Elisa Lam's Tumblr blog 'Nouvelle-Nouveau' shown in Netflix docu still archived 8 years after Cecil Hotel death
The death of Elisa Lam, the 21-year-old student from Vancouver, Canada continues to make headlines. She disappeared mysteriously in 2013 when she stayed at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, known for its eerie creepiness. The latest development is that the Tumblr blog, Nouvelle-Nouveau, used by the police to track Lam, and which was featured in the Netflix crime-thriller docuseries, is still archived online.
Lam was eventually found dead in a water tank belonging to the hotel, also famously nicknamed "Hotel Death". Her death was ruled an accident and she is the latest victim in the list of deaths that have occurred in the hotel since 1927. Her blog was used by the police officers to gain information about her travel to LA before she disappeared. The blog along with the gory and disturbing elevator footage of Lam led people and conspiracy theorists to believe there was paranormal activity behind the death..
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The four-part series uses typical true-crime characters like case investigators and witnesses to tell the story, but viewers also hear from Lam herself in the form of old blog posts used to probe into her state of mind during the incident.
According to The Daily Dot, talking about her death, director Joe Berlinger told BBC: "If you look at the other tellings of the story, you'd see she's the victim of some horrible, evil presence that took control of her." In his interview to TV Insider, he explained, “I didn’t want to invent dialogue or create speculative situations, so everything she says via voiceover in the show comes directly from her online posts." The blog comprised of quotes from Frida Khalo and Morrissey, and posts on depression and death.
Hotel Cecil, which is now known as 'Stay on Main', is a budget hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, built in 1924. The hotel's surrounding area began to decline in the following years, as suicides and other violent deaths on the premises became more frequent. Numerous residents reportedly committed suicide in their hotel rooms, and by the 1960s, the hotel became to be known as "The Suicide" by longtime residents.
Lam was seen in surveillance footage behaving strangely in the hotel's elevator, pressing its buttons, walking in and out of the elevator, and possibly making an attempt to hide from someone. The clip was recorded shortly before her disappearance and her naked body was subsequently discovered in a water supply cistern on the hotel roof after residents complained of odd-tasting water and low pressure. How she managed to die in the cistern remains a mystery to date.
'Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel' is now available to stream on Netflix.
