The body of Elisa Lam, a 21-year-old tourist to the Los Angeles area, was found in the water tank of the infamous Cecil hotel, with no information about her death except an eerie surveillance video of her roaming the hotel. Death isn’t new for the mysterious hotel, but this case had no evidence or answers at all. When the body was found, “questions arose from the public as society asked if she was murdered, did she commit suicide, or was it simply an accident?” (Miller) Theories arose of suicide, murder, and accident. Evidence points to suicide due to mental disorders, but is that what really happened in February of 2013? Did she snap, or was her beautiful life cut short by a murderer?

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       Elisa Lam, a college student who was visiting Los Angeles, California, met her fateful death at the Cecil Hotel in February of 2013. She had short black hair, a big smile, was of Asian descent and was a tiny young woman. Detectives “found her inside one of the hotel's rooftop water tanks.”, as her death was ruled as an accident (Miller). She could be seen through security footage as acting insane and paranoid, which created theories about how Elisa Lam died. Conspiracies, such as murder and suicide began, to take the internet by storm, and her death went viral. She was considered mentally insane with diagnosed mental disorders, and her paranoid actions contradicted her outgoing internet personality (Burr). Her character changed that night, and nobody has a clue as to what happened.

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       Elisa Lam was described as a quiet girl by her family, but online she was anything but. She used social media, such as Tumblr, to “express her thoughts, beliefs, hopes and dreams” (Burr). Her social media outlet was not popular at the time but would soon become popular after her untimely death. She revealed to thousands of strangers about her travel experiences, her want to travel the country, and her need to encounter as much as possible before the end of her life (Burr). She used the internet as an outlet, after feeling like she could not express her words face-to-face. Her profile was a way for her to express her outgoing online persona in a way that would not require human confrontation and would support her shy attitude.

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       Her social media also included her various mental health diagnoses that affected her thinking and the way she acted. Elisa Lam was diagnosed with “bipolar disorder, had depressive episodes, and was prescribed at least four different medications” (Dickson). Elisa’s episodes consisted of intense feelings and thoughts that she could not contain. She was also believed to be not taking the medicine prescribed to her, which can be seen in her toxicology report. Her mental health had taken over her body and influenced her actions and thoughts, to where she had no more control over herself. Mental illnesses had become a great part of her character and could have led to her downfall.

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       The most interesting piece about this case is the eerie footage of Elisa acting paranoid as she walks near the elevator. She can be seen “behaving erratically, pacing, gesticulating wildly, and at one point appearing to hide from someone, or something.” by the Los Angeles police department (Burr). This behavior represented her mental bi-polar disorder, anxiety, and depression. Her paranoid personality did not start there, but started “days before her death: according to the Los Angeles Police Department (Dickson). Her paranoid and eerie behavior is one of the most important traits or personalities we see from her, because it describes what she was feeling in the moments leading up to her death. It portrays Lam’s thought process and is crucial when identifying her personality.

 

       Elissa Lam can be described as mentally ill with an outgoing internet personality, and paranoid by a presence at the hotel. Based on her personality, she was very lost, and her death resulted from that. When touring on her vacation, she was “deemed to be a danger to the other audience members” because she was described as “undertaking her medicine” which worsened her bipolar disorder and led to her mental breakdown (Dickinson). Elisa Lams death still has people wondering what happened to this day.

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       The mysterious death of Elisa Lam intrigued many conspiracy theorists, as well as the internet, and caused an uproar directed at the investigation. Her actions, words, and attitude minutes before she died are what most people find interesting. Many theories surround her death, but the highlighted ones include suicide due to mental disorders, murder by a musician at the hotel, or simply an accident that caused a terrible death. Many interesting components took place in the Cecil Hotel, including the fact that she was not taking her prescribed medicine while staying there, and that "80 people died there between 2007 and 2017" (Miller). So, what happened that fateful night?

 

       The conspiracy that she died at her own doing proposes that she purposefully killed herself in the infamous water tank. One of the most important aspects of this theory is the posts on her Tumblr account. On her social media she wrote, "I wish I could put part of my brain into a taped-shut box and shove it to the back of my closet for the night" (Burr). The thoughts that are engulfing her are not positive and can take a toll on a person. Based on her statement, she was not in her right mind and was fully capable of committing suicide. Also on her social media, Elisa expresses her suicidal thoughts by stating, "I can see myself feeling suicidal and it always scares me when I start feeling suicidal" (Burr). She tried to go against her thoughts, but they ultimately took over and affected her negatively. As Elisa admits her suicidal thoughts through her social media outlet, the suicide theory becomes more popular and believed by most theorists.

       

       The second, and most bizarre theory, was that Elisa Lam was murdered by metal rockstar, Morbid. Another abnormal part of this investigation was the eerie elevator footage. Many believe that "Lam’s unusual behavior in the elevator is evidence that she was being followed, along with her naked body" (Miller). The unusual behavior could represent her fear towards somebody coming after her or intimidating her, which results in her awkward behavior. Her naked body in the water tank could also point to a possibility of sexual assault by the perpetrator. The rocker, Morbid, "shared a video of himself in the Cecil Hotel days after Elisa’s body was found", and he released a music video, "Died in Pain", that has graphic lyrics and images (Miller). His unusual music videos and lyrics suggest that he may have been involved in the murder. The overlapping time at the Cecil Hotel, stated by the theorists, would be a perfect time frame of the two meetings and communicating with each other. However, Morbid later debunked the theories by claiming he was "In Mexico recording a new album when Lam when Lam went missing" (Miller). This new revelation does not place Morbid at the scene and does not put any perpetrator at the scene.

 

       The last, but equally important theory, is that her death was the result of an accident. The coroners and authorities concluded that Elisa Lam’s death was an "accident caused by withdrawal from her prescribed medicine for her bipolar disorder" (Miller). The Los Angeles Police Department is very skilled and experienced when it comes to random deaths and mysterious disappearances. They are experts and are trusted to make the correct conclusion and trust their judgement. Therefore, we should trust their decision. However, the water tank she was found in was very heavy, so it "would have been impossible for her to open it if she had climbed into the tank" (Miller). Based on that evidence, Elisa Lam would have struggled opening the water tank by herself, and it would have been harder to accidentally fall in and close it simultaneously. Although an accident seems plausible in this situation, it is impossible for someone like Elisa to open the top of the water tank, therefore it was not an accident.

 

       The conspiracies of suicide, murder, and accident all create important points, but the most plausible is that Elisa committed suicide. Between her mental health and social media updates, something was bound to happen, but just a matter of when was unknown. Today, Elisa’s family mourns her, and the video of her paranoid activity on the elevator will forever haunt the internet.

 

       Elisa Lam’s interesting tale remains an unsolved mystery to this day, as she is added to the list as one of the “17” deaths at the infamous Cecil Hotel (Smith). As the evidence became released to the public her death became observed as three conspiracy theories:

1. Did Elisa take her own life?

2. Was Elisa murdered by a local punk-rock star?

3. Was it simply an unfortunate accident?

Her mental health points to the option of suicide, but to this day, her unfortunate death remains unsolved and cannot be proved.

 

 

Works Cited

Burr, Brittany. “Elisa Lam’s Tumblr Posts & Toxicology Report Draw Parallels to Her Mental         

Health.” Narcity, 18 Feb. 2021, https://www.narcity.com/who-killed-elisa-lam-her-tumblr-toxicology-show-the-links-to-mental-health.

 

Dickson, E. J., and E. J. Dickson. “How ‘The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel’ Misses the Real Story

of Elisa Lam.” Rolling Stone, 25 Feb. 2021, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/cecil-hotel-elisa-lam-true-crime-netflix-1132634/.

 

Miller, Korin. “Authorities Ruled Elisa Lam’s Death an Accident, But Other Theories Still

Persist.” Women’sHealth,12Feb.2021, https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a35493301/how-did-elisa-lam-die-cecil-hotel-theories/.