Elisa Lam - What Happened?

[paint]

Psychotic break or drooling, speaking incoherently and so on could actually in some cases help more than screaming and beating. We all carry some million years old hardwired reaction patterns with us in our subconscious mind. Everything that looks like "sick" in the sense of disease, and be it faked, can take the mood from a wannabe rapist. However, which girl would come to that idea in the actual situation?

true. they're looking for a safe and predictable victim.

i don't believe she's suffering a psychotic break, btw. her actions are ordered and logical in my mind given the context. she may have had a little something to drink, but not drunk. i'm not familiar with drugs mentioned.

 

[Courage100]

It's obvious that some of you did not follow this case when it was still relatively new. At first, it was reported she was missing only. It was treated as a missing person case. The video itself drew a lot of attention because of how weird she was acting in it. This was before the mainstream media or people in this forum had the knowledge of any of the medications or prior psychological issues she dealt with.

 

[Sillybilly]

It's obvious that some of you did not follow this case when it was still relatively new. At first, it was reported she was missing only. It was treated as a missing person case. The video itself drew a lot of attention because of how weird she was acting in it. This was before the mainstream media or people in this forum had the knowledge of any of the medications or prior psychological issues she dealt with.

Gosh, I guess LAPD didn't follow it either ... on Feb 6, the day they first went public with this case, they referred to her disappearance as "suspicious" and "may suggest foul play":

Police are asking for the public’s help in locating a missing Canadian woman whose disappearance has been deemed “suspicious”.

The disappearance of the Vancouver, British Columbia resident “may suggest foul play,” police said.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013...n-suspicious-disappearance-of-canadian-woman/

I don't know how anyone would interpret that any other way.

ETA: The above information was contained in Post #1, Thread #1 by our Mod Summer_Breeze on Feb 6 at 11:19 am:

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8817076&postcount=1"]Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013[/ame]

 

[findinganatta]

When psychedelics do cause bizarre (outward) behavior, can you honestly say you've seen anything similar to the hand motions that Elisa was making? I admit that I'm not in the least bit an expert on anything, I just simply have never seen anything like what she was doing as a result of LSD/mushrooms.

I would agree that she does not appear to be doing things I would normally associate with those drugs, even though I initially thought it was a strong possibility. That is one major reason why my opinion has leaned more in the direction of psychosis due to mental illness. When the video is played at its accurate speed, her behavior seems even more bizarre and less likely to be associated with any actual human interaction, good or bad. It looks like someone who is struggling delusions and lack of control of her mind.

The primary drug I would associate with both her elevator behavior and even getting into the water tank is so-called 'bath salts'; the behavior that stuff can produce is very unpredictable, bizarre, and can involve a total disregard for reality and mortality. But I really doubt Elisa would have ever been using something like that based on everything we know. And I think the feasibility and likelihood that someone gave it to her without her knowledge is basically nil.

All I really feel sure of is that there are aspects of her behavior that I find highly unlikely unless something strange was happening with her mental functioning.

It's obvious that some of you did not follow this case when it was still relatively new. At first, it was reported she was missing only. It was treated as a missing person case. The video itself drew a lot of attention because of how weird she was acting in it. This was before the mainstream media or people in this forum had the knowledge of any of the medications or prior psychological issues she dealt with.

I wanted to quote this because I've thought this same thing. The primary reaction to the elevator video when it was first released was not that she was being stalked or manipulated by an off-camera person; the reaction was that her behavior, in and of itself, was bizarre. And I really believe that most people, including the media, would have found a 'girl being stalked' video more intriguing because it's scarier to the public in general... but they obviously couldn't ignore certain things about her behavior that didn't add up to that. Just my opinion :twocents:

Gosh, I guess LAPD didn't follow it either ... on Feb 6, the day they first went public with this case, they referred to her disappearance as "suspicious" and "may suggest foul play":

But wouldn't they naturally consider it suspicious and 'possible foul play' anytime a young girl (who is in close contact with her parents) disappears from a hotel without explanation, leaves her personal items there, doesn't checkout, and goes missing for days? I'm not saying they might not have had other reasons that we aren't aware of, but it seems to me that they would have reported it that way either way, and looked for help from the public.

I think the point that Courage100 was making, if I'm reading it correctly, is that it's incorrect to assume (as some people have) that people who interpret her actions in the video as being mental illness are doing so because they are taking her psych/med history into account. But in fact, people saw it that way before those facts about her came to light. If I'm misinterpreting you, I apologize Courage100.

 

[Figuring]

It's obvious that some of you did not follow this case when it was still relatively new. At first, it was reported she was missing only. It was treated as a missing person case. The video itself drew a lot of attention because of how weird she was acting in it. This was before the mainstream media or people in this forum had the knowledge of any of the medications or prior psychological issues she dealt with.

I'm not totally clear about what you mean to suggest by pointing out the 'missing persons' status versus the discovery of her prescriptions. Is it that you think the meds have no bearing on the case? I am not meaning to ask in a rude way at all! :fence: -- Am hoping you could elaborate as I would like to understand your perspective.

One thing I was surprised to view, a few weeks after it occurred, was the press conference, in which LAPD announced this was a "robbery/homicide" case. Obviously, they're still establishing the homicide part--but why would they say it was a homicide, too? I feel this has been very much overlooked by both this board and the media...

 

[tapu]

I just wanted to chime in with my personal experience as well as my experience running mental health facilities as well as treatment centers (for addictions) and say that if there was any drug I would guess that EL may have been on (other than her own meds) it would be something like Crack or Meth in my humble opinion and here's why I say that:
A. She cannot be on something that slows you down because she is moving to quickly even after watching the real time video
B. If she is waving her hands around and nobody is there it reminds me very specifically of someone being awake for way too long and basically seeing and hearing and feeling stuff that doesn't exist.
Now I know if she was taking the meds that I've read here she was prescribed I don't believe she would be acting this way. I have many ADHD friends with depression and bi polar disorder and after taking those meds for even a week she would have had a immediate bad reaction to them or they would have helped. Someone with ADHD on speed for example almost seems normal. Except they might not sleep. And anyone who doesn't sleep for days and days will start seeing and hearing and feeling things that aren't there.
My major wonder even after thinking about all of this is that when you are that freaked out you are paranoid and when you are paranoid I don't think even trying to hide, you would jump or crawl into a huge water tank. I just don't. I know some crazy crazy daring people and none of them would have chosen that in their most drug induced,

Your account of what possible drug and why is the first to strike a chord with me in relation to my own prior drug use. I totally get what you mean about being on meth and moving that way. You're just so fidgety. (I repeat here my opinion that we can't really expect to identify drug use from the scant evidence of the video.)

Your suggestion that virtually no one would go into a huge water tank like that strikes me, too. It would be incredibly hard for a person to lower themselves into dark, cold body of water like that. Too freaky.

 

[fred&edna]

Gosh, I guess LAPD didn't follow it either ... on Feb 6, the day they first went public with this case, they referred to her disappearance as "suspicious" and "may suggest foul play":





http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013...n-suspicious-disappearance-of-canadian-woman/

I don't know how anyone would interpret that any other way.

ETA: The above information was contained in Post #1, Thread #1 by our Mod Summer_Breeze on Feb 6 at 11:19 am:

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

Interestingly, the homicide division of the LAPD was handling the case of Elisa Lam as a missing person from the very beginning. I think this was due to international protocol (or some such as that). But, since they believed her disappearance was suspicious from the beginning... I have to wonder if their efforts to search for her (in and outside the hotel) were more intensive?? If so... how????

 

[findinganatta]

One thing I was surprised to view, a few weeks after it occurred, was the press conference, in which LAPD announced this was a "robbery/homicide" case. Obviously, they're still establishing the homicide part--but why would they say it was a homicide, too? I feel this has been very much overlooked by both this board and the media...

But they said during that same conference that it was only being investigated by the robbery/homicide department because she was from another country, and those cases are automatically sent to them for some reason I can't remember.

 

[Sillybilly]

But wouldn't they naturally consider it suspicious and 'possible foul play' anytime a young girl (who is in close contact with her parents) disappears from a hotel without explanation, leaves her personal items there, doesn't checkout, and goes missing for days? I'm not saying they might not have had other reasons that we aren't aware of, but it seems to me that they would have reported it that way either way, and looked for help from the public.

<rsbm>

LAPD has something like 3200 missing persons every year. They don't normally do a press conference, let alone make references to suspicious and possible foul play.

Dunno .. the fact that this is an international case may have had a bearing on how they approached this particular investigation (i.e. investigate as as a possible homicide until there is reason not to consider that).

 

[findinganatta]

Your suggestion that virtually no one would go into a huge water tank like that strikes me, too. It would be incredibly hard for a person to lower themselves into dark, cold body of water like that. Too freaky.

But remember, you are thinking about it right now as a person with a 'normal' mental perspective. People do all kinds of freaky things when they're mentally ill or on drugs.

Case in point:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMo...nd-dead-parking-garage-duct/story?id=13958702

She crawled through many twists and turns of skinny, very hot venting tubes in an attempt to get into a restaurant three stories below... while the restaurant was open. She ended up dying after she got stuck, and probably after an extended period of suffering. That's some scary sh**. Bath salts.

If you think about all of the insane, unthinkable things that drugged and psychotic people do in this world, getting into a rooftop water tank would be way down on the list.

 

[541]

I would agree that she does not appear to be doing things I would normally associate with those drugs, even though I initially thought it was a strong possibility. That is one major reason why my opinion has leaned more in the direction of psychosis due to mental illness. When the video is played at its accurate speed, her behavior seems even more bizarre and less likely to be associated with any actual human interaction, good or bad. It looks like someone who is struggling delusions and lack of control of her mind.

The primary drug I would associate with both her elevator behavior and even getting into the water tank is so-called 'bath salts'; the behavior that stuff can produce is very unpredictable, bizarre, and can involve a total disregard for reality and mortality. But I really doubt Elisa would have ever been using something like that based on everything we know. And I think the feasibility and likelihood that someone gave it to her without her knowledge is basically nil.

All I really feel sure of is that there are aspects of her behavior that I find highly unlikely unless something strange was happening with her mental functioning.


I wanted to quote this because I've thought this same thing. The primary reaction to the elevator video when it was first released was not that she was being stalked or manipulated by an off-camera person; the reaction was that her behavior, in and of itself, was bizarre. And I really believe that most people, including the media, would have found a 'girl being stalked' video more intriguing because it's scarier to the public in general... but they obviously couldn't ignore certain things about her behavior that didn't add up to that. Just my opinion :twocents:

I agree that it could have been bath salts, but I've been gun-shy about blaming bath salts ever since that face-eating homeless man had supposedly taken bath salts and it turned out he wasn't. Still, I have read of some pretty crazy bath salt stories.

 

[Peter Brendt]

Interesting

I had not read that and because the time code on the video is cruddy I could never make that out. do we have a link? because it's important.

Honestly, in that I rely on other posters with better eyes here.

 

[Peter Brendt]

It's obvious that some of you did not follow this case when it was still relatively new. At first, it was reported she was missing only. It was treated as a missing person case. The video itself drew a lot of attention because of how weird she was acting in it. This was before the mainstream media or people in this forum had the knowledge of any of the medications or prior psychological issues she dealt with.

But most people came only into the case, when she was already found. So for them, the altered perception by knowing what happened was a real factor. Things don't rely on when they actually happen in this aspect, they rely on when someone learns about them and what additional knowledge ha has at that point in time. And when most people learned about the case, only then, the whole thing with psychotic break and the complete drug ABC popped up.

 

[Conductor71]

I think the point that Courage100 was making, if I'm reading it correctly, is that it's incorrect to assume (as some people have) that people who interpret her actions in the video as being mental illness are doing so because they are taking her psych/med history into account. But in fact, people saw it that way before those facts about her came to light. If I'm misinterpreting you, I apologize Courage100.

I am likely that people. I see your point, and I did not mean to imply that you based your theories entirely on what is revealed on Tumblr after the fact. I am more trying to say (and not saying it very well, obviously) that we need to acknowledge our biases and be more sensitive. It is very human to see something we cannot explain and attempt to assign meaning to it. This is the basis of how we make sense of the world and other people. I too watched the video long before I knew her Tumblr info, and I basically thought drugs and/or foul play and mental health passed through my mind too. I also observed here, as it unfolded, how many of EL's emotional hiccups quickly took over to became signs of impending psychosis. I am not challenging how posters substantiated their theory, but I think it is a stretch to rely on mainly this one source and not incorporate new information on the case (see the K9 thread)or ignore question that do not seem to fit and not consider how what we are saying is public.

I am not judging anyone here, but I think we all tend to see what we want; build a proof of concept, and go running with it turning our blinders on to other possibilities. It is natural to do this; I do it too, but I am trying to keep an open mind. We should be objectifying factual info (best we can) but in concluding she has psychoses we are objectifying a person and reducing her to a statistic. We do not know her at all and with very little to go on, that is a pretty serious tag.

I do think there is a lot of merit to EL having some sort of episode resulting a tragic accident, but I think we ought to consider how her family and friends might feel if reading the speculation going on here. Especially given that mental illness has a real social stigma attached to it in some Asian cultures. In fact, the very fact that people are speculating demonic possession to explain away EL's admittedly aberrant behavior is strong argument in support of her having a psychotic episode; it is a primal way of explaining something that one fears or cannot understand. I just think that the over analysis and writing tone based on her Tumblr crosses a line. I would also say that EL seeking treatment says a lot; she wanted to be in control of her destiny. She struck me as someone who despite battling demons found joy in life, so it makes her death even that much more tragic, imho.

Anyway, sorry for the long ramble. Guess it all comes from this Tumblr post by a friend of EL; I felt rather guilty. Okay, off my soapbox. I don't mean to single out certain people, but mental health is not something society deals with very well, so I just think we need to be really darn sure of ourselves before we attach tags to a person. It can affect other people. It is something we should all keep in mind.

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/elisa lam

 

[Courage100]

Gosh, I guess LAPD didn't follow it either ... they referred to her disappearance as "suspicious" and "may suggest foul play":

I didn't say it wasn't suspicious. Most missing person cases where someone is suddenly gone without telling anyone would be.

 

[Qrious]

This link, Elisa Lam Time Stamp Conspiracy MUST SEE! - YouTube has the following statement by the person who speeded up the original elevator video It seems to me that he did a careful analysis, so I believe the time that EL was in the elevator was around 12:22 on Feb. 1st.

Next to Elisa's actions in the video, the physical aspects of the video itself are most puzzling.

Firstly, LAPD released the video which is closest or close to the last seen of her for a higher chance of someone remembering seeing her before she went missing. I don't think there is any question as to the motive of releasing this particular video.

Thanks to the YouTube poster of the speed-up video however, these questions deserve answers:

1. Why was the video slowed down? Was it to make it easier for police to pick up small details that might be useful and for all to have a clearer look at Elisa's features?

2. The video shows the duration between 0:22 to 0:26. (Supposedly 12:22-26 am, Feb 1st). Now every 3s of the actual footage has been slowed down to 4s, which means the 4-min long video we see is actually 3 minutes long originally. Yet the duration of the video seen from the counter is 12:22-26, almost exactly 4 min long too. As pointed out, this can be accounted for by the missing 54s and the three jump cuts just before the elevator door closes. Now why is this 1-min footage missing? If it was the motion sensor cutting off the video, then what caused it to cut back on just before the three jump cuts? I doubt it was edited out by a perp and the timing manipulated to fool the police. It would be naive to think the police would not scrutinize such things.

3. In fact, why release all 4 minutes of the video in the first place given that Elisa no longer appears from the 2:30 mark? Would it not be more convenient to just cut off the video at 2:30, instead of extending it and thus revealing the missing 54 minutes and the three jump cuts? I do not believe the timing counter was deliberately blurred out for it seems like a half-hearted effort if it was so. It would simply be easier to just black it out.

Really puzzling issues but unlikely that a hotel employee was responsible for the missing minute, because LAPD has denied the rumor that a hotel employee has been detained. And so far no indication that the police are pursuing a foul play investigation.

 

[Qrious]

<rsbm>

LAPD has something like 3200 missing persons every year. They don't normally do a press conference, let alone make references to suspicious and possible foul play.

Dunno .. the fact that this is an international case may have had a bearing on how they approached this particular investigation (i.e. investigate as as a possible homicide until there is reason not to consider that).

Most missing person cases locally are because they run from home and later found staying with friends or somewhere. But when a person traveling internationally on tour supposedly and who have been in daily contact with family goes missing, there is reason enough to suspect something untoward might have happened.

You are right. I don't think police have too rigid a rule when to investigate a missing person case as suspected foul play or in danger. They will investigate as long as they have good reasons to believe so.

What I strongly suspect is that investigators found something on her phone or in her room (maybe a written note or some other clue) that made them think something untoward could happen to her. That would explain their urgency in going public with her disappearance. It would also explain why they did not want to talk about her phone when asked about it.

 

[Peter Brendt]

Most missing person cases locally are because they run from home and later found staying with friends or somewhere. But when a person traveling internationally on tour supposedly and who have been in daily contact with family goes missing, there is reason enough to suspect something untoward might have happened.

You are right. I don't think police have too rigid a rule when to investigate a missing person case as suspected foul play or in danger. They will investigate as long as they have good reasons to believe so.

What I strongly suspect is that investigators found something on her phone or in her room (maybe a written note or some other clue) that made them think something untoward could happen to her. That would explain their urgency in going public with her disappearance. It would also explain why they did not want to talk about her phone when asked about it.

Normally and in general, missing persons don't get much attention. Especially not the age group 14-18 years of age is often just declared as runaways. Admittedly, I stumbled with SK cases sometimes over the problem. You can read about Corll on my website is interested. But ...

1.) in a case involving a foreign national, the authorities of that country are may not as relaxed when their nationals disappear without explanation in another country. That causes political pressure and forces PDs to actually investigate a missing person case. And since most PDs have no resources for missing person cases, cases that have to be investigated got to for example robbery/homicide. Now, with two other countries having an eye on things, LSPD is under pressure and that gived motive to get rid of the pressure.

2.) LA and Orange County have developed some reputation in serial killer cases by working quick and effective, but I am not sure, how much this extends to other kinds of cases. However, those guys, who got themselves some success, came out of robbery/homicide there as well. That makes me think, the political pressure forced LAPD to send some of their best. The question that remains to me is, with what marching orders?

 

[Sillybilly]

FWIW, linkedin shows the person currently in charge of housekeeping (ON) was previously director of security at a more upscale 5 star hotel in Beverly Hills and is educated in criminal justice (not unusual for someone in the security field).

hmm .. certainly not a lateral move to the Cecil, IMO


MOO

 

[Peter Brendt]

FWIW, linkedin shows the person currently in charge of housekeeping (ON) was previously director of security at a more upscale 5 star hotel in Beverly Hills and is educated in criminal justice (not unusual for someone in the security field).

hmm .. certainly not a lateral move to the Cecil, IMO


MOO

Depending on the whens and whys, one could also describe him as a man of knowledge and a possible stressor?