The Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam: 10 years on, chilling theories still surround how she ended up dead in Cecil Hotel water tank
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: It’s been a decade since a young woman mysteriously disappeared before being discovered dead inside a hotel in Los Angeles. Elisa Lam was on a trip when she landed in the city in late January 2013. It has been said that she booked the Cecil Hotel, infamous for a number of mysterious deaths and unsolved murders, for three nights.
Initially, she was assigned a shared room before being shifted to a single room because of her alleged odd behavior. However, things changed for the worse for the 21-year-old college student from Canada who suddenly vanished on January 31 of that year. Her reported last sighting was inside an elevator, and the CCTV footage from that moment showed her acting bizarrely inside it. In the footage, she seemed to be trying to hide from someone, but the video did not show whom. Also, reports into Lam’s probe revealed that CCTV footage from all the angels could not be recovered.
RELATED ARTICLES
On February 19, 2013, Lam was found naked and dead inside a water tank on the hotel’s roof. Eventually, her death was ruled accidental, and since Lam was on medication due to her apparent bipolar disorder, it was believed that it also played a role in the tragedy.
‘She could no longer reach out and escape’
In 2015, LAPD Detective Wallace Tennelle said, “My opinion is that she fell off her medication, and in her state, she happened to find her way onto the roof and got into the tank of water. At the time, I think that the water tank was maybe full. But as people used the tank, used water, unknown to her, the level was dropping to a point where she could no longer reach out and escape, and she died that way,” reported CBC News.
Though the investigation into Lam’s case called it an accident, it has not been made clear yet how it happened, while giving rise to numerous theories. The hotel is not in its original form now since it has been said that it will be shut down in late 2022, and only some long-term residents are allowed to stay there. But the stories surrounding the hotel and Lam’s death have not ended yet.
Did Lam commit suicide?
Many keyboard detectives have suggested in the past that Lam killed herself. They referred to her Tumblr account, where she used to post blogs, sharing her struggles with anxiety and depression. One of her posts before her death reportedly said, “i wish i could put part of my brain into a taped shut box and shove it to the back of my closet for the night.”
But the coroner in her case believed otherwise and claimed that “a full review of circumstances” did not say Lam died by suicide.
Was foul play involved in Lam’s case?
Several web sleuths also believed that Lam did not harm herself but was killed. The main evidence for this theory was the CCTV footage, and they thought someone was following her. Also, detectives of the online community pointed out that when the student was discovered in the tank, its lid was locked from the outside, which would not be possible for Lam to close it herself from the inside if she went voluntarily.
Was Lam high on drugs?
This theory also surfaced after Lam’s remains were found in the most shocking way. Some, referring to her elevator behavior, asserted that she might be high on drugs and seeing things. However, “no sign of drug or alcohol intoxication” was found in Lam’s body, as reported by Vice.
Was Lam used as a biological weapon?
Cecil Hotel was close to Skid Row, where homeless and poor people live. During the time when Lam was staying at the hotel, the people of Skid Row were suffering from tuberculosis and Women's Health reported that at the time, “the test for the type of tuberculosis circulating was called the LAM-ELISA (Lipoarabinomannan (LAM) Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA),” similar to the young woman’s name.
So, many believed that she was a biological weapon to remove the homeless people, and when the work was done, her life was taken away.