"Theories only" - thread

[josiemaria93]

I have thought about this for a while and I don't believe her manic episode caused her to go up onto/into the water tank. I also don't believe that someone carried her (dead) up into the water tank. Perhaps someone was actually filming her - or getting her to reenact scenes from that movie dark waters, she believed she was just acting (could explain why she kept jumping out of the elevator doing weird things.. if someone outside was filming her). After she got up there onto the tank the person filming either pushed her in the tank knowing she wouldn't be able to get back out or she jumped in as part of the film and the person filming her tried to help her/pull her out (asking her to remove her clothes, tie them together to make a rope) though this was unsuccessful and the person just left her there out of fear that they'd be accused of something.

 

[Starscope]

It's possible that in somewhat an adventurous state of mind she found her way to the rooftop without thinking about how to get back down.

This could cause an adrenalin rush which can exacerbate mania, sending her into panic.

The water tanks might have looked like a kind of alternative entry leading back into the hotel. Maybe they gave an impression of refuge.

I think its likely she undressed inside the tank because bulky, heavy and cold clothing would hinder any chance at escaping.

 

[Qrious]

Could anyone kindly answer these Qs the Netflix doc didn’t address. Feel free to correct anything inaccurate, I’m going off of memory.
No one asked how she got up to the 14th floor, unseen by any cameras? The only footage of her is entering an elevator from the 14th floor. She either climbed 10 flights of stairs (her room was on 4), or used another elevator that was without camera (or had a broken camera). If a security camera could be left inoperable, could a rooftop alarm also go unarmed? Either way, it creates an “access artery” for someone(s) to be around her unseen by cameras. If there was an elevator without an operational security camera that means anyone from outside the hotel could enter and leave unseen. How is that there isn’t more footage of her, she was there for so many days never using the elevator? Clearly she was having a psychotic episode in the footage, which as pointed out by LAPD, renders her more vulnerable to being attacked/threatened, even more so if she was causing loud disturbances in the hotel, making her presence known. The situation she was in, was definitely risky for multiple crime scenarios. Ask any streetwise female who’s ever traveled alone, Ms. Lam was open to several dangerous hypotheticals. We have no proof that the door to the roof was ever alarmed, just hearsay from the Manager. Ms. Lam could have been coaxed there or hiding from someone(s). She could have been murdered WHILE battling a psychotic episode. Said otherwise, having a psychotic episode does not rule out murder. Here’s what doesn’t jive. I grew up scuba diving with my mother, when I was 13 I nearly had hypothermia from diving in a lake in February, my lips turned dark purple. I can say with authority, when in bone-cold water, one does not experience an overwhelming desire to strip off every garment of clothing! I laughed out loud when he said that! My fingers couldn’t operate my BC vest, I lost dexterity from the cold. Further, gentlemen, it takes a lot of dexterity to remove one’s panties while swimming. They don’t slip off, they roll up into a tangled bunch when pushed too fast down the thigh. Her clothes came off BEFORE she went into the tank. (Sigh.. we need more female detectives) So, why would she throw her clothes in the tank before jumping in? Also, trial lawyers will tell you toxicology reports are REGULARLY disputed in court. They are subject to error, (eg “It was an 8, not a 5!”) Any trial lawyer would challenge that the body was submerged in bacterial infested water for many days, badly decomposing, can’t trust the integrity of a rape kit! “She wasn’t bruised” Yes, she was having a psychotic episode and could be easily overpowered without much force. One person couldn’t lift a body climbing those ladders. Two people could, or she could have been coaxed under duress.
I don’t buy the conspiracies. The Stay On Main barely had the budget for new sheets, let alone a tech savvy film editor on staff. The police botched the initial search, rookie mistake to not check the water tanks. I doubt they could execute a flawless conspiracy.

I don’t like to theorize what happened, rather read the evidence, let it tell the story. She was able to get to the 14th unseen, she was in a vulnerable state, she was disturbing 700 rooms of strangers of varying sanity and anger management, in one of the most dangerous intersections in America. She was found naked, with her clothes also hidden in the tank. It saddens me that having a psychotic episode is being used to rule out foul play.

There are a lot of things about this case that don't make sense. Foremost is the elevator footage. So many questions about it and still no satisfactory answers.

Yes, a psychotic episode is used as the contributing factor for her accidental death, with people accepting it based on her seemingly strange behaviour in the elevator footage. Yet people are not willing to question the reliability of the elevator footage itself, given its so many anomalies.

Are there other elevator footage? Most likely yes, but perhaps there were other people in the elevator too. So police couldn't release those footage. So she might have gone up to the 14th floor with one or more others in the elevator. And perhaps too police have checked and ruled them out.

Yes, I agree with you. She could not have removed her clothes because of hypothermia. The water was not freezing cold. It would have taken a long time to die from hypothermia. She would have been exhausted threading water by then.

Police theorise she removed her clothes to lighten herself to stay afloat. She was not wearing bra. As to whether necessary to remove her panties too, her thinking might have been affected by her psychotic state at that time.

One big question is, if the hatch was opened during all that time up to the discovery of her body, why didn't police notice it when they searched the roof? Surely, someone would have gone up to search the top of that equipment room which overlooks the four water tanks. It would have been very noticeable if one of the lids was off. Or the search helicopter would have picked that out.

Surely they should have also searched between the water tanks and saw the ladder leading up to that tank. And seeing that the tank top was flat, would have at least climbed up halfway to check it out. Unless LAPD did a half job and is too embarrassed to admit it.

 

[Qrious]

I have thought about this for a while and I don't believe her manic episode caused her to go up onto/into the water tank. I also don't believe that someone carried her (dead) up into the water tank. Perhaps someone was actually filming her - or getting her to reenact scenes from that movie dark waters, she believed she was just acting (could explain why she kept jumping out of the elevator doing weird things.. if someone outside was filming her). After she got up there onto the tank the person filming either pushed her in the tank knowing she wouldn't be able to get back out or she jumped in as part of the film and the person filming her tried to help her/pull her out (asking her to remove her clothes, tie them together to make a rope) though this was unsuccessful and the person just left her there out of fear that they'd be accused of something.

My thinking based on the facts leads to more or less the same thoughts as yours. I'm thinking she was coaxed into entering the tank by a guy she was attracted to. The same guy she was with on the 14th floor and who led her up to the roof via the disarmed door or the fire escape ladders outside the building.

EL posted a long time in her blog and revealed much about her bipolar condition. There is a high chance that someone took an interest in her. When she opened herself for meet-ups on her trip, this guy could have contacted her and arranged to meet her in San Diego, and then in LA again.

When it was pointed out that this case resembled the plot of Dark Water, I thought it purely coincidental. Movies, especially horror ones, imagine all sorts of scenarios for their plots. There were at least 40,000 movies already made by 2013. So, it was not that difficult to find a movie plot that mirrored what happened in EL case.

But double coincidence is on a different level. What is double coincidence? Say, you and I just met and we found out that our grandmas shared the same birthdate. That's a coincidence with odds of about one in several hundred thousands at least. Suppose we also found out that our grandmas also shared the same date that they passed away. Now, that would be a double coincidence, with odds in the tens of billions. It would be more likely that it's not a coincidence at all, that, in fact, we share the same grandma!

So, back to EL case. It resembling the plot of Dark Water is one coincidence. But, at the same time, EL dressing almost exactly as the character in Dark Water - now, that's a double coincidence indeed! Take a look at these pictures. The screenshots are from the original 2002 Japanese movie, not the remake:




And this...



It is certainly creepy if we believe these are purely coincidental - a double coincidence of the plot and the dressing. So, it leads me to think it is not any synchronicity. I theorise that the guy whom EL met was obsessed with the original Japanese movie. He could be born rich and very free to indulge in wayward stuffs out of ennui. He saw EL's travel as a chance to meet up with her and get her to indulge in his fantasies.

Seeing how EL was playful and smiling in the correct-time video, it seems to me she was playacting indeed. Yes, playacting and reenacting the plot of Dark Water as led by this exciting new guy she met. The black men's shorts that she was wearing, could it be last-minute 'costume' provided by him to her? As to whether the guy deliberately left her in the tank to die or panicked and fled after dumping her clothes in, we can only guess.

To those sceptical, I'm just offering an alternative plausibility based on the facts, and I see this as equally plausible as the theory that she went into the water tank because of a psychotic episode.

There are still lots of unanswered questions, especially relating to the anomalies in the elevator footage. So far, only the slowing down part and the time stamp blurring are explained. I still hope to find answers to the rest, especially why her face was pixelated the moment her full face was tilted towards the camera, and why it was necessary to show yet edit that one and a half minute of extra footage after she had already left the scene.

 

[glamourkitty1922]

There are a lot of things about this case that don't make sense. Foremost is the elevator footage. So many questions about it and still no satisfactory answers.

Yes, a psychotic episode is used as the contributing factor for her accidental death, with people accepting it based on her seemingly strange behaviour in the elevator footage. Yet people are not willing to question the reliability of the elevator footage itself, given its so many anomalies.

Are there other elevator footage? Most likely yes, but perhaps there were other people in the elevator too. So police couldn't release those footage. So she might have gone up to the 14th floor with one or more others in the elevator. And perhaps too police have checked and ruled them out.

Yes, I agree with you. She could not have removed her clothes because of hypothermia. The water was not freezing cold. It would have taken a long time to die from hypothermia. She would have been exhausted threading water by then.

Police theorise she removed her clothes to lighten herself to stay afloat. She was not wearing bra. As to whether necessary to remove her panties too, her thinking might have been affected by her psychotic state at that time.

One big question is, if the hatch was opened during all that time up to the discovery of her body, why didn't police notice it when they searched the roof? Surely, someone would have gone up to search the top of that equipment room which overlooks the four water tanks. It would have been very noticeable if one of the lids was off. Or the search helicopter would have picked that out.

Surely they should have also searched between the water tanks and saw the ladder leading up to that tank. And seeing that the tank top was flat, would have at least climbed up halfway to check it out. Unless LAPD did a half job and is too embarrassed to admit it.

She doesn't have to tread water. I've floated on my back for quite some time. It's quite soothing. She was found face up after all. It was warm during the day, but it got fairly cold that night. Floating in 60 degree water for a few hours would result in hypothermia.

 

[Qrious]

She doesn't have to tread water. I've floated on my back for quite some time. It's quite soothing. She was found face up after all. It was warm during the day, but it got fairly cold that night. Floating in 60 degree water for a few hours would result in hypothermia.

Ok, that's possible then to have caused her to remove her clothes in the tank. It would be good too to have answers to the other strange anomalies still hanging over case. Otherwise, I feel that the video footage is not fully reliable to conclusively say that she was a having a mental episode that led her to go to the tank by herself.

As it stands, I don't think we can rule out the possibility of a sinister prank by someone, with or without a collaborator, who then provided a false alibi to police.

 

[claudicici]

I definitely think the "dark water" connection is more than coincidence She was definitely reenacting the movie I don't think anyone else was involved though

 

[Qrious]

I definitely think the "dark water" connection is more than coincidence She was definitely reenacting the movie I don't think anyone else was involved though

I thought of this possibility too. If EL was reenacting the movie out of her own mind, then she must have watched it and liked it quite a bit. But nothing in her blog posts ever mentioned anything about movies, which would be unlikely if she was a fan given that she talked almost everything else about herself. So I'm inclined to think she knew nothing about the movie at all, and that she was reenacting the movie under the request of some guy she was fascinated with. To me, the clue is the oversized men's pants that she was wearing in lieu of the black skirt worn by the movie character. She was made to dress like the movie character.

Another clue is she made the mistake of looking towards the elevator camera. It is precisely when her full face was facing the camera that her face and mouth were furiously distorted. I don't think this is any video conversion artefact as it is not random but fixed to her face and mouth only.

 

[Qrious]

- deleted due to repetition -

 

[Qrious]

She doesn't have to tread water. I've floated on my back for quite some time. It's quite soothing. She was found face up after all. It was warm during the day, but it got fairly cold that night. Floating in 60 degree water for a few hours would result in hypothermia.

The cause of death was classified as drowning not hypothermia. Removing of one's clothing only happens in the last and fatal stage of hypothermia. So @Texashorn is still correct in saying she could not have removed her clothes under fatal hypothermia while drowning.

 

[Justiceforall67]

This is my first post on this thread. I believe she died accidentally due to her mental health, possibly exacerbated by medication. I have seen people suggest both ambien and sleepwalking and agree that the video footage might be interpreted that way. Possibly she had taken ambien to sleep during a manic episode and experienced the crazy effects it can have. I think the hand gestures just before she appears to be counting might even be a swimming gesture, i.e. possibly she was hallucinating or dreaming (or, if medication was not a factor, just thinking) about swimming, which would link to the tank.

Conversely, I also think it's possible she didn't actually understand, due to her mental state, that there was water in the tank. Possibly she got in the tank for some other reason logical to her not thinking she was lowering herself into water at all.

The bit towards the start of the footage where she quickly puts her head out of the elevator and back in again - she was just trying to check if there was a reason the doors weren't closing without them closing on her. I have done that lots of times, sometimes they close quite aggressively so you avoid being in their path.

I recently watched the Netflix documentary and IMO when she was in the elevator and looking out, walking in and out, pushing all of the buttons, etc... it appeared to me to be OCD. The counting, the certain steps she took, etc...

 

[Justiceforall67]

I recently watched the Netflix documentary and IMO when she was in the elevator and looking out, walking in and out, pushing all of the buttons, counting, taking certain steps, etc... it looked like OCD. What the documentary showed was definitely very bizarre, but I don't see how she could have known about the water towers, let alone climb the ladder, lift the lid and get in it. It also seems if she was having a manic episode somebody would have seen or heard something. I still have to read more details, but thought I would give my first impression.

 

[Mergy13]

I have just watched the Netflix special on this case and one thing struck me. She had stopped taking, or seriously reduced, many of the medications she was on. One of those medications was vanlafaxine, also known as effexor, which I also take. This anti depressant has some serious side effects if you miss doses or stop taking it suddenly. When I tried it I became teary and borderline suicidal. I also felt like I was watching myself from outside of my body. Watching the video footage of Elisa in the elevator it looked like she was "on something" according to law enforcement. That could be true, but it could also be true that she was suffering from some severe withdrawal effects. I think its highly possible that she went to the roof and took her own life. She may not have planned it, it might have been a last moment decision. But in the absence of any serious evidence of fowl play and the clear evidence that her behavior was erratic I think its highly likely that her death was either suicide or an accident when she couldnt get back out of the water tank.

How did the lid get closed? Well as also reported that roof was regularly frequented by other guests at the hotel. Its possible that another guest saw it open and just closed it without looking in. Its also possible that someone saw the clothes and the open lid and upon seeing the body threw the clothes in so as not to implicate themselves. We know that the hotel was frequented by unsavory types who would have reasons not to want to get involved with law enforcement.

 

[mikt71]

One of the theories is that Elisa discovered drug trafficking. They left the key in the lock and she opened the door and saw what they were doing. Do you think this really occurred?

 

[mikt71]

Please post those theories that are outside of the known facts here.

Is there any truth to the possibility that Elisa witnessed drug trafficking because she unlocked a door to a room that a Mexican cartel was doing business in?

 

[Starscope]

Is there any truth to the possibility that Elisa witnessed drug trafficking because she unlocked a door to a room that a Mexican cartel was doing business in?

Anything is possible at the Cecil Hotel. But in this case retaliation seems unlikely as there were no findings of foul play on the Coroner's report.

 

[Freezeguy]

I believe she went up on the roof with new friends and someone that peeked her interest. Clearly she was 'unstable' -- to say the least. I also suspect that the lady in the documentary was somehow involved. The death may or may not have been accidental. After it happened panic set in for the others that had been up there and I believe one of them had a family member (father perhaps) in law enforcement they got 'help' from them. This is all just speculation.

 

[mmccrraazy69]

I've been thinking about this for years ... I was a drug addict for over 20 years & I've seen women act just like that blasted on crack ... Peeking around corners bugging out ...

 

[Pixi090]

How would she have known water tanks are on the roof? It’s too far fetched for me to think that she willingly went to the roof and just jumped in a water tank. Any normal person would not even think there’s water tanks on a roof.

I think she met someone, they killed her, accidentally or on purpose. Had no idea what to do with her, so they put her in the water tank. Seeing as that no normal person would know they are up there, it was someone either familiar with the hotel or worked there. I think she was killed on the roof. No one carried her up there.

 

[Speculaytor]

She looks like she is hallucinating to me. She is feeling around the air as if she sees something there and is checking it out. The way she peeks out of the elevator, the pulls back in and hides from something she sees. She either took a drug, or was slipped one, then became victim of murder. Did murderer slip her drug and follow her? The way she is moving her hands etc looks like she's definitely hallucinating, on drugs, and how she pushes all of the buttons. Toxicology didn't show drugs due to decomposition, and submersion in water?