Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 125, The Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam

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125, The Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello delicious friends,
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Speaker 1: and welcome to Who Did Want Now? The history podcast
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Speaker 1: That's Not Your History Class with me your host Katie Charlewood,
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Speaker 1: history Harlotte and reader of books. Speaking of books, I
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Speaker 1: am in my hotel room. I have just performed at
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Speaker 1: the Red Line Book Festival in Dublin and Talla, and
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Speaker 1: I was at the Civic Theater and I was having
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Speaker 1: a think and it's roughly like a whole year since
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Speaker 1: my first live show. And my friend was at my
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Speaker 1: first live show actually and was at this one, and
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Speaker 1: he was telling me, like the difference between then and now,
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Speaker 1: like everything from like the structure or the confidence, Like
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Speaker 1: the difference is it's like a much better like live show,
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Speaker 1: which I'm so proud of and so thankful for because
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Speaker 1: it means I actually do learn as I go on. Yay.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, I was at the Red Line Book Festival,
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Speaker 1: even though my book is now till like twenty twenty six.
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Speaker 1: But they were like we wanted to pre empt it
1:24
Speaker 1: and bring you in, which is so exciting and lovely.
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Speaker 1: And she was a strange amount of faith in me
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Speaker 1: from people who don't know me that I had such
1:34
Speaker 1: a good time. And it's like each show I do
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Speaker 1: just feels like so much better than the previous, Like
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Speaker 1: I feel like I'm really getting into the stride of it,
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Speaker 1: and so like I'm really excited about the US TIL
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Speaker 1: next year, Like once I get things locked in, if
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Speaker 1: venues would get back to me. Ah, I wish I
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Speaker 1: had a TILL manager because honestly, trying to organize this
1:59
Speaker 1: is so hard, especially with everything else I'm doing. There's
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Speaker 1: just so much going on. But yes, so I'm organizing that,
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Speaker 1: and then I'm in Dublin next week and again, like
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Speaker 1: I'm all over the shop and I'm performing here, there
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Speaker 1: and everywhere. But you may be looking at this episode
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Speaker 1: and thinking this is not her usual content, because this
2:20
Speaker 1: seems fairly recent in comparison. Yeah, yeah, I decided to
2:24
Speaker 1: do a wee break of the norm. I'm still talking
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Speaker 1: about horrible history. It's still a horrible thing that happened.
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Speaker 1: It's just a little bit more recent, the recent past,
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Speaker 1: but it's there, and I'm consistently asked about it, like
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Speaker 1: how I'm mentioning it once because I was talking about
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Speaker 1: misinterpretations of ghosties and gullies and spooky mysteries like, I
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Speaker 1: love a mysteries much as the next person, but I'm
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Speaker 1: far too You're a divergence for that, and so I
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Speaker 1: have to ruin everyone's fun. And also I don't feel
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Speaker 1: like making fun about the tragic death of a woman,
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Speaker 1: and I've I just don't. I don't. I don't find
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Speaker 1: that a good thing, you know. And I like to
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Speaker 1: clarify things and write some wrongs because that's just who
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Speaker 1: I am as a person. And so I'm going to
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Speaker 1: be debunking a few things. I'm going to be telling
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Speaker 1: the facts as they are. And I know what you're thinking.
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Speaker 1: You're thinking, Katie, quite your jibbl Jabba in fact me
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Speaker 1: in fact Jui will. But first we've got to get
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Speaker 1: our source on. Our sources are The strange death of
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Speaker 1: Alisa Lamb by David Nicholson, Elie Hotel, our body was
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Speaker 1: found in water tank, has long dark history by Mark Memmett.
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Speaker 1: The suicide the Hotel Caesel and the main Streets of
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Speaker 1: LA's Notorious Schedule by Hardley Meres. The Dark Past of
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Speaker 1: the Caesel Hotel by Joshua o'campbell Lamb. What Really Happened
4:01
Speaker 1: in the Ceacil Hotel by Michael Baggs crime Scene The
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Speaker 1: Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel documentary on Netflix, and of
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Speaker 1: course we have the elevator video read it and so
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Speaker 1: on and so forth. Als it in comfortably good, Then
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Speaker 1: let's begin. Our story starts and well ends at the
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Speaker 1: infamous Cecil Hotel, a building an establishment which has garnered
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Speaker 1: an unsavory reputation over the years, linking it to tragedy, trauma,
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Speaker 1: travesty and mysterious goings on. It is linked to dark
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Speaker 1: in depraved tales of terror, as if the building itself
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Speaker 1: is cursed, when in fact it's just location and economy.
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Speaker 1: That's what created the dark history of the Cisol Hotel,
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Speaker 1: which was briefly rebranded as the Stay On Main because
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Speaker 1: they're trying to like like pr change it. But it
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Speaker 1: stopped doing what it was supposed to do. It wasn't
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Speaker 1: able to keep running. And obviously the terrible publicity, which
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Speaker 1: you know should actually have gotten it like more because
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Speaker 1: like people do dark history tours all the time. People
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Speaker 1: are obsessed with the macab you know, so it should
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Speaker 1: have done really well. It was not doing really well
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Speaker 1: and it just had to clause. Now, the Cecil opened
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Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty four. Like, the whole purpose of it
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Speaker 1: initially was like it was downtown. It was supposed to
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Speaker 1: cater to businessmen, you know, men doing business in the city.
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Speaker 1: Businessmen doing business. Yeah, it was that sort of whole scenario. Unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: when the crash happened and the Great Depression hit, wasn't
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Speaker 1: really a lot of businessmen to be to be holding
6:10
Speaker 1: up there in the seesil, And so it changed its
6:14
Speaker 1: business plan. Thought instead of doing this, it was going
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Speaker 1: to bring in like these really low rates, because people
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Speaker 1: wouldn't just stay in a hotel for like a night
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Speaker 1: or two. It would bring in these like really low
6:26
Speaker 1: weekly rates, like a rent. So that meant people who
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Speaker 1: were on lower incomes they could reside in the hotels
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Speaker 1: instead of an actual apartment or house or whatever. And
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Speaker 1: so as the depression really got worse and crime rates
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Speaker 1: increased downtown, well that area of downtown anyway becomes skid
6:52
Speaker 1: row downtown where the guys a drips downtown, where they
6:59
Speaker 1: kick yours downtown. Our relationships are not gone down. On
7:07
Speaker 1: Scared Row, listen, I do not have the vocal quality
7:12
Speaker 1: to do that song, but I could not hit myself.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, Scared Row it's where the people who are
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Speaker 1: really suffering, the poorer of the impoverish, the homeless, like,
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Speaker 1: that's where they're staying. They've got nowhere else to go.
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Speaker 1: And with they say so, being so situated, it becomes
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Speaker 1: the go to place for a lot of these people.
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Speaker 1: And so the hotel on skied Row, which caters to
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Speaker 1: people on low incomes, becomes a place where people on
7:44
Speaker 1: low incomes are going to be. People who are living
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Speaker 1: in this environment, people who are living in an area
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Speaker 1: filled with crime, drugs, et cetera. This is where people
7:55
Speaker 1: are going to stay. And when you've got people in
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Speaker 1: these high danger life I say lifestyle right, as if
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Speaker 1: it's not just their life, as if this is not
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Speaker 1: just how their life is turned out like which could
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Speaker 1: be a result very easily of just external factors. And
8:12
Speaker 1: so here they are having to be here, of all places.
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Speaker 1: And so when you've got people in these high risk
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Speaker 1: lives staying in this one area, shockingly enough, incidents are
8:24
Speaker 1: going to be away bit higher. So they talk about
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Speaker 1: like all of these deaths and stuff that happen in
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Speaker 1: the Caesel hotel, and a lot of them are like
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Speaker 1: deaths suicides, overdoses and of course it gets worse because
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Speaker 1: allegedly Richard Ramirez stayed there when he was like hiding
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Speaker 1: out from his murder spray, you know, the original Nightstalker.
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Speaker 1: So he stayed there. So I was like, ooh, he
8:51
Speaker 1: stayed there. It's creepy. And then of course you have
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Speaker 1: the cirrecular jerk unter Winger Unterwiger. Yeah, he's like in
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Speaker 1: the cecil garrotting sex workers with their own lauingerie. And
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Speaker 1: of course people like to like layer on the mystery
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Speaker 1: and the darkness and the conspiracies, and so there's like
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Speaker 1: a rumor as well that that's where the black Dahlia
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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Short stage. They're like she was there too, because
9:22
Speaker 1: again it was a cheap place to stay, and she
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Speaker 1: was notorious for like being broke, and of course people
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Speaker 1: like to add, like to add and embellish. On top
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Speaker 1: of that as well, you've got all these suicides that
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Speaker 1: happen there were people who are already not doing well
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Speaker 1: in their lives are in this place and they decide
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Speaker 1: that this is the time that they are going to
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Speaker 1: die by suicide. And you know, I'm just gonna give
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Speaker 1: you a rundown of the deaths of the seasonal hotel.
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Speaker 1: So the twenty second of January nineteen twenty seven, Percy
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Speaker 1: Ormond Cook dies by suicide. He separated from his wife
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Speaker 1: and he's just struggling. He deliberates for a week before
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Speaker 1: finally ending his life. On the nineteenth of November nineteen
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Speaker 1: thirty one, W K. Norton under the name James Willis.
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Speaker 1: He ends his life after a week in the cecil
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Speaker 1: after consuming poison capsules. In September nineteen thirty two, Benjamin
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Speaker 1: Doditch ended his life with a gunshot to the head.
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Speaker 1: He was discovered by a maid, so we don't know
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Speaker 1: the exact tay of his death. On the twenty sixth
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Speaker 1: of July nineteen thirty four, Sergeant Lewis D. Borden slit
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Speaker 1: his own throat with a razor. He was unwell and
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Speaker 1: the illness was too much for him, and so he
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Speaker 1: decided to end his life on his own terms. In
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Speaker 1: March nineteen thirty seven, Grace E Magrow falls or leaps.
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Speaker 1: We're not sure whether this was planned or an accident,
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Speaker 1: but she falls from a ninth story window and falls
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Speaker 1: on telephone wires which wrap around her body and end
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Speaker 1: her life. On the ninth of January nineteen thirty eight,
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Speaker 1: Roy Thompson leaps from the roof and lands atop a
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Speaker 1: skylight on the next building. In May nineteen thirty nine,
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Speaker 1: Erwin c. Neblet swallows poison in his room. In January
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Speaker 1: nineteen forty, Dorothy Segar, who sends herself into the hotel
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Speaker 1: under the name Evelyn Brent, consumes poison. She writes to
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Speaker 1: her family to let her know that she's planning on
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Speaker 1: doing this. As a result, she has discovered but she
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Speaker 1: passes away in hospital on the twelfth of January, so
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Speaker 1: technically she didn't die in the Cecil, but she died
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Speaker 1: from the seasil in September nineteen forty four. This is
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Speaker 1: a tough one, so if you have a thing about
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Speaker 1: babies or children, skip forward about forty five seconds. Nineteen
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Speaker 1: year old Dorothy Jean Purcell. She's staying in a room
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Speaker 1: with her boyfriend in the Cecil hotel and she starts
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Speaker 1: getting paints, severe pains. She goes into the bathroom and
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Speaker 1: gives birth alone, and in a state of panic, she
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Speaker 1: throws her newborn baby and bilical cord still attached, out
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Speaker 1: of the window, and so she gets charged with the
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Speaker 1: murder of an infant. But she gets assessed by three
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Speaker 1: separate psychiatrists and they're like, no, she wasn't in her
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Speaker 1: right mind when she did this. She was mentally confused,
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Speaker 1: which she's nineteen, Like her boyfriend in the next room,
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Speaker 1: she's just given birth, like she's not with it. Like,
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Speaker 1: imagine the fear. Imagine how terrified you have to be
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Speaker 1: to do something like that, Like how scared must you
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Speaker 1: be for that to be your choice, to be the
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Speaker 1: active decision that you make. OK. In November nineteen forty seven,
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Speaker 1: Robert Smith jumps from a seventh floor window in the Cecil.
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Speaker 1: On the twenty second of October nineteen fifty four, Helen
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Speaker 1: Gurney also leaps from a seventh floor window, except she
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Speaker 1: lands on top of the Cecil's marquis, but she had
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Speaker 1: also registered into the Cecil under a false name, Margaret Brown.
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Speaker 1: On the eleventh of February nineteen sixty two, Julia Francis
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Speaker 1: Moore leaps from the eighth floor room and lands on
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Speaker 1: a second story interior lightwell. On the twelfth of October.
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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty two, Pauline Auten has an argument with
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Speaker 1: her estranged husband and throws herself out of a window.
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Speaker 1: The twenty seven year old woman hits a pedestrian before
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Speaker 1: she hits the ground. She lands on sixty five year
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Speaker 1: old George Giannini, who died instantly dually. The police thought
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Speaker 1: this was like a double suicide, but George Giannini had
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Speaker 1: his hands in his pockets as he was walking and
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Speaker 1: they were like he would not have been able to
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Speaker 1: do that if they were both leaping out the window.
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Speaker 1: On the fourth of June nineteen sixty four, Pigey Goldie
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Speaker 1: Osgood was found raped, stabbed, and beaten in her room.
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Speaker 1: She was called Pidgeon Goldie because she used to go
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Speaker 1: out and feed the buds out in the square. Her
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Speaker 1: murder is unsolved. On the twentieth of December nineteen seventy five,
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Speaker 1: a woman registered under the name of Alison Liwell jumps
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Speaker 1: from the twelfth floor window onto the second floor with
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Speaker 1: On the first of September nineteen ninety two, an African
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Speaker 1: American man who has still yet to be named, who
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Speaker 1: was fallen or pushed from the hotel's fifteenth floor, landing
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Speaker 1: in the alley behind the cecil. June thirteenth, twenty fifteen,
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Speaker 1: a twenty eight year old man who has not and identified,
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Speaker 1: passed away from falling from one of the Cecils windows.
15:05
Speaker 1: And you may be thinking, well, Katie, there's a mysterious
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Speaker 1: death you haven't mentioned. Correct, the nineteenth of February twenty thirteen,
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Speaker 1: the tragic and accidental death of Alisola. If you want
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Speaker 1: to keep believing in paranormal and dark and twisted conspiracies
15:22
Speaker 1: about her, you can just choose not to listen. But
15:26
Speaker 1: if you want to know the facts, then listen up
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Speaker 1: Delicious friends, because I've got a story for you. Also.
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Speaker 1: In addition, furthermore, before I get into anything else about this,
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Speaker 1: there's this whole idea of the Cecil Hotel being haunted,
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Speaker 1: and you actually see this repeated in media quite a lot,
15:44
Speaker 1: to the inspiration for a lot of things. You see
15:49
Speaker 1: it sort of it's the perfect place because lots of
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Speaker 1: people coming and going. If you're a lot of deaths,
15:53
Speaker 1: you expect that sort of situation. But there's not really
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Speaker 1: any like ghost sightings. Like it's not like an old
16:00
Speaker 1: manner in England. We're like, oh the old lady, No,
16:03
Speaker 1: none of that, which is weird because you would expect
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Speaker 1: somewhere to have like such a high death rate for
16:08
Speaker 1: there to be like an inkling of a ghost somewhere
16:10
Speaker 1: or ghost sighting. And it's weird as well because it's
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Speaker 1: portrayed such a way in media, like you see in
16:17
Speaker 1: a lot of like books and TV shows. I'm going
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Speaker 1: to talk about two ones that right off the top
16:22
Speaker 1: of my head, one of which is there's an episode
16:25
Speaker 1: of Angel, which is I think they when he goes
16:28
Speaker 1: to La and he moves into this hotel and the
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Speaker 1: hotel is haunted, like that's based on the Cecil. And
16:33
Speaker 1: then you have American horror story Hotel, like that's that
16:38
Speaker 1: is that's the Cecil, you know, And I think they're
16:40
Speaker 1: actually filmed in there. But yeah, that's that. But the
16:46
Speaker 1: true horror of the Cecil Hotel does not lie in
16:50
Speaker 1: its mythology. It lies in its reality. And I'm going
16:56
Speaker 1: to say it capitalism and CoP's not doing job and
17:02
Speaker 1: a company so desperate with protecting itself that it didn't
17:05
Speaker 1: let the facts out and created a conspiracy. But let
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Speaker 1: us get back to the nineteenth of February twenty thirteen.
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Speaker 1: The Cecil Hotel it had been running is partially a hotel,
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Speaker 1: partially a hostel, so it had some rooms which were
17:21
Speaker 1: like dorm rooms and some rooms were private rooms. They
17:24
Speaker 1: had permanent residents, they had like a whole lot going on.
17:28
Speaker 1: It was a relatively affordable place to stay if you
17:31
Speaker 1: were visiting la and if you're okay with being on schedule,
17:35
Speaker 1: then you were fine there. So people could rent private rooms,
17:40
Speaker 1: you could have your own space, or you could you know,
17:43
Speaker 1: bunk with strangels hostel style, and then you've got entire
17:47
Speaker 1: floors which are specifically for the permanent residents. And this
17:52
Speaker 1: again is a cheap, cheap hotel, like it's a rundown,
17:57
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff we didn't work in. It's calling
18:01
Speaker 1: it a dump would probably be an improvement. And so
18:04
Speaker 1: the staff in the hotel are quite used to receiving
18:06
Speaker 1: complaints from the guests consecutively, one after another in a row.
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Speaker 1: But on this date there is a specific complaint, not
18:16
Speaker 1: like oh there's ants in my room, or the windows
18:19
Speaker 1: going to crack in it, or the lock doesn't work. No, no, no,
18:22
Speaker 1: these are just like little tiny odd complaints. This is
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Speaker 1: the same complaint, the same issue that resident upon resident
18:33
Speaker 1: upon guest is having. There's something wrong with the water.
18:38
Speaker 1: So some are complaining that the water in the bathroom
18:40
Speaker 1: taps is coming out black, so it like starts off
18:44
Speaker 1: running like discolored and then goes to normal. Others the
18:49
Speaker 1: water pressure is like really really low, like it's not
18:52
Speaker 1: coming out properly, and some some oh, yeah, I hope
19:00
Speaker 1: we've got a strong stomach. Guys. Some people are saying
19:03
Speaker 1: that the water from the rooms is tasting weird, like
19:07
Speaker 1: it's off like kind of sweet. And because the Ceesil
19:11
Speaker 1: is getting just complaint. After complaining about the water, they
19:15
Speaker 1: send the maintenance man, Santiago Lopez, up to the roof
19:20
Speaker 1: and so he climbs to the roof of the hotel
19:23
Speaker 1: to have we look at the water tanks, because see
19:26
Speaker 1: the Ceasol has four water tanks on the roof, so
19:29
Speaker 1: it's got one large one and three smaller ones. The
19:32
Speaker 1: large one is the main supply to the building. And
19:37
Speaker 1: these water tanks are like four foot wide, they're eight
19:42
Speaker 1: foot tall, and they're up on these concrete blocks. So
19:45
Speaker 1: in order to actually get into the water tank or
19:48
Speaker 1: to get looking at it, you have to climb a ladder.
19:53
Speaker 1: And so he gets his ladder and he climbs up
19:57
Speaker 1: the main one because he's like, I'll start with the
19:59
Speaker 1: main one because that it's probably the cause of the issue.
20:01
Speaker 1: And when he gets to the top of the tank,
20:04
Speaker 1: the hatch is open. It should not be open, but
20:08
Speaker 1: it was, because that's actually health and safety concern. Water
20:13
Speaker 1: tank hatches are not supposed to be open. It's not
20:16
Speaker 1: a thing, but it's open, and inside the tank is
20:21
Speaker 1: the naked body of a woman. And it was apparent
20:25
Speaker 1: that this body had been in the water for some time.
20:29
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever seen a water logged body.
20:33
Speaker 1: I have for reasons, we're not going to get into it,
20:37
Speaker 1: but that is not something you want to see. So
20:40
Speaker 1: typically when a body is found in water, if it's
20:43
Speaker 1: been there for some time, whether it's at sea or
20:46
Speaker 1: in a lake or whatever, they do not allow you
20:50
Speaker 1: to have an open casket. Well it's not advised, like
20:53
Speaker 1: you see it with Emmett Till, specifically because his mother
20:58
Speaker 1: wanted to show the world the barbar of what had
21:02
Speaker 1: happened to her child. And even so, his body has
21:07
Speaker 1: not the worst water logging I've ever seen. It's bad,
21:12
Speaker 1: also worsened by the fact that he was brutally beaten.
21:17
Speaker 1: But there are bodies. When they're in water, it changes it,
21:23
Speaker 1: it fills the cells, is the best way I can
21:25
Speaker 1: describe it. So like in a plant, you give it water,
21:29
Speaker 1: it cells become strong, right, It builds the walls and
21:32
Speaker 1: makes it a structure. In a body, when the cells
21:35
Speaker 1: are filled with water, it makes them splushy and soft, right,
21:40
Speaker 1: that is the technical term, splushy and soft. But yes,
21:44
Speaker 1: the epidermis, which is the outer layer skin, it blisters
21:49
Speaker 1: because again it sort of fills, so it blisters and
21:52
Speaker 1: turns like a greenish black color. So like all over
21:56
Speaker 1: the body except for the feet, in hands, which becomes
22:00
Speaker 1: swollen and wrinkled and also bleached. Right. So it's like
22:06
Speaker 1: when you've been in the bath for too long and
22:07
Speaker 1: you get penny fingers like that, but so much worse.
22:12
Speaker 1: And the thing is as well, if you've been submerged
22:14
Speaker 1: for a long time, when your body is you know,
22:17
Speaker 1: submerged in water. When you die, your body fills with
22:21
Speaker 1: gas because it's decomposing. Yeah, and so you're intestines, especially
22:28
Speaker 1: you know, your chest cavity, they fill with gas in
22:31
Speaker 1: air and they make the body buoyant, which is why
22:34
Speaker 1: after like so many days weeks when a body is
22:38
Speaker 1: out at sea, when it's close to shore, things like
22:41
Speaker 1: that when it's in a lake, even bodies float to
22:46
Speaker 1: the surface. It's why the mafia would do the concrete
22:49
Speaker 1: block thing, right, It's why you would weigh a body
22:51
Speaker 1: down the bricks because the gas makes it float to
22:53
Speaker 1: the top. And so because the gas is in sort
22:56
Speaker 1: of the intestines and the gut and the chest cavity
22:59
Speaker 1: and that area that's decomposing, that's sort of the balloon
23:04
Speaker 1: part of the body. And that's why when bodies float
23:06
Speaker 1: to the surface, they do so like upside down. So
23:12
Speaker 1: you see bodies kind of starfish, but their face is
23:16
Speaker 1: facing down into the water. Now because of the way
23:21
Speaker 1: the tank is for whatever reason, the body doesn't flip like,
23:26
Speaker 1: it doesn't go face down. The body is face up.
23:30
Speaker 1: So when Santiago Lopez is looking into this tank, he
23:36
Speaker 1: is seeing a bloated dead face of a woman looking
23:42
Speaker 1: back at him. And it's pretty clear that the cause
23:46
Speaker 1: of all the water issues currently happening, and this is
23:48
Speaker 1: a hotel, is because of the decomposing body in the
23:53
Speaker 1: water tank. So emergency services are called to remove the
23:57
Speaker 1: corpse and they get there and it's not a simple
24:00
Speaker 1: is just like hoisting the body out, because if they
24:02
Speaker 1: try and take the body out, because you know it's
24:04
Speaker 1: decomposing and has been for some time. There's the possibility
24:08
Speaker 1: of sort of the joins of the bodies where things
24:12
Speaker 1: get weaker. It's why so many feet are floating in
24:14
Speaker 1: the river was over and like San Francisco, there's all
24:19
Speaker 1: these feet because that's the joint where things get weaker.
24:22
Speaker 1: So that's why so many sneakerls and stuff because they
24:24
Speaker 1: are boy into the bottom. That's why the feet are flowing.
24:28
Speaker 1: And so they're worried if they take the body out
24:30
Speaker 1: like this that parts of it are just gonna fall off,
24:33
Speaker 1: and so they have to very carefully remove the body
24:36
Speaker 1: from the tank. Now it's not just a body that's
24:40
Speaker 1: in the tank. The clothes of the women are also
24:44
Speaker 1: in the tank with her. Now, these clothes that are
24:51
Speaker 1: floating alongside her in the tank, they are covered in
24:55
Speaker 1: a substance which may or may not be sand like
24:58
Speaker 1: it's literally described as a sand like particulate. So they're like,
25:04
Speaker 1: maybe it's a substance that might be like that's it.
25:11
Speaker 1: So obviously they eventually get the body out and they
25:14
Speaker 1: have to perform an autopsy. So when there is an
25:17
Speaker 1: unusual or possibly violent death, any unusual death has to
25:22
Speaker 1: be investigated, and so they have to perform an autopsy
25:25
Speaker 1: on you know, a young woman's body that is floating
25:30
Speaker 1: in a water tank atop a hotel on skid row
25:33
Speaker 1: that that kind of fits those parameters. Now, you could
25:36
Speaker 1: be forgiven for assuming that a topsicality report wouldn't be
25:40
Speaker 1: possible for a body that had been submerged in water
25:43
Speaker 1: for three weeks, but you would be wrong because what
25:47
Speaker 1: they do is they'll not test in the bloodstream. They're
25:50
Speaker 1: actually testing the internal organs, so things like your liver,
25:54
Speaker 1: for example, which is what helps purify your body, like
25:57
Speaker 1: your kidneys, The liver really really lasts and holds onto
26:02
Speaker 1: that information long eruan say the blood would. So when
26:05
Speaker 1: they perform the autopsy and they do a toxicology report,
26:09
Speaker 1: it reveals that there are no recreational drugs in her system,
26:14
Speaker 1: and there are no traces of barbituates, opiates, amphetamines, coquaine,
26:18
Speaker 1: marijuana or MDMA, zilch zip nara, nothing right. And her
26:25
Speaker 1: blood alcohol level was only zero point two percent, which
26:30
Speaker 1: is really really typical for a body in this state
26:32
Speaker 1: of decomposition, which also shows that not only was there
26:36
Speaker 1: no recreational drugs in a system, but it meant that
26:41
Speaker 1: she didn't consume any alcohol, any booze on the day
26:45
Speaker 1: that she died, So no alcohol or recreational drugs in
26:50
Speaker 1: her system at the time of passing. And the body
26:53
Speaker 1: was also tested for signs of sexual assault and there
26:57
Speaker 1: were no signs of it. Now, Ah, yeah, here's the thing.
27:03
Speaker 1: And I'm only telling you this because people argue about
27:06
Speaker 1: it all the time. Right, the woman in the water tank,
27:10
Speaker 1: she has a pro lapped anus. Now, some people will
27:15
Speaker 1: just be bump of their gums about how this is
27:17
Speaker 1: evidence of essay. However, I would argue that this is
27:23
Speaker 1: a very typical state of decomposition, especially for a body
27:29
Speaker 1: that has been submerged in water for three bloody weeks. Anyway,
27:33
Speaker 1: the woman in the tank has no other signs of
27:38
Speaker 1: physical trauma. There's no evidence to suggest that she was
27:42
Speaker 1: harmed or attacked in any physical manner. There are no
27:46
Speaker 1: injuries on the body, there were no defensive wounds. There
27:49
Speaker 1: was nothing to suggest even that she tried to get
27:53
Speaker 1: out of the tank, you know, no chipnails, nothing like that.
27:57
Speaker 1: And so the La County Coroner determined that the death
28:01
Speaker 1: of this young woman the cause of death was accidental drowning.
28:06
Speaker 1: Everything added up to that according to their investigation. Now
28:12
Speaker 1: it does take them, I think four months to release
28:16
Speaker 1: that information, to release the autopsy report, and when they
28:19
Speaker 1: do release it, it has like amendments and corrections because
28:24
Speaker 1: the video tests THEDEO checks and they've probably rechecked it
28:27
Speaker 1: a few times because of how high profile this case became.
28:32
Speaker 1: You see, So when it is released with its corrections
28:36
Speaker 1: and alterations, there's this massive theory of a huge cover up,
28:42
Speaker 1: right when it's just people make mistakes. Consider it a
28:48
Speaker 1: little bit like when somebody goes to the doctor. Right
28:51
Speaker 1: when you go to the doctor, a lot of the
28:54
Speaker 1: time they'll test you for things in order to roll
28:56
Speaker 1: something out, and you could have the symptoms that would
29:01
Speaker 1: lead you to think something is happening, but it could
29:03
Speaker 1: be something else entirely, like anyone who's have just web
29:07
Speaker 1: Md to try and determine what is wrong with them.
29:11
Speaker 1: Like I went onto WebMD put in my symptoms and
29:15
Speaker 1: it was like you're having a heart attack, which was
29:18
Speaker 1: fun turned out I wasn't having a heart attack. I
29:22
Speaker 1: was pregnant and that was causing the same stresses in
29:26
Speaker 1: my body. So you know, this is one of those
29:28
Speaker 1: things where you know, a lot of the time when
29:32
Speaker 1: you go and you're being tested for something that you're
29:35
Speaker 1: not sure of, a lot of it is them just
29:38
Speaker 1: ruling things out. Like when you start getting headaches, the
29:42
Speaker 1: first thing they'll do is get you to get your
29:44
Speaker 1: eyes tested to make sure that it's not an ocular
29:47
Speaker 1: migrating that it's caused by that. Like it's all these
29:50
Speaker 1: kind of things where they think it might be something
29:53
Speaker 1: and they're testing things and they're double checking and they're
29:56
Speaker 1: fixing their mistakes. Yeah. So again, because of the release
30:03
Speaker 1: of how long it took them to do it, Yeah, yeah,
30:06
Speaker 1: people people started putting on their tinfoil hats instead of
30:12
Speaker 1: maybe just considering that it was just a classification error.
30:15
Speaker 1: Like if the Ela County Corner was involved in some
30:20
Speaker 1: massive conspiracy and a multi level cover up, do you
30:24
Speaker 1: not think they would have done a better job but
30:26
Speaker 1: you know, doing the autopsy report, Like do you think
30:31
Speaker 1: they would have like scored stuff out in, scribbled new
30:33
Speaker 1: bits in or would they just not have made like
30:36
Speaker 1: a new autopsy, like a fresh one and just got
30:39
Speaker 1: rid of the old one completely so there wasn't any
30:41
Speaker 1: evidence of it? Like, would that not be the smart
30:44
Speaker 1: thing to do. Are we not considering that maybe the
30:48
Speaker 1: people who do this for a living would would be
30:51
Speaker 1: smarter in covering it up. No, and not to like
30:56
Speaker 1: put too sharp of a point on it there, But like,
30:59
Speaker 1: this is not the only like suspicious slash unusual death
31:02
Speaker 1: that the La County Coroner has to deal with. Like
31:06
Speaker 1: it's La County. There's gonna be a fair few real deaths. Okay,
31:12
Speaker 1: there's going to be a fair few deaths to investigate.
31:14
Speaker 1: And I'm fairly certain, you know, but there's a considerable
31:18
Speaker 1: backlog in you know, this type of provision. And yeah,
31:23
Speaker 1: you have to remember as well that at this time
31:26
Speaker 1: this case wasn't such a big deal. It became a
31:28
Speaker 1: huge deal when the Internet grabbed it and rolled with it.
31:32
Speaker 1: But at the time, this was just one body in
31:37
Speaker 1: a sea of bodies, you know. That being said, due
31:42
Speaker 1: to her body markings, like they were able to identify
31:45
Speaker 1: her fairly quickly, which is wild because like I think
31:49
Speaker 1: if if I had to be identified like without I
31:54
Speaker 1: don't know, go ahead or something, Yeah, wow, it would
31:58
Speaker 1: be like how would you do it? Well, I've got
32:00
Speaker 1: the cancer scar, the surgery scar, I've got two of
32:03
Speaker 1: them on the side of my neck. I've got two tattoos.
32:08
Speaker 1: I've got a scar on my left hand. Yeah, I've
32:14
Speaker 1: got a scar on my left hand from when I
32:17
Speaker 1: tried to pick up a broken piggybank. Oh, I've got
32:20
Speaker 1: a mark on my stomach still from when I had
32:22
Speaker 1: to get a drip in my stomach. I've got that.
32:26
Speaker 1: And yeah, probably some freckles and molds that some very
32:30
Speaker 1: Internet people could tell you about. But yeah, yeah, I
32:33
Speaker 1: feel like my body would be fairly recognizable. But yes,
32:37
Speaker 1: because of the very specific body markings, birthmarks, etc. The
32:44
Speaker 1: coroner's office was able to identify the body fairly sharpish
32:50
Speaker 1: and the person who was found floating in the water
32:53
Speaker 1: tank of the Cecil Hotel was none other than Elisa Lamb,
32:58
Speaker 1: a twenty one year old Canadian woman who had been
33:01
Speaker 1: reported missing three weeks previously. Alisa Lamb had checked into
33:06
Speaker 1: the Seiso hotel on the twenty ninth of January twenty thirteen,
33:09
Speaker 1: and she was supposed to be staying there for three nights.
33:12
Speaker 1: This was part of her little trip around on the
33:16
Speaker 1: west coast of the US, so she was on this
33:19
Speaker 1: little solo trip. She was going on public transport, so
33:22
Speaker 1: like buses, trains, et cetera. And so she was stopping
33:26
Speaker 1: off at a bunch of cities along the way. So
33:30
Speaker 1: she arrived in the hotel, she checked into one of
33:33
Speaker 1: the dorms. So she's in a room with I think
33:36
Speaker 1: three other people. Oh, and like it's sort of, I
33:39
Speaker 1: want to say, like a hostel situation. So you kind
33:43
Speaker 1: of book a shared room and whoever you're lumped in
33:46
Speaker 1: there with, you're lumped in there with. And sometimes you
33:49
Speaker 1: get like very nice roommates, and sometimes you get roommates
33:53
Speaker 1: who are not quite who you want to be sharing
33:56
Speaker 1: a room with. So Alisa she ends up being moved,
34:02
Speaker 1: She gets upgraded to a single room. She gets moved
34:05
Speaker 1: to a room on her own after one night because
34:10
Speaker 1: her roommates complain to the Cecil hotel management about her
34:14
Speaker 1: odd behavior. And like that's a direct quote. Their quote
34:18
Speaker 1: is odd behavior. Now this is a hostel slash hotel
34:24
Speaker 1: on schedrow, Like people are sharing dorms and schedule. Like
34:29
Speaker 1: you're not expecting much from that scenario. And here's the thing.
34:34
Speaker 1: I've shared hostels with somewhere individuals. But like, how odd
34:40
Speaker 1: quote does someone's behavior have to be in order for
34:45
Speaker 1: you to like want to get them moved out of
34:47
Speaker 1: your room, Like what are you doing? Like that's a
34:51
Speaker 1: level of something if all of the other roommates are complaining.
34:56
Speaker 1: So the remaining two nights she has her own room. Okay, Now,
35:01
Speaker 1: she calls her family every single day of this trip,
35:05
Speaker 1: like without fail, she calls back home in Canada. But
35:10
Speaker 1: on what's supposed to be the last day of her stay,
35:12
Speaker 1: the day she's supposed to check out, the thirty first
35:14
Speaker 1: of January, Lisa does not call home and straight away
35:19
Speaker 1: her parents, David and Nina, they fill a missing person
35:23
Speaker 1: report with the LPED, like right away. So when they
35:27
Speaker 1: do discover the body floating in the tank, they already
35:30
Speaker 1: had Elisa on their system. It wasn't going to make
35:34
Speaker 1: it difficult for the ELPED to identify her. And the
35:38
Speaker 1: thing is as well when she was reported missing because
35:42
Speaker 1: her last known address, her last known location was the
35:45
Speaker 1: Seas Hotel. That was the first place the ELPD looked. Now,
35:51
Speaker 1: this is a bit of a sticky wicket because legally
35:55
Speaker 1: there were only so many parts of the hotel they
35:58
Speaker 1: were able to investigate because it's a whole legal situation.
36:04
Speaker 1: So because there are permanent residents and it's not just
36:07
Speaker 1: a hotel. Like, if it's just a hotel, then the
36:10
Speaker 1: temporary rooms can all be searched fairly sharpished, right, But
36:15
Speaker 1: when you've got someone in a permanent address, I think
36:19
Speaker 1: an individual warrant is required for each of those sort
36:22
Speaker 1: of apartments kind of, so like it's a whole it's
36:26
Speaker 1: a whole legal bigmarole. So effectively they're searching as much
36:30
Speaker 1: of the Cecil Hotel as they physically could, Like they
36:34
Speaker 1: even brought their dogs in, so the police dogs they
36:38
Speaker 1: couldn't pick up her scent, like, they weren't able to
36:42
Speaker 1: find it around the hotel, which isn't hard because like
36:45
Speaker 1: that's that's an area where there's going to be a
36:47
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of snalls going on. There's gonna
36:49
Speaker 1: be a lot of sensory overload for those dogs, I think,
36:54
Speaker 1: And also legally there was a certain parts they couldn't
36:56
Speaker 1: go into, so it wasn't exactly the most thorough and
37:00
Speaker 1: clearly they didn't get up onto the roof because well
37:05
Speaker 1: they had no reason to assume the roof and so
37:09
Speaker 1: without any like actual leads, the police get CCTV footage
37:14
Speaker 1: of Alisa Lamb at the Seacil hotel and it's on
37:19
Speaker 1: the first of February. It's recorded in the first of February,
37:22
Speaker 1: which was no, the first of February, the day she's
37:24
Speaker 1: supposed to check out the hotel. But yeah, she hadn't
37:27
Speaker 1: found her parents on the thirty first, and she was
37:30
Speaker 1: supposed to check out on the first. That's right there
37:33
Speaker 1: we go back on track. So yes, yeah, because it's
37:37
Speaker 1: so weird and it's grainy old footage, and the issue
37:40
Speaker 1: is right, the reason the footage is grainy is because,
37:45
Speaker 1: like many businesses, the Cecil Hotel refused to upgrade its
37:50
Speaker 1: fucking camera equipment. Like here's the thing we've all seen,
37:54
Speaker 1: like the doorbell cameras and stuff, which has like like
37:59
Speaker 1: HD quality like imagery in twenty thirteen. There is absolutely
38:04
Speaker 1: no reason for CCTV footage to be this grainy, Like
38:09
Speaker 1: it's literally just because they're so cheap they didn't want
38:12
Speaker 1: to upgrade it. And you see this with a lot
38:14
Speaker 1: of businesses. Whenever you see like really shit CCTV, it's
38:18
Speaker 1: literally because it's a shit camera when it's not that
38:22
Speaker 1: expensive to have a higher quality camera, Like my iPhone
38:27
Speaker 1: has better like camera, Like it's fine, my old iPhone
38:32
Speaker 1: I my iPhone eleven, right, that has a better camera
38:35
Speaker 1: on it than most of these CCTVs like that that
38:39
Speaker 1: should not be the case, Like it's not that expensive,
38:43
Speaker 1: not for a business, not for a fucking hotel, like
38:46
Speaker 1: not when you know safety and security should be a
38:50
Speaker 1: main priority, you know what I mean. But yes, this
38:53
Speaker 1: is something that stent the endnet sloths up on a tizzy.
38:57
Speaker 1: It was all over read it four chan. It's something
39:01
Speaker 1: that I watched I remember back in the day because
39:05
Speaker 1: it was very unnerving and it's very it's creepy because
39:12
Speaker 1: we know what happens to her, and that's what I
39:16
Speaker 1: think is the unnerving part of it. But like, if
39:19
Speaker 1: you watch this footage and you're told, oh, this is
39:22
Speaker 1: just a girl, she's going to meet her family later
39:24
Speaker 1: in the day. This is her in the lift, right,
39:28
Speaker 1: it's significantly less creepy. So I'm gonna have to like
39:35
Speaker 1: describe this and this footage when I first watched it
39:39
Speaker 1: skilled like the crap of me. My hebees well geewied.
39:44
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, like absolutely one hundred percent. And
39:48
Speaker 1: so she's in the left the elevator, if you will,
39:53
Speaker 1: and she's acting really fucking wild, right, she is she's
39:58
Speaker 1: kind of making weird movements. She's pressing a lot of buttons,
40:02
Speaker 1: and at one point she's like hiding and then popping
40:06
Speaker 1: out and like looking into the corridor, which we cannot
40:09
Speaker 1: really see into by the way. We can only see
40:11
Speaker 1: the inside really of the elevator, and so she's kind
40:16
Speaker 1: of like pushing all the buttons and she's poken her
40:20
Speaker 1: head out and poken back in. And the thing is,
40:24
Speaker 1: to me, right when I watch that, it looks like
40:27
Speaker 1: she's playing, Like it's as if you're doing peekaboo with someone,
40:33
Speaker 1: like like if there was a kid in the hallway
40:35
Speaker 1: and she was doing a little peekaboo and coming back,
40:38
Speaker 1: and like that makes sense to me. Like I know
40:42
Speaker 1: that people say that she looks like terrified and scared,
40:48
Speaker 1: but I don't. I don't think she's scared. It just
40:52
Speaker 1: looks like she's kind of messing about, right to me. Now,
40:57
Speaker 1: I think you take from it what you put in it,
41:01
Speaker 1: Like if you expect that it's going to be scary,
41:03
Speaker 1: you watch it and be terrified, you know. So yeah,
41:11
Speaker 1: when the LAPD release it, because they release the footage
41:15
Speaker 1: because they don't have any leads there, thinking maybe somebody
41:17
Speaker 1: sees what's going on, because lest we forget, at this
41:21
Speaker 1: point in time, Elisa is simply a missing person and
41:26
Speaker 1: so they want to find her, like that is the
41:28
Speaker 1: whole purpose of releasing this tape. And if they're watching
41:32
Speaker 1: it and they think if something's gone wrong, yeah, they
41:36
Speaker 1: might be thinking, oh, what if somebody's chasing or what
41:38
Speaker 1: if she's hiding from somebody, and so what if they
41:41
Speaker 1: do that? And so the laped they release the CCTV
41:46
Speaker 1: footage like five days before her body is discovered, So
41:52
Speaker 1: the thirteenth of February, right, and they release it hoping
41:56
Speaker 1: that someone's gonna recognize her or they're going to know
41:58
Speaker 1: where she's been and gonna be able to find this
42:01
Speaker 1: missing woman. But no one comes forward, no one notifies,
42:06
Speaker 1: nothing happens. However, it does happen to go absolutely viral.
42:12
Speaker 1: And I remember, this is a greeny ass bloody video.
42:14
Speaker 1: It's it's crappy, it's pre quality, and because of the
42:18
Speaker 1: way it's recorded, because like the numbers in the bottom,
42:21
Speaker 1: people argue that like people are like suspicious about it
42:26
Speaker 1: and that they think that bits of it have been
42:27
Speaker 1: cut out and stuff, and it's it's not It's just
42:31
Speaker 1: a really really shitty quality, like that's all it is.
42:35
Speaker 1: So yeah, she's and the elevator. She probably explained this better.
42:38
Speaker 1: And she gets like really close to like the bit
42:42
Speaker 1: with all the buttons, and she presses them like very particularly,
42:48
Speaker 1: like she's very careful with it, and she's very slow
42:52
Speaker 1: and deliberate, like she's making very deliberate movements, and she's
42:58
Speaker 1: not panicking, she's not flurried. She's just pressing all of
43:04
Speaker 1: these buttons like she's not whacking it or being flimsy.
43:08
Speaker 1: She's just hitting all these buttons. And then the lift
43:13
Speaker 1: doors elevator, those doors don't close because normally you hit
43:18
Speaker 1: a button, you press closed door and they close. Now again,
43:23
Speaker 1: I would like to reiterate that this is a very
43:25
Speaker 1: shitty hotel which doesn't even have quality cameras. What makes
43:29
Speaker 1: you think it's going to have a quality elevator. So
43:32
Speaker 1: she's pressed all these buttons, the doors haven't closed, and
43:35
Speaker 1: so she's kind of pacing. She sort of walks around
43:41
Speaker 1: inside like steps to the front, sort of kind of
43:45
Speaker 1: towards the door, looks out, looks down the corridor, and
43:49
Speaker 1: then she's suddenly like boom, sort of just back right
43:54
Speaker 1: as if she's hiding, as if she's hiding, and I
43:59
Speaker 1: like steps out, looks through, looks down, comes back in,
44:04
Speaker 1: and then she kind of goes into the corner of
44:06
Speaker 1: it and then moves to the side and like and
44:09
Speaker 1: she's like pressing herself up against the wall like of
44:13
Speaker 1: the elevator, and she's just kind of as if she's hiding, right,
44:17
Speaker 1: as if somebody goes past and they might not see
44:19
Speaker 1: her because she's right against the wall. And then she
44:24
Speaker 1: does this wee little step, the sort of side step,
44:28
Speaker 1: which is a very a very like dancer movement. It's
44:32
Speaker 1: like a little papa and that tast the weird. That's
44:37
Speaker 1: a very deliberate movement. It's not again a panic movement.
44:41
Speaker 1: It's a very deliberate, you know. And this whole movement,
44:46
Speaker 1: this whole like thing that she's doing, to me, it
44:49
Speaker 1: looks like she's doing hide and seek, right, That's what
44:53
Speaker 1: it feels like to me, Like she's kind of messing about.
44:57
Speaker 1: I find it very playful as opposed to like scary.
45:03
Speaker 1: And then Alisa Lamb actually goes out of the elevator right,
45:09
Speaker 1: and like you can't see what else is out there
45:12
Speaker 1: because of the way the camera is you couldn't see
45:15
Speaker 1: if there was another person in the corridor, if there
45:17
Speaker 1: was another person in the corridor, because it looks like
45:21
Speaker 1: she's talking to someone, like she's she's moving her arm,
45:25
Speaker 1: she's it's as if she is talking to someone. But
45:28
Speaker 1: again we don't have that information because it's a really
45:31
Speaker 1: fucking crappy camera and so seems like she's chatting away
45:35
Speaker 1: to someone, like once she's like stepped out of the lift,
45:39
Speaker 1: like the doors like opening close a few times, which
45:42
Speaker 1: again I think it's just a shitty lift. I think
45:45
Speaker 1: it's just a crappy, crappy lift and a crappy building.
45:50
Speaker 1: So this CCTV footage from the first to February twenty thirteen,
45:54
Speaker 1: this is the last footage we have of Alisa Lamb
45:58
Speaker 1: being alive. Now, the last time she was physically seen
46:02
Speaker 1: by somebody was the day before the thirty first of January.
46:09
Speaker 1: She had gone down to this book shop owned by
46:12
Speaker 1: Kate Orphan. She had gone into the bookshop by like
46:16
Speaker 1: souvenirs for her family and some books. And there wasn't
46:20
Speaker 1: ething suspicious about her behavior. She wasn't acting odd or
46:24
Speaker 1: there was nothing that worried Kate Orphan Alisa was chatty,
46:29
Speaker 1: she was bubbly. Her main area of concern was how
46:35
Speaker 1: difficult it was going to be to carry all these
46:37
Speaker 1: souvenirs back to her family, because she wasn't just worried
46:41
Speaker 1: about what she'd already picked up. She was thinking about,
46:45
Speaker 1: you know, the next thing she picks up on her trip,
46:47
Speaker 1: next city she goes to, Like how she going to
46:49
Speaker 1: make sure she gets all of these things back to
46:52
Speaker 1: her family. I remember that was something they brought up
46:55
Speaker 1: in like therapy, way back when, and it was future plans.
47:01
Speaker 1: Like having a future plan is something that keeps you
47:07
Speaker 1: like tethered to this earth, you know, it stops you
47:12
Speaker 1: from exiting the mortal coil. And Alisa was happy. She
47:18
Speaker 1: was planning her next steps of her trip. She was
47:21
Speaker 1: thinking about the souvenirs because remember she is due to
47:25
Speaker 1: check out the hotel the very next day, so she's
47:28
Speaker 1: thinking about what she's going to do. But mental health,
47:31
Speaker 1: it's it's not a one size fits all and it's
47:35
Speaker 1: all too easy for the coin to flip. It's kind
47:41
Speaker 1: of how nervousness and excitement are two sides of the
47:43
Speaker 1: same coin, and mental illness isn't logical, It's not rational.
47:49
Speaker 1: And Alisa she had a history of mental illness. She
47:53
Speaker 1: had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And the thing about
47:57
Speaker 1: bipolar is is that used to be called manic depression, right,
48:01
Speaker 1: And the reason being is you had these two polar opposites,
48:05
Speaker 1: so you would have this very like low, this massive lull,
48:10
Speaker 1: this deep depressive state, and then on the flip side,
48:15
Speaker 1: you would have this absolutely manic, excited sort of drive
48:19
Speaker 1: where you could do something really wild. You know. You
48:22
Speaker 1: had these two very different like states of being, and
48:27
Speaker 1: that's where the idea of manic depressive came in. And
48:30
Speaker 1: because of that polarization between these two states of being
48:34
Speaker 1: is where we have the the new GM really of bipolar.
48:39
Speaker 1: So like two polar opposites. Yeah, and Alissa she had
48:43
Speaker 1: been dealing with treatment for this for a long time
48:45
Speaker 1: and she was actually on I think four different medications,
48:51
Speaker 1: maybe five, I think it was five. Then the vaccine,
48:54
Speaker 1: which is an antidepressant, dextra dene which is a dexter
48:59
Speaker 1: amfetaminel fate which is used to treat ADHD depression, arcolepsy, obesity,
49:06
Speaker 1: and also to help reduce like certain symptoms of schizophrenia.
49:11
Speaker 1: A motrogen which is a mood stabilizer and also used
49:16
Speaker 1: to treat acute depression, quatiopene which is an atypical antipsychotic
49:21
Speaker 1: used for the treatment of bipolar depression and schizophrenia, and
49:29
Speaker 1: well bututrin, which is just another atypical antidepressant so typically
49:35
Speaker 1: for like major depressive disorders. So basically she's on a
49:41
Speaker 1: collection of SSRIs and mood stabilizers specifically to manage bipolar disorder.
49:48
Speaker 1: And the whole purpose of these medications is to keep
49:50
Speaker 1: Alise a lamb on an even queue, nothing more than that.
49:55
Speaker 1: Just like she wasn't known for having suicidal idiations, like
49:58
Speaker 1: that wasn't like a part of her known depressive states
50:05
Speaker 1: when she was in those depressive states which you know
50:08
Speaker 1: are part of her by whole disorder. And I see,
50:12
Speaker 1: Elisa is often listed as a student of the University
50:17
Speaker 1: of British Columbia, but she hadn't been registered for any
50:20
Speaker 1: classes in twenty thirteen because just before Christmas in twenty twelve,
50:26
Speaker 1: she had just stopped going to school because of just
50:32
Speaker 1: these severe depressive episodes. You know, it was very difficult
50:38
Speaker 1: for her, and as such she just she just couldn't go.
50:43
Speaker 1: It just wasn't something she was able to do, and
50:47
Speaker 1: she was always very honest and open about her depressions,
50:51
Speaker 1: like she posted about it on her tumbler, Like she
50:54
Speaker 1: was always very open. And I think that's something that's
50:58
Speaker 1: very interesting with people who online, is sometimes you are
51:02
Speaker 1: so open, like with this audience who don't see you,
51:08
Speaker 1: then you are with the people who are closest to
51:11
Speaker 1: in your life, like you're so open to all of
51:14
Speaker 1: this and yet so private in another way. But yeah,
51:19
Speaker 1: she's very very honest talking about her by polar disorder
51:24
Speaker 1: on her little tumbler blog Novelle Novaue, like she had
51:28
Speaker 1: one before that, and then she just kind of got
51:31
Speaker 1: rid of it to do this, And so it's it's,
51:34
Speaker 1: you know, her talking about her life being so honest.
51:38
Speaker 1: And then also these like Ruth Wilson gifts and then
51:42
Speaker 1: you've got like fashion posts and stuff like that. And yeah,
51:49
Speaker 1: I don't also want to blame the fact that she
51:52
Speaker 1: has by poor disorder, that she has a mental illness
51:54
Speaker 1: and as such, like there's this blame on her or
51:59
Speaker 1: her family or anybody. And also just because you have
52:03
Speaker 1: a mental illness, because you live with a condition, it
52:07
Speaker 1: doesn't automatically mean that you're gonna like run away from
52:10
Speaker 1: home or do something crazy like, that's not a thing.
52:16
Speaker 1: You're not automatically more likely to do something terrible to
52:21
Speaker 1: yourself because you have a mental illness. There are many
52:26
Speaker 1: people out there who do not have sort of conditions
52:30
Speaker 1: or disorders or mental illnesses who do terrible things to
52:35
Speaker 1: themselves all the time, just because you know, human nature
52:40
Speaker 1: makes people do shit sometimes. And also it's far too
52:44
Speaker 1: easy to just go, well, she has a mental illness,
52:48
Speaker 1: so like, let's not investigate like fucking no, like rule
52:53
Speaker 1: out every other possibility. Absolutely, but you have to rule
52:57
Speaker 1: out every possibility. You have to consider what is true
53:03
Speaker 1: and what realistically happened. And yes, so she was prescribed
53:09
Speaker 1: all these medications, but when they did the toxicology report,
53:14
Speaker 1: there was none of that in her system either, well
53:18
Speaker 1: I say none. There was like traces of I think
53:22
Speaker 1: the mood stabilizer, but she had completely stopped taking the antidepressants,
53:27
Speaker 1: like there was a little bit of one, but none
53:29
Speaker 1: of the rest, And so there definitely wasn't enough as
53:34
Speaker 1: far as they could tell from the medicine that was
53:37
Speaker 1: left in her room. It seemed as though she was
53:40
Speaker 1: trying to wean herself off and this is an issue
53:43
Speaker 1: with mental illness. This is an issue with anybody who
53:47
Speaker 1: has to go through these ebbs and flows. Is that
53:51
Speaker 1: you think, for a while, oh, I'm doing really well.
53:55
Speaker 1: If I'm doing really well, maybe I don't need a medicine,
53:58
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't need it, and then you don't take it,
54:02
Speaker 1: and then it flips something in your brain and next
54:07
Speaker 1: thing you know, you're very unwell. And so when her
54:10
Speaker 1: parents see the way she's acting on this CCTV, this
54:15
Speaker 1: is not a way she's ever acted. So there's always
54:19
Speaker 1: the possibility that there has been some kind of break
54:23
Speaker 1: and instead of her talking to a real person and
54:27
Speaker 1: not a ghost either, by the way, that she's having
54:30
Speaker 1: some kind of auditory or visual hallucination. And by the way,
54:36
Speaker 1: that's an interesting thing is that you're more likely to
54:38
Speaker 1: have auditory hallscinations, like you're wanting to hear something that
54:42
Speaker 1: isn't there, than you are to see something that isn't there.
54:47
Speaker 1: And remember, she was acting in such an odd way
54:52
Speaker 1: that all of her roommates in her little dorm wanted
54:57
Speaker 1: her gone. So something something isn't right here. And Alissa,
55:03
Speaker 1: she posts everything on her blog, right, she posts these
55:08
Speaker 1: deep thoughts he talks about the breakup she had with
55:10
Speaker 1: her boyfriend. She talks about how depression has been affecting her,
55:16
Speaker 1: and if she was planning to do something, if she
55:20
Speaker 1: was planning to inter life, like, you can schedule Tumblr
55:24
Speaker 1: posts for like up to a year, like up to
55:28
Speaker 1: a year in advance. So if she was planning to
55:32
Speaker 1: do something, she probably would have blocked about it on
55:36
Speaker 1: her tumbler and she would have sent like a digital suicide. No, like,
55:41
Speaker 1: if this was a plan, if this was predetermined, if
55:43
Speaker 1: this was something she was looking to do, because you
55:47
Speaker 1: can do that, you can schedule it. And she had
55:52
Speaker 1: posts scheduled, so she had things rebloged like thirteen months
55:57
Speaker 1: after her death. And this is why people like thirty months. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
56:04
Speaker 1: because when it was scheduled, and so people think that like, oh,
56:09
Speaker 1: it's spooky, she's talking to us beyond the grave. No,
56:12
Speaker 1: she just knows how to use a scheduler. And there
56:15
Speaker 1: were certain stuff she wanted to reblog, and it's all
56:17
Speaker 1: like it's Valentine's Day, here's the thing, you know, like
56:20
Speaker 1: there's there's a reason for that. And yeah, if she
56:27
Speaker 1: was going to do anything, she would have blogged about it.
56:31
Speaker 1: There would have been something. But another thing that makes
56:36
Speaker 1: peoples aspicious is like her phone is missing. But again,
56:41
Speaker 1: this is schedule. If she lost her phone somewhere, somebody
56:45
Speaker 1: picked it up, right, somebody picked up that phone because
56:50
Speaker 1: they're gonna sell it, they're gonna use it, they're gonna
56:52
Speaker 1: do something with it. But yeah, people complain that the
56:55
Speaker 1: reason her phone is missing is because it's a conspiracy.
56:58
Speaker 1: YadA YadA, no e Liz a phone schedule, someone's neck
57:03
Speaker 1: in it. I had the big question that people ask
57:06
Speaker 1: when it comes to Alisa Lamb and the Cecil Hotel
57:09
Speaker 1: is how the hell did she get up on the
57:11
Speaker 1: roof because it should not be accessible and staff are
57:16
Speaker 1: the only people that can get through the alarmed door.
57:19
Speaker 1: At least that's what the manager of the time, Amy Price,
57:22
Speaker 1: said over and over again. She made it very clear
57:25
Speaker 1: that there was no access up to that roof. And
57:29
Speaker 1: even like the guy who was running the hotel's alarm system,
57:34
Speaker 1: the engineer he was dealing with that, he's like, oh,
57:36
Speaker 1: the alarms are great and they're when Phil working or
57:39
Speaker 1: they were all tibery top I captain. Except here's here's
57:43
Speaker 1: the thing. The roof was accessible by fire escape which
57:48
Speaker 1: is one option, but also loads of people, loads of
57:55
Speaker 1: people have come forward and said that they've been able
57:57
Speaker 1: to get to the roof, like there was even and
58:00
Speaker 1: there was some jury I remember was staying in the hotel.
58:02
Speaker 1: He filmed himself going up to the roof and getting
58:06
Speaker 1: onto it, like going through the door. Now he was
58:09
Speaker 1: saying that he'd gone there by accident and he'd gone
58:12
Speaker 1: through the first time, and so he filmed it, you know.
58:16
Speaker 1: And then staff members started coming forward saying that the
58:19
Speaker 1: door wasn't alarmed, and the reason that they knew that
58:22
Speaker 1: is because they used to go up there for their
58:24
Speaker 1: smoke brakes, and so it was like really easy to
58:26
Speaker 1: get on the roof, and because it had been broken
58:29
Speaker 1: and it hadn't been fixed that yet, they were able
58:31
Speaker 1: to go do that. And here you have this woman
58:35
Speaker 1: who should not have made it up to the roof.
58:38
Speaker 1: But as we know from all the videos that we've
58:40
Speaker 1: seen on YouTube and from all the testimony from x staff, yeah,
58:45
Speaker 1: fairly simple for her to get up on that roof.
58:49
Speaker 1: And then you have the next question, how the hell
58:51
Speaker 1: did she get in the tank? Now, first thing's first,
58:56
Speaker 1: something we have to cover again said it before and
59:01
Speaker 1: I'll say it again. The hatch on the water tank
59:06
Speaker 1: was open. Again, it's reported that it was closed. Now, Santiago,
59:12
Speaker 1: the man who discovered Elisa's body, he didn't speak English,
59:17
Speaker 1: and the police officers did not think, you know, they
59:20
Speaker 1: did not think to maybe get a proper translator in.
59:23
Speaker 1: They didn't do their due diligence. They didn't do their
59:26
Speaker 1: jobs right, and so when the interview hit him, right,
59:32
Speaker 1: they didn't know the hatch was open, but it was.
59:35
Speaker 1: And yeah, again, if you're trying to hide a body, right,
59:39
Speaker 1: people say like it must be a member of staff
59:41
Speaker 1: because of how she cout up on the roof or ABC.
59:44
Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, that's why they put it in
59:46
Speaker 1: a water tank that you know, anybody would figure that
59:50
Speaker 1: bodies decompose like and stuff's going to grong without water.
59:55
Speaker 1: But also, if you're hiding a body and you don't
59:58
Speaker 1: want people to see it, wouldn't you close the lid
1:00:01
Speaker 1: of the tank, Like, wouldn't you close the hatch? It
1:00:05
Speaker 1: feels like step one, you know. But yes, that's why
1:00:09
Speaker 1: people think it's foul play. That's why they think that
1:00:11
Speaker 1: she was attacked because it's assumed even though it's not
1:00:18
Speaker 1: it's assumed that the lid of the tank was closed,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: and it's Santiago Lopez who in his deposition states that
1:00:28
Speaker 1: when he finds her body, the hatch was open. And
1:00:33
Speaker 1: Santiago Lopez, he needed a ladder to get into that
1:00:37
Speaker 1: tank because it's high up. It's high up in anybody
1:00:40
Speaker 1: who wanted to get in that tank, they would need
1:00:42
Speaker 1: the ladder. But in order to see into the tank,
1:00:46
Speaker 1: you would have to be like at the top of
1:00:48
Speaker 1: that ladder. So if you're on the riff and you're
1:00:52
Speaker 1: a staff member and you see a ladder there, like
1:00:55
Speaker 1: the ladder moved, you moved it from tank to tank,
1:00:58
Speaker 1: or you moved it around the building when you needed it.
1:01:01
Speaker 1: So he had to go get the ladder. But it's
1:01:04
Speaker 1: been three weeks that her body's been in there, So
1:01:07
Speaker 1: over the course of that three weeks, chances are somebody
1:01:10
Speaker 1: needed a ladder because there's a punch of shit going
1:01:13
Speaker 1: wrong in that hotel. Something's going to need some maintenance,
1:01:16
Speaker 1: you know, And like there's a bunch of reasons why
1:01:19
Speaker 1: someone would move or want a ladder. And so let's
1:01:22
Speaker 1: go back to Alisa for a second. I know that
1:01:25
Speaker 1: i'd mentioned her medication earlier. But when they get the
1:01:30
Speaker 1: toxicqology report, it shows that the only drug in her
1:01:34
Speaker 1: system is vnoflexing, Like she took that on the day
1:01:38
Speaker 1: she died. But her antidepressants, her mood stabilizers, the rest
1:01:43
Speaker 1: of them, there's very little trace of them in her body, right,
1:01:49
Speaker 1: so she stopped taking them like a little while before
1:01:52
Speaker 1: she died. And so, yeah, it's like I said earlier,
1:01:56
Speaker 1: it's that whole thing of leaning yourself off. And yeah,
1:02:00
Speaker 1: the antipsychotic actually wasn't in her system at all, so
1:02:03
Speaker 1: she hadn't stopped taking that. So it is quite possible
1:02:11
Speaker 1: Alisa had stopped taking her antipsychotics and as a result
1:02:16
Speaker 1: experienced a manic episode, which would explain her behavior, you know,
1:02:22
Speaker 1: in the elevator and why she was chatting to someone
1:02:24
Speaker 1: who wasn't there, and also why she was moved from
1:02:30
Speaker 1: her room. Occasionally, people who have bipolar disorder sometimes have
1:02:38
Speaker 1: auditory or visual hallucinations, which is why sometimes people who
1:02:42
Speaker 1: have bipolar are misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. And I know that
1:02:50
Speaker 1: like the very peculiar movement that Alisa has, I've seen
1:02:55
Speaker 1: people suggest that it's like psychomotor agitation. But that's kind
1:02:59
Speaker 1: of more sharp, it's going to flay, it's more could
1:03:04
Speaker 1: have aggressive, But she's making very deliberate movements. So I
1:03:08
Speaker 1: don't think that's the case. But yet here's here's what
1:03:12
Speaker 1: I feel is what really happened to Alisa. Lam Alsa
1:03:18
Speaker 1: stops taking her anto psychotics and then her mood stabilizers,
1:03:23
Speaker 1: followed by her antidepressants until there's just one left, only
1:03:28
Speaker 1: one that she's taking, and then she suffers a severe
1:03:33
Speaker 1: manic episode. And as a result of this manic episode,
1:03:39
Speaker 1: Alisa finds her way onto the roof and then she
1:03:42
Speaker 1: climbs into the water tank. Water tanks are smooth on
1:03:47
Speaker 1: the inside. There's no internal ladders, there's no way to
1:03:50
Speaker 1: get out. It's not intended for that. It's not intended
1:03:53
Speaker 1: for dipping, and so there's no way in there. And
1:03:59
Speaker 1: unless the water level rises, you're not getting out of there.
1:04:04
Speaker 1: Because if the water level was higher or the tank
1:04:07
Speaker 1: was full, she'd have an option. And the thing is,
1:04:11
Speaker 1: people talk about how she's naked in the tank and
1:04:14
Speaker 1: how it's suspicious, but I don't know. If you've ever
1:04:19
Speaker 1: been trapped in water, one of the first things you
1:04:22
Speaker 1: do is try and peel your layers off, you try
1:04:24
Speaker 1: and remove the weight because your clothes are water logged,
1:04:28
Speaker 1: it's pulling you down. So whether she went unintentionally and
1:04:33
Speaker 1: thought that this was a good idea for a swim
1:04:35
Speaker 1: in whatever state she was in, and she's removing her
1:04:39
Speaker 1: clothes so that she can float, or whether she's removing
1:04:44
Speaker 1: her clothes so that she can try and swim and survive,
1:04:48
Speaker 1: we'll never know. But the idea that someone managed to
1:04:53
Speaker 1: get her up and into the tank is difficult in itself.
1:04:58
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, you've got the ladder issue.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: How do you carry someone up that ladder and then
1:05:03
Speaker 1: get them into the tank and do all that without
1:05:06
Speaker 1: leaving a trace of evidence anywhere, Like you would have
1:05:12
Speaker 1: DNA somewhere like across the surface of the tank. It
1:05:18
Speaker 1: would be on the top of it, surely, because your
1:05:21
Speaker 1: body would drop against it. You would have trace DNA.
1:05:25
Speaker 1: There would be something. And considering she died in the tank,
1:05:31
Speaker 1: to assume that there wouldn't be anything under her, because
1:05:35
Speaker 1: imagine she's a dead weight. Right If she's a dead
1:05:37
Speaker 1: weight and you're putting in the tank because she's unconscious,
1:05:40
Speaker 1: even though there's nothing in her system that she could
1:05:43
Speaker 1: have been drugged byether. She would have had to be
1:05:45
Speaker 1: made unconscious without doing anything physical to her. There would
1:05:50
Speaker 1: be some kind of defensive wouind if she was alive,
1:05:53
Speaker 1: she would have something, or she would have skin, even
1:05:57
Speaker 1: under her fingernails. But there's no prince, there's no DNA,
1:06:02
Speaker 1: there's nothing there apart from what she left. She got
1:06:07
Speaker 1: on that tank on her own, and no one had
1:06:09
Speaker 1: been up on the roof to disrupt any fingerprints, like
1:06:13
Speaker 1: no one had been there, nobody had looked in those
1:06:15
Speaker 1: tanks because somebody would have reported that. And the passing
1:06:21
Speaker 1: of Alisa Lamb is just a tragic accident, a horrible
1:06:28
Speaker 1: accident that could have been prevented, possibly if the hotel
1:06:32
Speaker 1: had done its due diligence. But this is a story
1:06:35
Speaker 1: of a woman trapped in a water tank unable to escape,
1:06:40
Speaker 1: not paranormal ghostis not sinister serial killers, but a woman
1:06:46
Speaker 1: suffering a tragic death at twenty one years old. Twenty one.
1:06:51
Speaker 1: And the reason we chase these conspiracies because people don't
1:06:55
Speaker 1: like messy. People want an explanation, they want a reasoning.
1:07:00
Speaker 1: They want someone to blame. They want someone to blame,
1:07:03
Speaker 1: and that's why these conspiracy theories exist. They want a villain,
1:07:07
Speaker 1: someone they can pin it all on. And when you
1:07:11
Speaker 1: add this to the fact that this is peak Internet obsession.
1:07:17
Speaker 1: You know, the way that the video was released and
1:07:20
Speaker 1: the way people clung onto it, and because of how
1:07:22
Speaker 1: odd her behavior isn't it, people latched onto it and
1:07:26
Speaker 1: it unfurled on the Internet, and this led to an
1:07:30
Speaker 1: even greater obsession. Even now, there are message boards full
1:07:34
Speaker 1: of stuff about Alisa Lam, so many conspiracies and instead
1:07:40
Speaker 1: of just letting it go, like her family have asked,
1:07:43
Speaker 1: when they have accepted the tragic demise of their daughter.
1:07:51
Speaker 1: In September of that year, the year she passed, her
1:07:54
Speaker 1: parents attempted to sue the CSO Hotel for negligence that
1:07:58
Speaker 1: led to the wrongful death of Lisa, but you know,
1:08:04
Speaker 1: ends up being dismissed because the hotel says, like there
1:08:06
Speaker 1: is no possible way anyone could have prevented or known
1:08:10
Speaker 1: that Lisa was going to like get into the tank,
1:08:13
Speaker 1: and no one has ever been able to, like tangibly
1:08:16
Speaker 1: prove how a Lisa got up on that roof, and
1:08:22
Speaker 1: so the hotel can't be held liable until someone can
1:08:27
Speaker 1: even though we've got evidence of people going up onto
1:08:30
Speaker 1: the roof, like through the door and through fire escapes.
1:08:34
Speaker 1: The door wasn't alarmed, the police didn't do their due diligence,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: and a hotel lied to save it's ass. And that's it.
1:08:44
Speaker 1: That's it, and it's a tragic situation. A young woman
1:08:50
Speaker 1: died because she was on her medication and then she
1:08:54
Speaker 1: wasn't and a few things lined up in such a
1:08:59
Speaker 1: way that led her to climb inside a water tank
1:09:03
Speaker 1: where she died. And instead of owning up to how
1:09:08
Speaker 1: it happened, by acting like they're blameless, the season hotel
1:09:15
Speaker 1: have created this mystery. You know, they've created conspiracies, and
1:09:19
Speaker 1: they have cheapened her death by allowing the twisted tails
1:09:23
Speaker 1: and the ghosties and all that nonsense. And so ends
1:09:28
Speaker 1: the tragic story of Alisa Lam And oh god, I'm
1:09:33
Speaker 1: not going to say if you like the story, because
1:09:35
Speaker 1: you don't like it. It's terriboat's Horrorboat's tragic. But yeah,
1:09:40
Speaker 1: if you'd like to rate and review five stars, that
1:09:42
Speaker 1: would be amazing. I just think it's important to tell
1:09:45
Speaker 1: the truth about women. And I know this is so
1:09:48
Speaker 1: much more recent than we typically do, but it's just
1:09:51
Speaker 1: one of those things that I've had to correct so
1:09:55
Speaker 1: many times on the Internet that I think she deserved
1:09:58
Speaker 1: her own episode. Finally, don't forget you can follow me
1:10:04
Speaker 1: on socials. And for recommendation time for reading, I'm gonna
1:10:09
Speaker 1: recommend the woman who ran Fifth Avenue for watching just
1:10:13
Speaker 1: watch ag of it all along. I think we all
1:10:15
Speaker 1: deserve some like cove in Love at this point. And
1:10:20
Speaker 1: for listening, let me see. You know what I've been
1:10:24
Speaker 1: listening to recently, and this is so strange, welcome to help.
1:10:30
Speaker 1: So it's an S and L skit with SiO Sharonan
1:10:35
Speaker 1: and like Kate McKinnon and that, and yeah, it's it's
1:10:39
Speaker 1: worth listening to. And with that, I'm gonna bite you
1:10:43
Speaker 1: a good night. Adios. Ware is My Friends Bybee