My translation of Chinese forum
http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-free-3077181-100.shtml#ty_vip_look[VB调查]
Now for the first question, is it easy to get to the roof?
Answer : Yes. If you dare to attempt it.
From the information the LAPD provided, saying that there are only 2 ways to get to the roof :
1) Through a door at the roof that is only for staff use - this door is permanently locked and only hotel staff have the keys to unlock it.
2) Through a safety door that is alarm-protected - the alarm will sound if anyone tries to open this door.
But is it true that these are the only 2 ways of gaining roof access?
Maybe not.
Let's look at the picture below of the roof.
http://img3.laibafile.cn/p/m/134563140.jpg
In reality:
The roof entrance circled in red is the entrance you will get to if you climb up stairway number 1 in the common areas of the hotel right by the elevators (see hotel floorplan)
The roof entrance circled in yellow is a doorless/non-accessible entrance that you will get to if you climb stairway number 2 in the common areas of the hotel right by the elevators (see hotel floorplan)
The roof entrance circled in green is the hotel's rooftop utiliy/storage room door, and the picture shows the door does not lead to the rooms on the 15th floor.
Therefore from the picture, we can see that the only way to get to the roof of the hotel is via the entrance circled in red, which is the entrance reachable by climbing stairway 1 within the hotel floors. So if we climb up stairway 1 all the way up past the 15th floor, we would get to this door here.
http://img3.laibafile.cn/p/m/134563624.jpg
On this door, it clearly states on the signage that opening this door would trigger an alarm. But would the alarm really sound if the door was opened?
Considering the fact that we have only started our investigation today not long before we reached the roof door, me and Brandon decided not to risk sounding the alarm for now. For fear of being driven out of the hotel if the hotel staff were alerted.
We will attempt doing this later after we have completed our other investigations in and around the hotel.
Epilogue : After we finished our investigations of the hotel, me and Brandon decided to go up to the roof to try opening the alarmed roof door. The door was locked and no alarm sounded when we tried opening it.
Therefore where is this other roof entrance mentioned by the police before? We never found out. After Elisa's body was found, we realised there was only one entrance to the roof and that was it.
Right from the beginning, we figured that the fire escape stairs may be another way of gaining access to the roof.
Me and Brandon inspected the fire escape stairs on several floors in the hotel. We discovered that some of the doors that lead to the fire escape stairs were left open.
http://img3.laibafile.cn/p/m/134564003.jpg
On the 14th and 15th floor, the doors leading to the fire escape stairs were closed however. We gently gave the door a push.
http://img3.laibafile.cn/p/m/134564157.jpg
The door opened up. And after waiting around for 5 minutes or so, no hotel staff came up to us. It is evident that the doors leading to the fire escape stairs are not security-alarmed. At that point, we even had on hand a lighter and some cigarettes just in case we get confronted by hotel staff for opening these doors. If we were confronted, we could then claim that we opened the door because we wanted to smoke and were trying to ventilate the place. In fact, none of us actually smoke.
Without further ado, we climbed up the fire escape stairs.
http://img3.laibafile.cn/p/m/134565332.jpg
It was beautifully sunny outside, but our moods could not be lightened up. What could be lurking on the roof? Could the roof be locked? Could it be undergoing renovations? Could the murderer be loitering about the roof? Could there be more dead bodies up there?
Let's take a break for now. We will continue this in a while...
In response to some questions posed by our friends on the Web :
1) the 14th floor is actually the 13th floor. In our investigation, there is no 13th floor on any of the hotel's floorplans, elevators or signages. Because in reality the 13th floor is the designated 14th floor in the hotel, and the 14th floor is the designated 15th floor in the hotel.
2) I'd like to make clear that we would never consider taking a particular course of action in our investigation without careful consideration. So please don't worry about our safety. In addition, if we manage to find the murderer as a result of this, then the risks posed to us by conducting the investigation would be worth it.