Elisa Lam’s Mysterious Death: Her Dead Body Found In A Water Tank Of Cecil Hotel

In 2013, the death of Elisa Lam in a water tank at the renowned Cecil Hotel shook Los Angeles. Nobody knows how she died or how her body ended up there.

Her death was first ruled “undetermined,” but the coroner’s office later modified their findings to “accidental due to drowning, with bipolar disorder noted as a relevant condition.” 

Despite the fact that the case has been solved, given the Cecil Hotel’s shady reputation and Lam’s strange conduct before her disappearance, there are still more questions than answers.

The unusual aspects surrounding Lam’s case have sparked a lot of debate about what actually happened.

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How Did Elisa Lam Disappear From Cecil Hotel?

In 2013, Elisa Lam visited Los Angeles on January 26. She had just arrived in Santa Cruz by Amtrak train from San Diego as part of her solo trek throughout the West Coast. 

The trip was meant to be a break from her studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where she grew up.

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Lam had initially reserved a hostel-style shared room at the Cecil.

Lam was relocated into a private room on the same floor two days later after several of her roommates complained about her strange behavior. 

Lam has a history of mental illness, including depression and bipolar disorder. It’s unclear if her actions in the presence of her roommates were related.

Her family was concerned about her traveling alone, but the young student was determined to do so. 

As a compromise, Lam made it a point to contact her parents every day of the vacation to assure them that she was safe.

Her parents were worried when they didn’t hear from her on Jan. 31, the day she was supposed to check out of her Cecil hotel in Los Angeles. 

After a while, Elisa’s family contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. The cops investigated Cecil’s hotel but were unable to locate her. 

Soon after, the police found the CCTV footage from Cecil Hotel’s camera, which they uploaded on their official website. This was very strange behavior of Elisa.

On the day of her disappearance, a hotel video captured Elisa Lam acting oddly in one of the hotel’s elevators. 

Lam can be seen walking inside the elevator and pressing all the floor buttons in the pixelated clip. 

She enters and exits the elevator, her head jutting out sideways toward the hotel’s corridors in between. 

She takes a couple more steps out of the elevator after peering out a few more times.

The video ends with Lam standing near the left side of the door, making random signals with her hands. No one else was seen in the footage other than Lam.

The bizarre video sparked outrage across the globe, including in Canada and China, where Lam’s family comes from. 

Tens of millions of people have watched Lam’s bizarre elevator episode, which lasted four minutes.

Elisa Lam Found Dead In A Water Tank; Three Weeks After She Disappeared

Guests at the Cecil Hotel near a century-old company in downtown Los Angeles complained of low water pressure and an odd stink from their taps in February 2013. 

Maintenance personnel discovered the decomposing remains of Elisa Lam, who had been missing for almost three weeks from the hotel when they inspected one of the four 1,000-gallon water tanks on the top.

Each of the hotel’s four rooftop water tanks stood 10 feet tall, were difficult to access, and were covered with hefty metal covers at the time. 

Accessing the roof would also set off an alert. To retrieve Lam’s naked body and the clothing floating alongside, the Los Angeles Fire Department had to cut a hole in the tank’s side.

Nobody knows how Lam ended up in one of the water tanks.

What Did Her Autopsy Report Declared About Her Murder?

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office took nearly 120 days to disclose her autopsy report, which said that there was no indication of physical trauma and that her death was an accident.

Who Did She Meet Before Her Death?

At least one person saw Lam just before her death. 

Katie Orphan, the proprietor of a neighborhood bookstore called The Last Bookstore, was one of the last people to see Elisa Lam alive. 

Orphan remembers the college student in Vancouver buying books and music for her family.

Cecil Hotel Authority Comes Under Interrogation After Elisa Lam’s Death

Several months after their daughter’s death, David and Yinna Lam filed a wrongful death action against the Cecil Hotel.

The hotel fought back by filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The hotel’s lawyer claimed that there was no reason to believe that someone could gain access to one of their water tanks.

According to court testimony from the hotel’s maintenance personnel, the hotel’s explanation isn’t wholly implausible. 

Pedro Tovar, the hotel’s Chief Engineer, also stated that accessing the rooftop, where the hotel’s water tanks were located, would be impossible without setting off the alarms. 

Only hotel staff would be able to deactivate the alert properly. The sound of the alarm would reach the front desk as well as the entire top two floors of the hotel if it were triggered.

The lawsuit was dismissed after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Howard Halm decided that Elisa Lam’s death was “unforseeable” since it occurred in an area that guests were not permitted to enter.

However, Elisa lam’s death is not the first case that makes the hotel shady.  The creepy history of the Cecil hotel makes it the most haunted Place in Los Angeles.