The Locked-Room Death of Elisa Lam

January 26, 2013 – A Solo Trip to Los Angeles

Elisa Lam, a 21-year-old Canadian student from Vancouver, checked into the infamous Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles — a building with a dark reputation tied to suicides, murders, and serial killers.

She was traveling alone as part of a self-planned West Coast trip. She kept in touch with her parents daily.

On January 31, Elisa stopped responding.

She was reported missing the next day.

February 19 – The Body in the Water Tank

Guests at the hotel began complaining about low water pressure, black-tinted water, and a strange taste coming from the tap.

Maintenance workers climbed to the roof, opened one of the four sealed water tanks, and discovered Elisa Lam’s naked body floating inside.

Her clothes were found nearby in the tank. Her phone was never recovered.

The tanks were locked, required a ladder, and were located inside an alarm-triggered, staff-only area. No alarm had sounded. No one saw Elisa access the roof.

The Elevator Footage

Before the body was discovered, police released surveillance footage from the hotel’s elevator, timestamped January 31.

It went viral.

In the footage, Elisa appears:

• Pressing multiple buttons
• Hiding in the corner of the elevator
• Looking in and out of the hallway
• Making strange hand gestures, as if speaking to someone unseen
• Eventually, she steps out — and vanishes from view

The elevator doors don’t close for an abnormally long time, despite being programmed to shut quickly.

The footage has become one of the most viewed and debated pieces of mystery video in internet history.

The Autopsy and the Questions

The autopsy report found:

• No alcohol or drugs in her system (despite early speculation)
• No signs of trauma or assault
• Cause of death: accidental drowning

But:

• How did she get into a locked, sealed water tank on the roof with no ladder access?
• Why was she naked, with her clothes floating beside her?
• Why were no fingerprints, DNA, or evidence found on the tank or its lid?

Even stranger — the hotel staff claimed the lid was closed when the body was found. How? The lid is too heavy to close from inside.

Theories and Speculation

1. Mental health episode?

Elisa had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. Some believe she had a manic episode and wandered to the roof. But that doesn’t explain the locked doors, or how she got into and closed the tank.

2. Murder

Some speculate a hotel employee or unknown person had access to the roof and placed her in the tank, either during or after death. But no evidence or suspects ever emerged.

3. Supernatural?

Many point to the Cecil Hotel’s dark history:

• Night Stalker Richard Ramirez lived there in the 1980s
• Countless suicides
• Other bizarre deaths occurred in the building over decades
  Some believe Elisa was affected by something paranormal — especially given her behavior in the elevator.

4. Government experiment / cover-up

Fringe theorists note the eerie coincidence:

• Days after Elisa’s death, tuberculosis tests were deployed in LA’s homeless population using a test named LAM-ELISA.
  Some take this as a symbol, others as a stretch — but it adds to the strangeness.

A Death That Feels... Wrong

**No forced entry.
No clear trauma.
No logical access to the rooftop tanks.
A body found in sealed metal,
after pressing every button in the elevator — as if trying to escape something we still can’t see.**

To this day, the Elisa Lam case remains officially closed — labeled accidental.

But no one truly believes it.