My translation of page 98 of Chinese forum
http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-free-3077181-98.shtml#ty_vip_look[VB调查]
Let's look at some photos of the 14th floor.
Opposite the elevator, there is a mirror, but because of the E shape structure of the building, the mirror isn't actually located in a position directly opposite the spot in between both elevators. In fact, a big part of the mirror is on the spot opposite the right elevator.
When one looks outward from the left elevator door, one can only see mostly an expanse of wall. One must actually stretch one's head out more when peering out of the elevator door to see the distinctive form of the right side of the building's interior.
In the 2nd and 3rd pics we show the corridors on both sides of the elevators on the 14th floor. We can see from these pictures that there are no surveillance cameras on either side of the corridors outside the elevators. I have personally searched through the entire of the 14th floor. I have not found a single surveillance camera in all the common areas of the 14th floor.
Even the hotel lobby did not appear to have any obvious surveillance cameras - though it is commonplace or standard for hotel lobbies in California to have surveillance cameras in the lobby. Perhaps I have just been unable to find them in the lobby and they were there all along.
But I have seen one surveillance camera at the back door of the hotel.
On the left side of the elevator, along the corridor, there is one residential/hotel room. According to my investigation, this hotel utilises all it's available space to the max, i.e. everywhere you go in the hotel, there are guest rooms everywhere, including even the area to the left of the lift, next to the stairs, etc.
THerefore I can deduce the following :
1) Some commenters on the web said Elisa could have been pursued by an assailant after she exited the lift, which I initially disagreed upon. Upon arriving here at the hotel, I have more reason to believe that it was very unlikely she was pursued by an assailant, as there are guest rooms in every single nook and cranny of the hotel. It is very unlikely that an assailant would risk being found out by pursuing Elisa in such a public space where any commotions can be easily heard by people staying in the rooms. And where if Elisa just screamed, someone would very possibly have heard her.
2) Someone suggested perhaps Elisa saw something she was not supposed to see - a crime being committed, etc. and therefore she was silenced by the perpetrators to keep her from ratting out to someone. I said the probability of that is also low. From being here at the hotel, I can't see how anyone would want to risk being discovered by commiting a crime in such a public area where there are guest rooms everywhere and the chances of discovery was so high.
So what could possibly have happened to Elisa?
Test 2 : Retracing Elisa's steps in the elevator
From our test, we conclude that it was most likely Elisa was conversing with someone standing on the right side of the elevator she was in. But then why did Elisa exit the elevator to the left? And walked off to the left?
(diagram shown of the lifts and surveillance camera/button panel positioning)
As we can see from the diagram, the up/down button panel outside the elevators was located in the wall gap in between both elevators. In the video, Elisa noticeably sticks her head out of the lift at first, looking to the right. This clearly shows there was something to the right of the lift that caused her to focus her attention there first.
Okay. Below is an explanation of what could have happened during Elisa's elevator video.
As we can see from the picture below (picture of corridor outside elevator and stairs shown), this hotel does not have designated stair well areas for stairs. In fact, in this hotel, it is more of an "open plan" design where the stairs are integrated into the common areas. Once a person exits the elevator, after walking a few steps (about 3 metres), whether to the left or to the right of the elevators, one bypasses a door and see the stairs straightaway.
(2 more pictures of the stairs)
As we can see, the floor heights in the hotel are pretty low, so it doesn't take much stair climbing to go from one floor to the next (takes about 3 seconds, if one walks quickly).
Test 3 :
It didn't take more than a minute for Brandon (my companion) to reach the top floor alarmed door by climbing the stairs from the 14th floor. From the 4th floor all the way up to the top floor alarmed door, it didn't take more than 4 minutes.
Conclusion of test 3 : If the murderer wanted to move Elisa's body up to the roof, going by the stairs is an extremely quick and effective way of doing so. But from the layout of the hotel floors, we know also that there are guest rooms all around the vicinity of the stairs. Hence it would be really easy to be discovered doing so by hotel guests, residents or staff.
Therefore we can deduce that the likelihood of Elisa being pursued by an assailant, etc. is very low, because the stairs are so close to the guest rooms that anything happening here would be easily detected or heard by anyone in the hotel.
We then went up to the roof and went up the water tank area.
We will continue to post pictures and observations as we have them ready.
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Some people online have said that if Elisa accidentally pressed Door Hold, she would have rectified it by pressing Door Close. So why didn't she?
We have already explained previously that Elisa thought there was someone else outside the elevator pressing the buttons. Normally, if we enter a lift and then the lift door opened again after we thought it would close, we would naturally assume someone is outside the lift making the door open up again. That's why Elisa stuck her head out to see if anyone was there. Besides, we have deduced that perhaps Elisa never really wanted to go downstairs in the lift anyway. Perhaps she was actually playing a game, having fun, or flirting with someone and playing hide and seek or hard to get.
Lastly can people please stop posting up fake scary pictures alleged to be of Elisa's. Someone just posted a picture saying that it was a self-portrait photo Elisa took of herself whilst in the hotel. If things are going to proceed along those lines, one might as well put on a face mask and take a photo of oneself, post it online and claim that this is a picture of the alleged "murderer" taken right after one has killed Elisa, with maybe someone posing as dead Elisa lying in the background of the photo with red lips that betray the authenticity of the poster!
I find it disgraceful that people out there are trying to spook our online readers with fake spooky pictures like this. I hope those who have seen those fake pictures not be put off by them and return to engage in robust discussion over what really happened to Elisa Lam.
