play, would indicate the hatch was open. A closed hatch would definitely indicate foul play.

If she was alive in the tank for a couple days, some urine or excrement might have been released. I wonder if they found any actual fecal content in the tank (ie, not just testing the water downstairs).

 

[monster_paws]

Hello, I live in the LA area and I have a few comments.

There's a few more pictures of Elisa on Instagram that her friend posted if you search with the hashtag #elisalam . I didn't want to post the picture because there are other people in it.

I had relatives visiting from Taiwan over the summer and I took them to a club near the Cecil, we drove past the Cecil and they absolutely freaked out saying that the Cecil is "haunted" and that lots of Taiwanese college students visit LA and disappear while staying at the Cecil. Interesting how tourists know this, I mean I just thought this was a junky hotel and never paid attention to it. Take this with a grain of salt, obviously, but I thought this was weird.

 

[catatonia]

If she was alive in the tank for a couple days, some urine or excrement might have been released. I wonder if they found any actual fecal content in the tank (ie, not just testing the water downstairs).

It is also released when someone dies due to the muscle's atony/relaxation.

 

[summer_breeze]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lan...tinues-to-draw-attention-in-china-canada.html

February 26, 2013 | 12:37 pm

<snipped>

Amateur sleuths have honed in on the case, posting theories on websites about what might have happened to Lam. International media outlets, particularly in Canada and China, have also continued their coverage of the story.

 

[FutzBucket]

Futzbucket, no I am not saying that putting the body in the tank would create an air bubble.

I am saying that the body most likely sank to the bottom of the tank and then the draw of water out of the outlet pipe pulled the body to block the outlet pipe.

But the use of water below in the hotel would continue to pull on the water that is already in the pipe below the blockage, thus creating a vacuum in the pipe below the blocked outlet.

This vacuum area or voliume would get bigger and bigger as the water continues to get pulled down the pipe below the blockage at the tank outlet, and eventually has to let go or be released, otherwise the pipes will collapse from the vacuum.

And it let's go with an extremely loud bang, and often with damage to the pipes in the area of the released vacuum.

Very loud noise and water leak, Mr. Diaz.

Ah, I understand now. It wouldn't take that long for the water under the tank to continue moving to build that kind of pressure, would it?

 

[CuriousB]

I read a post on YouTube that says every 3s of the actual footage is converted to 4s for the police video.

I assume this is done for the police to deliberately slow the video down to see more closely.

I used the instructions here:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPMYeW0jcSE"]How to CHANGE PLAYBACK SPEED on YouTube - YouTube[/ame]

to watch the video at 1.5X. This actually makes the video a bit faster than real time (4/3 / 1.5 = 8/9 < 1).

 

[ShyGamer]

It is also released when someone dies due to the muscle's atony/relaxation.

I was actually typing out the exact same thing but you beat me to it.

I want to add that usually after the body 'relaxes', urine is released first, then fecal matter in a slower manner. So, if there is fecal contamination in the tap water, then it's a good chance that it was in the specific tank that Elisa was in. Considering that there were 3 other tanks with clean water, there isn't enough fecal content to be considered hazardous, especially when Elisa's tank was "about three-quarters full" according to media reports.

She might have been placed in the tank while she was alive. I could picture her trying to balance her footing but couldn't due to her height in the tall tank, as a result she might have passed away from exhaustion.

 

[Sillybilly]

Futzbucket, no I am not saying that putting the body in the tank would create an air bubble.

I am saying that the body most likely sank to the bottom of the tank and then the draw of water out of the outlet pipe pulled the body to block the outlet pipe.

But the use of water below in the hotel would continue to pull on the water that is already in the pipe below the blockage, thus creating a vacuum in the pipe below the blocked outlet.

This vacuum area or voliume would get bigger and bigger as the water continues to get pulled down the pipe below the blockage at the tank outlet, and eventually has to let go or be released, otherwise the pipes will collapse from the vacuum.

And it let's go with an extremely loud bang, and often with damage to the pipes in the area of the released vacuum.

Very loud noise and water leak, Mr. Diaz.

I can't recall (if we know) when the diminished water flow started, and don't know how those tanks work specifically. I'm wondering if as the water was drawn down during peak usage, possibly the body had started to rise around the same time and that's when it would have been drawn toward the outlet.

 

[Qrious]

With all due respect, I don't think Elisa was typing in a code that references bible verses. More than likely, she was pressing multiple buttons to get out of there as soon as possible. More and more, I think she was waiting for someone in the elevator to join her, and they didn't because of the cameras. They could have then convinced her to go up to the roof. Whether or not she was on the 14th or 15th floor, that would have been easy from either.

People have said that sometimes there are squatters in the maintenance room upstairs, maybe she hid out there and then met her death. I'm still having a hard time believing she ever made it into that water tank on her own.

I'm not sure if pressing multiple buttons is the way to get out of a floor as quickly as possible. All I know is that when I am rushing, I would press the door close button immediately and then press the floor I want to go to, much least the door hold button. Lol

 

[Sillybilly]

I wish we knew if the hatch were open or closed. It seems LE's immediate claim that it could have been an accidental, not necessarily foul play, would indicate the hatch was open. A closed hatch would definitely indicate foul play.

From the first post on Thread 1, LE's initial statement said:

Her disappearance is suspicious and may suggest foul play

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8817076&postcount=1"]Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Found Deceased CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013[/ame]

 

[four_seasons]

Can someone edit the video so that it shows realtime and not the slowed times?
it would help a lot in terms of analyzing her movements and such.

 

[catatonia]

^

Make assurance double sure.

Wouldn't a possible fecal contamination be diluted? Especially being in that tank for several weeks?

The idea of being caught alive in this tank is horrifying - I really hope, she passed out before.