The case of a woman who died at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles in 2013 remains a bit of a mystery, even to this day.
Canadian student Elisa Lam, 21, went missing after she checked into the hotel on 26 January, with her being expected to check out on 31 January.
When Elisa didn’t leave the hotel on time, she was reported missing by her concerned parents.
Shockingly, her body was recovered from a water tank on the roof of the hotel two weeks later on 19 February.
Prior to that, the last she was seen was on the hotel’s CCTV footage, coming in and out of an elevator before vanishing.
Two days later, the student’s autopsy report came in from the Los Angeles County Coroner, who stated that she had died from accidental drowning.
“The decedent was a female Asian adult. She was nude,” the report read. “She was in a state of decomposition noted with marbling, green discolouration, bloating, foul smell and skin separation.
“The decedent appeared to have mold spots on her legs and buttocks. A possible scar was noted to her right knee.
Netflix’s 2021 docuseries The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel follows the death of the Canadian student (Netflix)
“A mole was seen on her right chest. There was no obvious evidence of trauma seen.”
However, the autopsy revealed that she had a history of bipolar disorder, a mental health condition characterised by extreme mood swings, including manic highs and depressive lows.
Along with the spooky CCTV footage, this lead people to come up with the elevator theory, which referenced a Korean elevator game.
Some conspiracy theorists thought the CCTV footage meant Elisa was playing a game that entails a player pressing different buttons in the lift – in a specific order – that unlocks another dimension, which sounds mental, I know.
Meanwhile, on planet earth, bookstore manager Katie was one of the last people who saw Elisa alive.
Canadian student Elisa Lam disappeared from the hotel in 2013 (Netflix)
She told CNN: “She was outgoing, very lively, very friendly. [She was] talking about what book she was getting and whether or not what she was getting would be too heavy for her to carry around as she traveled.”
Netflix’s 2021 docuseries The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel follows the death of the Canadian student as Director Joe Berlinger explained: “It was an opportunity to play with the genre and set the record straight on a very famous story that has been told, I think, irresponsibly.
“Because I think it’s very disrespectful to the victim of the tragedy to dismiss it as a ghost story.”
Berlinger wanted to put to bed the theory that she was murdered, or part of a crazy multiverse elevator theory.
But if one thing’s for sure, a lot of crazy s**t has gone on in that hotel.
