CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013 - #5

[MesaVerde]

If find it very possible that someone entered her room, raped her, used a pillow to muffle her cries for help and either accidentally suffocated her or intentionally murdered her. It's quite possible that the video has nothing to do with her death or that someone in the hall noticed her, forced her into a room ( which is a bit hard to explain as there would be some sort of struggle) or noticed which room she returned to and attacked her while sleeping.

The newspaper articles if they are to be believed indicate that around 50 rooms out of 600 were occupied. That probably means that there were entire floors or entire wings of the building that had nobody in them. A long term insider would have known which areas were best to take her to if he was worried about noise. If she at first was with him willingly, he could have lured her to an appropriate area without any commotion at all. She seemed like a nice friendly girl. Even a lame excuse about needing her help with something might have been enough to get her to walk down an empty hallway into an empty room.

And it might have just been a case of serendipitous opportunity for him. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think that attacking her while sleeping is also possible. You never know. We stayed in a hotel room that wouldn't shut completely when you closed it. We had to slam the door and wriggle it around to get it to click shut otherwise it would just seem shut but you could push it open.

I had an office door that wouldn't lock if somebody stuffed paper in the spot where the thing that sticks out is supposed to come out of the door to lock it. Somebody was sticking wads of paper in there and going in when I wasn't there. I don't know how long they were doing it before I knew about it but I think like a week or two or more. I didn't even figure it out. Somebody else was kind enough to tell me about it.

Some guys can be pretty crafty. They might have known a little trick about the door or even gotten hold of a spare key card she dropped or who knows.

Every dog has his day. It was his but not hers. If I wasn't lucky, I'd be dead. But it was my day not his on the right night.

 

[windbags]

That is a somewhat spurious argument to make at this point because the repeated assertion on this board has been that she climbed into the tank herself because she is crazy or under the influence of some substance. I think you may have made that argument yourself but I might be wrong. I don't want to reread through all the threads so just tell me if you haven't.

I haven't asserted anything as to what happened. I have discussed different possibilities as to what happened. Its very well possible she climbed into the tank herself. It might be a remote possibility, but there is no way to 100% rule it out at this time. Its also a possibility she was under the influence of a drug, either taken voluntarily or involuntarily. The only way to conclusively rule that out is to have the toxicology report come back and say she didn't have any illicit substances in her system. Its also a very distinct possibility she had a mental breakdown leading to her death. Its also a very distinct possibility she was attacked and murdered.

There are lots of possibilities and no way for you to fully rule out any of them out. You can have an opinion that certain possibilites were more or less likely to have occurred, but I'm sorry that doesn't mean much. We all have opinions and yours weighs no more than mine.

 

[AlphaWolf]

- The more I read up on the case....the more I come back to the maintenance worker who found her body.



- perp /worker finds her body the day after the elevator video is released???
( maybe perp was scared?)

- ( after reading about rooftop water tanks) I found The Tanks require someone to check the water for Chlorine levels at least once or twice per week.


- a person who is always up on the roof...or always working on the roof would not look suspicious carrying or hauling equipment/bags/large garbage cans to the roof.

- Maintenance worker is always on the tanks and knows how to climb them.

 

[Catchew]

<snipped>
On another note, can anyone find any info on which floor she was staying on in the hotel??? I have raised this question on several occasions, people are still posting that she was on the 4th floor but have yet to see any links provided that would lead us to believe this is fact.

<RSBM>

In thread #2, I asked about a link showing that she was indeed staying on the 4th floor:

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8914327&postcount=110"]Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013 - #2[/ame]


Courage100 provided this:

In this article, it claims she was on the 4th floor. It's possible the journalist who wrote the article was mistaken. http://www.examiner.com/article/body...tudent?cid=rss

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8915509&postcount=191"]Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013 - #2[/ame]

 

[samevo8]

It appears that the video was originally release on Feb 14 (a Thursday) or earlier:
laist.com/2013/02/14/video_missing_canadian_tourist_elis.php

And the body was found morning of Feb 19 (a Tuesday):
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/02/19/elisa-lam-dead-missing-vancouver-body-found-la_n_2719564.html

- The more I read up on the case....the more I come back to the maintenance worker who found her body.



- perp /worker finds her body the day after the elevator video is released???
( maybe perp was scared?)

 

[OCSlacker]

The newspaper articles if they are to be believed indicate that around 50 rooms out of 600 were occupied. That probably means that there were entire floors or entire wings of the building that had nobody in them. A long term insider would have known which areas were best to take her to if he was worried about noise. If she at first was with him willingly, he could have lured her to an appropriate area without any commotion at all. She seemed like a nice friendly girl. Even a lame excuse about needing her help with something might have been enough to get her to walk down an empty hallway into an empty room.

And it might have just been a case of serendipitous opportunity for him. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think that attacking her while sleeping is also possible. You never know. We stayed in a hotel room that wouldn't shut completely when you closed it. We had to slam the door and wriggle it around to get it to click shut otherwise it would just seem shut but you could push it open.

I had an office door that wouldn't lock if somebody stuffed paper in the spot where the thing that sticks out is supposed to come out of the door to lock it. Somebody was sticking wads of paper in there and going in when I wasn't there. I don't know how long they were doing it before I knew about it but I think like a week or two or more. I didn't even figure it out. Somebody else was kind enough to tell me about it.

Some guys can be pretty crafty. They might have known a little trick about the door or even gotten hold of a spare key card she dropped or who knows.

Every dog has his day. It was his but not hers. If I wasn't lucky, I'd be dead. But it was my day not his on the right night.

I did notice this flaw in what I wrote. Having seen video of the rooms and read reviews, they mention and show numerous door latches and a deadbolt on each door. I travel alone often and always use the door latch and deadbolt before I go to sleep. I can't imagine she wouldn't do the same. I would assume that would leave some damage to the door and certainly would make enough noise to wake me from sleep if someone attempted to enter.

I can see why you would think she was coaxed into helping someone. But if this occurred in the middle of the night and someone, even if you knew them to be an employee or got the chance to know them since you have been there, asked you to go to a room to help them, would you go? I sure the heck wouldn't go. So many red flag warnings would pop into my head at that moment that I would probably run like hell, even if I did look like a nut at the time. That doesn't mean she wouldn't. Having read the Tumblr account, if that does belong to her, she seemed to be a bit aware of the dangers of strangers, at least via the internet, so I can imagine that she would be a bit cautious in person as well.

In a previous thread I mentioned that she could have been grabbed and forced into an empty room. I do think that is possible. And we have no idea if her room was accessible via a fire escape but then again we have no idea which floor she was booked on either.

 

[lexycat]

LOL. I am lazy. I mean...hide a body...*&$#...I don't even want to do the dishes in my sink.

Well, usually the killers of women are men. It could be another woman but that would be very, very unusual. But, I don't know...Does Amorosa have an alibi? (am I allowed to say that, it's a joke).

If there isn't trauma then I think she was suffocated with tape or a pillow or plastic on her face or else drowned with her head in a toilet or bathtub. If you plan to put her in a watertank later, drowning her in the bathtub would be the smartest way to do it. No marks and an autopsy would show she...drowned. Nothing to see here folks.

LOL @ joke. Just a question on suffocating. Wouldn't forensics show if she had been smothered somehow, i.e. bloodshot eyes. I agree about drowning in the bathtub first, only way to determine that would be if she had marks on her hands or feet from struggling to get out.

I wonder if she was befriended by someone who talked her into going to the rooftop, they went up the ladder to sit on the water tank, to see what it looked like sitting up high on a building like that, was given a drink/soda that was "spiked" and it reacted very badly with the prescription drugs she was taking, maybe even convulsed.....the person panicked, maybe even thought she was dead, and placed her in the water tank........ just my "what if" opinion.:waitasec:

 

[OCSlacker]

Some guys can be pretty crafty. They might have known a little trick about the door or even gotten hold of a spare key card she dropped or who knows.

Snipped for space

Stay on main (floors 1-7) uses a keycard and yes it is possible to gain entry. Below is a link to an article about hotel safety and the keycard system.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-s...erability-reminder-governments-ambiguous-role

It would be so much more difficult to move a body from the 4th to the roof though

 

[AlphaWolf]

It appears that the video was originally release on Feb 14 (a Thursday) or earlier:
laist.com/2013/02/14/video_missing_canadian_tourist_elis.php

And the body was found morning of Feb 19 (a Tuesday):
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/02/19/elisa-lam-dead-missing-vancouver-body-found-la_n_2719564.html

- thanks for the link.

- at least 4 days in between the video release and the finding of the body.

 

[OCSlacker]

<RSBM>

In thread #2, I asked about a link showing that she was indeed staying on the 4th floor:

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013 - #2


Courage100 provided this:



Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013 - #2

Thanks very much for the link but when I attempted to open the page it shows a 404 error. It may have been removed or just having problems loading.

Got the link to work and it says" reportedly,Lam was staying on the 4th floor, one floor above BD's room"

I can understand why people would think this is correct but I've done some searching and every address that shows BD at the Cecil shows him being on the 14th floor. I know what's been reported in the news is that he is on 3 but that isn't what any records I have found have shown. I would post a few links to prove this point but I don't think they are allowed. A quick search is easy to do though. Also, in a news interview, BD is not shown saying he is on any floor specifically. I posted the link to the interview in a previous thread and so have others. Can't seem to find it, could a moderator have removed this link? Not sure why unless it's because he is identified in the interview. This of course does not prove she wasn't on the 4th floor either.

 

[summer_breeze]

I've removed some posts, and modsnipped others.

You've all been warned multiple times not to attack each other. Or even "seem" to attack another poster.

Please don't respond to such posts. ALERT and move on.

I'm not PM'ing everyone whose posts I removed or modsnipped, I'm telling you here and now.

Time-outs will be issued from this point forth if you cannot keep your comments respectful and civil.

 

[Godsdog]

Hi,

I've had an interesting day.

My sister have no knowledge of this case and it was therefore interesting for me to show my sister the elevator video. I didn't give her any information beforehand, just wanted to see what my sister's reaction was.

After Elisa pushes the buttons again and again, my sister laughs "obsessive compulsive disorder". After that she goes through verbs like "playing, fiddeling, acting (as in talking to oneself). But my sister really thinks she was there by herself the whole time.

When I told her about the case, my sister said that Elisa never appeared fearful or honestly scared in the video.

My sister narrowed it down to Elisa playing some sort of elevator game and that she could be waiting for someone.

My sister happens to be the size of Eliza, while I am the big, strong girl of the family. I lifted my sister with no trouble and walked up a couple of stairs. But I honestly can say that I would not have been able to walk up a ladder carrying dead weight in a strange form.

From this we concluded that Elisa could have been killed at the top of the watertank.

I can easily see her meeting someone (someone who saw her as an easy target since she was travelling alone) and they agree to be adventurous and go up on the roof together. They climb up on the watertanks together. Elisa is killed and easily dumped into the tank.

Very interesting theory, and plausible. I think the insight into a person seeing the video without knowing it was (at some point) followed by a death was interesting as well.

 

[Catchew]

Thanks very much for the link but when I attempted to open the page it shows a 404 error. It may have been removed or just having problems loading.

Sorry about that - not sure what happened! This link should work:
http://www.examiner.com/article/body-found-water-tank-may-be-elisa-lam-missing-canadian-student

Reportedly, Lam was staying on the fourth floor

I still don't feel it's concrete evidence she was staying on the 4th floor, MOO.

 

[OCSlacker]

Sorry about that - not sure what happened! This link should work:
http://www.examiner.com/article/body-found-water-tank-may-be-elisa-lam-missing-canadian-student



I still don't feel it's concrete evidence she was staying on the 4th floor, MOO.

Thanks very much, I edited the post above once I was able to read the article.

 

[cath999]

I work in the mental health profession and Elisa's actions in the elevator, especially her hand motions, are exactly the type of behavior i witness schizophrenics and people suffering mental breakdowns to have. Thats what originally got me interested in the case, I am fairly positive she is suffering from some sort of psychological break with reality in the video.

People seem to have the opinion that a mental illness is somehow shameful, and its disrespectful to Elisa to consider her having one. Its not. The stigma around mental illness is a real problem in this country and it needs to stop. Its a disease that people develop due to no fault of their own. Having cancer or leukemia isn't shameful, neither should having a mental illness. People need treatment for their disease not to pretend it doesn't exist.

Another key factor, if Elisa did have latent schizophrenia, this is precisely the age when it first starts to manifest itself. Its a definite possibility and one that should not be ruled out just because people have an aversion to it.

Thank You for explainining this. And a BIG thank you to "kingsway" for pointing out my spelling error. Sometimes after a ten hour shift on the psychiatric ward I'm tired.

 

[mjak]

Generally tanks, pieces of equipment like this, have what are usually called manholes, for access/maintenance. The point of that square access point on that particular water tank is almost certainly for a person to fit through, so it probably wouldn't have taken very much effort at all to get through.

The picture of the opening on the top of the tank that I have seen do not look like they are intended as an access point for a person. They look more for access to the water for testing, to put equipment in to drain or fill the tanks. I have no first hand knowledge of this but I would think that human access would be best achieved by complete removal of the lid. The lids do appear to be seperate pieces so probably removable with the right knowledge and tooks.

mjak

 

[i.b.nora]

The picture of the opening on the top of the tank that I have seen do not look like they are intended as an access point for a person. They look more for access to the water for testing, to put equipment in to drain or fill the tanks. I have no first hand knowledge of this but I would think that human access would be best achieved by complete removal of the lid. The lids do appear to be seperate pieces so probably removable with the right knowledge and tooks.

mjak

They didn't remove the lid of the whole tank to get the body out, so it seems unlikely that someone needed to remove it to get the body in.

 

[RhiannonR]

The newspaper articles if they are to be believed indicate that around 50 rooms out of 600 were occupied. That probably means that there were entire floors or entire wings of the building that had nobody in them. A long term insider would have known which areas were best to take her to if he was worried about noise. If she at first was with him willingly, he could have lured her to an appropriate area without any commotion at all. She seemed like a nice friendly girl. Even a lame excuse about needing her help with something might have been enough to get her to walk down an empty hallway into an empty room.

And it might have just been a case of serendipitous opportunity for him. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think that attacking her while sleeping is also possible. You never know. We stayed in a hotel room that wouldn't shut completely when you closed it. We had to slam the door and wriggle it around to get it to click shut otherwise it would just seem shut but you could push it open.

I had an office door that wouldn't lock if somebody stuffed paper in the spot where the thing that sticks out is supposed to come out of the door to lock it. Somebody was sticking wads of paper in there and going in when I wasn't there. I don't know how long they were doing it before I knew about it but I think like a week or two or more. I didn't even figure it out. Somebody else was kind enough to tell me about it.

Some guys can be pretty crafty. They might have known a little trick about the door or even gotten hold of a spare key card she dropped or who knows.

Every dog has his day. It was his but not hers. If I wasn't lucky, I'd be dead. But it was my day not his on the right night.

The Hotel Cecil is HUGE! When you just see the facade from the street it is deceiving. I've visited many of the DTLA historic core hotels - - The Barclay, The Alexandria, The Biltmore....all enormous. I imagine there are plenty of nooks and crannies and strange goings-on within the walls.

 

[kingsway]

I work in the mental health profession and Elisa's actions in the elevator, especially her hand motions, are exactly the type of behavior i witness schizophrenics and people suffering mental breakdowns to have. Thats what originally got me interested in the case, I am fairly positive she is suffering from some sort of psychological break with reality in the video.

People seem to have the opinion that a mental illness is somehow shameful, and its disrespectful to Elisa to consider her having one. Its not. The stigma around mental illness is a real problem in this country and it needs to stop. Its a disease that people develop due to no fault of their own. Having cancer or leukemia isn't shameful, neither should having a mental illness. People need treatment for their disease not to pretend it doesn't exist.

Another key factor, if Elisa did have latent schizophrenia, this is precisely the age when it first starts to manifest itself. Its a definite possibility and one that should not be ruled out just because people have an aversion to it.

How can you be "fairly positive" that she's having a mental breakdown, without audio, or without knowing if she's talking to someone, or what she's saying? Sometimes people in a certain profession see what they want to see, and put up blinders on other explanations. I doubt you can make a reliable diagnosis based solely on that video, and without knowledge of her behavior prior to the incident.

The elevator door didn't close, and she expected it to. Even though it was her own fault, she was standing perfectly still until she realized the elevator door wasn't closing. What suddenly made her change her mind of going down the elevator, and instead, upwards to the 15th floor, down the hallway, through a fire escape window, up a long ladder, to the water tanks, up another ladder, opening a lid, stripping naked, hiding her clothes, jumping in, and closing the lid after herself? Did she ever exhibit these symptoms before? Yeah anything is possible, but possible doesn't necessarily mean likely.

I think the real stigma is assuming that anybody with a mental illness is able to suddenly break down and do the unthinkable - regardless of their past history. Imagine if you're a mental patient, but with nothing severe - what would you think if people assumed you can snap at any time, and didn't want to be around you? Or if the first thing you did anything "abnormal", people assumed it was a mental breakdown? Even normal people act strangely sometimes. If Elisa had a pattern of climbing to strange, unfamiliar places, and hiding, I would put more weight into this theory. But the only symptoms we know of are staying in bed all day, and being overly talkative.

 

[OCSlacker]

I think Fei’s question is worthy of consideration. I’m not sure we should so quickly discount the elevator as a means of transporting the body to the rooftop until we’ve explored it further.

From:
Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013 - #3




The loft/attic was made 2 stories high for a reason. From the Chinese investigators’ observations, the second story was locked. We don’t know whether or not the top of the elevator cage or the full cage becomes accessible from that upper loft.

There are articles on the web wrt forcing open elevator doors. Some of them indicate more modern S&R or firefighting methods (i.e. using air bags), and others indicate that doors can be manually forced open. Where doors are forced open, there are references to resulting “interlock” damage being easily repaired.

In the following scenario I’ve avoided including Floor 14 due to the confusion with there being and not being a Floor 13 . So, if only the top of the elevator cage was accessible from the upper loft, and a body was on i.e. Floor 10 and the elevator was stopped by someone at Floor 9, is it possible that someone, with or without elevator knowledge, could hold the elevator at Floor 9 while a person on Floor 10 manually forced the doors open to place the body on the top of the elevator cage? OR, if the full elevator cage is accessible from the upper loft, there isn’t even a need to have such an elaborate scenario of holding the elevator, forcing doors.

WRT the surveillance camera in the elevator, someone with access to the controls could have temporarily disabled it, or there might be an indication elsewhere on tape of someone disguising themselves in order to cover the camera.

We did note what appeared to be black plastic bags in the recovery photos, and the Chinese investigators noted black plastic bags inside the lower loft. Granted, unlikely they would be the same bags, considering wind conditions and length of time between a body going into the water tank vs when the body was discovered.

IMO, given dogs not tracking onto the rooftop, the difficulties we’ve discussed wrt carrying a body to that location, etc .. this possible scenario merits further consideration.

Could be possible I suppose

http://gene.greger-weltin.org/elevator_surfing/