But wouldn't her family and friends know it if the person in the video wasn't her? They would have watched her grow up, very familiar with her facial features. Would they allow the LAPD to release a video that is not of the real Elisa, in order to search for missing Elisa?
To presume that they would, would reek of loads of conspiracy theories behind that. And I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories in solving crimes and murders unless there are many clear indicators to it, although some of them are rather interesting
And maybe it's just me but since I am of Chinese descent, having grown up in Asia with Chinese friends and relatives, the woman in the video, to me at least, does bear resemblance to Elisa Lam. I certainly don't go round thinking every Chinese girl looks like every other. (haha, hey, where does that leave me then? Wouldn't I look just like Lucy Liu, Gong Li, or Maggie Cheung? LOL)
The CCTV footage is very poor quality, pixellated, so its understandable it has obscured some of Elisa's features, but overall, it looks more or less like her to me.
In fact, looking at the picture posted above (
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=30229) where someone circled out who they thought was her in those pics, I question the accuracy of the person doing the circling.. In most of the pics circled, yes I believe the girl circled in the picture is her. But in 2 of the pics, I question whether it is Elisa that is being circled.
For example, the picture of a girl kissing the head of another girl as seen here (
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=30229). The person circling the pic thinks it is Elisa kissing the top of another girl's head. Me personally, I saw that pic earlier yesterday and I've always thought Elisa was the girl at the bottom with glasses, i.e. the girl being kissed, not the girl doing the kissing! Because the shape of her nose in that other picture of her matches the nose of the girl being kissed. And her eyes are quite stereotypically "Chinese" and "slitty" (sorry, don't know the PC way to say this, but as a Chinese person growing up in Asia, that wouldn't be racist for me or my friends to describe it as that in English) but the girl doing the kissing has larger, rounder shaped eyes.
This photo was originally posted on Instagram by Elisa's friend l_keiko (or Kristin Leigh) by the way. The original photo post is here :
http://statigr.am/p/396452058135008129_246961795
Now look at l_keiko's profile pic here :
http://statigr.am/l_keiko
To me, l_keiko (or Kristin Leigh as the profile name says) looks more like the girl who is kissing the other girl in the photo, and the girl being kissed and wearing glasses, is Elisa. l_keiko looks a bit like a mixed race girl - perhaps mixed white and Asian. She has larger eyes, sharper more well-defined nose, and more angular features on her face.
Also, in that other picture of 2 girls as seen here (
http://statigr.am/p/396452058135008129_246961795) - one in the foreground looking downwards wearing a hoodie sweat top, and another girl in the background wearing a black tracksuit. I see the person who circled the picture thought the girl in the foreground with the hoodie top is Elisa. But bear in mind this picture was originally posted by l_keiko, Elisa's friend, who actually looks more like the girl in the hoodie top in the foreground of the picture, than Elisa does. So my personal opinion is that l_keiko is the girl in the hoodie top in the foreground - and Elisa was the girl standing in the background wearing the black tracksuit, with her back facing the camera.
She has this quite large nose with a high bridge (for a Chinese female) and the nose tip is bulbous and kind of sticks downwards at the bottom. You see this in several pictures of her.
http://statigr.am/p/399799830535073788_15414986
http://statigr.am/p/396281586210917324_178762129
etc.
Have any of Elisa's friends or relatives verified that the girl being circled in those pics are all truly Elisa's head? Or is the circling done by a reporter?