Elisa Lam's roommates at Cecil Hotel had complained of 'odd behavior' in the days leading up to her death
One of the biggest sites of mystery in the United States is what was formerly known as the Hotel Cecil. The historic landmark in Los Angeles was built in 1924, just a few years before the Great Depression hit. In the following years, the hotel fell faced hard times and it became the site for suicides and violent murders. The most recent death was of a 21-year-old college student, Elisa Lam, who disappeared on January 31, 2013.
Lam, also known by her Cantonese name, Lam Ho Yi, was the daughter of Hong Kong immigrants and had been staying at the hotel for less than a week by then. Her body was discovered a few weeks later, on February 19. To date, Lam's death remains unsolved and whatever information was available, it would only make the case more curious. Lam's death will be examined in Netflix's latest docuseries, 'Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel'.
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Arriving in LA
Lam was a student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, though she was not registered at the beginning of 2013. She traveled alone on Amtrak and intercity buses for her trip to California. In California, she visited the San Diego Zoo and posted photos on social media. She arrived in Los Angeles on January 26.
Two days later, she checked into the Cecil Hotel. While she was initially assigned a hostel-style shared room on the hotel's fifth floor, when her roommates complained about "certain odd behavior" according to the hotel's lawyer, she was moved to a room of her own for two days.
Lam's disappearance at the Cecil
When Lam did not contact her parents on January 31, her parents reached out to the Los Angeles Police Department. The police searched the hotel but could not find her. Things became odder when the police released surveillance footage from an elevator at the hotel, where Lam was seen behaving erratically. The pixelated footage shows Lam stepping into the elevator and pushing all the floor buttons. She steps in and out of the elevator, poking her head out sideways toward the hotel's hallways in between. She is also seen stepping in and out, and at one point moving to the corner, as if hiding inside the elevator.
Katie Orphan, the owner of The Last Bookstore, was one of the last people to see her alive. She told CBS LA that she remembered the college student buying books and music for her family, saying, "It seemed like [Lam] had plans to return home, plans to give things to her family members and reconnect with them."
Discovery of body and autopsy
Lam's body was discovered on February 19 by maintenance worker Santiago Lopez, who went to examine the hotel water tanks after complaints from residents about low water pressure and a weird taste in the tap water. Lam's corpse was seen floating naked, along with her clothes and belongings.
The autopsy report on Lam's body just raised more questions. Among the list of medicines prescribed to her were those for ADHD and bipolar disorder (which she was diagnosed with), mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, and antidepressants. The toxicology report on Lam showed that she had consumed a number of medical drugs. However, there was no indication of alcohol or illegal substances in her body. Another summary showed that she had taken at least one antidepressant that day, had taken her second antidepressant and mood stabilizer recently, but not that day, and that she had not taken her antipsychotic recently.
Reports also suggest that it would have been difficult for Lam to climb to the water tank by herself.
'Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel' will premiere on Netflix on February 10, at 12 AM PST.