Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel - everything I know now.

(Spoiler alert: Do not read on if you haven’t seen Netflix’s “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.”)

If you have read any of my previous blog posts, you will remember that I talked about Elisa Lam and the Cecil Hotel's bizarre case. So, you can understand my excitement when I found out Netflix would release a docuseries about her and the infamous hotel. I devoured the series in an evening, and there was so much I never knew, so much I never focused on. And I am here to rectify that. However, the series itself, while well-intentioned - with its focus on mental health in episode four - is quite unfulfilling in more ways than one.

This is what we know of Elisa Lam so far. In 2013, Elisa Lam, also known by her Cantonese name, Lam Ho Yi, was recovered from a water tank atop the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles on February 19. She was 21 years old, the daughter of immigrant parents from Hong Kong who moved to Vancouver. She had Bipolar Disorder and took the necessary medication for it. She wanted to go on a road trip, which she called her 'West Coast Tour' on her Tumblr.

Her death was a huge internet sensation created when the LAPD released a video while she was missing, of her in an elevator acting strangely- and that was the last time she was ever seen. While the investigation was undergoing - guests of the Cecil Hotel began to complain about the colour, the taste of the water coming from the hotel pipes. After investigation, Lam was found in one of four 1,000-gallon tanks providing water to guest rooms, a kitchen, and a coffee shop.

The docuseries itself offered an insight into Elisa Lam's case, which provides a cultural fixation today - and the dark and violent horrific history of the Cecil Hotel itself, home to violent deaths and serial killers such as Richard Ramirez, The Night Stalker. (I bet Netflix marketing had a field day with that one) - no matter how much the ex-manager Amy Price tried to stifle this. The show also goes into the history of the environment surrounding the hotel called Skid Row.

So, to begin, let's talk about the setting of this story; The Cecil Hotel. The Cecil Hotel was a hotbed of horror, serial killers, and horrific deaths, surrounded by a decrepit area called Skid Row. The Cecil started hopefully as a luxury hotel until the depression hit, where it became known as the meeting place for sex workers and criminals. And it became catnip to serial killers such as Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, and Jack Uterwenger. There have also been several mysterious deaths that stain the hotel's history. Such as Dorothy Jean Purcell’s case, in 1944, 19-year-old Dorothy checked into the hotel with her 38- year-old boyfriend, Ben Levine. According to reports, Dorothy was unaware she was pregnant, and so one night, she went to the toilet and gave birth to a baby boy. Believing her baby was dead, Dorothy threw the new-born out of the window. She was arrested for murder and, at her trial, was found guilty of insanity.

Pauline Otton in 1962 is another infamous suicide as she jumped out of a window following an argument with her husband. She landed on a 65-year-old man named George Gianinni, who happened to be walking by at the time. And of course, one cannot forget to mention the Black Dhalia. Elizabeth Short's, also known as the Black Dhalia in 1947, body was discovered in two pieces in a nearby park to the accommodation. Her death remains unsolved to this day.

That is only a short history of the darkness of the hotel, which was referenced in the documentary. However, this hotbed of evil was revered as something malevolent and supernatural, or as the manager, Amy Price, said as something coincidental. It begs the question, is a place inherently evil, hateful? Can a place attract malevolent acts? Or, logically, does this place attract evil because it is most accessible for evil; the background, the class disparities, and the lack of help from the outside world, otherwise known as Skid Row. Or is it class disparities and environments making it easy for a place to have a high level of violence and bloodshed?

What is Skid Row, and why was it mentioned so much in the documentary? Skid Row is a neighbourhood in Downtown Los Angeles that is home to approximately 5000 people. It is known for its condensed homeless population and has a long history of police raids, drug addiction, sex workers, mental illness, and homelessness. Inhabitant levels grow, and crime levels remain high. LA The documentary and myself included think of the hotel in the middle of a zone that will have a preponderance of crime. In 1976, Los Angeles City Officials established Skid Row as an unofficial ‘containment zone’ where shelters and services for homeless people are allowed to operate. We have a hotel with a dark history, fallen into a state of disrepair, and was still functioning as single room occupancy—a place for people who are down on their luck. But a big part of the occupancy were people who have very little money and need a place to stay, and also containing people who were homeless and had mental health issues into this area with no help or support. This feeds into itself; anything that happens to this place is magnified, and is a serial killer going to stay as a wealthy conservative establishment? No, they are going to stay somewhere like Skid Row. So is the place malevolent or down on its luck?

Amy Price, the previous manager, the manager during Elisa's disappearance, said that the hotel quickly developed a reputation and was dubbed "The Suicide" and "The Death Hotel." So what does the hotel management try to do to rid itself of this label placed on them? They try to remake themselves. But was how they went about it morally correct? In 2007, six years before Elisa’s trip, the hotel was sold for $26 million. In an attempt to escape the hotel's notorious history, it was partly rebranded as a budget-friendly hotel for tourists renamed Stay On Main. 'Partly' being the operative word here. Not all of the hotel was converted. The Cecil Hotel continued to house long-term tenants and from the surrounding skid row area, and we already have a vague idea of what some of those tenants were like. While guests of the fresher and prettier Stay On Main had their own entrance and lobby, they still had to use the same two lifts as those staying at The Cecil. It makes you wonder that if Elisa had known the truth about the hotel and the fact that Stay On Main was a facade- would she have stayed there in the first place? Would this have happened?

Now I want to discuss the actual investigation and the LAPD. Elisa was found 19 days after the initial investigation began when the LAPD said they did a thorough search of all of the hotel. Why didn’t the LAPD look in the water tanks initially? According to the documentary - they searched all parts of the hotel, including the roof, extensively, with tracking dogs. But the law enforcement featured on the series did not give a clear-cut explanation as to why they missed the body during their initial search of the hotel, nor why they didn’t think to check the water tanks. The police have said it is merely an oversight, but it is a pretty big oversight! This oversight opens up more opportunities for conspiracy. It makes you wonder if they are protecting their own by not looking - or if Lam’s body was placed there after the investigation of the roof? How long was it there? And how did it get there? The documentary goes further into this.

The water tank and the fact it was closed opened up so many theories into this case, how was Elisa place into the water tank - because she must have been placed by someone if the tank was closed. She could not have closed the tank by herself. However, in the last episode of the docuseries, it was revealed by the employee who found her that the hatch was open, not closed like had been broadcasted in the media. This completely changes the course of the investigation. If the hatch was open, it makes sense that Elisa placed herself in there. But if it was open - why didn't the LAPD notice when they first searched the roof? There's still something not quite right about it.

Months after Elisa’s body was recovered, a toxicology report confirmed that she did not have any illegal drugs in her system when she died, nor alcohol. So, intoxication does not explain her strange behaviour in the Elevator Video. However, Elisa was known to be on at least four prescription medications for her bipolar disorder - something she writes about on her blog a lot. These medications were found to be in her bloodstream; however, they were at a concerningly low level. This discovery corresponds with the police's search through her belongings as they concluded that she had more medication than she should have after comparing the quantity against the fill date. This evidence suggested that she was undertaking her medications, and the result of her death was deemed a manic episode. The autopsy we learn in the final episode of the documentary gave inconclusive results. The was no evidence to suggest a crime of violence. There was no suspect and no physical evidence to suggest foul play. There was no way to tell how long she had been in the tank, and there were no internal or external injuries that could have led to her death - there was also no evidence of sexual assault. Investigators found that no one could have carried her body up to the ladder to the water tank without bruising her body.

The Lam family revealed that Elisa had a history of not taking her medications. She would have hallucinations and hide underneath her bed for refuge. With this evidence in hand and the confusion of the door being left open and shut, it left this case open and shut. The police ruled Elisa’s death as accidental drowning. They believe Lam feared for her life due to bipolar-related hallucinations, which explains the elevator video. She ran to the roof for protection and climbed into the water tank for safety. Once in the tank, Elisa could not escape and removed her clothing to fight hypothermia to better tread water. Eventually, she died of drowning.

Before her passing and, the hotel staff was made aware of Elisa’s strange behaviour. The show does not go into exact details. Lam was reportedly leaving cryptic notes for her roommates, telling them to go home and get out. She was even escorted off a taping of a live TV show in Burbank for writing a rambling letter to the host. These strange actions were a sign of a manic episode. However, aside from moving her into a private room for the sake of the other guests, the Cecil did not do much else in making sure Lam was okay. Amy Price explained that the behaviour was par for the course of the hotel, Elisa’s behaviour was odd but did not merit any special attention. However, as a viewer, you can’t help but wonder why didn't the hotel do more to help? Could their intervention have prevented Elisa from dying?

Before the information about the autopsy was released, and still, till this day, Elisa Lam’s death remains a cultural fixation. Internet sleuths and communities were unstoppable in figuring out what had happened to her because, with the lack of information to the way the information was presented, the only possible explanation at the time was murder, homicide. This is where Morbid came in. Morbid, aka Pablo Vergara, works as a corpse painted black metal artist, creating extreme music about dark and murderous subjects. Morbid’s band Slitwrist convinced the internet that he had killed Elisa Lam, and it was through coincidences. Slitwrists music video “Died in Pain” depicts a young girl running for her life until she is caught and murdered and was posted to YouTube just days after Lam’s death. Another song, “China,” includes lyrics about a victim's remains being laid to rest in the water, along with the line “I’m thinking China.” One of the most baffling coincidence was a creepy homemade video of the metal musician posing in front of photos of serial killer Ted Bundy and Elizabeth Short, the Black Dhalia who we know was allegedly seen at the Cecil Hotel. However, were these just coincidences enough for the internet community to accuse him of murder? Once Vergara learned of the accusations against him, he posted a video response saying, “This is Morbid. I wanted to inform you that I didn’t kill Elisa Lam. I am innocent,” but the online harassment continued. Internet sleuths reported Vergara’s Youtube and Facebook accounts, which were all terminated. The PFM (the FBI of Mexico) even came to Vergara's home to ask him about satanic sacrifices for the devil.

“There was no escape. When you get so much hate and negativity, there’s something that breaks in your mind. After a while, there’s just so much you can take,” Vergara said in the Netflix doc. “I did try to take my life and woke up in a psychiatric hospital. The web sleuths go on with their lives like nothing happened, but they turned my life upside down.”

The internet's suspicion led to Vergara’s suicide attempt and the loss of expression. No one reached out and apologised when the news was released. He never received an apology, and nothing changed. Internet sleuths send him death threats turned his life upside down for conspiracy, “[The Cecil Hotel] is just a portal to Hell, in my opinion,” Vergara concludes. “Once you step in there, bad things happen. I’ve come to realize that I’m just, maybe, another victim of that place, just in a different way.”

The documentary failed to talk to the parents and family members of Elisa Lam and their experience, what they remember of Elisa, and everything that came after. They completely blew past them with small mentions and inclinations to them. But the final episode did reveal that Elisa’s parents filed a suit of negligence against The Cecil Hotel. They argued that Elisa suffered from mental illness and might still be alive if the water tanks have been locked. The case was thrown out; L.A Superior Course Howard Halm found that the Cecil Hotel could not have foreseen the death of the 21-year-old tourist because it happened in an area where guests were not permitted.

As the documentary concluded, there was a considerable focus on this case's sensationalization, focusing on how bizarre the elevator video was, the darkness of the hotel's history. The case was full of many brain scratching twists. However, these twists can only be explained by science and evidence. Maybe it is time to realise that there is no conspiracy here, no matter how many people want there to be. When I wrote my previous article comparing Elisa Lam's death to the elevator game, only now do I realise it was in poor taste. These twists can only be explained by science and evidence, but maybe it's time to realise that there is no conspiracy here, no matter how many people want there to be. No matter how many people post videos about them going to see the hotel, playing that it's haunted and still trying to dig deeper and deeper into the case, by sensationalising the tragedy, we blow past the most devastating reality of all. A family who lost their daughter, a woman who was in the midst of a painful mental health crisis, and the world who lost Elisa Lam. It's hell; it's traumatic.

People have been hurt by mythologizing a true-crime mystery into an insidious conspiracy theory untethered to the truth. It's not a game, and it's not a puzzle. The wrong people have been forgotten in the fight for the truth. A wonderful, thoughtful woman, a future writer potentially, has been lost, and she should always be remembered.