These tropes are all present in Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, a four-part Netflix series from director Joe Berlinger ( Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes) about the death of 21-year-old Elisa Lam at a budget hotel in downtown Los Angeles with a history of murders, suicides, and overdoses. And there are the red herrings, the tantalizing alternative theories or explanations of the case spliced into the narrative to build suspense and justify the fact that the story is told in multiple installments, rather than just the hour-and-a-half of a standard documentary. There are the journalists and “experts” on the case (more often than not, YouTubers or message board posters) offering their own versions of what may have occurred, with little to no evidence to back it up. There are the moodily lit reenactments, complete with perky voiceovers from the victim’s diary or blog, written during happier times. To this day, no one knows how Lam ended up in the water tank at the top of the hotel.If you watch enough true crime documentaries on streaming platforms, you start to notice a template emerging. The case went viral, and the internet had many theories about the mysterious circumstances of her death. “She was outgoing, very lively, very friendly,” said Katie Orphan, manager at a nearby bookstore, who had seen Lam before her death when she went to buy gifts for her family back home. It was discovered she had written blog posts to cope which detailed her journey with her bipolar disorder and depression. Her parents said she had no prior suicide attempts, though her parents were known to not disclose her history of mental illness. Lam was previously diagnosed with an extreme case of bipolar disorder and depression and was recieving treatment. The autopsy took around four months, and ended up ruling the death as an accidental drowing. But the why is always the question,” said Lolita Lopez, a NBC reporter who covered Lam’s case. “In 22 years plus of doing this job as a news reporter, this is one of those cases that kinda sticks with me because we know the who, what, when, where. Her body was found naked, with her clothes floating beside her body in the tank. The body was later found due to complaints by residents about foul tasting water and water pressure problems, leading Santiago Lopez, a maintenance worker at the time, to check on the water tanks at the top of the building. She eventually leaves the elevator, and the last few moments of the low quality video show her waving her hands around in various gestures as if she were talking to someone, but Lam was the only one seen on the video. She then keeps stepping in and out of the elevator, or poking her head out as if she was supposed to be hiding from someone. The two and a half minute video shows Lam walking into the elevator and pressing all of the buttons. The hotel was searched, but nothing about Lam could be found.ĭays after, the chilling surveillence footage of one of the hotel’s elevators was released by the police. Her parents contacted the Los Angeles Police Department and the search for Lam had started. Her parents had been worried about her whereabouts as they had not heard from her in a while. January 31 was her check out date at the hotel, but the date was not met by Lam. The famous “Black Dahlia” Elizabeth Short was spotted at the hotel days before her murder. Since it’s inception in 1924, there have been 15 technical deaths on the premises. The Cecil Hotel is infamous for having several murders and suicides prior to Lam’s death, as well as being a ground for illegal activities. Lam began her trek around California at the beginning of 2013, taking photos at the San Diego Zoo and visiting other areas prior to her stay at the Cecil Hotel. A Canadian student named Elisa Lam from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver was found lying face up in a water tank above the infamous Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles on Feb.
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