"Theories only" - thread

[the_chosen_one]

-She could have fell in from the higher roof of the mechanical room. This would mean the hatch would have to be open or the cover off. There are things that could explain that as well as them being replaced.

Very insightful and interesting post I think the one thing that constantly comes up is without access to her computer/phone, we are almost entirely in the dark. If she was involved in this sort of thing, I think by her nature it is not unfathomable to assume her immediate friends would have been unaware of her being involved in it.

In relation to the quoted point, i think based on the size of the hatch and the height of the adjacent mechanical room it is not only unlikely, but physically impossible for that to have occurred without any injury to the body. Even if someone got on that roof and tried to deliberately dive directly into that hole, i dont think it would be possible to get in without shredding off a few pounds of flesh on the lip of the hatch. It looks as though you would need to lower one shoulder in at a time if you wanted to climb into the tank (that is you couldnt just launch directly in).

The big question mark that constantly comes up for me is the fact that she was entirely naked and that her clothes were in the tank. No one takes off all their clothes, throws them in the tank and then jumps in.

The only sequence of events I can correlate with the police finding is that she was in a rush due to a perceived threat (perhaps a figment of her imagination, or perhaps hearing someone else coming to the roof who was not an actual threat) and she entered the tank and then declothed once inside. I would understand removing the clothes once inside, but not removing her underwear? Perhaps over time the elasticised underwear managed to fall off (i dont really know if this can happen as i have not got that sort of forensics experience) and that would be consistent with the police report, but I am open to someone piecing it together in another way that addresses these issues.

If she voluntarily decided to go for a swim, she may have gone naked, or she may have removed at least her jacket, swipe card and watch and left them outside the tank... But I just cannot fathom with the luxury of time to make the conscious decision to go for a swim she would have jumped into the tank fully clothed with her swipe card, her watch and her jacket on.

The alternative explanations involve at least another person being present so wont bother going down that track because that is when the theories have a lot more freedom to move

 

[MssMarple]

Hi all, I have come to this forum driven by the interest of this strange and disturbing case of Elisa Lam. First of all, I apologize for my English, I'm Spanish (Spain).

After searching all possible information, I definitely think it was murder.

My theory:

Elisa left his room, To go to a common bathroom? It could have gone to go to the toilet because its floor was too dirty? Or maybe for pictures from the roof? She liked to take pictures at night from roof, we can see on his blog some photos.
The Hotel Cecil is frequented by homeless or untrustworthy people. You can read reviews of Hotel on "Yelp" where all guests agree and complain about the "people" who prowls the hotel at night. Also in the video of Chinese boys researching, you can see how well you can access the hotel from the fire escapes from the quiet street.
A man may have seen the young Elisa loitering at that time of night, followed.
When she gets into the elevator she approaches the buttons because it is "myopic". To see where press.
She grabs the other elevator not because it is out of service, does not work.
You can see how to get into the elevator she "hides". Why? Because hears a noise and you think someone is near. He peers quickly and afraid. As the elevator is locked her impatient. Possibly by pressing several buttons the elevator crashes. It is an old elevator anything can happen.
Some guests say the floor button "4" did not work.

I'm not clear if she was on the 14th floor? The Chinese boys went to the 14th floor and was green.

The hand gestures, as commented. I think she suffered some anomaly in the joints, so their movements are "strangers" as. However, she moves her hands to see if the elevator door moves, She is afraid, he notes. After the fingers have time to see if the elevator is moving or not.

After several minutes, you feel confused, think someone is at the bottom, perhaps hidden in the bathroom (corner on the right are the shared bathrooms).
Decide down the stairs. They are on your left. I guess the murderer followed. Before he reached his room.
He choked and carried her to the roof perfectly knew the murderer.
I do not understand how even wonder how "loaded" the girl up top. She was a thin girl, weighing 40 kg? That's nothing to any man USA.

He climbed up to the roof, undressed and do not know what else he could do. Then introduced into a tank. These tanks are not locked up, I do not see anything that have "lock" are just a few simple openings as any "window".
The introduced there and also got his belongings inside.
The dogs could not smell the body because she was in a tank with water and dogs can not smell when water in the middle.

You know if you missed something Elisa's room? If the murderer knew it was alone, then he could have stolen money. If you do not know anything, you might think your boyfriend / friends / family were waiting in the room. So I think that the murderer did not know she was traveling alone, and that room was. Because it was a "fortuitous" done something happened by luck. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Then the murderer fled down the fire stairs to the street without being seen.


I just know that there's a murderer loose the life of a smiling girl in his youth took his life.
Who was it?

Security Guard?
A homeless / drug addict who slept there by chance?
A serial murderer who wanted to emulate the famous Ramirez?

Some comments from guests who have been to Hotel C. Where nearly all agree on the same thing. Emphasize the behavior of the security guards, shared bathrooms and danger of street.
This hotel was perhaps not the most appropriate for an innocent and cheerful young as Elisa.
Now you think that she acted with knowledge of fear in the elevator?

14h Floor.


The 14th floor is actually the number 13. For reasons of superstition many hotels and buildings do not list the number 13.

If she was on that floor is possibly to take pictures of the views of skyscrapers, toileting, or both, One night excursion to pry a new location, possibly climbed to the roof and there heard noise and went down again to go in the elevator.

 

[TheyDontSee]

-She could have climbed in herself. Maybe for a swim, once she realized that it was a water tank. My friend did many similar risky things while I knew her that entered her mind as a whim and progressed straight to an action without her brain weighing what she was about to do. Swimming alone on a rooftop has a certain romance to it. I haven't been able to find much info about the manner of the opening in the top of the tank, so this is admittedly wild speculation. Perhaps she was able to get in but not out as easily? Panic sets in and she drowns.
-She could have fell in from the higher roof of the mechanical room. This would mean the hatch would have to be open or the cover off. There are things that could explain that as well as them being replaced.

With your explanation of urban exploring and what you write here... this very well could make sense. I never thought this was an accident but your explanation makes it a possibility for me.

 

[December]

I was just thinking about this case and I realized... everyone has kind of assumed Elisa deliberately went to the Cecil floor (as in she knew what that was and where she would wind up), but what if she didn't?

Here is what we KNOW.
1. Elisa booked into Stay On Main. It has a separate enterance, separate booking, and an entirely different look than the Cecil.
2. Elisa wrote about an old hotel BESIDE her hotel (the Cecil's entrance as seen from street level). Speculation by me... Maybe she never really understood that her hotel was INSIDE the Cecil?
3. Elisa went wherever she was trying to go on the elevator without her glasses. Thus, might have missed some details.
4. Elisa had bi-polar disorder and her medication SEEMS to skew her toward being a little hyper. (This may be because in her depressive state she wouldn't even get out of bed.) The descriptions of people who saw Elisa fit someone in a more maniac phase. Speculation... Could this cause her to miss details (like the one about the hotels being really one hotel)?

So, what if she fully expected the elevator to open on another floor of Stay On Main, but the doors open onto.. naturally... the Cecil Hotel? And not just any floor, but a permanent resident floor? What would it do to someone not quite in the right frame of mind for that to happen?

IDK how she went from there to where she was found, but we don't really know exactly how long all of that took to happen. She might have wandered around for hours for all we know.

But, I'm just wondering what would you think if you didn't know for sure where you were or how you came to be there?

Also, we don't know how long she was on the Cecil floor before she even goes to the elevator. It might have been a really short time... just long enough to figure out this weird old hotel is real. I wonder if the residential floors seem deserted compared to the rest of the hotels. Apartment buildings can seem that way sometimes even when lots of people are home.

 

[quincyadams]

Ok Im not sure if any of you are still interested in this.

I wanted to post a new thread, but I'm new so i can't yet.

I just moved to L.A and i have been to the Cecil hotel twice.
I am now "on the in" there, so to speak.
I made nice with an employee, i have rep there, and I've discovered many secrets of theirs.
Secrets including high pressure air systems that are meant to clear contaminants, odors etc. (very weird and very powerful pressure).
The employee is "iffy" on discussing details about Elisa Lam, suicides etc.
He became extremely scared when I mentioned any of the shady past,
even shaking and stuttering,and replied "Oh that girl in the elevator"
then very creepily offered to "show us the Pent house"
immediately after I brought up that he lied about the Hotel Cortez affiliation, and Elisa Lam etc.
He even tried to downplay it, this was all before i found out she was found in the water tank,
he basically lied as soon as we unsuspectingly checked in. This was day two of my first visit.

I had no idea all of this was even a thing until two strange girls passing me in the hallway on the morning of day two told me the hotel was really the "Hotel Cortez".
They weren't guests and i never saw them after that.
So then i researched, and that was that, and now I'm here.

All this to say I will be happy to answer any questions, as I've found a lot of stuff never mentioned, not just about Elisa Lam but just strange activity from the employees, also anything anyone knows, like places to look for strange activity. Remember its 3 years later, but more has happened, and will continue to happen, it goes much deeper than Elisa Lam I assure you all MUCH MUCH DEEPER.
Mixed with the suicides, deaths, murders, serial killers, etc I myself am convinced that the employees, or employee are up to something that ever since the place is open there's been something happening there most likely amongst the employees.
For example one of the earlier suicides when a woman jumped out of her window,
it was said that the husband had no idea why she did and he was sleeping it said the manager vouched for him, the strange thing about that is how could the hotel manager possibly have vouched for the husband. I mean unless those rooms had cameras or something that could've showed inside the room (which obviously they didn't lol).
Then how could the manager of known he was sleeping, and she jumped.

Of course this is all speculation but it makes more sense that possibly an employee in the early years past the torch to the next employee, who passed on the torch to the next employee etc.
Since The First three years opened people have just been getting killed, supposedly jumping out of windows, brutally killing themselves, and others inside the hotel. People moving into the hotel, then leaving and killing themselves or somebody else, which has occurred many times not mentioned in many places unless you dig.

My point is.... Im here, I live in downtown L.A. Im making a detailed documentary covering everything from the early years of strange activities, to the suicide jumper that just
recently jumped from a window of the Cecil in June 2015.

So please if anybody still wants to find out what's happening at that hotel,
not just with Elisa Lam, but also interested in what's really going on there.
It goes deeper than just Elisa Lam, and has been happening since its second year opened.
So any questions, or requests Im here, ready, and willing to go inside the hotel and get to the bottom of whats happening there, and for how long

I plead to all of you, do not abandon this now, you have all worked so hard.
As Ive repeated, Elisa lam isn't the biggest mystery at the Cecil.
As I've said, and will release footage of soon,
something HORRIBLY, HORRIBLY wrong is happening there,
and has been since it literally opened,
and Im going to get to the bottom of it, but i could use some help.

Whos In?​

 

[December]

It has always been the Cecil Hotel.

 

[allmybecsloveme]

It has always been the Cecil Hotel.

It's been rebranded "Stay on Main".

Hotel Cortez is the hotel on American Horror Story, the Cecil Hotel was the inspiration for it.

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[December]

All of it or just a few floors?

I have seen AHS.

 

[Userid]

^

In 2007, a portion of the Cecil Hotel had been refurbished by new owners and was operating within the building as a separate hotel called ‘Stay on Main‘. After Elisa Lam’s mysterious death, the website of the Cecil Hotel went dark and LA’s macabre murder hotel was rebranded entirely as ‘Stay on Main’,

http://www.messynessychic.com/2015/...at-inspired-lady-gagas-american-horror-story/

(about half way down the article)

 

[LisaB]

Ok, this is my theory on what i have read so far

There were many longer term residents of the hotel Cecil, so of which are registered sex offenders (not sure if I'm allowed to link but will pm a moderator to ask) and others with drug issues etc. The new owners of the hotel wanted to upgrade the hotel and it's image, displacing these residents. They would have found it difficult to find new housing so one of them (or more) killed this girl to tarnish the reputation of the hotel. The image of the hotel would have been effected, nobody would want to stay there after this recent tragedy and the residents would not have to move - MOO

IIRC, the hotel had a sketchy reputation even before this happened.

 

[LisaB]

I do as well think that Elisa is the cause of her own death. Whether it was lack of medication or taking the wrong kind of drugs that led her to the rooftop and jump in. I'd say this stands at about a 90 pct chance from the known facts.

I'll give a 9 percent chance that she had some sort of romance going with maybe a drug dealer on the roof top, where she might of OD and he freaked out and found the tanks as a best place to hide her.

Less than 1 percent chance a serial killer who is very well at planning coerced her to the roof by a gun or weapon, raped her, then tricked her into the tank to her demise.

Vital clue would probably be where they find her clothes. I'm curious how sound travels from someone on the inside of one of those tanks. It's sad to think if at some point she realized her situation, wonder how far her screams for help would of went.

If she had tossed her clothes off the roof, they would have been long gone before anyone even realized she was missing. If she left them ON the roof (which she would have done if she expected to get back OUT of the tank) they would probably have still been there during the first search.

 

[December]

The clothes being in the tank seems weird to me.

I didn't know the whole thing was now called Stay on Main. But, prior to that, it was always Cecil Hotel.

Yes, Cecil Hotel had a sketchy reputation stretching back many years. It was built as a business hotel in the 1920s. However, as the area around it devolved into skid row, more and more strange types began lurking about. For a while, (60s? 70s? 80s?), they rented rooms by the hour. They stopped that before the remodel, but it was still an old hotel in a not great part of town. Before the ill thought out youth hostel (SoM) concept, it was known for renting rooms to permanent residents. They are probably still there as they don't have many other living choices and it is nicer than the street.

Someone had said two girls told him it was really the Hotel Cortez. That is a fictional luxury hotel loosely based on Cecil Hotel. But, those girls were wrong. I have seen AHS, by the way. I don't think any of Cecil Hotel's permanent residents are wearing couture.

 

[Tssiemer]

Could she have removed her clothing due to hypothermia? It's a common occurance. She crawled in the tank for whatever reason and the water was cold.


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[Userid]

Could she have removed her clothing due to hypothermia? It's a common occurance. She crawled in the tank for whatever reason and the water was cold.


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If I remember correctly, the autopsy report says her death was immediate. She thought she could just jump in and swim, but she didn't realize the water was rotating inside the tank and immediately upon entering, she was sucked down and died almost instantly by drowning; so I don't think she could have removed her clothes while in the tank, but you never know I guess.

 

[neesaki]

If I remember correctly, the autopsy report says her death was immediate. She thought she could just jump in and swim, but she didn't realize the water was rotating inside the tank and immediately upon entering, she was sucked down and died almost instantly by drowning; so I don't think she could have removed her clothes while in the tank, but you never know I guess.

I'm just trying to figure out how she removed her clothing before getting in, and if so, why bother throwing them in the tank. She removed them and threw them in before she got in? Which means she must have been able to sit on the edge, and then remove them before she got in, then threw them in the tank. Is there a place on the tank she could have actually sat? What a strange case.

 

[Userid]

Yes. The top of the tank she was found in had a completely flat surface where she could have simply stood, sat, whatever. There were two other tanks that did not (they had a slight cone shape to them), but the two other (including Elisa's) had flat tops.

Also, we don't know if she took her clothes off at all (before getting into the tank). She may have, but again, the water and the movement in the tank could have very easily removed them over the 3 or more weeks she was in the tank -- remember, people were using that water. That water was moving inside the tank, at a good clip; it was swirling. Elisa was also wearing very, very loose fitting clothes: an oversized hoodie, men's basketball shorts, underwear, flip-flops, and a watch. That's it. These items wouldn't be impossible to remove by just the water alone, with maybe the exception of the watch, which if loose (as I suppose in my previous post), again wouldn't be impossible.

 

[Xara]

Sorry....moved question to correct thread.

 

[NirvanaGirlUk]

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[NirvanaGirlUk]

Just a thought on the clothes, where they confirmed as Elisas. Idk but an oversized hoodie on such a small frame and mens basketball shorts. Was this the kind of attire she usually wore. Not to judge people but doesnt sound to me what young girls wear - being one myself, i can see why the hoodie might be comfy but paired with mans shorts...why does she even own them. Weird


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[Userid]

Yes, it was confirmed and can be seen in the elevator video itself. I can't recall if she was wearing the same clothes earlier that night (when she went out) or if she changed when she got back to the hotel, but it was late at night and they were probably just her "lounging around" clothes.