At the age of 21-years old, Elisa Lam decided that she needed to experience the world. A young student, living at home but attending the University of British Columbia, Lam packed her bag and planned a trip across California. She promised her parents that she would call daily, and although they were hesitant, they agreed that she could go.
Elisa was a self-declared “introvert” but was an avid poster on social media. She bore her soul on Tumblr, discussing her struggles with bipolar disorder, connecting to others, and finding her place in the world. Her Tumblr would also be the source of the itinerary of her California expedition. She began her trip in San Diego, documenting both her solo Amtrack trip and her visit to the San Diego Zoo. On January 26th, Lam arrived in LA, where she would be staying in a female shared room at the Cecil Hotel. It was during her time in LA that she stopped calling her parents for their daily check-ins. Between not contacting her family and not posting on her social media, her parents automatically knew something was off.
The Cecil Hotel had an infamous past of drug use, murder, and suicide. On the very border of LA’s Skid Row, it is known as an area you do not want to be in, especially if you are a young solo female unfamiliar with the territory. People will claim that the Cecil Hotel is haunted, but I think it is an unfortunate consequence of our society’s lack of compassion for the homeless population, those with drug addictions, and people with mental health disorders. If we offered more free services to those in need, instead of just shoving people to the side and deciding that they are “unfit for society”, then maybe the 3,000-5,000 residences of Skid Row could begin to decrease. Rehabilitation and treatment instead of incarceration for those who have issues with drugs, alcohol, addiction, or mental health could make a huge difference, we as a society just have to be willing to try it.
But let’s get back to Elisa Lam. Elisa was removed from her shared room because the other females assigned to the bunks were complaining of “erratic behavior”. On February 1, 2013, Elisa was supposed to check out of the hotel. Her personal belongings were removed and stored, per the hotel protocol. February 1st was also the day Lam’s parents reported her missing to the LAPD, and the search for her began. This is where our timeline begins.
February 6, 2013, the LAPD had already searched the Cecil Hotel with both uniformed officers and scent tracking dogs. They asked every tenant and exhausted all options of where Lam could be inside the hotel. It is then that they decided they needed help from the public and released flyers with Elisa’s information on it.
February 15, 2013, the LAPD still had no sign of Elisa. With their forces dwindling (due to the manhunt for Christopher Dorner) the detectives on the Elisa Lam case decided to utilize the public once again and released the 4-minute elevator surveillance footage, the last time Lam was seen alive. This haunting 4-minute clip led to an overwhelming reaction on the internet, and the obsession with the Lam case began. The four days in between the release of the elevator footage and finding Elisa, people fled to the Cecil Hotel trying to reenact Lam’s last moments and solve the case of her disappearance.
February 19, 2013, the guests at the Cecil Hotel began to notice that the water pressure was extremely low. The water that did come out, was a brownish color and had a horrible taste. After enough complaints, the manager of the hotel decided to check on the water tanks on the roof. It was there that maintenance discovered Lam’s body, face-up, naked, and floating face-up in one of the tanks. Officers had to drain the water and cut a hole on the side of the tank to remove her body.
The official report of Elisa’s death would not come out until February 21, 2013, and speculations/conspiracies boomed during that short time period. Citizen sleuths and internet fanatics were already engulfed in this story, and this obsession grew as the coroner reports were being conducted. Some speculated that this was a killing based on the movie Dark Waters. Some thought that it was the demons that possessed the Cecil that killed her. Some thought Elisa was a biological weapon to spread a new strain of TB to the homeless population. Most thought it had to be murder, and a few took it to the degree to blame a specific person (who later attempted suicide because of the hate he received on the internet).
On February 21, 2013, the official corner’s report stated that Elisa Lam’s death was ruled an accident, claiming that she jumped in the water tank while experiencing a major bipolar disorder episode and experiencing hallucinations because of it. When looking back on the last few days of her life, Elisa showed a plethora of signs of a severe mental breakdown. Her paranoia and delusions may have led her to the water tank as a way to hide from those who were “after her”. Once she was submerged in the tank she could not reach the hatch to get herself up. She may have removed her clothing to either reduce the amount of weight (in the hopes of getting to the surface) or as a result of hyperthermia.
We may never know the actual events that occurred on the night of Elisa’s death, but one thing is clear, this was a tragedy. Who knows if this could have been avoided if the stigma on mental health was not so prominent in our society. If we did not associate mental health with weakness or someone being “crazy”, then maybe someone would have reached out to Elisa while she was struggling instead of ignoring her outwardly suffering.
Both the story of the Cecil Hotel and the tragic death of Elisa Lam has a similar center, our lack of compassion for fellow human beings. Most true-crime stories relay the disgusting horrors committed by the worst out there. We focus on the evil within humanity, which may leave us jaded. Most females are already conditioned to trust no one and fear the world around us, and though it is necessary for our society to do so, do we truly know the repercussions of always looking at the worst? Something needs to change. Possibly social-emotional learning from a younger age, or an increase of facilities that provide free or reduced price counseling and mental health services. Even the changing of our incarceration system to include free rehabilitation centers, so we may help our fellow man instead of consistently punishing them. There are too many things that need to be torn down and completely redone. The basis of our societal structure needs to be human, and doing what is best for each other rather than doing all we can for profit. Stories like these are tragic, but the small silver lining is that they show us progress needs to happen quicker than we are going and that it is vital to creating a better nation for generations to come.
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Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elisa_Lam#Disappearance