Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Wednesday Weird: Elisa Lam Death

Here we are with another Wednesday and here with are with our continuing themes of strange deaths in preparation for the release of ASSASSIN'S HEART in just a few weeks. WEEKS!!!

Today, we're talking about the strange death of Elisa Lam.

On February 19th on 2013, Santiago Lopez, a maintenance worker for the seedy Cecil hotel in LA, got a complaint about bad water pressure for the hotel. He climbed to the top of the hotel, turned off the alarm and unlocked the door to the roof, and went to check the water tank.
He noticed immediately that it was open. And inside he found Elisa Lam, naked, floating face-up, her belongings scattered in the water beside her.




Lam had been reported missing at the beginning of the month. There were security cameras in the elevator and they had captured Lam acting strangely and the police had released the security footage in hopes that someone would be able to recognize and identify her.

The video is 4 minutes long, but it's worth watching at least a minute or two to see her strange behavior:




Her actions in the broken elevator are so strange, that many people believed she was on some sort of drugs, but her toxicology came back clean. She was bipolar, though, and taking medication for that, but the autopsy didn't include blood work. The autopsy results, actually, only said one thing. She had died of an accidental drowning.

Access to the roof, though, was complicated. There were four ways to get up there. Three were via fire escapes, and the fourth was through the locked door that would trigger and alarm if opened. The same one Santiago unlocked and unalarmed before going up to the roof where he found her body.
To this day, no one knows how she got up to the roof.

So. Elisa Lam is on video, acting strangely, perhaps being pursued. She's cleared of any sort of narcotics and no one even really knew why she was at the hotel in the first place. A few days earlier she had been moved from a hostel style group room to a private room after her roommates had compained that she had been acting oddly. This was the last day anyone saw her alive.

Thoughts or theories?

7 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

No idea how she got on the roof, but from her movements in the video, maybe she thought she was swimming, which led her to get into the water tank.
Which is really gross for those staying at the hotel...

mshatch said...

She also seems like she was talking to someone, and looking to see if someone was there. How sad.

Maria Zannini said...

The poor woman was obviously delusional, probably suffering from her own private demons.

Matthew MacNish said...

I remember seeing this when it first came out. She certainly seems paranoid. Hard to know how legit her fear is.

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

Wow, this reminds me of an episode of How to Get Away with Murder.

Rena said...

I remember this one, and it sort of weirds me out still. Like how do you miss someone for that long. And was the body really a month old? Ick.

Unknown said...

As i check the video where Elisa Lam was last viewed as alive but I still have few doubts over my head.
1st--- when she entered the door one can imagine she was well and fine. She presses the buttons of the elevator and stands on the right corner ready to go to the desired destination. What I feel abnormal is why is the door not closing. Then she peeks outside and she starts behaving in an odd manner as what is shown by the footage.

2nd--- She stands a steps away from the door which seems to be enough time for the door to close.
Was there a problem with the elevator or????

Now finally when she departs from the lift, the door starts functioning but not properly. why didn't the door closed at the first few seconds when Elisa Lam entered the elevator.


The other question that comes in ma head is, there are CCTV camera in the elevator but what about the CCTV camera over the passage are. I am 100% sure that hotels keep CCTV camera over the passage area. IF what i am thinking is right where is the CCTV footage of the passage area.

The CCTV footage would have made it clear that who she was talking with or she reached the roof top.

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