True Crime Database

Elisa Lam

The idea of the paranormal and the supernatural is a concept that is highly devisive: some do believe in a life after death and embrace the idea through mediums, ouija boards, seances etc. Others remain sceptical – after all, there is no definite proof of there being a life after death and many of the experiences people have reported could easily be fabricated. Whenever there is a huge event involving the idea of the supernatural, you'll have those who believe that spirits are the only explanation and those who try and explain this phenomena away with scientific theories. The death of Elisa Lam is no exception and is a mystery that has stunned the internet.

Elisa Lam was a Canadian student at the University of British Columbia. Her family had moved from Hong Kong to Canada and opened up a restaurant there. At some point, Elisa was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression – she was on four different medications to help with this and her parents maintained she had no want or desire to commit suicide. Elisa was active on blogging sites, initially using Blogspot to discuss her feelings regarding her mental health while also posting about fashion and modelling, although she later left this blog to create a new one on the site Tumblr. She had talked about how she had relapsed, causing her to drop several classes and left her believing she would be unable to continue her classes altogether.

In late January 2013, Elisa decided to go travelling. She went alone, using Amtrak and buses to get from Canada to the United States, starting with San Diego and visiting the zoo. She kept in contact with her parents everyday. Her next stop was Los Angeles before leaving for Santa Cruz. On January 26th 2013, Elisa checked into the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, where she was due to spend 5 days before leaving. The Cecil Hotel, however, has a long history for being connected with murders and suicides. Elisabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, last visited the Cecil Hotel before her gruesome murder; Goldie Osgood was another victim who was raped and murdered in the hotel. The serial killers Jack Unterweger and Richard Ramirez have both stayed there while active. The hotel also has a large report of suicides, causing a reputation to fall upon this hotel in particular.

Elisa was originally checked into a shared room on the 5th floor, however, her roommates complained to the hotel, noting her odd behaviours. Subsequently, she was moved to her own private room after two days. Elisa was scheduled to check out of the hotel on the 31st of January. Hotel staff who had seen her that day reported that she was alone. She had visited the manager of a nearby book store to get presents for her family; she had seemed likely and friendly towards the manager and did not give the impression that there was anything wrong. Sometime between her returning back to the hotel and the time she was due to check out at, Elisa had gone missing. When the hotel did not hear from her, they phoned the police. Her parents also flew down from Canada to assist in the search. The police department, within legal boundaries, searched her room and sent sniffer dogs across the hotel to look for her, however they picked up no traces. Photos of her were plastered around the Los Angeles neighbourhood and online.

Two weeks had gone by and there was still no trace of Elisa, until the staff checked the surveillance cameras of the day she went missing. The last time Elisa was shown alive is through footage of her in one of the elevators. This particular video became notorious around the internet due to her peculiar behaviour. In the video, she pressed several buttons in the elevator and standing in the corner. When the door finally opened, she stuck her head out, looking in all directions then gets back in. She's transported to another floor, in which she steps out until the hallway, checking all directions before running back in the elevator. She frantically presses more buttons and residing in the same corner, rocking back and forth. The door, however, remained open until she left the elevator.

Around this time period, guests at the hotel were filing numerous complaints to the hotel staff that the water pressure was low, it was coming out black and tasted very odd. After some investigation into the water tanks on the roof of the hotel, Elisa's body was found. The coroner's office ruled that her death was accidental, the cause of it from drowning. Her body was found naked but her clothes from earlier that day, including her watch and roomkey, were found in the tank beside her. The body had already gone through the beginning stages of decomposition, but there were no traces of foul play.

But many people debate whether the coroner's ruling was correct or not. People were confused as to how Elisa was able to get inside the tank in the first place – the roof was locked away from guests and a staff passcode was needed to access it – any attempt for a guest to get to the roof would alert an alarm. An explanation to explain this would be that Elisa used a fire escape to gain access to the roof, which had been proven by other visitors. Yet there was the mystery of how Elisa was even able to get inside the tank and shut herself in – the tanks are atop of concrete blocks and the individual tanks are all 4 by 8 feet – staff members who check the tanks would have to use a ladder to be able to see it. The lid for the tanks is also incredibly heavy and hard for a young woman to be able to place back from the inside. It may also have appeared that some aspects of her autopsy were ignored – it is unknown whether the rape and fingernail kits were ever processed and a substansial amount of blood was found on her anus, indicating possible sexual assault. Elisa's parents filed a lawsuit against the hotel, for failing to put in the proper precautions to be able to stop Elisa and potentially other guests from being able to get to the roof. However, the hotel argued that there was no way they could have foreseen or even prevented this, and the case was dismissed.

Elisa's death has proposed many different theories. Some propose that she was hiding from a pursuer that day, which would explain the frantic pressing of the buttons and her seemingly paranoid and scared nature. No one else was shown on the footage, but many argue that the hotel staff had tampered with the video, slowing parts down, and cutting certain parts out to absolve criminal responsibility of someone. Others believe she was on recreational drugs, though this has been debunked by the toxicology reports, which show that she was only her prescribed medication and some painkillers. Some say that, due to her having bipolar disorder, the surveillance footage shows her having a psychotic episode and she may have committed suicide by going into the water tank. Others, however, believe she was possessed by a spirit, perhaps someone who had died in the hotel, as her hand movements have been noted to be very abnormal and inhumane – this would have allowed her to have been able to get past the security codes and drown herself in the tank. It's also thought that she may have been playing something known as 'The Elevator Game', in which someone has to press a sequence of buttons in an elevator to reach another dimension. According to legend, the game can be very dangerous if played incorrectly and could potentially lead to you being stuck in this alternate dimension or even death.

If Elisa's death was down to foul play, paranormal intervention or drugs undetected by the toxicologist, we will never know. The case has been ruled as accidental drowning, with bipolar disorder being the motive behind it. While most people accept that Elisa was suffering a psychotic episode during her death, others still remain unconvinced and believe that there was more to her strange behaviour. She has become recognised across the internet in the years after her death, inspiring a lot of stories, tv shows and games, including the popularisation of 'The Elevator Game'. It is very unlikely that one would have a conversation about the paranormal without the discussion of Elisa Lam and how to explain the bizarre events surrounding her death.