Elisa Lam - What Happened?

[MissedItByThatMuch]

In motion-detecting cameras, does pushing elevator buttons or the motion of the elevator itself between floors keep that camera activated. I'm particularly interested if pushing the floor buttons keeps the camera going. Anyone know?

I doubt that the button panel is connected to the camera, though in newer technology this could happen wirelessly. But this post warrants a response to point out that the timestamp was indeed rolling when the elevator was going down a few floors. Aside from door motion, there was no activity during that period of nearly a minute. If the cameras are program-able, and they likely are to some degree, chances are, they were programmed to continue rolling for at least the nine seconds between door motion in the time it takes the elevator to descend one floor.

One of the video experts here needs to point out that they are not infallible, because at least one person (BlithPlum) seems to think so. Be happy BlithPlum, we are making progress.

 

[Sarah]

In motion-detecting cameras, does pushing elevator buttons or the motion of the elevator itself between floors keep that camera activated. I'm particularly interested if pushing the floor buttons keeps the camera going. Anyone know?

I was about to ask the exact same question - only related to the doors opening not button pushing.
What confuses me with the motion detecting camera theory is that the very beginning of the video starts with an empty elevator and closed doors - no motion of any kind.
Would this sort of camera be set to start filming just as the doors are about to open? It seems unlikely to me that they'd have anything that high-tech given the condition of the hotel but I've no idea what the norm would be . . . .or perhaps the camera was still active after somebody had previously got out on another floor. Thank you MissedItByThatMuch for the 9 second calculation in your post above.

 

[nerdy]

]
However, the possibility you lay out on head slippage needs to be coupled with a couple of facts. First, there are no head-slippage issues in the full four-minute video aside from the three areas I call snips. Second, Arkadiy identified three tiny segmnets of inserted frames at exactly those three snips even though he had no evidence that there were snips in there. My position is that Arkadiy's claim (as it measures up beside the snips) cannot be a cosmic coincidence, meaning that there is evidence here to bank on.

PLUS, please keep in mind, Arkady did not report merely missing tape, as would be the case in head slippage, but he reported "faked" or "duplicated" frames. Therefore, I have been convinced that splices are in there.

This is not something you can possibly have any knowledge of without the master tape.

I spent years in television production, video duplication, and have converted hundreds of hours of analog tape to digital. These claims you are stating as fact are flat-out impossible to make without a master. Missing timecode is not the same thing whatsoever as missing tape. Virgin tape has nothing, and will produce snow or a black screen, and will not run a time when put in a machine. You cannot physically locate any particular place on the tape with editing equipment. The first step in making a tape usable is to "lay black" or "lay code" which means recording black over the entirety of the tape to ensure the tracking system will never get lost, which can be a disaster in creating in and out points for a cut. The second step is to lay your actual sound and video onto the tape.

Anyone who ever used to record television shows at home and most security systems skips step 1. You shove a tape in and let in record. When the recording stops, there's a gap in information on the tape. When it starts again, information starts. If the heads are not in perfect working order, it's is extremely likely the tape will not stop and start in the exact same location. This results in a loss of frames, loss of timecode, and a digital transfer process does its best to compensate for the missing information by inserting something else.

Without the master, it is impossible to know if this happened with this video in particular.

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

Missing timecode is not the same thing whatsoever as missing tape...

You shove a tape in and let in record. When the recording stops, there's a gap in information on the tape. When it starts again, information starts. If the heads are not in perfect working order, it's is extremely likely the tape will not stop and start in the exact same location.

According to the visual at the 25:04 to 25:14 timestamp, there are no camera starts and stoppages at the three snips so that your statement that the heads will miss frames, when starting and stopping, looks like a non-starter, pardon the pun.

If you don't mind, could you explain what you mean by "Missing timecode is not the same thing whatsoever as missing tape..." I'm under the impression that, when the tape isn't rolling, neither is the timestamp. I think you just said such in your post. Therefore, when exactly can video and timestamp be different things? And why is this important to the discussion?

 

[BlueShoe]

I'm under the impression that, when the tape isn't rolling, neither is the timestamp. I think you just said such in your post. Therefore, when exactly can video and timestamp be different things? And why is this important to the discussion?

Does this mean that the time-stamp is not coordinated to actual time on the clock? I guess it would mean that the time-stamp would be ticking away, and then would only record on the video when that started up. Way back when, I saw a video of the elevator by a former maintenance worker at the Cecil. He was posting this much before the death of Elisa. It showed a glowing white light in the elevator that he was attributing to ghostly presences. I did not think much of it at the time, but could it mean that the camera records without the elevator moving at all? Also, it that video had a time-stamp was it the same as this one? Does anyone else remember this "ghostly" video of the Cecil elevator?

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

Does this mean that the time-stamp is not coordinated to actual time on the clock? I guess it would mean that the time-stamp would be ticking away, and then would only record on the video when that started up. Way back when, I saw a video of the elevator by a former maintenance worker at the Cecil. He was posting this much before the death of Elisa. It showed a glowing white light in the elevator that he was attributing to ghostly presences. I did not think much of it at the time, but could it mean that the camera records without the elevator moving at all? Also, it that video had a time-stamp was it the same as this one? Does anyone else remember this "ghostly" video of the Cecil elevator?

I saw that video, belonging to MrSporty, can't forget that name. I was under the impression that a moth on the ceiling flew dpwn a couple of feet, then made a loop back to the ceiling. It was dark in the elevator so that the camera may have picked the moth up as a spherical shape of light, which can happen, I suppose, if the moth's flight was fast enough and the room is dark enough to make the camera "strain" at providing an image. Possibly, the camera turned on at the sight of the moth's motion.

 

[nerdy]

<modsnip>

Video is the image, timecode is invisible information on the physical tape, and a timestamp can be added at any point in the process and is seen on screen. They are never the same things, ever.

As for the rest, I feel I've explained myself sufficiently and to the best of my skills. I am a creative professional, I am not an instructor. I suggest if you are unsatisfied with my explanations, you look into academic sources to learn about analog editing.

I don't have time to review the video now, but I offered one explanation for how analog video loses frames. Another explanation is degradation of the tape with use. I do not purport to know the exact reason without access to the original tape. I can't. It would be irresponsible to claim I had that ability.

 

[noodled1]

Video is the image, timecode is invisible information on the physical tape, and a timestamp can be added at any point in the process and is seen on screen. They are never the same things, ever.

As for the rest, I feel I've explained myself sufficiently and to the best of my skills. I am a creative professional, I am not an instructor. I suggest if you are unsatisfied with my explanations, you look into academic sources to learn about analog editing.

I don't have time to review the video now, but I offered one explanation for how analog video loses frames. Another explanation is degradation of the tape with use. I do not purport to know the exact reason without access to the original tape. I can't. It would be irresponsible to claim I had that ability.

Everything you've said has been more than clear and certainly makes the most sense of everything I've read. No need to re-explain yourself.

Thanks for taking the time you have and sharing your knowledge of the subject

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

My fellow crime fighters, I have asked Bessie to delete my last "My fellow" post because I'm going to re-post here. If you would like to know where I'm coming from in this post, see my previous "My fellow" posts in recent days. I start all these related posts with "My fellow" so that you can find them easily. Bear in mind that it has just come to my attention that some people here are systematically opposing anyone who thinks that there has been a murder. If I were a police chief, I'd probably fire them at this point, whoever they are, because the evidence can go one way or the other. I'd want fellow detectives who considered all possibilities.

I realized last night that I was wrong to suggest in yesterday's post the possibility that a guilty hotel staffer could have slowed the video for the purpose of creating a 3:59 coincidence. By "3:59 coincidence," I mean that the timestamp starts at 22:00 minutes and ends within the 25:59 point, which is a time span exactly that of the 3:59 youtube time. When I made the mistake, I neglected to get into the shoes of the guilty staffer (assuming he's guilty). So I'm going to slip back into his shoes right now to make a point.

Here I am in the video room, spying the video that is many days long before Elisa appears on it, and many days long after she appears. You are welcome to step inside here. There is no such thing, in this room, of a video 3:59 minutes long. Nor do I ever create one with that time span. My job is to cover over some damning part of this long video with some non-activity segment spliced / pasted in. I spliced out as much as I could, and did some timestamp alterations, changed my mind a bit here and there, and then the time came when the police took hold of the hotel's videos.

In this scenario, the hotel staffer has shortened the duration of the video segment showing activity in relation to Elisa. However, he had no motive to slow it in an effort to get it to last 3:59 minutes, because the police had not yet publicized the youtube video lasting 3:59 minutes. If the staffer slowed the video, he had another reason. I can't think of one. On the surface, it seems counter-productive to his purpose to tamper with the video more than need-be, wherefore he may not have slowed the video at all. It looks like the police (or a police affiliate) slowed the video. This is exactly the opposite position that I concluded yesterday. It's not a problem because it's perfectly fine to change one's mind. By writing down the possibilities, and going over them, I have a new and better view now with which to work. Every complicated logic problem involves taking stabs, making mistakes, and eliminating mistakes.

Now, the police take the video that's many days in duration, and they decide to publicize the part starting at 22:00. It seems quite amazing that the elevator door starts to open while it yet reads 22:00. The camera is right on it, and there is no evidence of motion-activation because the camera doesn't miss one iota of the door opening. The police decide to end the publicized video at the end of 25:59, and while you at first may think that's logical, it just so happens that the elevator door closes for the last time at 25:58. The timestamp never clicks to 26:00. (It reaches 25:59 at the start of youtube time, 3:58, and youtube ends abruptly as soon as it rolls to 3:59. So, debatably, it's a second off my so-called 3:59 coincidence.)

There is between 2:58 and 2:59 minutes of video footage, according to the elevator timestamp, but someone slowed this timestamp or video (or both) to a "round" 75 percent so that it lasts 3:59 minutes. It would need to be another grand coincidence if the timestamp, as we see it, was produced wholly by the hotel. It makes more sense that whoever slowed the video (looks like the police) also did some snipping from the timestamp in order to bring it down to about 2:58 in length, thus allowing for the video to end after 3:59 minutes by a simple mouse click on a 75%-speed button.

Under this scenario, the hotel staffer could have left the 24th minute in (or at least part of it), but the police took it out, and then deceived us (by slowing the video) into thinking that nothing was removed. In that picture, the police added the pixelated timestamp to keep us from discovering their deception. If we are going to argue that the police had a legitimate reason for deceiving the public, we had best stay along those ethical lines by reasoning that the police would not have gone so far as to splice the video on top of snipping it. Snipping is allowable, but splicing is unethical. Snipping while slowing the real time is more in the dark zone than in the light.

<modsnip> Let me sleep on it.

 

[bessie]

MOD NOTE: A few reminders for everyone.

• Websleuths is a fact-based discussion board. Speculation is fine when it is drawn from the known facts in a case. This is especially true when a theory seeks to implicate an individual, known or unknown.
  
• Unless you are a verified expert in a particular field, any statement of knowledge should be supported by a link to an acceptable source.
• Further, when challenging another poster's position, you are expected to maintain focus on the opinion, and avoid derogatory remarks aimed at the poster.

 

[noodled1]

Is ******* able to know whether there are spliced frames between 2:53 and 2:58 even though he doesn't have the master copy of the video?

Having read his other posts on a known conspiracy website I think he's fruit loops. Has zero credibility and offers nothing to support his claims, just talks on and on and you quickly realize even most the conspiracy theorists on the site don't believe a word he's saying, when asked for specifics by other posters he never responds and keeps on his one track.

I did find his advice to terrorists on how to avoid drone strikes entertaining.

That's all I'll say on the subject, please stop referencing me when it comes to discussing his thoughts because I don't buy in one iota

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

Personally, I think the theories of either snuff movies or some kind of Dark Water reenactment are so incredibly low that they're only of interest due to their highly sensational and intriguing nature. Not trying to be insulting or anything like that, but it's just that there is no evidence whatsoever to point in that direction... outside of some circumstantial similarities and total speculation.

If I'm wrong, or if there is new evidence that a snuff video or videos exist, I'll retract my comments. However, my hope is that won't be proven because I don't even want to believe it exists.

This is a good post for the keeping in mind of what might have happened in the video when someone snipped out the 24th minute. Until Nerdy can prove to me that there was no snip, I'm treating the evidence as though there was. Actually, I have no idea concerning Nerdys views on the absence of the 24th minute, as he hasn't mentioned it yet, so far as I know. It's not out of bounds to conjecture that the murder was begun or completed deliberately on the elevator camera, whether for selling purposes or otherwise. It's even a likely thing if true that Elisa was acting on the elevator, and/or if true that the hotel was responsible for the splices in the video.

Therefore, I feel I would like to ask of the readers whether they see any evidence of Elisa acting for the elevator camera, but I would ask that you do not respond based on nullifying that possibility just because it happens to counter your views to date. And even if you find it hard to believe that she could be acting for the camera, try to open yourself to possibility, and, of course, by all means, if you think you see anything in the video that can disprove her acting for the camera, spit it out. It won't offend me. But if your own subjectivity is doing the speaking, then it tends to spoil the debate. Try to be objective, and even offer some points that happen to go against your own ideas to date.

 

[Nickfalzone]

This is a good post for the keeping in mind of what might have happened in the video when someone snipped out the 24th minute. Until Nerdy can prove to me that there was no snip, I'm treating the evidence as though there was. Actually, I have no idea concerning Nerdys views on the absence of the 24th minute, as he hasn't mentioned it yet, so far as I know. It's not out of bounds to conjecture that the murder was begun or completed deliberately on the elevator camera, whether for selling purposes or otherwise. It's even a likely thing if true that Elisa was acting on the elevator, and/or if true that the hotel was responsible for the splices in the video.

Therefore, I feel I would like to ask of the readers whether they see any evidence of Elisa acting for the elevator camera, but I would ask that you do not respond based on nullifying that possibility just because it happens to counter your views to date. And even if you find it hard to believe that she could be acting for the camera, try to open yourself to possibility, and, of course, by all means, if you think you see anything in the video that can disprove her acting for the camera, spit it out. It won't offend me. But if your own subjectivity is doing the speaking, then it tends to spoil the debate. Try to be objective, and even offer some points that happen to go against your own ideas to date.

we are getting cookoo for cocoapuffs here. The little evidence we have lends itself well to speculation, but that is all we've got - speculation. You've had numerous video experts on here tell you that the video editing is either non-existent or impossible to prove from the poor quality youtube - and yet you continue down this path that is going nowhere, at least from a technical perspective due to the lack of evidence available to us. Was she acting for the camera? Maybe. Seems like a real stretch, but i suppose anything is possible. Was she acting for the camera, and also had her video edited by a goon that somehow was also a video expert & had huge leeway in access to the video, and then somehow managed to make it to the roof and die in a water tank...? Anything is possible. Likelihood of that particular scenario? Just barely skating above zero.

 

[Murakami]

I've been out of the country for a while, and just returning to following this case. What is going on? Shouldn't the toxicology reports be out now, or any day now? Was there something I missed? It seems like it has gotten awfully stale, compared to how large it began. (The fact that the main thread was broken into many separate threads here made it a bit hard to follow)

 

[tapu]

I've meandered in and out and it seems there's nothing new, other than people with some background in video editing have pointed out that editing of the elevator video probably didn't happen. Glad to hear that. Like a lot of ideas that crop up early in an investigation, that one was a little over the top. People tend to think that a crime is more complicated than it really is. I.e., we read more meaning into it.

Of course, this one could still be complicated--as we continue to wait for the tox labs....

 

[noodled1]

I've been out of the country for a while, and just returning to following this case. What is going on? Shouldn't the toxicology reports be out now, or any day now? Was there something I missed? It seems like it has gotten awfully stale, compared to how large it began. (The fact that the main thread was broken into many separate threads here made it a bit hard to follow)

I think we're at 5 weeks now since they said 4-6 weeks
As for missing anything, nothing really. The preliminary autopsy report was kind of the last thing we've heard from anyone official.

 

[Newton]

I think we're at 5 weeks now since they said 4-6 weeks
As for missing anything, nothing really. The preliminary autopsy report was kind of the last thing we've heard from anyone official.

The majority of articles I have read state that the toxicology results will take 6-8 weeks. Just wanted to post so people don't start screaming crazy conspiracy cover up on week six, day two. ;P
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/21/local/la-me-0222-hotel-body-20130222

 

[findinganatta]

I've only followed a few mysterious cases like this from beginning to end in real time, so I wonder if anyone can help me out with a few (potentially subjective) questions...

--How common is it for police to keep everything under wraps like this, assuming they are still investigating possible murder or foul play (and aren't just hanging on the tox results as their only big clue)?

--Are there typical reasons why they would be this quiet about it? It seems that even in unsolved murder cases that involve manipulating the perp through the media, the LE gives a lot more details to the public throughout the investigation.

--Do the police ever rule out foul play in a case without announcing it to the public fairly quickly?

--Finally, do previous cases suggest that the police are likely to announce more details of their investigation once the tox results are released?
It seems to me that in a case like this, they would feel pressure to have some general announcements once the tox results bring the story back into headlines and public consciousness (probably more so in China and Canada, although certainly in the US, too, if all of the internet interest is any indication).

Thanks for any answers. If it's impossible to make any reasonable predictions, or if you only have time to answer one or two, I fully understand.

The majority of articles I have read state that the toxicology results will take 6-8 weeks. Just wanted to post so people don't start screaming crazy conspiracy cover up on week six, day two. ;P
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/21/local/la-me-0222-hotel-body-20130222

Thanks. I was incorrectly thinking it was 4-6 weeks. Something tells me it'll be closer to the 8 weeks mark... I remember reading that the condition of the body would make some of the tests more difficult.

 

[walklikeacat]

I have the same questions as you. I am very confused about the total silence in this case. I am living in Sweden and this could never have happen here, the police would have made statements continuously and they would be talking about suspects. The LAPD have really been putting a lid on...which is very strange to me.

 

[nerdy]

I'll toss in my two cents solely from the perspective of an Angeleno. I don't have any other knowledge about what's going on inside the investigation.

I have a lot of local friends into true crime, and while I've been into this case, most of them barely remember hearing about her. "Oh that girl awhile back, yeah I guess I remember." There's no pressure from the populace of LA for answers. She is sadly already yesterday's news.

This is not a story that sells. A lot of the murders that make big news are attractive upper-middle-class white women. A "how could this happen in a nice place like this!" kind of story. Elisa was in a bad part of town. These things happen all the time here.

Personally I just don't think it's on their radar until the toxicology report is in. LA's a busy town, I hear sirens outside as I type this. Without her family coming in to put a ton of pressure on, it's not going to be a high priority. I'm sure there were many more deaths and possible murders that have happened since that we've not even heard about. Sad reality is her story isn't compelling, and the police aren't going to volunteer statements if no one's demanding them. I think the international aspect makes them even more prone to keeping everything to themselves unless major developments are made.

And the biggest of all - I still think this is a highly unsolvable crime, if a crime has occurred. (IMO, yes.) Why talk big if you'll never be able to deliver? LAPD is constantly scrutinized here. They are not popular, especially so at the moment. If they do nab somebody for it, they still get to come out looking good. If not, everyone has already forgotten.

Entirely my opinion.