The body Elisa Lam , also known by its Cantonese name, Lam Ho Yi ( ??? ; April 30, 1991 - February 2013), a Canadian student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, was found in a water tank above the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles on February 19, 2013. He was reported missing at the beginning of the month. The hotel maintenance worker found the body while investigating guest complaints about water supply issues.
The loss has been widely reported; interest has increased five days before the discovery of his body when the Los Angeles Police Department released the last video he was known to have seen, on the day of his departure, by an elevator security camera. In the recording, Lam looks out and reentered the elevator, talking and gesturing in the hallway outside, and occasionally seemed to be hiding in the elevator, which did not seem to work properly. The video was circulating on the internet, with many viewers reporting that they felt uncomfortable. The explanations range from claims of paranormal involvement to bipolar disorder suffered by Lam; it has also been argued that the video has been altered before it was released.
The circumstances of Lam's death, once he was found, also raise questions, especially given Cecil's history in connection with death and other important killings. His body was bare with most of his clothes and personal items floating in the water nearby. It took the Los Angeles County Coroner's office four months, after repeated delays, to release an autopsy report, which reported no evidence of physical trauma and stated that the way of death was unintentional. Guests at Cecil, now renamed as Stay on Main, sued the hotel for the incident, and Lam's parents filed a separate lawsuit later that year; the latter being dismissed in 2015. Some early Internet interest recorded what was considered an unusual similarity between Lam's death and the 2005 horror film Dark Water . This case has been referred to in international popular culture.
Video Death of Elisa Lam
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Lam, the emigrant daughter from Hong Kong who opened a restaurant in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver, Canada, is a student at the University of British Columbia even though she was not registered in early 2013.
He traveled alone, on Amtrak bus and intercity. He visited the San Diego Zoo and posted photos taken there on social media. On January 26, he arrived in Los Angeles. After two days, he entered Cecil Hotel, near Skid Row in the city center. She was originally assigned a shared room on the fifth floor of the hotel; however, after his roommate complained about what the hotel lawyer later said was "a certain weird behavior," he was transferred to his own room after two days.
Built as a business hotel in the 1920s, Cecil crashed during difficult times during the Great Depression of the 1930s and never reclaimed the original market as the city center rotted around it at the end of the 20th century. Some of the more famous killings in Los Angeles occur on or have connections to the hotel: Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia assassin, the most famous solvable murder in town, should have made Cecil his last stop before his death, and in 1964, Goldie Osgood, "Pigeon Lady of Pershing Square," was raped and murdered in her room in Cecil, another crime that has never been solved. The serial killers Jack Unterweger and Richard Ramirez, "Night Stalkers", both live in Cecil while active. There are also suicide cases, one of which also killed pedestrians in front of the hotel. After a recent renovation, he has tried to market himself as a boutique hotel, but his reputation remains. "Cecil will reveal to you whatever your fugitives are," said Steve Erickson, a journalist who spent the night at the hotel after Lam's death.
Lam was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. She has prescribed four medicines - Wellbutrin, Lamictal, Seroquel and Effexor - to treat her disorder. According to his family, who should keep his mental illness history as a secret, he has no history of suicidal or attempted suicide, although one report claimed he had previously disappeared for a short time.
In mid-2010, he started a blog called Ether Fields on Blogspot. Over the next two years, he posted model photos in his fashionable outfit and life story, especially his struggle with mental illness. In a January 2012 blog post, Lam complained that the "recurrence" at the start of the current schooling period has forced him to leave some classes, leaving his feelings "so direct and lost." He titled his post, "You are always haunted by the idea that you are wasting your life" after a quote from novelist Chuck Palahniuk. He uses the quote as an inscription for his blog. He fears the transcript will look suspicious with so many withdrawals and that will result in him not being able to continue his studies and attend graduate school.
About two years after Lam started writing blogs, he announced he would leave his blog for another blog he started at Tumblr, Nouvelle/Nouveau. Its contents mostly consist of fashion photos found and quotes and some of the inscriptions in Lam's own words. The same Palahniuk quote is used as an inscription.
Maps Death of Elisa Lam
Disappearance
Lam contacted his parents in British Columbia every day while traveling. On January 31, 2013, the day he was scheduled to check Cecil and go to Santa Cruz, they did not hear from him and called the Los Angeles police; his family flew to Los Angeles to help search.
The hotel staff who saw him that day said he was alone. Outside the hotel, Katie Orphan, the manager of the nearest bookstore, is the only one who remembers seeing Lam that day. "He is friendly, very lively, very friendly," while getting a gift to take home to his family, Orphan told CNN. "He was talking about what book he got and whether or not what he got would be too much for him to carry around when he was traveling," Orphan added.
Police ransacked the hotel as far as they could legally. They looked for Lam's room and took the dog through the building, including the roof, but the canines did not succeed in detecting the scent of his body. "But we're not looking for every room," Sgt. Rudy Lopez said later, "we can only do that if we have a possible cause" to believe the crime has been committed.
On February 6, a week after Lam was last seen, LAPD decided more help was needed. Flyers with pictures displayed in the neighborhood and online. It brought the case to public attention through the media.
Video elevator
On February 14, after a week of no signs of existence, LAPD released a video of the last known vision of her taken on one of Cecil's elevators by video surveillance camera on February 1st. It attracted the world's attention in this case because of Lam's strange behavior and has been widely analyzed and discussed.
In the clip, the camera in one of the rear corners of the elevator cabin looks down from the ceiling, offering a view not only from the interior but the outside hallway. It's a bit rough, and the timestamp at the bottom is obscured. At some point the mouth of Lam is pixelized.
At first, Lam came in, wearing a red zippered shirt over a gray T-shirt, with black shorts and sandals. He enters from the left and goes to the control panel, appears to select multiple floors and then step back into the corner. After a few seconds as long as the door failed to close, he stepped there, bending forward so his head passed through the door, looking both ways, and then quickly stepped back, backed into the wall and then to the corner near the control panel. The door stays open.
He walked over there again and stood in the doorway, leaning on the side. Suddenly he stepped out into the hall, then to his side, went back inside, looked sideways, then back out. He then stepped aside again, and for a few seconds he was largely invisible behind the wall, he turned his back on the outside. The door stays open.
His right arm can be seen rising to his head, and then he turns to go back into the cabin, put both hands on the side of the door. He then goes to the control panel, presses more buttons, some more than once, and then returns to the wall he comes to the elevator from, puts his hands on his ears again briefly as he walks back to the part of the wall he has stood against before. The door stays open.
He turned to his right and began to rub his forearms together, then waved his arms to his sides with his flat palms and fingers stretched out, bending slightly forward and rocking gently. This can all be seen through the door, which remains open. After he returned to the wall and walked to the left, he finally closed.
It was reposted extensively, including to the Chinese video sharing site Youku, where it got 3 million views and 40,000 comments in the first 10 days. Many commentators feel uncomfortable to watch.
Some theories have evolved to explain their actions. One is that Lam is trying to get the elevator car to move in order to escape from someone chasing him. Others suggest that he may be under the influence of ecstasy or other drugs. When her bipolar disorder is known, the theory that she is experiencing a psychotic episode also arises.
Other audiences are of the opinion that the video has been tampered with before publishing. Despite the timestamp blurring, they claim, some parts have been slowed, and almost a minute of footage has been removed secretly. This can be done only to protect the identity of a person expressed in the video but has little or nothing to do with the case, or to hide evidence if the loss of Lam and death are the result of a criminal offense.
Body discovery
During Lam's search, guests at the hotel began complaining about low water pressure. Some then claim their water is black, and has an unusual taste. On the morning of February 19th, Lam's body was found in one of four 1,000 gallon tanks (3,785 L) that provided water to guest rooms, kitchens and coffee shops. The tank is dried and cut open because the maintenance hatching is too small to accommodate the equipment needed to lift Lam's body.
On February 21, the Los Angeles coroner's office unleashed accidental drowning, with bipolar disorder as a significant factor. The complete coronary report, released in June, states that Lam's body has been found naked; a clothing similar to what she wears in a floating elevator video in water, coated with "sand-like particles". The clock and her room key were also found with her.
Lam's body was rotting enough and bloated. It's mostly greenish, with some clear marbel on the stomach and clear skin separation. There is no evidence of physical trauma, sexual violence, or suicide. Toxicology tests - incomplete because of insufficiently preserved blood - show a consistent footprint with prescription drugs found among the items, plus nonprescription drugs such as Sinutab and ibuprofen. Very little amount of alcohol (about 0.02 g%) is present, but no other recreational drugs.
Unresolved issues
The investigation has determined how Lam died, but did not give an explanation of how he got into the tank in the first place. The doors and stairs that access the hotel roof are locked, with only the staff having access codes and keys, and any attempt to force them should trigger an alarm. However, the hotel fire escape could allow him to pass through security measures, if he (or someone who might have accompanied him there) knows. A video made by Chinese users after Lam's death and posted to the Internet shows that the roof of the hotel is easily accessible via an emergency staircase and two open water tank lids.
Regardless of the question of how he got onto the roof, the other asked if he could get into the tank alone. The four tanks are 4-by-8-foot (1.2 x 2.4 m) cylinders supported on concrete blocks; no fixed access to them and hotel workers had to use stairs to see the water. They are protected by heavy coverings that will be difficult to replace from within. Police dogs who searched the hotel for Lam, even on the roof, shortly after he disappeared, found no trace (though they were not looking for areas near the water tank).
The theory about Lam's behavior in video lifts does not stop with his death. Some argue that he is trying to hide from a pursuer, perhaps someone who is ultimately responsible for his death, while others say he is just frustrated with the apparent damage of the elevator. Some supporters of the theory that he was under the influence of illicit drugs were not persuaded by their absence from the toxicology screen, suggesting that they might have been damaged during the period of time his body rotted in the tank, or that he might have taken a rare cocktail of drugs that did not detected by normal screen.
The autopsy report and its conclusions are also questionable. For example, he did not say what was the result of the rape kits and fingernails, or even if they were processed. He also recorded a subcutaneous blood clot in the anal area of ​​Lam, which some observers say is a sign of sexual harassment; But a pathologist has noted it can also be generated from bloating in the process of body decomposition, and its rectum is also prolapse.
Even coronary pathologists seem ambivalent about their conclusion that Lam's death was unintentional. One page of the report has a form with boxes to check whether the deaths were accidental, natural, murder, suicide or undetermined, in large numbers and in sufficient distance from each other. The "accident" box is dated June 15; However, three days later, the "undetermined" box was checked instead. This was at a certain point within three days before the report's release was recorded as an error and omitted and initialed.
Since his death, his Tumblr blog has been updated, possibly through the Tumblr Queue option which allows posts to automatically publish itself when the user is away. His phone was not found either with his body or in his hotel room; assumed to have been stolen at a time around his death. Whether advanced updates for their blogs are facilitated by phone theft, hack work, or through Queues, is unknown; nor is it known whether the update is related to his death.
Litigation
In September, Lam's parents filed a wrong death lawsuit, claiming the hotel failed to "check and search for hazards in hotels that present an unreasonable risk of danger to Lam and other hotel guests" and look for unspecified damages and funeral costs. The hotel believes it is impossible to forecast that Lam might have entered the water tank, and since it is unknown how Lam enters the water tank, there is no obligation that can be given for failing to prevent it. By 2015, the lawsuit was dismissed.
In popular culture
Lam's death has been compared to plot elements in the 2005 horror film Dark Water. In the film, an American remake of an earlier Japanese film of the same name based on a 1996 short story by Koji Suzuki, a mother and daughter moved into a shabby apartment building. The non-functioning elevator and the discolored water from the building's faucet eventually led them to a water tank on the roof of the building, where they found the body of a girl reported missing from the building a year earlier.
Since life has imitated art with Dark Water, film-makers and television shows use the Lam case as an inspiration for their own work. In May 2013, the episode "Watershed" aired as the season-end of the series ABC Castle , in which a New York police detective and title character, a mystery novelist, investigated the crime. In "Watershed", the duo pursues the prospect of the death of a young woman found dead in a water tank on the roof of the "Cedric Hotel" in Manhattan; among the evidence is a video surveillance of the woman taken in the elevator. Eventually he was found pretending to be a prostitute to investigate other guests at the hotel.
Another ABC series, How to Get Away with Murder , has a similar storyline. During a series of flashbacks scattered throughout the first season, which began airing in 2014, it was revealed that the missing female girl at the beginning of the season was killed and that her body had been hidden in a water tank on the roof of the dormitory. Similarly, his body was only found when a maintenance worker was called home to address the water pressure problem.
In Hong Kong, from where the Lam family migrated to Vancouver, the filmmakers were also inspired. Nick Cheung, a top actor in the Hong Kong film, made his directorial debut in 2014 with the Hungry Ghost Ritual, a horror movie that includes scenes in which ghosts terrorize a young woman in an elevator, shot into look like recording security cameras and is believed to have been inspired by the recording of Cecil's Lam. In mainland China, director Liu Hao announced a year after Lam's death that he would make a movie based on it; he went to Los Angeles himself and stayed for a few days at Cecil doing research. Chinese media have reported that popular actress Gao Yuanyuan may be interested in playing Lam. Liu said if he made the film, it would likely be an American-Australian coproduction in English.
In March 2014, a little over a year after Lam's death, Brandon's brothers and Philip Murphy sold the horror script, The Bringing , which uses the investigation into it as a backstory for vigilant investigation of a fictitious detective that is slowly unraveling. They are widely criticized for doing this immediately after death. Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn was originally scheduled to direct the film, but in August it was announced that Jeremy Lovering would direct the movie to Sony Pictures whenever production began.
Video 2014 for Vancouver pop duo The Zolas' "Ancient Mars" is meant to be an ideal representation of the last day of Lam, showing a young woman exploring Los Angeles and enjoying the simple pleasures. "It jolted me how neat people explain his disappearance with drugs or mental illness," said singer Zach Gray, who attended UBC around the same time and had a friend who knew Lam. "Despite the vast majority of fiction, we want people to see it and feel she's a real girl and an intimate girl and not just a police report." Later that year, American post-hardcore band Hail the Sun wrote "Disappearing Syndrome", which was also inspired by Lam's story. "It's like a scary and frightening case," says band guitarist Aric Garcia in Reddit Ask Me Anything.
In 2015, the media speculated that the fifth season of American Horror Story was inspired by Lam's death. In late spring, the creator, Ryan Murphy, says the next season will be arranged at a Los Angeles hotel right now. He was inspired, he added, by a video surveillance of a young woman who "walked into an elevator in a downtown hotel... [and] never to be seen again." He does not use his name but is believed to be talking about Lam. In 2017, Sun Kil Moon released the song "Window Sash Weights" and "Stranger Than Paradise" as part of their album Common i Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood (2017); special songs references the event and promotes the idea that it is a hoax. Band member Mark Kozelek said in an interview "I have come to the conclusion that nobody died in a water tank.No way to identify the girl in the elevator, because her face is pixelated."
See also
- Death in February 2013
- List of drowned victims
- List of internet phenomena in China
- Unusual death list
References
External links
- Elisa Lam's memorial page on Facebook
- Elisa Lam on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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