Hey there, DETECTIVES! DETECTIVE WRITER here to tell you all about a mysterious case that has spooked California for many years: Elisa Lam’s death.
Elisa Lam was born on April 30th, 1991 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was known to be a blogger calling herself Ether Fields on Blogspot. In January 2012, Lam blogged about her struggles with mental health, feeling lost with no sense of direction, and having a relapse that caused her to drop a few classes at the University of British Columbia. Lam had been diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder; however, she was given a few medications to cope. She did not have a history of self-harm or suicide attempts. Although Lam did not always take her bipolar meds and would occasionally suffer hallucinations and one time, she was hospitalized for a strong episode.
When she arrived in California on January 26th, 2012, Lam was traveling by herself on the Amtrak and buses. She checked into the Cecil Hotel on January 28th, two days later. She was supposed to stay in a shared room but her roommates said that she had moments of “Odd behavior.” Therefore, she was moved to her own room two days later. She had also attended a live taping of the Conan show in Burbank, California but security escorted her off the property for disruptive behavior. Lam was scheduled to check out of the hotel on January 31st but when her family did not hear from her, they immediately traveled back to Los Angeles to find her.
However, there was a recording of Lam inside the hotel elevator on January 31st in which she is seen repeatedly leaving and entering the elevator numerous times. The footage lasts about two and a half minutes. She appears to have pressed every button and makes unusual gestures. If you don’t wish to view this video, DETECTIVES, please feel free to skip ahead.
While there have been several theories as to what happened to her in that elevator, of course, no one truly knows.
On February 19th, 2013, Lam’s body was found inside one of the Cecil Hotel’s water tanks by a hotel maintenance employee. Hotel guests were complaining of the water having poor taste, black color, and low water pressure. On February 21st, the LA coroner reported that Lam’s body was discovered nude, with no evidence of sexual or physical assault, bloated and moderately decomposed, and she had a little bit of alcohol in her system but no recreational drugs. To this day, no one knows what happened to Lam or why she was in that tank. Despite her story becoming very well known, it continues to remain a mystery to this day. What do you think happened, DETECTIVES?
I hope you have enjoyed this storytime as much as I did, DETECTIVES! Please let me know in the comments if you want more storytime! Have a great day, night, afternoon, or evening, DETECTIVES! Stay tuned for next week’s post; until then, keep on sleuthing, DETECTIVES!
Detective Writer 