The investigation into the Eliza Lamb case has been completed, the hotel has confirmed its reputation as a scary place. Elisa Lam's mysterious death The strange death of Elisa Lam film

The Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam is a true story about the mysterious death of a girl named Eliza Lam. A Canadian student is staying at the damned Cecil Hotel. Her death attracted a lot of public attention due to her strange behavior, which was captured on CCTV footage just minutes before her death.

THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF ELIZA LAM

There are secrets so creepy and strange that they will haunt the mind until the end of time. Elisa Lam's story is one of them.

In February 2013, this 21-year-old student from Vancouver, Canada, was found dead on the roof of the Cecil Hotel in a water tank in Los Angeles. The coroner who performed the autopsy determined that death was the result of an accident and that the girl had drowned. During the autopsy, no traces of drugs were found in her body. However, the story is not as simple as the police reports say. First of all, a careful study requires the recording of video surveillance cameras that filmed Eliza in the hotel elevator literally a few minutes before her death. Here's the video.

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The four-minute video, which can be easily found on YouTube, shows Elisa Lam pressing all the buttons on the elevator and waiting for it to move. Seeing that the elevator doors do not close, she begins to behave extremely strangely.

First, Eliza enters the elevator and starts randomly pressing all the buttons. Then she waits for something, but for some reason, the elevator doors do not close. She begins to look around as if she is waiting for someone or trying to hide from someone. At the 1:57 mark, she starts waving her hands very strangely, as if talking to someone or something... Then she leaves. The elevator doors then close and the elevator starts operating again.

Immediately after the events captured on video, Elisa walked onto the roof of the hotel, climbed into a water tank and drowned in it. Her body was found two weeks after her death, after hotel guests began complaining about the strange taste and color of the water. Incredible.

Having seen the CCTV footage, most people would have concluded that the girl was under the influence of drugs. However, Eliza did not use drugs, as evidenced by the autopsy results. When you start studying Elisa Lam's story in more detail, things get even more confusing.

The Dark History of the Cecil Hotel

Built in the 1920s, the Cecil Hotel was intended to serve as a haven for wealthy individuals and businessmen who might stay in Los Angeles for a day or two. However, the hotel was soon overshadowed by other more glamorous hotels. The hotel is located in a disadvantaged area of ​​Skid Row, and soon the owners had to change their policy, renting out rooms for a long period at low prices. The hotel's reputation quickly declined when cases of numerous murders and suicides that took place within the hotel's walls became known, as well as the fact that famous serial killers lived there.

Part of the dark history of the Cecil Hotel were two famous maniacs, Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger.

Ramirez, nicknamed the “Night Stalker,” a maniac, lived at the Cecil Hotel in 1985, in a room on the top floor. He rented it for only $14 a day. While remaining undetected, he was able to kill 13 women. He hid his bloody clothes in a trash can in the evenings, and then returned to his lair through the back door.

Jack Unterweger, also a notorious maniac, was a European journalist who reported on Los Angeles crime for an Austrian magazine in 1991. He settled at the Cecil Hotel, as if paying tribute to Ramirez.

He was accused of killing three prostitutes in Los Angeles during his stay at the Cecil Hotel.

Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger

In the 50s and 60s, the Cecil Hotel became famous as the site of suicides who jumped out of the hotel windows.

Helen Gurney, a woman in her 50s, jumped from a seventh floor window to her death on a hotel overhang on October 22, 1954.

Polina Otton, 27 years old, jumped from a ninth floor window after an argument with her estranged husband on October 12, 1962. Ottone fell on George Gianinni, 65, who was walking along the sidewalk. Both died on the spot.

There was also a murder of a guest at the hotel. Osgood, nicknamed “Pigeon Goldie,” a retired telephone operator who was known as the protector and feeder of pigeons in a nearby park, was found dead in his hotel room on June 4, 1964. He was stabbed, strangled and raped. This crime remains unsolved.

Elisa Lam's case is just another horrific chapter in the hotel's history, and we're left wondering what the hell is going on in this place?

Mystical coincidences

Another interesting fact is that Elisa Lam's case is remarkably similar to the plot of the 2005 horror film “Dark Waters.”

Dahlia, the film's protagonist, moves into an apartment complex with her young daughter, Cecilia.

Both names are symbolic and echo real life. Black Orchid (Black Dahlia) is the nickname given to Elizabeth Short, a woman who was the victim of a grisly murder in 1947 - believed to be a ritualistic murder. She is said to have been at the Cecil Hotel and drinking in a nearby bar shortly before she was killed.

The name of the daughter Cecilia, in the film, surprisingly echoes the name of the Cecil Hotel.

After moving into a new apartment, Dalia notices dark water flowing from the ceiling into their apartment. In the end, the woman discovers that a girl named Natasha Rimsky drowned in a water tank on the roof of their house, which is why the water turned dark. The building owner knew about this but took no action. Elisa Lam's body also remained in the water tank for two weeks until residents began complaining about the “dark water.”

The ending of the film is also frighteningly juxtaposed with reality. In a malfunctioning apartment building elevator, the ghost of Cecilia's mother braids her hair.

Was Elisa Lam the victim of one of the ritual murders, where the killer mirrored the plot of a Hollywood film?

Another strange coincidence. Shortly after Elisa Lam's body was discovered, a deadly outbreak of tuberculosis occurred in the Skid Row area near the hotel. You probably won't believe it, but the medical term for tuberculosis testing that is used in such situations is LAM-ELISA. This is just an incredible coincidence.

Unsolved mystery

Los Angeles authorities ruled in June 2013 that Elisa Lam's death was an accident and that Elisa was likely insane when she committed suicide.

However, this formulation does not provide answers to all questions. How did Eliza, who was supposedly out of her mind, end up getting to the water tanks, which are very difficult to access? How did she get on the roof? And how did she close the lid of the water tank?

As is usually the case, the authorities did not share the results of the investigation into such a strange death. What really happened? Why are there so many mysterious coincidences? Why did Elisa Lam act so strangely in the elevator? This whole story is literally surrounded by mystical secrets, and the authorities, it seems, simply did not want to get involved in this.

We want to end this article with a slogan from the movie “Dark Waters”:

“Some mysteries are not meant to be solved.”

Anything can happen on our planet. Mysterious murders are not uncommon. This is when a person’s death occurs under strange and mysterious circumstances, and no one can explain how and why the misfortune occurred. Below, as an example, is the death of Elisa Lam. It is filled with secrets and mysteries, and the police were never able to give a clear and intelligible answer, much less find those who committed the terrible crime.

Elisa Lam (center) with her mother and friend

Elisa Lam is a Canadian tourist of Chinese descent. This 21-year-old girl loved to travel and at the end of January 2013, she traveled from Vancouver to California. She planned to travel through this one of the richest states in the United States from south to north. On January 22, Eliza arrived in San Diego, toured the city where the Hollywood branch is located, and on January 26 she was already in Los Angeles. Here she settled at the Cecil Hotel. This is a large 15-story building classified as an extended stay hotel.

People live in such hotels for years and receive a decent discount for their stay. The bulk of the guests are elderly people who were unable to buy a home in their old age. They are usually quiet, law-abiding and do not cause anyone any problems. This public lives out its life, eking out a modest and economical existence.

The girl planned to stay at the hotel until February 1 inclusive, and then go to Santa Monica. She called her parents every day, as there was an agreement to inform them about herself every day. The last time Eliza called was on January 31 and said that she was doing well. But the next day there was no call from her, and the parents began to worry.

The father dialed his daughter's number several times throughout the day, but to no avail. Then in the evening he called the hotel administrator. He explained that the girl’s stay at the hotel ended at noon. But she didn’t show up at that time, so all her things were moved to the storage room. But the whereabouts of Eliza herself are unknown to the administrator. But the hotel doesn't have it.

Hotel Cecil

After this, the parents of the missing student contacted the Canadian police, who then contacted the Los Angeles police through their own channels. Taking into account all the bureaucratic delays, the search for the missing woman began on February 4. And on February 5, the case was transferred to the Homicide Department, where experienced detectives took up the matter.

The things left in the room were examined: a suitcase and a handbag. Jeans, stockings, T-shirts, and personal hygiene items were found in the suitcase. The owner couldn't just throw it all away. She should have taken it anyway. And so the detectives had the darkest assumptions about the fate of the young girl.

A dog handler and a dog were brought to the hotel. The room located on the 4th floor was subjected to a thorough inspection. The missing person lived there until February 1. But the examination did not yield any results. Detectives only made sure that there were no signs of bloodshed. Next, the technical premises were inspected. They were on the 14th floor. Although it would be more correct to say on the 13th. But there was no such room in the hotel. Immediately after the 12th floor was the 14th floor.

You could get to the technical rooms by elevator, but you couldn’t enter: this required a special key. But despite this, the 14th floor was thoroughly inspected with the help of a dog. They also inspected the roof, the door of which was locked with an electronic lock. When the door opened, a signal was immediately sent to the hotel security console. But in the period from January 31 to February 5, no unauthorized door openings were recorded.

From this it is clear that the detectives were extremely conscientious. They checked everything possible and impossible, but their efforts were unsuccessful. Then the law enforcement officers carefully inspected the entire building and seized video recordings from the hotel's surveillance cameras and street cameras located in nearby neighborhoods. But this is 800 hours of video recordings for January 31 - February 1.

The girl was found on a video camera installed in the elevator. In time it was between 14 and 15 hours on January 31st. The camera recorded Elisa Lam for 4 minutes. All this time the student behaved rather strangely. Being alone in the elevator car, she energetically gesticulated, exited the car on one floor, and then re-entered on another, pressing several buttons in a row. When she was not in the elevator, she apparently went up and down the stairs. It seemed that the girl was playing or talking with someone.

Video footage showing Elisa Lam in an elevator

Meanwhile, information came from Canada saying that the missing woman suffered from bipolar disorder. It was expressed in the alternation of a sluggish depressive state and an excited-active one. But the disease was mild and did not pose any danger either to the girl herself or to those around her. She had never been to a hospital, did not smoke, did not use drugs, and drank alcohol in small quantities.

As the story progresses, it must be said that the Cecil Hotel had a bad reputation. Suicides have been committed there several times since 1954. Moreover, it was mostly elderly ladies who said goodbye to life. They were thrown out of the windows onto the pavement and died. There were also strange murders in this establishment that have not been solved to this day. So on June 4, 1964, conservationist Goldie Osgood was brutally raped and murdered in her own room. The rapist and murderer were never found. And on February 12, 1950, the dangerous killer Raymond Hare was detained at the hotel. Richard Ramirez, a Californian serial killer, regularly stayed at the establishment. Also in the summer of 1991, another serial killer, Jack Unterweger, stayed at the Cecil.

The case of the missing Canadian girl took an unexpected turn on February 19. The day before, guests began to complain about the disgusting smell of water flowing from the taps. The administration assigned a plumber to deal with this problem. He decided to start the inspection with 4 water tanks located on the roof of the building. It was from them that water entered the hotel's water supply system.

At 10 o'clock in the morning the plumber went up to the roof and began to open the lids of the tanks one by one. In one of the containers, half filled with water, he saw a human corpse floating upside down. The man called the rescue service at approximately 10:30 am. But only at 12:30 the police appeared on the roof of the building. At 12:50 p.m., one of the patrolmen reported seeing a naked female body floating in a water tank.

Within 20 minutes after this, many police and fire trucks appeared near the hotel. The coroner's office also arrived. The corpse was removed from the water and a preliminary examination was carried out, and at 16:40 the examination of the body began to be carried out in the morgue. It was there that it was established that the deceased woman was Elisa Lam, who had disappeared more than 2 weeks ago.

In addition to the body, some things were found in the water tank: men's shorts, a T-shirt green, a set of black lace underwear, a pair of sandals, a red brushed jacket, a wristwatch, and a key card for the Cecil Hotel. All the things found were completely wet.

The condition of the corpse indicated that death had occurred a long time ago (more than 6 days in the water). No subcutaneous deformations or visible wounds were found on the body. When he was removed from the water, no foamy liquid was observed from the lungs. This is the so-called “Krushevsky sign”, indicating that death occurred from drowning. No alcohol, drugs, or medications were found in the blood.

Elisa Lam's death did not resemble drowning. However, experts named this exact reason, citing bipolar disorder. Forensic experts signed this conclusion on June 14, 2013. It was published in the newspapers and raised many questions. Most importantly, it was unclear whether this conclusion indicates the murder of Elisa Lam or suicide. But the police put an end to this issue on June 21. She stated that the girl herself committed suicide as a result of an exacerbation of bipolar disorder.

Elisa Lam's body was found in one of them.

However, the Canadian citizen had never thought about suicide before. I never told anyone about this, although this is unusual for those who want to commit suicide. These people are sure to share their intentions with friends, relatives or doctors. Half of suicides start such conversations a week before they die. But no one had ever heard anything like this from the young girl. Also, the psychiatrist who saw Eliza in Canada stated that she did not have any suicidal tendencies. As for bipolar disorder, it is not accompanied by delusions or hallucinations.

Even for an inexperienced person, it is clear that there are many oddities associated with the death of Elisa Lam. If we assume that the girl actually committed suicide, then there is nothing on the roof that would to some extent correspond to a suicide scene. Who would deliberately drown themselves in a tank of water? This is a very painful and painful death. And suicides always try to take their own lives quickly, efficiently and comfortably. And then there is a terrible departure to another world, which is a continuous long agony. Nobody tortures themselves like that last minutes life.

It should be noted here that the Canadian citizen disappeared not on January 31, but on February 1. That is, on the very day when I was supposed to leave the hotel. This is a very important point, since it is now reliably known that at noon on February 1, when the maid did not find the girl in the room, the hotel administration called her on her mobile phone and asked if she would extend her stay. Eliza replied that she would not, but she could not take the things yet. They were taken to a storage room, and another person moved into the room. If the girl had not responded, the administration should have called the police and reported the guest missing. But the police showed up at the hotel only on February 5 after communicating with the Canadian police.

However, there is a video camera recording posted on the Internet for public viewing. According to the police, it was dated precisely on January 31 in the period from 14 to 15 hours. It turns out that the guardians of the law deliberately misled everyone by indicating the wrong date, since the date, month and timer readings are hidden on the recording itself. In this recording, Eliza acts like a playful little girl. She is clearly flirting with someone, but this person does not appear in the camera’s visibility range, since he is always in the corridor of the 14th floor.

And another interesting detail. The girl in the video doesn't have glasses. But she had a high degree of myopia. But judging by the way Eliza bent down to look at the buttons in the elevator car, she also did not have contact lenses. By the way, neither glasses nor a mobile phone were found near the corpse. As for climbing to the roof, in addition to the door with an electronic lock, there were 3 fire escapes equipped with fenced areas. So getting onto the roof was not difficult for anyone. Therefore, it can be assumed that the unknown man established friendly contact with the girl, lured her to the roof and committed murder there.

But how did he do it without leaving a trace? The attacker strangled the girl with a chokehold on the shoulder and forearm. Then I separated the still living one and threw it into a tank of water to destroy all biological traces. He searched the clothes and also threw them into the water. I only took money, a mobile phone and glasses. He spent the money, threw away the phone, and kept the glasses as a trophy. The killer did not fake suicide. He simply hid the traces of the crime and was apparently very surprised when he learned about the police’s findings.

And one more psychological nuance. The killer must have had the ability to establish contacts with girls from Asian countries. They are very distrustful and, as a rule, try not to enter into friendly contacts with people outside the community of their fellow tribesmen. Therefore, the killer somehow interested and attracted Eliza Lam. Perhaps he was a mixed-race Chinese, or a European who demonstrated a genuine interest in Chinese culture and language. Such nuances could endear the girl to this gentleman. However, it must be assumed that she met a serial killer.

So, Elisa Lam's death was the result of murder. Many facts indicate this, but the police, for bureaucratic reasons, stopped the investigation. And yet, let's hope that after a certain number of years this story will logically end, and the killer will be caught and punished. After all, the main thing for all of us is that justice prevails and retribution overtakes the criminal.

1.Elisa Lam

It is safe to say that the death of Elisa Lam is the most mysterious case in recent history. The case remains unsolved to this day.

The incident occurred during Eliza's stay at the hotel, which was located in the center of Los Angeles. The name of the hotel was ''Cecil''.

Eliza was a student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She was born on April 30, 1991 and was 21 years old.

2.Travel

One day Eliza decided to go on a trip to the West Coast of the United States.

Eliza began her journey in January 2013. She visited San Diego, where she visited the zoo, and wrote about it on her blog. Then, on January 26, the student arrived in Los Angeles and checked into the Cecil Hotel. She was supposed to stay there until the end of January...

3. Disappearance!

Eliza kept in constant contact with her family and informed them of her location. When parents didn't receive a regular phone call, they became worried. Later, when the hotel staff called Eliza's room, they also received no answer. After which, her parents flew to Los Angeles and filed a missing person report.

Two weeks later, Eliza was found, not alive, but dead: she was lying naked in a water tank.

4.Death

When the police were looking for Eliza, they hung posters with her image all over the city. But at the same time there were complaints from that same hotel.

Hotel clients complained that the water had a very strange taste. Plus, there was some kind of unusual smell. The hotel staff, having begun to inspect the water supply systems, discovered the dead body of a girl...

On February 19, 18 days after she disappeared, Elisa Lam was found in a water tank on the roof of a hotel. Her body had managed to partially decompose in the water, and small pieces of clothing were floating around.

5.Riddle

The last footage of her life was filmed in the hotel elevator: the girl behaved very strangely, as if someone was watching her.

Eliza's entrance into the water tank itself was a strange event. Firstly, getting onto the roof is not such an easy task. Secondly, the entrance itself was absolutely untouched. How did they get Eliza there? Or how did she get there herself? It's unclear!

The autopsy results showed that there were no injuries on the body.

Elisa Lam, Asian Canadian citizen, 21 years old. Arrived in Los Angeles from Vancouver on January 26, 2013 and stayed at the Cecil Hotel.

From her personal data it is known that she next planned to go to Santa Cruz. The behavior at the hotel was modest, there were no guests, no specific contacts. In early February, Eliza's parents raised the alarm - their daughter had not been in contact for several days. Eliza had no bad habits and in all respects was a truly Eastern girl of strict morals.

Taking into account this circumstance, as well as the fact that last time she was seen at the hotel on January 31 and has not left the building since then. The police ordered a routine check.

The building was inspected by a search team with a dog. Not suggesting that there was any crime behind the disappearance, the police did not conduct a frontal check of all the numbers, but the search, according to the Los Angeles police, was quite thorough.

In particular, the technical rooms and the roof, which is closed to visitors, were checked. Water supply tanks are located on the roof, in accordance with the usual engineering layout of high-rise buildings in the United States. In order to get there you need to overcome a system of combination locks and a security alarm.
Elisa Lam has not been found.

After some time, complaints began to be received from residents. The water supplied to the rooms had a strange taste and was often dark in color. The pressure was irregular, and the water supply was often interrupted for no apparent reason. The technical service of the Cecil Hotel carried out an inspection and found no problems in the water supply distribution. When examining one of the tanks, the decomposing body of Elisa Lam was discovered, which had lain in the water for at least two weeks. The guests washed themselves with this water and drank it.

Video

During the investigation, a video recording made by a surveillance camera of one of the hotel elevators was found. It showed Elisa Lam on the day of her death. The girl behaved strangely, typed combinations of numbers on the control panel, exited the elevator, made unusual movements with her hands, and addressed someone invisible. The quality of the recording left much to be desired, but it was sufficient to understand that Elisa Lamb was very scared.

Depression

Eliza was having trouble sleeping due to long-term depression and was prescribed the medication Adderall XR (a combination of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine salts, a stimulant) for ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). She wrote about the diagnosis and medicine on Tumblr. It does not cause hallucinations, and de facto behavior in the elevator is not caused by taking the drug. By the way, it was precisely because of this that during the autopsy, Amphetamine was detected in the urine of the deceased.

Bottom line

Based on the results of the autopsy, a decision was made - the case was closed, the death was declared an accident. How Eliza got onto the roof, how to explain her strange behavior before her disappearance - and apparently death - the police are no longer interested in all these questions.

I apologize in advance to Encore for encroaching on its bread, but after the post about Judy Smith, I hung out on Crime Fiction and found this story.

Man is amazingly structured - everything that frightens us, that defies our understanding, attracts us with the same force. We are afraid of pain, but throughout our history we have invented thousands of ways to inflict it on our own kind; we are afraid of death, but in the Middle Ages, like kites, we flocked to the square to see it. Death itself is always incomprehensible, incomprehensible, terrible... and attractive. We have learned to understand the causes of death, but we are unable to overcome it, for death lives by its own laws, not obeying us. It is the biggest mystery of the universe. But when an old man passes away from life, we humble ourselves - a person has seen many sunsets, let him go in peace, and it’s a completely different matter when death overtakes a young person, full of hopes and desires. And it comes in a strange, mysterious, mystical way.

One of these mysterious deaths was the strange death of Elisa Lam in Los Angeles.
21-year-old Elisa Lam arrived in the City of Angels, California from Canada on January 26, 2013.

She was a fragile (wore size XS), pretty girl with jet hair and brown eyes: her height was 163 cm, weight - 46 kg. She was fluent English and Cantonese Chinese.

Lam was traveling alone, and Los Angeles seemed to be an intermediate destination on her itinerary. As she wrote to her sister, her final destination was the city of Santa Cruz. The real purpose of her journey remains unclear to this day. She described her trip to America as a trip to gain new experiences and get rid of depression. Eliza was interested in music and photography, was a fan of the Harry Potter novels, and considered actor Ryan Gosling to be her male ideal.

According to her sister, Lam was fond of jazz and signed up for social networks with some guy from Los Angeles and loved to visit nightclubs where her favorite jazz performers performed. However, this was not the first time she traveled, sometimes without explaining the purpose of her travels to her relatives.
Chinese by birth, Lam immigrated from China to Vancouver with her parents and younger sister a little over 9 years ago. Since September 2012, Eliza has been a first-year student at the University of British Columbia, which she was supposed to graduate by 2016.
For reference: founded in 1915, the University of British Columbia is one of the best universities and research centers in Canada. In the global rankings of the highest educational institutions, this university ranks 40th among 17,000 universities in the world.
Studying at the university takes 4 years (of which the master's degree is 14 weeks), that is, at the time Lam arrived in Los Angeles, she had only studied at the university for a few months.

On weekends and evenings, Eliza worked as a simple salesman in a store women's clothing, trying to earn extra money for the family. Paying for university studies cost a tidy sum, yet the Lam family was not particularly wealthy. Having settled in Canada, hardworking immigrants rented an operating Chinese restaurant called “Blue Ocean”, where they ran their small business, which was the main “breadwinner” of the family.

According to the testimonies of the restaurant's regular customers and neighbors, the Lam family was a typically Chinese family. Leading a rather secluded lifestyle, they were always friendly, friendly, hardworking and smiling, but they did not let anyone into their lives.
Arriving in Los Angeles, Eliza decides to stay in a rather gloomy place - the Cecil Hotel. Built in 1920 at 640 S. Main Street, the Cecil Hotel was originally a luxury hotel, but was soon pushed out of the market by more expensive hotels and became a cheap, low-end hotel that barely matched the standards of service and decor. up to 3 stars. The only place where the decor fully met hotel standards was the lobby. Only here there were beautiful plants in tubs, the administration desk shone with cleanliness and order, and this was the only place with free access to WI-FI.

It is surprising that after the tragedy that happened to Eliza in this hotel, journalists will pull out the entire 90-year history of this place, declaring it a haven of evil and otherworldly forces. In fact, the hotel's bad reputation was created, firstly, by its close location to the notorious Skid Row area in Los Angeles, and secondly, by several suicide stories that occurred there.
Indeed, the Skid Row area has long been a gathering place for alcoholics, beggars, homeless people and prostitutes who lived right on the street in cardboard boxes and tents. In the forties, about 50% of all crimes in Los Angeles were committed in the Skid Row area. And it was for this reason that in June 1947, Police Chief Clemence B. Horrall carried out a massive sweep of the area, arresting 350 homeless people. However, the area was soon again overrun by marginalized people. The homeless had nowhere to go, and after arrests they invariably returned to Skid Row. During the 40-90s of the 20th century, several attempts were made to remove the “homeless area” from the face of the city of angels, destroying the temporary homes of the “dregs of society” that lived there. But the actions of the law enforcement officers always turned out to be ineffective, and the Skid Row area continued to live its unusual, impoverished, dangerous life. In the end, after yet another destruction of homeless buildings, they filed a lawsuit against the police, accusing them of violating the rights and freedoms of ordinary American citizens. The beggars, oddly enough, won the lawsuit, and since then the city has had to come to terms with the existence of this tumor on its face.
As for the suicides committed at the hotel, they actually took place. And the reasons for this were not the ghosts and spirits that lived in the hotel, but ordinary everyday troubles, sometimes pushing people to suicide. Over the more than 90 years of its existence, 3 such events occurred at the Cecil Hotel and all of them, alas, are prosaic, investigated and do not have any mysticism in their history. This hotel was often chosen as a place to stay by people with financial and other personal problems, besides, which of the average hotels can “boast” that nothing terrible has ever happened within its walls?

For example, 50-year-old Helen Gurney, who committed suicide on October 22, 1954, jumped from the window of her seventh floor room due to a terminal illness.
Unmarried Julia Moore threw herself onto the pavement from an eighth-floor window on February 11, 1962, finding herself in a difficult financial situation, aggravated by an unexpected pregnancy from a man who refused to recognize the child as his own. And 27-year-old unbalanced Polina Otton jumped from the ninth floor after breaking up with her husband. Unfortunately, in addition to her life, she also took with her the life of 65-year-old Italian Giorgio Gianini, who was passing under the windows of the Cecil Hotel at that very moment.
In my opinion, if these events are called mysticism, then I am afraid that most of the bridges, cliffs, hotels and high-rise buildings in the world will have to be called places controlled by evil forces. In fact, all the evil committed by people is done by them of their own free will, and not under the influence of devilish voices whispering to them.
Another argument used by adherents of otherworldly forces, accusing the hotel of conspiring with the devil, is that at one time two world-famous serial killers stayed at the Cecil Hotel: the “night stalker” Richard Ramirez and the Austrian prostitute killer, journalist and crime show host Johan (Jack) Unterweger.

Jack Unterweger

For reference: Jack Unterweger, a little-known serial killer on the Internet. An Austrian, born a prostitute, raised by an alcoholic grandfather, at the age of 16 he was first arrested for attacking a prostitute. Then for numerous crimes, including murder in 1976, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. But in prison he became interested in literature, editing and journalism. Having corresponded with many famous writers and journalists, he began to demonstrate “correction” and soon, as an example of the healing effect of art and literature on a crippled criminal soul, he was released in 1990. Having entered the free world, Unterweger suddenly becomes a “fashionable toy” of the Viennese elite, gaining fame, fame, connections, and therefore money. Soon Jack is invited to host a well-known crime program on television and chronicles in the most expensive printed publications. He no longer looks like an ex-convict. On the contrary, Unterweger becomes a role model for Austrian dandies, wearing expensive white suits, diamond cufflinks and driving around in luxury convertibles.
However, soon a mysterious maniac appears in Vienna, brutally killing prostitutes. “It’s funny” that it is Unterweger who writes the main articles about him. He asks to help the police and zealously helps them investigate crimes that he himself commits.

Indeed, in 1991, having received an order from one of the Austrian newspapers to write a series of articles about the crime of the city of angels, he arrived in Los Angeles and lived exclusively in cheap, gloomy hotels located close to the hot spots of the city. Unterweger will spend several days of the five weeks during which he is in America at the Cecil Hotel. Despite the fact that at the time of his arrival Jack was a fairly wealthy man, the choice of cheap hotels was also determined by his desire to be closer to the places where his main victims - prostitutes - gathered. So there is no mysticism visible here either. Many serial killers choose this way of life, wanting to be closer to their “prey.” In Los Angeles, Unterweger will kill 3 prostitutes, but all these murders will have absolutely nothing to do with the Cecil Hotel itself.
A lot has already been written about Richard Ramirez, but I will only say that this terrible killer committed most of his crimes in Los Angeles and its suburbs, hanging out in various flophouses and cheap motels. So it is not surprising that the Cecil Hotel became a temporary refuge for him more than once. However, as in the case of Unterweger, Ramirez did not commit a single murder within the walls of this hotel.

As you can see, the Cecil Hotel, although it really has tragedies and ominous facts in its biography, is simply usual example a cheap hotel, where, alas, criminal elements and people with a shaken psyche sometimes settle.

So, having arrived at the hotel on January 26, Elisa Lam informs the receptionist that she intends to live there until February 1, and checks into a small room on the 4th floor.
According to the testimony of hotel workers, she behaved normally, without demonstrating any strange behavior, spoke little, did not demand anything, did not take anyone to her room, and apparently spent most of her time outside the hotel walls, walking the streets of the city of angels. However, every day the diligent daughter made phone calls home to Vancouver, assuring her family that she was fine.
Eliza arrived in Los Angeles from San Diego, where, on the eve of her flight, she visited some American, apparently closed pub, the so-called speakeasy (this is how underground drinking establishments were called in America, starting from the days of Prohibition. This name comes from two English words and means “to speak quietly,” that is, it was not customary to speak out loud about such establishments). Eliza would later write to her sister that she got a lot of impressions from visiting the pub, but the feeling of a wonderful evening would be overshadowed by the unpleasant incident with her losing mobile phone. An interesting point is that this phone did not belong to Eliza, but was given to her for use by some friend from Vancouver, which indirectly confirms her difficult financial situation.
Over the past 4 years, Eliza has suffered from prolonged depression, which she has repeatedly written about on her blog. She had problems sleeping, and two months before arriving in Los Angeles, her boyfriend left her precisely because of the girl’s unbalanced state of mind. This loss aggravated Lam’s depressive moods; she began to write about suicide, clarifying that she did not drink alcohol or use drugs, but in her statements she did not condemn this, but said that she understood the reasons for such escapism from reality by other people.
Already in Los Angeles she arrives with a set of medications prescribed to her by the doctor to reduce the effects of depression and stabilize her mental state. The drugs included the antidepressant venlafaxine, the bipolar disorder drug lamotrigine, and the antipsychotic quetiapine, which Lam apparently used as a sleep aid. Subsequently, the police will find all these drugs in her belongings with a prescription, a doctor’s prescription and partly with empty blisters.
It was not possible to establish what Eliza did from January 26 to January 29. Only on the 29th she left a single message on Tumblr (Tumblr, a microblogging service that allows users to post text messages, images, videos, links, quotes and audio recordings):
"I arrived in Laland...
I stayed in a monstrous building.
When I say monstrous, I mean terribly tasteless.
But on the other hand, it was built in 1928, so it's almost decadent and that's cool.
I'm sure the Great Gatsby should be filmed here."

And again, no one knows how Eliza whiled away January 30th.
Only the next day, January 31, in the afternoon, the hotel staff sees her in the lobby, talking on the phone. Her parents receive a call from her in Vancouver, but what they are talking about remains a secret to the general public to this day.
It is known that it was on this day that Lam visited a bookstore with the prophetic name “Last” (“Last”), where she purchased a couple of vinyl records and several books costing a dollar. Katie Orphan, the owner of the store, remembered the strange visitor well. According to her testimony, Lam was excited and twitchy, she spent a long time choosing books, loudly repeating that the dollar was a good price that satisfied her. In general, Orphan got the impression that Eliza was a little out of her mind, attracting the eyes of customers with loud, lengthy monologues and scaring them away. It is Katie Orphan who remembers Elisa Lam last. After the girl visited the bookstore, there was not a single witness who saw Eliza Lam alive.
Beginning February 1, 2013, Lam stopped calling her family in Canada. A couple of days later, the Lam family realizes that something extraordinary has happened and files a report with the local Vancouver police about the disappearance of their daughter in Los Angeles. A week passes in international legal delays, and only on February 6 will the Los Angeles police officially begin investigating the disappearance of a Canadian citizen in her city. And the first thing they'll check is all the security footage from the hotel. By reviewing hours of footage, police will find the latest footage, dated January 31, in which Elisa Lam is clearly visible sometime between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.
Everyone who watched this recording will be shocked by the vision of the captured Eliza for a long time, not allowing them to forget the bizarre, incredible and strange behavior of the missing girl.
Here is the video:

Already on February 13, the film will hit YouTube and the media, causing an incredible surge of interest and discussion. Based on the video, it became obvious that Lam had some problems, but there was no explanation for her strange behavior. Someone, having viewed the recording, claimed that they saw inappropriate behavior of a person in a state of drug intoxication, someone spoke of insanity, others claimed that someone was stalking Lam.

Each of these versions had the right to life, but also raised a lot of questions. However, none of the versions explained the girl’s disappearance.

Meanwhile, residents of the Cecil Hotel increasingly began to grumble and complain to the administration about the quality of water supply in the building. It should be noted that the hotel rooms are designed in such a way that there are no showers in the rooms themselves. The room has a bathroom and a sink with water, but the bathrooms on the floors were shared, which in itself caused significant inconvenience to the residents. And then, to add to all the other constraints, the water pressure in the taps decreased significantly. Every day, the hotel management began to receive dozens of strange messages from residents that the water flows only barely, when the tap is turned on, initially it has a strange dark color and smell, and the water has acquired an unpleasant sweetish taste. It became obvious that there was some kind of breakdown in the hotel's water supply system.
It is worth at least a little understanding of the water supply system at the Cecil Hotel. Being a 15-story building, the hotel has 4 metal tanks measuring 3 m high and about one and a half meters in diameter, located on the roof of the building. Water is pumped out using pumps located in the upper side of each tank.

Photo of 4 metal tanks located on the roof of the Cecil Hotel. On the right in the photo you can see the entrance to the roof, equipped with a blocking lock.

According to security rules, only hotel staff had access to the roof, and the door to the roof itself was blocked with a digital lock. When an intruder entered, a signal about an intrusion on the roof of an intruder should have been sent to the alarm system display.
On February 19, early in the morning, the technician allegedly unlocked the door and began inspecting the water tanks. Having thrown back the loose lid on top of the tank (the lids are clearly visible in the photo and are all unsecured), in one of the tanks, to his horror, he notices a naked dead body floating upside down. The call to the police on February 19 will sound at 10.15 and within half an hour, firefighters and law enforcement officers will begin to remove the body from the tank. This process will take almost 5 hours.

The dead person will be the missing Elisa Lam, whose completely naked body somehow inexplicably ended up in the hotel’s water tank. But why was Eliza undressed? At first, this moment completely disconcerted the police, bringing to mind the sexual implications of the girl’s death. It was unclear where her clothes had gone. She didn’t end up on the hotel roof naked. However, after emptying the tank, at the bottom the police were able to find almost all of her clothing: a sweatshirt, a T-shirt, shorts, flip-flops and a wristwatch exactly the same as in the video filmed in the elevator.
The location of the death of the Canadian tourist caused the greatest bewilderment. How could a fragile girl end up so high, and even in a place to which access was supposedly completely blocked? A lot of questions arose about the condition of the body, the cause of death and the manner of death. Most importantly, it was completely unclear whether Elisa Lamb's death was an accident, suicide or murder. There was a huge amount of work ahead, which the police and local coroners immediately took on.
First of all, we tried to figure out exactly how to get to the roof of the hotel. As it turned out, in addition to the main entrance, one could also get to the roof through fire escapes, which the hotel is equipped with on different sides according to fire safety standards. They were accessible directly from the corridors and windows of some rooms on each floor. There were 3 such stairs.

In addition, no one could be sure that on the day of Eliza’s death the main door to the roof, which was subject to blocking, was in working order.

Of course, the hotel managers swore and swore that they always kept this system under control, not allowing it to remain open. However, any person knows that sometimes circumstances are stronger than us, and human negligence has claimed many lives through its indifference. In their right mind, none of the managers or employees of the hotel would admit to their negligence, realizing that in any case they would suffer for improper performance of professional duties. In a word, the police understood that Lam herself and a possible criminal could get onto the roof if necessary, and there were several ways to do this. Therefore, I am somewhat surprised by the opinions expressed about the impossibility of getting onto the roof of the Cecil Hotel. As you can see, this is not impossible at all.

Now the police had to find out the cause of Eliza's death in order to decide whether it was suicide, an accident or murder. All hotel employees and guests were interviewed in several visits, the police tried to find all the people who were familiar or in any way connected in the past with Eliza. But there was no evidence or evidence to support one version or another. According to the testimony of family and friends, Eliza never used drugs, and there were no apparent reasons to kill her either. However, the fact that a person has never used stimulants does not mean that this could not happen to him for the first time. And when asked about the girl’s mental health, her relatives remained silent or evasively answered that everything was fine with her. Meanwhile, the drugs found in her personal belongings told a different story, clearly indicating that the deceased had quite serious mental problems during her lifetime.

The first page of the report on the drugs found in the room.

The second page of the report on the drugs found in the room.
I will briefly describe what kind of drugs were found in Eliza’s room.
Advil is the same as ibuprofen. Anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, analgesic.
Dexedrine is the trade name for dextroamphetamine, a drug similar to amphetamine. Dextroamphetamine is used for ADHD treatment(attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and narcolepsy (daytime attacks of irresistible drowsiness and attacks of sudden falling asleep, attacks of sudden loss of muscle tone with clear consciousness, disturbances in night sleep, the appearance of hallucinations). In addition, it is a recreational drug and, with prolonged use, can cause mental dependence.
Side effects:
According to studies, repeated use of dextroamphetamine causes paranoid hallucinations in humans.
Lamotrigine is an antiepileptic drug used in the treatment of epilepsy and bipolar disorders. Treatment of bipolar disorder with lamotrigine is associated with an increased risk of developing suicidal thoughts or behavior.
Quetiapine is an atypical antipsychotic used to treat chronic and acute schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and some other mental illnesses.
Sinutab is a vasoconstrictor drug that relieves the symptoms of colds and runny nose.
Venflaxin is an antidepressant indicated for the treatment of major depression, as well as anxiety neuroses of various etiologies.
Wellbutrin is the same as bupropion. An atypical antidepressant, similar in action to amphetamines, an antiepileptic drug, is also used to treat ADHD.
Thus, in this list we see two drugs general use: pain reliever and cold reliever. And 5 drugs used in psychiatry. With the exception of Dexedrine, all medications were prescribed by Dr. Sarah Scarf. As it turns out later, the psychiatrist treating Eliza.
But the discovery of these drugs did not answer the main question - how the girl died. Now only Lam's body itself could help understand the cause of her death, which means an autopsy was ahead that could shed light on the mystery of her death.
The coroner's initial examination determined that Lam had fallen into the water tank while still alive. This was evidenced by many classical signs of a drowned person, and not a drowned corpse. In particular, a person who falls into water alive will have lungs swollen with water (the so-called “balloon lungs”), because in the water the person makes breathing movements, gradually choking. The entire surface of the lungs is dotted with profuse hemorrhages. And the most reliable sign of drowning in water is the presence of finely bubbled foam mixed with blood in all respiratory organs. Also in the corpse, a lot of water is found in the stomach, small and large intestines, water transudates even into the brain. In the case of Lam's corpse, she was found to have numerous traces of blood foam in her body. respiratory organs, which indisputably proved her death in the water.
If death occurs before the person is immersed in the liquid, there will be no water in the lungs of the corpse, because the person no longer made breathing movements.
However, the foam that appears during drowning in the respiratory organs of the deceased may also appear in the event of some other incidents. In particular, such discharge can also be found by a pathologist in cases of head trauma, heart failure or drug overdose. The coroner who examined Eliza's body was able to determine that the girl had no signs of heart failure - physically her heart was completely healthy, and there were no signs of head trauma.
However, there were no suspicious marks on Lam’s body at all: there were no injuries, wounds, marks from injections or beatings, or defensive wounds. Her left knee was only slightly hurt. It was on the basis of these signs that the coroner was able to confirm that Eliza Lamb fell into the water tank alive. However, the question remained: did Lam climb into the tank on her own or could she have been placed there in an unconscious state? Only a toxicological examination could solve this dilemma.
It is known that some people who read Elisa Lam's autopsy report had other questions. In particular, there is a version that Eliza could have been raped during her lifetime. But the autopsy report gives a completely unambiguous answer to this question - no, there were no signs of violence on the deceased girl. And this fact also “played” into the version of either suicide or an accident. All that remained was to wait for a toxicological examination, which could answer whether the girl was under the influence of alcohol, pharmaceuticals or drugs at the time she got into the tank with water.
Only at the end of June 2013 will the Los Angeles police publish the results of this examination, confirming that no foreign substances were found in Eliza Lam’s body chemicals, which was finally able to convince the police that Eliza had mental disorders which led to her death. When I say “no foreign chemicals detected,” I do not mean the medications prescribed by the psychiatrist. For just traces of some of them were found in the blood and liver. But the examination failed to find traces of narcotic and toxic substances.

Found pharmaceuticals, a recording in the elevator indicating her inappropriate behavior, testimony from an ex-boyfriend and messages written by Lam herself on her personal blog and Tumblr confirmed that Elisa Lam could suffer from bipolar disorder, that is, an alternation of depressive and manic states. Apparently, Lam's depressive state in Los Angeles gave way to a manic stage. Based on the number of medications prescribed and taken by her, we can conclude that Eliza exceeded their dose, which could lead to a mental breakdown.
The video recording of Lam in the elevator shocks many when viewed, causing a state of mystical horror. Leaning low towards the elevator control panel, she haphazardly presses several buttons at once, but the elevator does not listen to her, remaining open and motionless. Meanwhile, all these points are explained quite simply and logically. Eliza suffered from myopia, but while in the elevator, she does not have glasses on, so she is forced to bend low