Elisa Lam and the Cecil Hotel: The Elevator Video and a Vanishing cover art

Elisa Lam and the Cecil Hotel: The Elevator Video and a Vanishing

Elisa Lam and the Cecil Hotel: The Elevator Video and a Vanishing

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n January 2013, 21-year-old Canadian student Elisa Lam checked into Los Angeles’ infamous Cecil Hotel. Known for its dark history of crime, tragedy, and mystery, the hotel was the last place Elisa was seen alive.

When she failed to check out or contact her family, police launched a search. Two weeks later, security footage of Elisa inside a hotel elevator shocked the world. Her behaviour, pressing multiple buttons, hiding in corners, stepping in and out, gesturing as though to someone unseen went viral online.


Millions debated what the strange footage meant: was she running from someone, suffering a mental health episode, or caught in something far more sinister?


On February 19, Elisa’s body was discovered in one of the hotel’s rooftop water tanks, after guests had complained about the water supply. With no signs of trauma, an official ruling of accidental drowning, and countless unanswered questions, her death remains one of the most disturbing and widely discussed mysteries of the 21st century.






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