Elisa Lam - What Happened?

Why did Elisa die?

  • Homicide/crime of opportunity - Murder due to chance encounter with someone on the day she died

    Votes: 162 47.4%
  • Homicide/preplanned - Elisa was lured to her death in a scheme planned before the day she died

    Votes: 46 13.5%
  • Accidental death - related to an altered mental state: drug induced, psychosis, sleep walking, etc.

    Votes: 86 25.1%
  • Suicide - Elisa intended to end her life due to mental issues/other

    Votes: 7 2.0%
  • Occult/supernatural/conspiracy - related to occult, supernatural phenomena or gov./other conspiracy

    Votes: 5 1.5%
  • Unsure/Do not know

    Votes: 36 10.5%

  • Total voters
    342
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There are so many unanswered and conflicting aspects to all of this. In this report the officer states that they are 10' tall.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...-tourist-found-water-tank-roof_n_2723853.html

Here is a picture that shows height comparison:
http://i.imgur.com/8lEblzY.jpg

I agree Newton, and even utilizing basic spacial reasoning skills one can assume the tank looks to be at least 10ft tall.

A good indicator of height as well - is in comparison to the height of the firefighters/maintenance man next to the tank during aerial shots of Crimescene.
 
I agree Newton, and even utilizing basic spacial reasoning skills one can assume the tank looks to be at least 10ft tall.

A good indicator of height as well - is in comparison to the height of the firefighters/maintenance man next to the tank during aerial shots of Crimescene.

Yes, I agree. I didn't revisit photos after hearing the audio interview. I would say they are maybe 8 feet, and I think with the platform more like 10 feet off the ground.

In looking over the pictures I think it is safe to say that she was found at the bottom of the tank. If she were floating at the top why would they cut a hole 3/4 down the side? This would involve pulling her body down and through cut out which would more likely muck up any evidence at the surface. So as not to disturb any evidence, it makes the most sense to cut a hole near where she was found.
 
Yes, I agree. I didn't revisit photos after hearing the audio interview. I would say they are maybe 8 feet, and I think with the platform more like 10 feet off the ground.

In looking over the pictures I think it is safe to say that she was found at the bottom of the tank. If she were floating at the top why would they cut a hole 3/4 down the side? This would involve pulling her body down and through cut out which would more likely muck up any evidence at the surface. So as not to disturb any evidence, it makes the most sense to cut a hole near where she was found.

Good eye on the area of the cut out 3/4 way down. I agree completely w your assertion.
 
There are so many unanswered and conflicting aspects to all of this. In this report the officer states that they are 10' tall.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...-tourist-found-water-tank-roof_n_2723853.html

Here is a picture that shows height comparison:
http://i.imgur.com/8lEblzY.jpg

Thanks, Newton! That gives us a really great perspective. You would think that with nothing new to report that one reporter would have fact checked and cleared up all the misinformation there is on the details. I am not really sure keeping the facts mixed up is strategic, but now I am beginning to wonder. You would at least think they would release the manner of death and leave it at that even if it ends up being "undetermined".

Has anyone tried making public comments asking essentially WTH? The autopsy cannot remain on deferred status forever. Yeesh.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong guys and gals, but if the cistern was 3/4 full when Elisa was found inside, that doesn't mean it was 3/4 full the entire time she was in it right? I I agile it would have changed levels during the course.


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Good eye on the area of the cut out 3/4 way down. I agree completely w your assertion.

Playing devils advocate here........in order to get her out of the tank, if she was on the bottom, they would have needed to drain the water out otherwise it would have flooded out when they cut the opening, disturbing the evidence anyway. Accessing her body from the bottom might have been the easiest option for them to get her out, manoeuvring out of that tight area. Either way they would've certainly taken water samples first.


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Thanks, Newton! That gives us a really great perspective. You would think that with nothing new to report that one reporter would have fact checked and cleared up all the misinformation there is on the details. I am not really sure keeping the facts mixed up is strategic, but now I am beginning to wonder. You would at least think they would release the manner of death and leave it at that even if it ends up being "undetermined".

Has anyone tried making public comments asking essentially WTH? The autopsy cannot remain on deferred status forever. Yeesh.

I doubt they're mixing up the facts purposefully. The issue is with most cases there is usually misinformation as news breaks until the details are clarified. And clarification is exactly what they're NOT doing, so we're all left confused, puzzling over conflicting details. They clearly don't want us to know.

I'm not certain what can be done short of picketing tbh. :/


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Playing devils advocate here........in order to get her out of the tank, if she was on the bottom, they would have needed to drain the water out otherwise it would have flooded out when they cut the opening, disturbing the evidence anyway. Accessing her body from the bottom might have been the easiest option for them to get her out, manoeuvring out of that tight area. Either way they would've certainly taken water samples first.

Whatever they did it took them around 5 hours to get her out. That is some careful maneuvering. You have me thinking that the best way to preserve evidence would be to remove her body horizontally so regardless of where she was found they were cutting a hole in the side and draining some water.

I doubt they're mixing up the facts purposefully. The issue is with most cases there is usually misinformation as news breaks until the details are clarified. And clarification is exactly what they're NOT doing, so we're all left confused, puzzling over conflicting details. They clearly don't want us to know.

I'm not certain what can be done short of picketing tbh. :/

Oh, I didn't think that they mixed up facts intentionally but rather letting things stay mixed up could have been strategic. So we agree they don't want us to know.

This is all so bizarre. I am sure her family has been informed of toxicology results by now, but it is so odd that not one reporter is following up with anything. It is like we are supposed to forget it happened. Although it is not LE's intention, it feels disrespectful to EL as a person too. So frustrating.
 
Whatever they did it took them around 5 hours to get her out. That is some careful maneuvering. You have me thinking that the best way to preserve evidence would be to remove her body horizontally so regardless of where she was found they were cutting a hole in the side and draining some water.

Yes I think so too. It must've been very challenging for them to figure out how to best maintain all the evidence while removing her.


Oh, I didn't think that they mixed up facts intentionally but rather letting things stay mixed up could have been strategic. So we agree they don't want us to know.

Yes you're right. Though they did make two strange statements....that there was nothing to indicate no foul play....and that there was nothing to indicate foul play. Do you remember those weird reports? So vague! Not sure if they were even from reliable sources.

This is all so bizarre. I am sure her family has been informed of toxicology results by now, but it is so odd that not one reporter is following up with anything. It is like we are supposed to forget it happened. Although it is not LE's intention, it feels disrespectful to EL as a person too. So frustrating.

Yes somebody must know.i wish someone would tell us something :( it's not like we're going to just forget about her!




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Ok guys. ONE MORE TIME (READ CAREFULLY)

The intention of her trip was to take a vacation from San Diego all the way up to Santa Cruz. She was supposed to head on to Santa Cruz after LA to Check out an organic farm.

Yes, here in CA (I live here!) ppl fly into LA. It is cheaper and houses international flights.

*** SO if Elisa were in San Diego by the 25th, this means she would have flown into LA BEFORE Jan. 25.

***Furthermore once again she does not mention reaching LA until the 29th.***

This January 26th date put out by media is not consistent with her tumblr and own itenerary/word/evidence of her whereabouts.

What I am saying is rational. Her Tumblr dates for her own journals have not changed since this investigation began. Ive been checking it regularly to make sure. Your assertion that ppls journals can change date without their consent is WRONG. Have you ever used Tumblr?

And I don't trust the LAPD coompletely being from here. There are so many scandals with that bunch. Rodney King anyone? <---most known example

Maybe YOU should read more carefully. :banghead: I never asserted that journals can change dates without the owner's consent. No, I don't use Tumblr but I could still figure out that dates can be altered to show a different time stamp. My post about this above has links to Tumblr's own site on how to do this. Did you not bother to click through or is it confusing to you? It is under the advanced options but it looks very straightforward to me. A user can schedule posts in advance or change the date and time of existing posts. In the case of the latter you obviously would have needed to be following her BEFORE the 31st of January and not just "since this investigation began".

Unless you personally knew Elisa and were by her side when she made those posts then I do think it is irrational for you to state that you know for a fact when she actually posted anything.

The thing that was throwing me off was the January 26 Los Angeles arrival date. Thankfully Conductor was able to clear that up for me.

And Rodney King was 22 years ago.
 
Has anyone tried making public comments asking essentially WTH? The autopsy cannot remain on deferred status forever. Yeesh.

I haven't because I am not registered on any of the websites that have covered the case. A while back, someone on here had posted about the short attention span in our culture and I have to agree. It saddens me how quickly people moved on from caring. The HuffPost article about the similarities between Elisa's case and the Castle finale only garnered 1 comment.
 
You know, we're in June now with not a peep from LE on this investigation. I am not an expert on toxicology, but am familiar with the typical amount of time it takes for the results. The amount of time waiting in this case far exceeds any other I can recall. There are only 2 reasons I can think of for the delay:

1. LE is hiding something
2. The labs doing the tests are overwhelmed and backlogged

For awhile, I was considering the latter as the reason, but now the former is starting to seem a bit more likely. Maybe they are concerned that if they publically release a statement that reads along the lines "nothing was found in her system that would have directly caused her death. Some rx medications were detected, but not in excessive levels. Case is not closed, but it is cold." Perhaps LE believes that the family will be upset with these findings and go public to reporters, etc. about things that may have been done wrong. Of course, there are conspiracy theories about why LE is keeping quiet on this case, but I believe it comes down to either them covering up poor investigative work, or simply labs being very slow to complete tests.
 
You know, we're in June now with not a peep from LE on this investigation. I am not an expert on toxicology, but am familiar with the typical amount of time it takes for the results. The amount of time waiting in this case far exceeds any other I can recall. There are only 2 reasons I can think of for the delay:

1. LE is hiding something
2. The labs doing the tests are overwhelmed and backlogged

For awhile, I was considering the latter as the reason, but now the former is starting to seem a bit more likely. Maybe they are concerned that if they publically release a statement that reads along the lines "nothing was found in her system that would have directly caused her death. Some rx medications were detected, but not in excessive levels. Case is not closed, but it is cold." Perhaps LE believes that the family will be upset with these findings and go public to reporters, etc. about things that may have been done wrong. Of course, there are conspiracy theories about why LE is keeping quiet on this case, but I believe it comes down to either them covering up poor investigative work, or simply labs being very slow to complete tests.

You might find this interesting per your comment about the coroners office being held up. They have had some "issues" beginning about a year ago. There are no audits for the LA CCO past 2010. The suspicious poisoning of one of their techs nearly a year ago really has made me concerned about the inner workings of that office...(it is the busiest coroners office in the USA ave 15-25 bodies a day)

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/04/micheal_cormier_la_coroner_dies.php
 
It's probably taking longer because they have found nothing definitive. The deeper they have to probe the longer it takes. tox screens and bloodwork would easily be back by now so it's probably down to trying to figure out if she was alive or dead when she went in the tank. Somewhere in all these threads on Miss Lam there was an article that detailed how hard it is if not impossible at times to identify to tell if a person had drowned or if they were dead when they entered the water.
 
It's probably taking longer because they have found nothing definitive. The deeper they have to probe the longer it takes. tox screens and bloodwork would easily be back by now so it's probably down to trying to figure out if she was alive or dead when she went in the tank. Somewhere in all these threads on Miss Lam there was an article that detailed how hard it is if not impossible at times to identify to tell if a person had drowned or if they were dead when they entered the water.

It was probably me who wrote about toxicology and autopsy when dealing with a body in water. If you have any questions PM me.

My issue spec. That I wrote about is a body that has been in water can read levels of ethanol and GHB because both are natural byproducts of a decomposing body in water. This makes it considerably more difficult to determine if the GHB and ethanol levels were a result of PRE or POST mortem metabolization. Especially with a body in an enclosed space with water. Essentially (and sorry for the graphic detail) the body begins to ferment in the vat. That process creates and catalyzes ethanol and GHB production.
 
Have any new facts or results been released in Elisa's case? It's been a long time...
 
Have any new facts or results been released in Elisa's case? It's been a long time...
Doesn't seem to be -- I've been scouring the internet a couple times a week, and...nothing.

Starting to think that the test results may never be made public. :(
 
Doesn't seem to be -- I've been scouring the internet a couple times a week, and...nothing.

Starting to think that the test results may never be made public. :(


:/ I just don't understand why they won't make any sort of public statement on the status of her case at least.



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Doesn't seem to be -- I've been scouring the internet a couple times a week, and...nothing.

Starting to think that the test results may never be made public. :(

What about the COD though? Isn't a death certificate public record in California?
 
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