‘You’re always haunted by the idea you’re wasting your life’
-Chuck Palahniuk
Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog. Today is Day 3 of Blogtober. Today’s blog will make you think of what happened to this young girl. The events leading up to her death are strange and you really wonder who or what did it. There are theories behind her death, but I want you to come to your own conclusion. I am talking about the death of Elisa Lam. There are is a connection between the Black Dahlia and Elisa Lam. Stay tuned because it will start to get weird in an elevator.
Elisa Lam was born on April 30, 1991 to emigrants from Hong Kong who opened a restaurant in Burnaby, Vancouver, Canada. She was a student at the University of British Columbia. She traveled alone on Amtrak and intercity buses. She went to the San Diego Zoo and posted photos taken to social media. On January 26, 2013 she arrived in Los Angeles. After two days she checked into the Cecil Hotel.
The Cecil Hotel was built to be a business hotel. It fell on hard times during The Great Depression in the 1930’s. After the Great Depression, The Cecil Hotel never recaptured its original market. The hotel became notorious for grizzly murders and visits from serial killers. One of the most notorious unsolved murders of the 1930’s was the Black Dahlia, otherwise known as Elizabeth Short. The Cecil Hotel was reportedly Elizabeth’s last stop before her death. In 1964, Goldi Osgood “the Pigeon Lady of Pershing Square” was raped and murdered in her room at the Cecil, yet another crime that is unsolved. Two serial killers, Jack Unterweger and Richard Ramirez “The Night Stalker”, both resided at the Cecil Hotel while on their rampage. There were also multiple suicides, one of which also killed a pedestrian in the front of the hotel.
Elisa had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. She was prescribed four medications to treat her disorders: Wellbutrin (an antidepressant and smoking cessation aid), Lamictal (treats bipolar disorder and seizures), Seroquel (treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression), and Effexor (treat depression, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder). According to her family, she had no history of suicidal thoughts or attempts. Her family DID keep Elisa’s history of mental illness a secret.
Mid 2010, Elisa started a blog named Ether Fields. Over the next two years, she posted photos of models in fashionable clothing and accounts of her life, particularly her struggle with mental illness. In a 2012, blog post, Lam wept that a ‘relapse’ at the start of the current school semester had forced her to drop several classes, leaving Elisa feeling ‘directionless and lost.’ A little over two years after Elisa started the blog, she announced that she would abandon Ether Fields, and start another blog on Tumblr. The new blogs; content was mainly fashion photos and fashion quotes.
Elisa called and talked to her parents every day while traveling. On January 31, 2013, Elisa was supposed to check out of the Cecil Hotel and leave for Santa Cruz, CA. Her parents haven’t heard from her and called the Los Angeles Police. Her parents also flew to LA to help look for their daughter. The hotel staff said she was alone that day. The manager of a nearby bookstore, Katie Orphan, was the only person who recalled seeing Elisa that day, outside of the hotel. Police searched the hotel to the extent that they legally could that day. Elisa’s hotel room was also searched. They had dogs go through the building, including the rooftop, but the dogs were unsuccessful. On February 6, 2013 a week after Elisa had been last seen, the LAPD decided more help was needed. Flyers with her picture were posted in the neighborhood and online.
What is described next is the bizarre elevator video that was released. You can search for it on Youtube: Elisa Lam elevator video. Click here to view the elevator footage. Now onto the description of the video.
On February 14, 2013, after another week with no sign of her, the LAPD released a video of the last known sighting of her taken in one of Cecil’s elevators by a video surveillance camera on February 1, 2013. The camera is in one of the elevator’s cab’s rear corners that look down from the ceiling, offering a view of its interior but the hallway outside. At the start of the video, Elisa walks in wearing a red zippered hoodie over a grey T-shirt, with black men’s basketball shorts and women’s sandals. When she enters the elevator, she goes to the control panel, selects a few floors, and then steps back to the corner and waits for the doors to close. The doors then fail to close. She steps up to the doors, leans forward so her head is through the door, looks in both directions and then quickly steps back in, as if she is hiding from someone or something. She steps into the corner near the control panel and the door remains open. She walks to it again and stands in the doorway, leaning on the side. Suddenly she steps out into the hall, then to her side, back in, looking to the side, then back out. She then steps sideways again, and for a few seconds she is mostly invisible behind the wall she has her back to just outside. The door remains open. Her right arm can be seen going up to her head, and then she turns to re-enter the cab, putting both hands on the side of the door. She then goes to the control panel, presses many more buttons, some more than once, and then returns to the wall she had come into the elevator from, putting both hands over her ears again briefly as she walks back to the section of wall she had been standing against before. The door remains open. She turns to her right and begins rubbing her forearms together, then waves her hands out to her sides with palms flat and fingers outstretched, while bowing forward slightly and rocking gently. This can all be seen through the door, which remains open. After she backs to the wall again and walks away to the left, it finally closes.
There are many theories as to what happened in the elevator and what was happening to Elisa. Some theories are more outlandish than others, but here are a couple that are very intriguing and somewhat convincing as to what happened to Elisa Lam.
-Theory #1: She suffered from depression and committed suicide. The people that have read her blogs can testify that Elisa did suffer from depression and was writing about her experiences with it. In one post, she wrote that she had suicidal thoughts and that she was afraid of those feelings. It would be assumed that if she did commit suicide, she would leave a suicide note or write a blog post to her followers, seeing how public she was with her mental illness and depression.
-Theory #2: She was strung out on drugs. According to investigators, the only thing in Elisa’s system was her prescription medications for her bipolar disorder. Nevertheless, the footage from the elevator looks like Elisa is hallucinating. She may have been on some kind of hallucinogenic. Body Language experts have concluded that her behavior on the elevator may be consistent with a person using sedatives.
-Theory #3: She was killed by a rapist. Elisa once wrote a blog about a ‘creeper’ staying at the hotel. It is possible that there was a man following Elisa. Whether he meant it or not, he was responsible for her death and tried to hide her body.
-Theory #4: The hotel's ghosts were tormenting her. Years before Elisa walked the halls of the Cecil Hotel, many tragic deaths occurred. There was also talk of ghosts connected to the hotel's property. Numerous suicides, murders, and bizarre deaths have been reported since Cecil’s opening in the 1920’s. Many ghost stories have made the rounds, surrounding Elisa’s death. Some say that Elisa was tormented by an evil entity in the elevator, while others say she was possessed by a demon who forced her to commit suicide.
While investigators were searching for Elisa, hotel guests complained about low water pressure. Some guests complained that their water was black and had a foul taste. On February 19, 2013, Elisa’s body was found in one of the four 1,000-gallon water tanks on the room, that provided water to the hotel's rooms, kitchen, bathrooms, and coffee shop. Her body was found naked, with clothing, like what she was wearing in the elevator footage, floating nearby with a sand-like particulate. On February 21, 2013, the LA coroner’s office issued Elisa’s death as an accidental drowning, with bipolar disorder as a major factor. Her body was abstemiously decomposed and bloated. There was no evidence of physical trauma, sexual assault, or suicide.
Her murder is still not solved. It is strange about how she ended up on the roof, what went on in the elevator, who or what was after her. It is unnerving, to say the least that her murder is still unsolved. It always gives me chills when I see a video covering her or a blog post. It definitely gave me chills writing this.
Thank you again for reading this blog. Come back tomorrow for something paranormal. 9:00 pm! Thank you!