CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013 - #4

[Xavier]

Knowing how Elisa talked daily to her Mom especially through her entire travels to the West Coast, it has to be so numbing, heartbreaking that those phone calls stopped on Jan 31 and now we all know the outcome

I really feel for the Lam family, as all families, who have such a tragedy drop into their lives. Elisa goes on her first big adventure, cross country ALONE at 21 years old. Now their little girl is gone, likely a victim of some sleazy, evil perp's sick, evil fantasy

From reading, the Lam's are very hard working, as are the oriental families I know here in Cincinnati,OH. And so genuine, well liked in their neighborhood, trying to make their American dream come true. They operate a successful restaurant, which means long hours, running their business by themselves

I really hope someone on the LAPD cares enough not give up on this case, even if that detective has to work off duty, off the clock to get this solved

Until then, I'm afraid a lunatic(s) iswalking the streets of LA or somewhere feeling proud and satisfied like they got away with the perfect crime

 

[anansie]

I don't think she'll be called Lam Lui, she has an older sister and this won't make any sense. And using Lam there doesn't make sense, isn't usually your first name + something and not your last name + something?

That's right. That's what I was saying

 

[Sillybilly]

Didn't they check her room around the sixth when the parents complained of not hearing from her since the 31st?

Yes, i think it's a natural assumption that they would have.

 

[four_seasons]

I've not seen her Chinese name either, nor her parent's names.
Does anyone know or have a link to this?
Also, if anyone knows the questions I had in my previous post, I hope
you reply.

Her Chinese name is Lam Ho Yee (藍可&#20818.
don't know what her parents' name are.

 

[BunnyHop]

Regarding funeral services. Her body is being held by the Coroner until tests are concluded.

If this were my child, I could not hold a funeral or service.

It would be excruciating.

Can we all at least take a step back and feel the pain of her family?
I for one am willing to be patient and respectful.

This could be your child or mine.

:heartbeat::heartbeat::heartbeat:

 

[Shlock Homes]

Futz -- Someone posted LAPD thinks Elisa time of death was Feb 14-16

So she was either in the tank for 15 days when she died or the perp held her hostage for 15 days, then ordered her in the tank and take off all of her clothes

If she's a threat, 15 days is a long time for to keep a hostage, especially someone who's probably very anti-social as you describe

The perp must've told her to take every piece of clothing, shoes off since it's valididated she was completely nude in the tank

Hey Xavier, do you know who posted that TOD? And if there was a media link? I've been trying to find the original post you're referring to, but no luck.

 

[anansie]

Her Chinese name is Lam Ho Yee (藍可&#20818.
don't know what her parents' name are.

Thanks... My Cantonese is very rusty ... I knew my Cantonese pronunciation of the last character wasn't quite right.

 

[kingsway]

Also, the climb up the fire escape (even just 1 floor) looks harrowing. I'm not scared of heights and I'd be freaked out. Makes me wonder:

If EL was in some sort of delusional/drugged state, could she really climb that ladder w/o falling?

If she was suicidal, I guess she could be motivated, although you'd think she'd just jump off the ladder/roof.

I doubt someone could haul a dead body up that.

Conclusions du jour:

1. EL went up the ladder willingly with a friend or by herself but sane and sober (maybe with the goal of seeing the view).

2. EL knew the fire door wasn't always alarmed (someone told her? she tried it before?) and went up that way, either alone or with someone.

OR

3. EL was killed elsewhere and brought to the roof via the door by someone who knew the door wasn't always alarmed or locked. Or someone who had a key.

Totally depends on the person. Strength, ingenuity, tools, and experience all come into play. I estimate she weighed around 115 lbs, so lugging her up without some sort of container would be difficult. You can do a fireman's carry, but you need to know the technique, or else she'll drop down.

You can carry her in a large backpack while climbing, it shouldn't be too difficult. A suitcase or duffle bag would be more difficult, possibly involving a rope.

Of course, all methods require the person to be relatively strong - even hoisting it up to the top of the water tank. But when there's a will, there's a way. I wouldn't be surprised if there were two people involved.

 

[Sillybilly]

To people doubting that this is in fact Elisa Lams facebook account. Please have a look at it... when you scroll down the timeline, you can see a picture she posted in 2006 on a Facebook Page, with comments 2007, thus confirming that the account has existed for years and was not set up as a fake after the reports about her death like some others were.
Also read this excellent post by user kenmore, positviely identifying her tumblr.
I have to say, it is difficult to follow this right now. I am continuing to do so because I can't wait for new discoveries or official Infos and occasionally post in order to clear up confusion and questions that have already been answered a long time ago. However, without new info, it seems like we are going around in circles.

When I click on your first link, it just says:

This content is currently unavailable.


The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page.

FWIW, "going round in circles" is common in many of these big, complex cases. Yes, it can get tedious, but sometimes it's the only way we can cut through the carp and get right down to the nitty-gritty.

JMO

 

[four_seasons]

Would they have done that at the restaurant, too?
I didn't notice that on the video I saw.

But, you think that Chinese also would pubish an obituary?

Obituary Yes.

But restaurant? No, i highly doubt it.

 

[four_seasons]

Thanks... My Cantonese is very rusty ... I knew my Cantonese pronunciation of the last character wasn't quite right.

That's ok. Cantonese isn't my first language, I just somehow picked up along the way.

 

[jennydreadful]

Just catching up here this morning, so apologies if this has been discussed already.

We have SEEN the tumblr page that says the Hermit was reblogged from magri**esque Feb 25. Other posters are simply stating it was blogged in December.

Can't access magri**esque's archives and her tumblr seems to have changed. It is now Beatify... with a picture of a girl looming off the side of a tall building.


forest**enchantment also showed up on the Hermit under magri**esque, but I went through their archive and and couldn't find the Hermit on their tumblr .

Here's magri**esque's archive (you get there by hitting "past"--hard to hit on my Ipad)): http://magrittesque.tumblr.com/archive. At the top, there's a button where you can jump back to a certain month/year. I'll give you a direct link to December though: http://magrittesque.tumblr.com/archive/2012/12. The February date is when Elisa reblogged it; that doesn't mean that she was alive though. It's only the posting date--it could have sat in her queue for a long time before that (and probably did).

You can see from the url that she hasn't really changed her username--she's just using Beatify as a tagline. This might be a good time for me to mention that people use all different themes from each other, and even if two people use the same theme, it's simple to tailor it to your needs by editing the html. So it could definitely be confusing to someone who isn't from that world, because there's no navigational consistency.

The only thing that would freak me out is if Elisa reblogged a post that originated after EL's death. If someone here announced it had happened, I'd check it out, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. I'd put more stock in it if it were one of the few other people here who I know are serious Tumblr users, though.

 

[BunnyHop]

Regarding funeral services. Her body is being held by the Coroner until tests are concluded.

If this were my child, I could not hold a funeral or service.

It would be excruciating.

Can we all at least take a step back and feel the pain of her family?
I for one am willing to be patient and respectful.

This could be your child or mine.

:heartbeat::heartbeat::heartbeat:

I'm going to step back in respect of Elisa and her family..
Best.

The case will take it's course.

This could be my child or yours.
Common sense/real moment.

 

[FiveFelines]

Totally depends on the person. Strength, ingenuity, tools, and experience all come into play. I estimate she weighed around 115 lbs, so lugging her up without some sort of container would be difficult. You can do a fireman's carry, but you need to know the technique, or else she'll drop down.

You can carry her in a large backpack while climbing, it shouldn't be too difficult. A suitcase or duffle bag would be more difficult, possibly involving a rope.

Of course, all methods require the person to be relatively strong - even hoisting it up to the top of the water tank. But when there's a will, there's a way. I wouldn't be surprised if there were two people involved.

True. Definitely possible but less likely than other ways for her to get up there IMO.

 

[anansie]

Obituary Yes.

But restaurant? No, i highly doubt it.

I think for Chinese people, it might be considered bad luck to have anything to do with a dead person/funeral associated with a place of business... so yeah I don't think the family would be doing anything associated with Elisa's funeral at their restaurant.

My family was especially superstitious. They wouldn't even allow children to attend family funerals or sweep the family tombs during the Qing Ming festival each year, for fear that bad luck will befall the children, since they would be in contact with dead people if they attended. So yeah I can extend that logic to a family business - its meant to bring riches to the family - so association of family business with death and by extension, the concept of misfortune - no way...

 

[Xavier]

Hey Xavier, do you know who posted that TOD? And if there was a media link? I've been trying to find the original post you're referring to, but no luck.

Sherlock - I'm trying to find mor eof that post too, the WS poster quoted LAPD as saying they believe EL's death was closer to Feb 14-16

The post was from the previous old thread and I'm still looking for it and googling it

To me personally, it's hard to believe the TOD as Feb 14-16. Which means Elisa would've had to be alive, likely a hostage

I don't know any more, but I'd wish LAPD would tell the public what the facts are so far and come out with a blanket statement of th efacts....they have enough to go on right now..So what's their delay??

 

[AnotherCanuck]

Mind if I ask, if she were as nearsighted as you are, in your opinion, would she be able to stride into the elevator and dart in and out the way she did?

Good question, actually. Now that I think about it, IF she is that nearsighted and doesn't have contacts in, it's very odd that she goes out of the elevator and looks around quickly, and jumps out of the elevator almost playfully, and also very odd that she stands in the corner of the elevator and seems to be looking to see if someone is coming. If she's that nearsighted, she wouldn't be able to see a thing far away, so looking out of the elevator like she does, as if she's looking for someone, just doesn't make sense. It would be a whole bunch of blurry shapes, she would not be able to see details.

And if someone were standing even just a couple of feet away from her, but especially if they were down the hall, she wouldn't be able to see who it was. She could hear them of course, but she wouldn't be able to see.

And then I think about what has happened when I've had my contacts out and no glasses on...And if someone goes, "hey, look at this!" and holds something up, I usually wave my hands around and say, "I can't see a thing, you'll have to come closer." I mean, me waving my hands around is just a personality trait, it's just a thing I do when I'm being silly or frustrated. But if you think about that in Elisa's context...Maybe she's saying the same thing when she splays her hands out. "I can't see a damn thing because I don't have my contacts in." And she makes motions with her hands like she's swimming, and then she flips her palms towards herself and kind of up...It's a motion that someone would make when they're talking to someone, and it's a motion they could make when they were talking about anything, really, but...Now that I think about the fact that she had no glasses, and possibly no contacts, I'm thinking...She wouldn't have been able to see any details, so maybe she was using her hands more to describe something. Because if you can't see anything around you, you kind of assume that it's the same for everyone, even though it's not...So you might talk more with your hands, you might make more exaggerated movements. Does that make sense?

Sorry, kind of rambling, but it's gotten me thinking now...

Of course, we have no idea if she had contacts in or not...

 

[AnotherCanuck]

I do not think it was consensual sex or any BDSM sex game that went wrong.

Snipped...

You know, I'd like to say that "good girls don't get into BDSM" but...I happen to know lots of people in that community (I am not in it myself, I should emphasize ) and many of them you would never suspect of being into it if you didn't know that about them...

...But I still doubt that is what happened.

 

[anansie]

Good question, actually. Now that I think about it, IF she is that nearsighted and doesn't have contacts in, it's very odd that she goes out of the elevator and looks around quickly, and jumps out of the elevator almost playfully, and also very odd that she stands in the corner of the elevator and seems to be looking to see if someone is coming. If she's that nearsighted, she wouldn't be able to see a thing far away, so looking out of the elevator like she does, as if she's looking for someone, just doesn't make sense. It would be a whole bunch of blurry shapes, she would not be able to see details.

And if someone were standing even just a couple of feet away from her, but especially if they were down the hall, she wouldn't be able to see who it was. She could hear them of course, but she wouldn't be able to see.

And then I think about what has happened when I've had my contacts out and no glasses on...And if someone goes, "hey, look at this!" and holds something up, I usually wave my hands around and say, "I can't see a thing, you'll have to come closer." I mean, me waving my hands around is just a personality trait, it's just a thing I do when I'm being silly or frustrated. But if you think about that in Elisa's context...Maybe she's saying the same thing when she splays her hands out. "I can't see a damn thing because I don't have my contacts in." And she makes motions with her hands like she's swimming, and then she flips her palms towards herself and kind of up...It's a motion that someone would make when they're talking to someone, and it's a motion they could make when they were talking about anything, really, but...Now that I think about the fact that she had no glasses, and possibly no contacts, I'm thinking...She wouldn't have been able to see any details, so maybe she was using her hands more to describe something. Because if you can't see anything around you, you kind of assume that it's the same for everyone, even though it's not...So you might talk more with your hands, you might make more exaggerated movements. Does that make sense?

Sorry, kind of rambling, but it's gotten me thinking now...

Of course, we have no idea if she had contacts in or not...

Just a quick question... if she was wearing contacts when she died, would they still be in her eyes when she was found?

 

[Sillybilly]

To people doubting that this is in fact Elisa Lams facebook account. Please have a look at it... when you scroll down the timeline, you can see a picture she posted in 2006 on a Facebook Page, with comments 2007, thus confirming that the account has existed for years and was not set up as a fake after the reports about her death like some others were.
Also read this excellent post by user kenmore, positviely identifying her tumblr.
I have to say, it is difficult to follow this right now. I am continuing to do so because I can't wait for new discoveries or official Infos and occasionally post in order to clear up confusion and questions that have already been answered a long time ago. However, without new info, it seems like we are going around in circles.

Well, FB i can't access (see ^^).

LL on Twitter ... i've gone through who LL is following. Out of 295, the ONLY Canadian content i can find is RickMercer, Canada Statistics, George Strombouloplous, and one i can't recall related to the east coast. I've seen a lot of Vancouver/BC Twitter accounts ... IMO this is simply NOT a typical Vancouverite.

She was born here, grew up in Vancouver, went to UBC ... nothing on that Twitter that would even remotely hint at this being EL.

MOO