Gone in a Blink
There are an estimated 8 billion people in the world. In the US, approximately 2,300 people go missing every day. While some of those cases may be of their own accord, others are because of something far more sinister. Gone in a Blink is a true crime podcast that dives head first into the most mysterious and terrifying missing person cases in existence. Hosts Heather and Danielle take a deep look into some of the most horrific missing person cases that will leave you on the edge of your seat and absolutely terrified at just how fast a person can be Gone in a Blink.
Gone in a Blink
Shadows of the Cecil Hotel: The Tragic Mystery of Elisa Lam
What led Elisa Lam to the eerie depths of a water tank atop the Cecil Hotel? This haunting question unravels a web of mystery, mental health struggles, and the sinister past of one of Los Angeles's most infamous hotels. Join us as we explore the chilling case of the 21-year-old Canadian tourist whose tragic end has sparked endless intrigue and theories. From her solo journey through California to the unsettling security footage that captured her last known movements, we trace the events leading up to Elisa's disappearance, raising critical questions about the investigation's many puzzling oversights.
As we dig deeper into the suspicious circumstances of Elisa's death, the challenges she faced in accessing a restricted rooftop add a layer of complexity to this tragic puzzle. Is it possible she was a victim of foul play, or could her mental health struggles have rendered her vulnerable to a different kind of danger? The lack of crucial evidence collection, like rape kit and fingernail analysis, leaves us questioning the thoroughness of the official inquiry. We also explore how her mental state, possibly heightened by a manic episode, might have intersected with the eerie environment of the Cecil Hotel, a place shrouded in a history of darkness and intrigue.
The episode doesn't just stop at Elisa's story; we also reflect on the ghostly echoes of the Cecil Hotel itself, a place intertwined with tales of notorious figures and unresolved pain. Even as Elisa's case is officially closed, the mystery lingers, fed by unsettling theories and haunting elevator footage. Her Tumblr blog’s posthumous updates add yet another layer of intrigue to a story that captivates and confounds in equal measure. By examining these elements, we invite listeners to ponder the complex interplay of mental health, potential foul play, and an unsettling backdrop that continues to evoke a persistent sense of mystery.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elisa_Lam
https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/elisa-lam
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a35461475/elisa-lam-true-story-death-elevator-crime-scene-netflix/
https://allthatsinteresting.com/elisa-lam-death
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/tourist-found-dead-in-l-a-hotel-water-tank-18843715534
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.442023
NBCLA
Music:
Crime Trap by Muza Production
Creepy Atmosphere with Piano and Pad by Universfield
The Wait by Never Not Dead
Horror Dark Cinematic Music by Alexaa221
Gone in a Blink is created by Heather Hicks and Danielle E.
Written and produced by Heather Hicks and hosted by Danielle E. and Heather Hicks.
Gone in a Blink theme: Crime Trap created and produced by Muzaproduction
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Police confirmed the identity of a female's body found in the water tank of an LA hotel. 21-year-old Elisa Lam disappeared several weeks ago. The Canadian tourist had been staying at the Cecil Hotel In Los Angeles. Police are looking into the bizarre death of a young woman from Vancouver. Elisa Lam's body was found in a water tank on a hotel roof yesterday. Authorities released security video last week showing Lam acting strangely in the hotel. They characterized her disappearance as suspicious.
Speaker 2:The video captured Elisa Lam on the morning of February 1st, 8.30 am, the day she was supposed to check out of the Cecil Hotel. But then the video takes a strange turn. She punches all of the buttons on the control panel, then waits. She steps in and out several times. She even appears to be gesturing in the hallway, although it's not clear if someone is there or not.
Speaker 3:A young 21-year-old woman from Canada takes some time off from her studies at the University of British Columbia to travel to sunny Southern California. She's traveling alone and her parents are worried. However, she assures them that she will be okay. To help ease their fears, she promises to call and check in with them daily. She spends some time in San Diego. Her plan was to then make her way up the coast to Los Angeles, before ending her trip in the town of Santa Cruz. However, what was supposed to be a relaxing getaway would end in a tragic turn of events, events that would add to the stream of bizarre occurrences that already surround the infamous Cecil Hotel. This is the story of Elisa Lam, and this is Gone in a Blink. Hey, true crime fans, I'm your host, heather, and I'm Danielle. Welcome to episode 29 of Gone in a Blink. Because of the fact that we were actually recording this episode last week, just a few days after Veterans Day, I wanted to send a shout out to everyone who has and still is serving our country. Thank you for all that you do and all that you've sacrificed. So today's case takes place in Los Angeles, california. Today, we are talking about the tragic and mysterious death of Elisa Lam. So if you're ready, let's jump right in.
Speaker 3:Elisa Lam was born on April 30th 1991 to parents David and Yenna Lam in Vancouver, british Columbia. Her parents immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong, where they opened a restaurant in Burnaby, british Columbia. Elisa was a student at University Hills Secondary, as well as the University of British Columbia. She had one sister, sarah Lamb, who shared her love of fashion and her taste for adventure. In 2010, elisa started a blog by the name of Ether Fields on Blogspot where she would post pictures of fashion and designer clothes and things like that, while also discussing the struggles she endured with mental health. In one of her blog posts dated in January 2012, elisa talked about how she had been dealing with a relapse during the start of her second semester in college and that it had forced her to drop out of several of her classes. Elisa told her readers that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression, and it was reported that Elisa's family kept her mental illness private and that she had never shown any signs of suicidal ideation. It was reported, however, that Elisa did have a history of not taking her prescription bipolar meds, which actually resulted in several instances where she began having hallucinations that ended with her hiding under her bed in terror, and in at least one of those instances, elisa was actually hospitalized.
Speaker 3:So in January of 2013, elisa decided that she needed a break from everything, and so she planned a solo trip to California. Her parents were not very comfortable with the fact that she'd be traveling alone. However, elisa reassured them that she would be okay and agreed to call and check in with them daily in order to kind of put their fears to ease. So Elisa traveled via Amtrak and city buses, starting her journey in San Diego. She visited the San Diego Zoo and shared photos of her visit on social media, and her plan from there was to make her way to Los Angeles and do some sightseeing before heading north to Santa Cruz, where she would finish her journey before heading back home, where she would finish her journey before heading back home.
Speaker 3:She arrived in Los Angeles on January 26th and checked into the infamous Cecil Hotel, located in downtown LA and within very close proximity to downtown's Skid Row, and, for our listeners who may not be familiar with the area, skid Row is a neighborhood located in downtown Los Angeles, also officially known as Central City East, that contains one of the largest populations of homeless people in the United States. According to Wikipedia, reports state that she had initially been assigned to a shared room on the fifth floor of the Cecil. However, the people whom she shared a room with had made complaints to the front desk about Elisa's odd behavior, so Elisa didn't actually book her reservations with the Cecil Hotel, but instead she had booked her stay with the Stay on Main, which is a budget hostel that actually offered a section of low-cost rooms and shared bathrooms for long-term residents, and in 2011, the Cecil Hotel had converted half of its floors to the stay on main, and then that part of the hotel was rebranded as the stay on main, which includes shared bathrooms, like I mentioned, and showers on each floor. So, after two days of sharing a room, elisa was moved into a room of her own and, according to reports, amy Price, who was the manager of the Cecil Hotel and the stay on Main at the time of Elisa's disappearance, stated that Elisa was leaving notes for her roommates that said go home and go away, and that she would lock the door to the room and require a password for them to enter. There were also reports that Elisa had attended a live taping of Conan O'Brien's show in Burbank, california, and that she had been escorted off the premises due to her odd and disruptive behavior.
Speaker 3:Right up until the day Elisa disappeared, she had been contacting her family daily. When they didn't hear from her on January 31st 2013, the day she was scheduled to be checked out of the Cecil and make her way to Santa Cruz, they became worried, and as the days went by and still no word from their daughter, they decided to contact the Los Angeles Police Department. On February 8th, police questioned hotel staff, who reported that they had seen Elisa alone that day, and Katie Orfin, manager of a local bookstore called Last Bookstore, remembered seeing Elisa come into her store on that day that she disappeared, and Katie described her as very friendly and outgoing and stated that she was excited about buying gifts to take back home to her family. Police searched the hotel, including Elisa's room, and brought in scent dogs to search the building as well as the rooftop. It is important to note, though, that police did not search every room within the hotel because, according to Sergeant Rudy Lopez, they only were able to obtain legal authority to search rooms where they had probable cause to believe that a crime had taken place. So, a week after Elisa's disappearance, police decided to ask for the public's help in locating her, and they posted flyers with her picture around the neighborhood as well as online.
Speaker 3:On february 13th, police released a surveillance video taken from inside the elevator of the hotel, a video that has since gone viral, and I will post this video on our Facebook page. The video is approximately two and a half minutes long and shows Elisa walking into the elevator alone and standing in the corner by the control panel, as if she was hiding from someone. She then proceeds to press every button on the elevator panel as she crouches down. The elevator door remains open the whole time, I might add, which I find incredibly strange and then she peeks out of the elevator doors and then gets right back in. Then she steps out of the elevator again and begins to make unusual hand motions while looking down the hall. The elevator door finally closes. No one else was seen on the footage other than Elisa. So, danielle, you've seen this video. What do you make of this?
Speaker 4:Unfortunately, it's pretty sad To me. It looked like she was having a manic episode. So from her bipolar, the hand gestures that you saw, that to me looked like hallucinations. Bipolar is also a lot of times accompanied with paranoia. It seemed like she felt like somebody was following her. We never saw on the footage anybody walk by. I would be interested to know if they have that camera inside of the elevator, if they would have a camera in the hallway as well. That could maybe give us a little more insight. By what we saw and her hand gestures it looked like she was having hallucinations and just kind of that goes typically, unfortunately, with a diagnosis of bipolar well, and that's what it seems like.
Speaker 3:It does seem like that she's having some kind of hallucinations, but others could look at it like she's running from someone. She's hiding in the corner of the elevator and I'm not sure what to make of the pressing every single button. But what I found really odd is that the elevator door stayed open for the entire. Well, the video was two and a half minutes, so for two and a half minutes at least, the elevator door never closed, and I found that really odd.
Speaker 4:No, you're absolutely right. I do think that that's odd, but I mean, I don't know how old the building is if maybe they stayed open or if she had pushed that button for it to stay open for an extended period of time. Now, when I first saw the video, I kind of thought, like you is that it looked like somebody was following her. She was obviously scared. But then, as I started to watch and started to see these what looked like hallucinations, it became apparent to me that, okay, there was some kind of paranoia that was going on, that she felt, yes, in the moment that someone was following her and you know we see her go in and out of the elevator just kind of peeking through that it looked like she genuinely was scared. But then I did see, you know, those hand gestures and I mean, granted, of course I work in the mental health field, so it looks different to me than it would to somebody else.
Speaker 3:But then for me personally it just became clear that that looked like that was unfortunately a bipolar episode following Elisa's disappearance, guests of the Cecil Hotel began complaining of low water pressure in the building and that the water had a strange taste to it.
Speaker 3:Some even complained of the water appearing black. On the morning of February 19th, a hotel maintenance worker by the name of Santiago Lopez discovered the lifeless body of Elisa Lamb, floating face up and naked, in one of the four 1,000 gallon tanks located on the roof of the Cecil Hotel. The tanks were used to provide water to guest rooms, a kitchen and a coffee shop. On February 21st, the LA County Coroner's Office announced that Elisa's cause of death was due to accidental drowning, with bipolar disorder as a significant factor leading to her death. The Full Corners report was released the following June and stated that Elisa's body had been found nude and that clothing, much like the clothing that she was seen wearing in the elevator surveillance footage, was found floating near her in the water. Her watch and room key were found in the water near her as well. However, her phone still has never been found, so that's pretty weird.
Speaker 4:That is weird. I mean you can't rule out just because it obviously was bipolar to a certain extent, but somebody must have came upon the body to steal the phone One. So I don't know if someone took advantage of her condition and maybe there was some foul play.
Speaker 3:Well, and it gets more strange as we continue. So her body was bloated and moderately decomposed when found and medical examiners noted that no evidence of physical trauma had been found on her. Toxicology results confirmed a very minimal amount of alcohol was found in her system and only small amounts of prescription meds consistent with those found in her room. No recreational drugs of any kind were found in her results. So now that that it has been confirmed how Lisa Liam died, the question that was really on everyone's mind is how this young, petite 21-year-old woman got into the tank in the first place. How did she get into these tanks? First, she would have had to access the roof where the tanks were located, and accessibility to the rooftop was no easy task. The doors and stairs that give access to the hotel's rooftop are locked, allowing only hotel staff to enter these areas, having to first enter passwords or obtain a key. Any kind of attempt to force entry into this area would have set off an alarm.
Speaker 3:Reports state that the hotel's fire escape may have been the only way to access the rooftop and bypass these security measures. Police sent dogs had picked up her scent that ended next to a window that connected to the fire escape. So I guess it is possible that she went out the window and onto the fire escape, but then it gets even harder from there to access these tanks. So many internet sleuths have found the circumstances obviously surrounding Elisa's death as incredibly suspicious, and personally I do too. I find it very odd. She would have had to make it to the roof, bypassing all the security measures, before climbing a 10-foot ladder just to get to the tanks. And all four of the cylinder tanks were about 4 by 8 feet or 1.2 by 2.4 centimeters and were propped up on top of concrete blocks. Workers actually had to drain the tank and cut it open just to remove Elisa's body because the maintenance hatch was too small for workers to utilize the equipment necessary to get her out.
Speaker 4:So you're saying, to get her in there, I mean it would have had to have taken somebody that knew how to open them, and I mean, of course, there's no way that she would have known how to do that.
Speaker 3:It just seems like a lot of trouble. Personally, and I don't know, from what I've read, I don't feel like maybe she was suicidal, but I feel like either someone killed her and put her into that tank or she was just having such a manic episode that maybe she didn't even realize that she was getting into a water tank. I don't know. It just seems like a lot. So even if she bypassed security measures, accessed the roof, climbed a ladder to the top of one of those tanks, she would then have to lift the heavy lid to get inside, and I will post pics of these tanks just so you can kind of see what we're talking about. There's also the fact that she was undressed, which raises a lot of unanswered questions.
Speaker 4:There just seems like there are so many red flags there, I mean it would have to take somebody that was skilled and knew about these tanks. Usually, if it's a like a crime of convenience, like oh wow, this lady, they didn't know exactly what was going on and was really annoying a lot of the people at the hotel, I could see that causing a crime against her of some sort, but with most crimes they want to get in and out of there, I mean so that they're not caught. Whoever did this really took the time to hide the body and I mean, wow, there's just seems like so much more to the story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and if in fact it was foul play and that's where everyone is kind of questioning. You know a lot, because it's a lot for one person to do to get up there and do all that and lift these heavy lids and just crawl inside. I don't know, but she could have been having a manic episode, like we said.
Speaker 4:Well, yes, and I mean and I don't want to discount that because, seeing that video, of course something was going on mentally for her, unfortunately. But this I mean from what you're describing, heather Heather, there's so much more that took place. It's not like she would have this manic episode and then just have, like this brute strength to do all these. This is a petite woman. I definitely think that there was some kind of foul play there and I hope that the police further investigated this because, manic episode or not, there's no way she could have done all of that. This would have taken days to kind of figure out and someone that be very strategic about.
Speaker 3:Well, and even if she was having a manic episode and having hallucinations, there are people out there, unfortunately, that are the type of people that would see a young woman like that having an episode and take full advantage of that and it's sad but that's a possibility. I really feel like that's not too far-fetched considering. But the complete information from the autopsy report is just one of a slew of questions that remain. Was a rape kit and fingernail analysis even conducted, and the autopsy report mentions pooling of blood in her anal area which could suggest a sexual assault. However, it was also noted by at least one pathologist that this could be the result from bloating during the body's state of decompensation. Another question that seems to go without answers is the fact that scent dogs never picked up Elisa's scent when searching the roof of the hotel.
Speaker 3:That's strange too, so are we saying there was no rape kit? No rape kit was conducted, no fingernail analysis was either. That probably could have told us a lot right there.
Speaker 4:That is a huge red flag. I don't understand why that wouldn't, especially if there was the pooling of blood like that and that is a known cause or indication that there may have been a rape. So any reasoning why that wasn't conducted the rape kit.
Speaker 3:I have not found anything that states why that wasn't conducted. I don't know if it's a situation where she had been in water for so long. You know, I really don't know. I find it very odd that they wouldn't do a rape kit, and I understand that the pooling of blood in the anal area could also be from bloating during decomp, but it could also be from sexual assault. So I'm not sure why they didn't proceed with all of that.
Speaker 3:So theories of every kind begin flooding the internet into what could have happened to Elisa.
Speaker 3:One was that Elisa was frantically trying to get the elevator door to shut in order to get away from someone who may have been following her.
Speaker 3:Others suggested that the surveillance video had been tampered with and that parts of the video had been slowed down and one minute of footage had been removed in order to protect the identity of whoever was after her. Some online sleuths took their theories and suspicions to a whole nother level, suggesting paranormal activity Theories into the video surveillance footage of Elisa in the elevator suggested that she may have been playing what is called the Korean elevator game, in which pressing the elevator suggested that she may have been playing what is called the Korean elevator game in which pressing the elevator buttons in a specific pattern would open a portal to another dimension. Others thought the circumstances surrounding Elisa's death were an uncanny comparison to the 2005 horror film Dark Water, in which a mother and daughter move into a rundown apartment building where a faulty elevator and discolored water coming from the apartment's faucets eventually lead them to the building's roof, where they search the water tank and find the body of a missing girl, whoa that sounds very similar.
Speaker 3:I'd kind of now want to watch this movie, yeah that's incredibly uncanny, especially because this isn't the type of thing that you would normally see A girl deceased in a water tank on the rooftop of a hotel, inside water tanks that's not something that is of the norm. It is strange that it was in a movie in 2005 and then you know, and then this happens years later. But many theorists delved into the dark history surrounding that of the Cecil Hotel, which first opened its doors in 1927 and is known as one of the most haunted properties in LA. One of the most haunted properties in LA. Elizabeth Short, also referred to as the Black Dahlia, was reportedly seen having a drink in the hotel bar just days before her murder. And for those who may be unfamiliar with that case, elizabeth Short was a 22-year-old aspiring actress who was found viciously murdered and mutilated in Los Angeles on January 15, 1947. The media named her the Black Dahlia because of her preference for black clothing.
Speaker 3:So more than Cecil Hotel's dark history included serial killer Richard Ramirez, also known as the Night Stalker, and it was reported that in 1985, he lived on the top floor of the hotel during his killing spree.
Speaker 3:According to reports, after Ramirez committed a murder, he would dump his blood-soaked clothes outside the hotel and return to his room half naked, and apparently no one batted an eye to this kind of behavior back then.
Speaker 3:Then, in 1991, austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger, also known as the Vienna Strangler, also resided in the Cecil Hotel, and the hotel itself has seen more than a dozen murders and suicides in and around the property since it opened and the Cecil Hotel were two properties that had different lobbies and entrances.
Speaker 3:They both still shared the same elevators, making the video footage of Elisa on the elevator even creepier. She acted as if she was hiding from someone, and who was she making those hand gestures to when she stepped off the elevator? Unfortunately, we may never learn the answer to that. In september 2013, elisa's parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the hotel, claiming that they failed to inspect hazards that posed a potential danger to elisa as well as other guests at the hotel. They seeked to obtain unspecified damages as well as burial costs. The Cecil Hotel argued that they had no way of foreseeing that Elisa would have entered one of their water tanks and, because of the fact that investigators could not determine how Elisa got into the tank, the case was dismissed, and this had to be yet another major blow to her family.
Speaker 4:It's just so sad for this to happen in general, well, yeah, that they've closed the case.
Speaker 3:And then you know her parents are trying to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the hotel. I get that the hotel had absolutely no way of knowing that she was going to make her way up there and end up in one of the tanks. But maybe there should be a lock on those lids so that you can't do that. Another theory that some online sleuths had was the possibility that this could have been an inside job by a maintenance worker or someone on the staff that had access to those security measures and would have been able to lift that lid.
Speaker 4:I kind of feel like that that is a very big possibility because it has to be somebody, I guess, in my opinion, that would know how to get through all the security measures and be able to lift those lids.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, that would be a really easy explanation. And then it kind of goes back to what I said earlier, the theory that what if hotel staff saw her behaving erratically and then they took it upon themselves to take advantage of that? She ends up dead. Again, I don't like to speculate, but right now that's kind of all we really have. I know that the medical examiner has already stated that she died of accidental drowning and that it was all it all stemmed from her bipolar disorder. But so many people aren't stopping at that and I'm I guess I'm one of those people. I don't think that it was just simply her having an episode and ending up somewhere like that. Having an episode and ending up somewhere like that, but everything that she would have had to do to get up to those cylinder tanks and lift that heavy lid and get inside, that's a lot and that's really hard to swallow.
Speaker 4:No, I totally agree. Yes to me in that video and with what you had described, that it was a bipolar episode. But so many times, unfortunately, people take advantage of that, as I had said earlier as well. Usually they're looking for a crime of convenience. So that doesn't look to me like very convenient. But I also feel like it had to be somebody that knew kind of the lay of the hotel and that the water tanks were even up there. So it's very odd to me that it couldn't be an addition. So we knew she had the episode, but this is an addition to that. Someone obviously took advantage of her.
Speaker 3:I really feel like that too. Elisa Lam was an avid blogger going by the username Nivelle Niveau on Tumblr and, as of this date, her account still exists and all the posts are still there. According to reports, after her death, her Tumblr blog had been updated through what we can only assume to be Tumblr's automatic queue option that allows posts to publish themselves automatically in instances where the account user is away. Despite all the suspicions and theories that surround the death of Elisa Lam, one thing remains certain Her family, her friends and everyone who loved her will forever have that void that only Elisa could fill. The harsh reality that they may never know for sure what exactly happened on that fateful day is more than any family should have to bear. As of today, elisa's case has been closed. However, if you have any information into her case, I would urge you to contact the Los Angeles Police Department's non-emergency number at area code 877-ASK-LAPD, that's 1-877-275-5273.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening to another episode of Gone in a Blink. If you like our podcast, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and we love it when you follow us on any of our social media sites. You can find us on Facebook or on Instagram at goneinablinkpod, and if you have an idea for a show that you'd like us to cover, drop us an email at goneinabl blink pod at gmailcom and we'll give you a shout out for your show suggestion. And, last but not least, please remember, be safe, be smart and try not to blink.
