Freak Friday: The Young Witch Dreams of LA...Deaths

Just before the beginning of the Pandemic of cancelled plans, I dreamed of my LA trip. I had never been to LA and had been planning a Spring Break trip for myself the week after my birthday. I literally had already placed hotel reservations which my procrastination in canceling got me a refund for.

Yet... I still dream, hope, pray that one day, one day I might get to experience the beauty and the glory of LA. Seeing the Hollywood sign. Going to downtown Disney. Stuffing myself at Knott's Berry farm. Staying at the Cecil Hotel.

Okay...maybe not staying at the Cecil. My mother might actually kill me. You weren't there for her freak out over Northern California serial killers when I moved to San Jose.

But I guess you guys know what today's Freaky Friday is about.

Yep! After a million and 10 documentaries and watching the same episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved over and over and over again, we're going to talk about Ms. Elisa Lam.

Elisa Lam was a Canadian college student. From all my listening and watching, she was a pretty cool kid. At least she liked Tumblr, so I think she was cool kid. She also dealt with bouts of depression and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. So I already relate to this girl off the bat. And if she was going to be gone on vacation, her parents wanted to call every night. So, I really relate to her.

Now why do we care about the vacation thing? Because Elisa wanted to go on a vacation adventure of her own through California, and she wanted to do it alone. Ergo, the whole calling her parents everyday thing.

She planned the whole thing: start down south and then head north. She went to San Diego, and then, started her LA leg of the trip, and sadly, the end of her trip.

Elisa didn't call her parents the day she was supposed to leave LA and check out of her hotel, The Stay on Main, and that was the tipoff that something was wrong. Her parents called the Police.

Weeks later they would find her body floating in the water tank on top of the building she was staying. The reason: the water tasted funny.

No one really knows how Elisa got there, but there's something important to know. The Stay on Main Hotel, was actually run in the old Cecil Hotel.

The Cecil Hotel was near the train station, and was famous for it's low rates when it first opened up in the 20s, according to Netflix's newest true crime doc (I site my sources occasionally). However, that was the decade right before the Great Depression and in stories like this, that doesn't mean good things.

The Cecil was able to stay afloat, but the train station was no longer bustling and even after that, planes were becoming the more popular form of cross country transportation. Also the area the Cecil was locate in became Skid Row during the 30s

Now, I personally don't know anything about Skid Row and refuse to make assumptions about the area. From what my research and too many documentaries have told me, the population there has a good number of homeless and transient people, which honestly doesn't mean a lot to me either. It's just the excuse people use for why they say the area has a lot of crime. I think it's a flaw of a broken system that refuses to help it's citizens that have the most need, but ya know, tomato, tomahto.

The Cecil however, did in fact become a place for some rather unsavory sorts, like, for example, Richard Ramirez. Ya know. The serial killer? There were also other murders, deaths and even suicides at the hotel. Ryan Bergara noted in Buzzfeed Unsolved, that long term residents (it's the type of hotel that does long term residents) call the Cecil, "the Suicide."

Ain't that a pleasant nickname?......I hate it.

But a group decided to rebrand at least part of the Hotel when they bought it to become the Stay on Main to try and distance it from the unpleasantness of the Cecil, but they did still have to keep the Cecil. So, fun fact, it's actually two hotels! And after Elisa, neither had the greatest reputation.

And this long random spiel about the Cecil, is mostly to say, it's no wonder there are so many theories on Elisa's death.

There are a couple that stand out and seem realistic to me. The first that people suggest is that she was suffering a mental health episode. As I mentioned, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. If she were to have a more severe episode, that could possibly have some effect on what happened. She was also staying in a hostel style room at first, but her roommates asked she be moved because she was acting weird. However, several other places she visited said she was happy and seemed in a good place.

My issue with this theory is that she somehow had this episode and got up to roof, which the main door is locked, so she'd have had to take a fire escape and I know how I am during my mental health episodes, but then I also know I shouldn't assume about other experiences based on my own mental health issues.

But I also saw that ladder she'd have had to climb and uhhhh...yeah, no. I don't think she did that.

The second is that she was on drugs. That also goes along with the roommates saying she was weird. I'm calling BS because no drugs were found in her system. They literally tested her for it when they found her floating the tank with no clothes on because they also thought, "Hey...maybe?"

But nothing, so I call that a bust.

There is also the possibility it was a murder, and that honestly what I lean towards. There is some video of that night that shows Elisa acting strange around and in the Cecil's elevator and it often seems like she's hiding from something or someone. Since she most likely took the fire escape, it seems she might have been avoiding detection and trying to get away from someone. Not to mention, she was found with the lid closed in the water tank. I do not see why it would be closed unless someone was up there with her to close it. And with the history of bad deaths happening, wouldn't surprise me.

But there are even issues with this theory. I believe they didn't find any marks on her that could indicate strangulation or any other things.

Still. It's a case that's never truly been solved. Everyone has their theory (my favorite wackadoodle in the web is it was the ghost of Ramirez. I might believe in ghosts, and she might have seen him, but I don't know if it could be murder, unless he possessed...oh. New theory) and everyone has an opinion and and angle.

Ultimately, though it was ruled an accident.

It's a heartbreaking case. There's so much unknown and a family who may never get to know what happened to their child. The Lam family did file a lawsuit against the hotel for their daughter's death. It was dismissed though in 2015.

We still don't what happened to Elisa, but I and many others hope, someday...we might.