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Stuff You Should Know: The Creepy Legacy of the Hotel Cecil · Spooky Season Podcasts 🎃

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, you're welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Barton.
0:14
Speaker 1: There's Charles Chuck Bryant over there. Yea, hear it Haunted
0:23
Speaker 1: Hotel and this is stuff you should know. Yeah we can.
0:30
Speaker 1: Can we do a couple of quick announcements? Yeah? Sure,
0:35
Speaker 1: without singing that announcement song. Did we have an announcement
0:38
Speaker 1: song ever? Know? Not us? But it's like summer Camp? Okay,
0:43
Speaker 1: you never did that? No, yeah, well I'm not gonna
0:46
Speaker 1: sing it now. Then I kind of want to hear
0:48
Speaker 1: it now. No, no, no, no no, was it like
0:50
Speaker 1: announcements announcements? It's announcements time. It's sort of almost Yeah,
0:55
Speaker 1: that's close enough. Trigger warning for this one first announcement
1:01
Speaker 1: because there's some grizzly stuff in here. Uh, I guess
1:06
Speaker 1: that's all we need to say. And then also we've
1:09
Speaker 1: been remissing that we haven't mentioned the fact that there's
1:12
Speaker 1: a stuff you should know board Game out. Yeah, it's
1:14
Speaker 1: it's not grizzly at all. No, it's it's very family friendly.
1:18
Speaker 1: In fact, it's one of the highest honors that's ever
1:21
Speaker 1: been bestowed upon us. And stuff you should know Chuck
1:24
Speaker 1: because out of the blue, out of nowhere, about a
1:29
Speaker 1: year and a half ago, maybe yeah, Trivial Pursuit. The
1:34
Speaker 1: makers of Trivial Pursuit got in touch with us and said,
1:37
Speaker 1: we want to do a stuff you should know trivial
1:39
Speaker 1: pursuit game, and they did. It wasn't a practical joke.
1:43
Speaker 1: The fine people it has Bro, who I gotta say.
1:46
Speaker 1: I mean, we've worked with a lot of outside companies
1:48
Speaker 1: for various projects, and boy, Hasbro is about as tight
1:53
Speaker 1: and buttoned up and awesome as any company we've ever
1:55
Speaker 1: worked with, right, but also like super friendly, super fun,
1:58
Speaker 1: super narmazing and not in like that creepy everybody's trying
2:02
Speaker 1: to be nice way like they're all just like a
2:04
Speaker 1: genuinely pleasant group to work with. But yes they are
2:07
Speaker 1: super buttoned up as well, very rare games games. They
2:11
Speaker 1: all seem like they make games for a living, which
2:14
Speaker 1: would mean you that you have a pretty cool job.
2:16
Speaker 1: And developing the game with him was fun and the
2:19
Speaker 1: questions are based on real stuff you should know episodes
2:23
Speaker 1: and it is not just Trivial Pursuit. It is co branded,
2:27
Speaker 1: so it is not Do not expect to get the
2:29
Speaker 1: Trivial pursuit game with the little pieces of pie. No, no,
2:32
Speaker 1: I just want They said, we want to make up
2:34
Speaker 1: a brand new game for it, and they did. They
2:37
Speaker 1: they made up a game. And this is the stuff
2:39
Speaker 1: you should know. Trivial pursuit game. That's right, and you
2:42
Speaker 1: can get it wherever you get games. I recommend your
2:45
Speaker 1: local little indie toy gaming store if they have it,
2:49
Speaker 1: but otherwise we would love the sport. You got a
2:51
Speaker 1: weirdo in your town who dresses up in wizard clothes
2:53
Speaker 1: and goes to work, go buy your game there. Yeah,
2:57
Speaker 1: great Christmas gift by the way, Yeah for sure. Also,
3:01
Speaker 1: why why just stop there? It's great for dad's, grads, moms, proms, everything.
3:08
Speaker 1: I think it's like twenty bucks, right, yeah, it's like
3:10
Speaker 1: it's really really reasonably priced. If you ask me, twenty dollars.
3:15
Speaker 1: You got two twenties in your wallet. You could buy
3:17
Speaker 1: a book and the game at we did, We did
3:21
Speaker 1: the TV show, We did, uh a book, we do
3:25
Speaker 1: a podcast. Don't forget our YouTube series. Sure you can.
3:31
Speaker 1: And now now Chuck and now the game. It's amazing,
3:36
Speaker 1: and now the hotel cecil. Yes, onto the show. Um,
3:42
Speaker 1: so I'm glad you did that little trigger warning, because
3:45
Speaker 1: there is some grizzly stuff in here, but there's also
3:48
Speaker 1: I think some like fact settings, some facts straightening that, um,
3:54
Speaker 1: you know, we should do from the outset. Because one
3:57
Speaker 1: of the things that people who get into the Elisa
4:01
Speaker 1: Lamb story, which we'll talk about in a little bit,
4:05
Speaker 1: um quickly find that they are all manner of internet
4:12
Speaker 1: urban legends and myths and conspiracy theories surrounding it, and
4:15
Speaker 1: none of those seemed to be true, um, and which
4:18
Speaker 1: is pretty annoying. Actually, yeah, it is very annoying. It's
4:21
Speaker 1: just so internet e too, you know what I mean? Yeah,
4:25
Speaker 1: I mean this, This goes on a lot these days,
4:27
Speaker 1: but it seems like this one, maybe more so than
4:29
Speaker 1: even others, because the bizarre nature of one part of
4:35
Speaker 1: this story. And uh, I don't know, I found myself
4:38
Speaker 1: slightly annoyed. I I am too, in the exact same
4:41
Speaker 1: way that I'm annoyed by people who believe that the
4:43
Speaker 1: couple from the Conjuring were like, you know, legit in
4:46
Speaker 1: real life, you know what I mean. But at the
4:51
Speaker 1: same time, it goes even further than that. I think
4:53
Speaker 1: I ran across a couple of articles that I really
4:55
Speaker 1: think struck home. What's genuinely annoying and even disrespect full
5:00
Speaker 1: about that is that like Alisa Lamb died because she
5:03
Speaker 1: had serious mental illness. I had been diagnosed and she
5:07
Speaker 1: wasn't managing properly with the medications that she was on,
5:10
Speaker 1: and that happens a lot, and she died because of it.
5:13
Speaker 1: And so to say that she was you know, possessed
5:16
Speaker 1: by evil spirits um or that there were you know,
5:20
Speaker 1: ghosts at the Cecil, or even though she was murdered
5:23
Speaker 1: by an unknown suspect, it's really really um well, it
5:28
Speaker 1: really disrespects the reality of the situation, which is you know,
5:31
Speaker 1: sad enough as it is. But at the same time, checked,
5:34
Speaker 1: there's one more thing I have to caveat all this with.
5:37
Speaker 1: It's understandable the impulse to to bring in you know,
5:42
Speaker 1: restless spirits and you know, you know, the just conspiracy theories.
5:47
Speaker 1: It's understandable in this particular situation because of the setting.
5:53
Speaker 1: Yeah uh, and I guess you know, the first part
5:56
Speaker 1: of the show will be about the setting, which is
5:58
Speaker 1: the hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles, which is not
6:02
Speaker 1: open right now. Um it may be open in the future.
6:06
Speaker 1: I think they were doing a. Uh. This thing was
6:09
Speaker 1: open in the nineteen twenties during the height of the depression,
6:13
Speaker 1: and it's a very large hotel, nineteen flour or seven
6:15
Speaker 1: hundred rooms. And in the nineteen twenties it was sort
6:18
Speaker 1: of like a UM, a big deal for downtown Los Angeles.
6:22
Speaker 1: It was near a major rail station and it was
6:25
Speaker 1: kind of just what l A needed and it was
6:28
Speaker 1: kind of Nancy schmancy for the time. UM. And over
6:31
Speaker 1: the years, you know, we'll talk a little bit about
6:33
Speaker 1: the downfall. But at the time of Elisa Lambs Stay,
6:38
Speaker 1: they had carved out three floors and built a separate
6:42
Speaker 1: lobby entrance to try and UH in an effort to
6:45
Speaker 1: rebrand this hotel as something called Stay on Maine. UH,
6:50
Speaker 1: and that they had three kind of floors that were
6:52
Speaker 1: a little bit redone cosmetically, UH, a little bit of
6:56
Speaker 1: a nicer lobby that was, you know, sort of away
6:59
Speaker 1: from UM. You know, some of the situations that work
7:03
Speaker 1: at a detail here in a second, But they did
7:05
Speaker 1: all share a common elevator and UM at least Lamb
7:09
Speaker 1: was staying in the State on Maine, Stay on Main
7:11
Speaker 1: section State on Main. But that's just to point out
7:17
Speaker 1: the fact that the hotel was gonna eventually supposedly undergo
7:21
Speaker 1: a massive renovation and that it was all sort of
7:23
Speaker 1: put on hold because of COVID. And I think now
7:26
Speaker 1: it's just being sat on with some of the long
7:29
Speaker 1: term tenants that are protected to stay there. Yeah, I
7:31
Speaker 1: think it's like thirty but there's like you said, seven rooms,
7:36
Speaker 1: but you said it um that the Cecil Hotel UM,
7:40
Speaker 1: which is very much down at the heels now UM
7:43
Speaker 1: started life in a much different way where it was
7:47
Speaker 1: meant to be like a pretty nice hotel designed for
7:51
Speaker 1: middle class travelers to l A and that situation next
7:55
Speaker 1: to the rail station was a big draw for it.
7:58
Speaker 1: It was it was definitely a feather in its cap
8:01
Speaker 1: um and I saw it's in the Bozard style. UM.
8:05
Speaker 1: It's not incredibly pretty from the outside, but the inside
8:09
Speaker 1: lobby is still pretty neat looking. Lots of torrazzo tile
8:13
Speaker 1: and uh columns, and there's fake um Roman statutory and
8:18
Speaker 1: a big clock and like the at the over the
8:20
Speaker 1: check in desk, it's really pretty and I really like,
8:23
Speaker 1: you know, nineteen twenties original UM original style still, although
8:28
Speaker 1: it's just kind of got this drab air that's kind
8:30
Speaker 1: of fallen over it over the years. Yeah, and that
8:34
Speaker 1: is in large part because, um, like you said, there
8:37
Speaker 1: are a lot of unknowned people there today a lot
8:40
Speaker 1: back then. The area called skid Row of downtown Los
8:44
Speaker 1: Angeles is kind of right there. I used to drive
8:48
Speaker 1: through that area sometimes when I lived in l A,
8:50
Speaker 1: when we would go downtown to eat sushi or if
8:52
Speaker 1: we you know, back then when I lived there, downtown
8:55
Speaker 1: was not as much of a destination unless you were
8:58
Speaker 1: going to Staples Center or something. But it's made a
9:00
Speaker 1: real resurgence since I've left and kind of trying to
9:03
Speaker 1: build downtown back up. Um, but skid Row is still
9:07
Speaker 1: uh an issue. And there you know, like you said
9:11
Speaker 1: that that there are people there that work with unhomed
9:14
Speaker 1: folks that are really trying their best two take care
9:17
Speaker 1: of them. And the fact that that hotel is right
9:19
Speaker 1: there just sort of looming large is a bit of
9:22
Speaker 1: a thumb in the eye. Yeah. And I get the
9:24
Speaker 1: impression that skid the area that's now skid Row in
9:27
Speaker 1: Los Angeles had had, at least since the eighties, kind
9:31
Speaker 1: of had a an unusual reputation. It wasn't always you know,
9:35
Speaker 1: for people down on their luck or anything like that.
9:37
Speaker 1: But um, you know, it was a little more low
9:40
Speaker 1: rent than other parts of Los Angeles, like there were
9:43
Speaker 1: there was just a mishmash of all sorts of different people.
9:46
Speaker 1: It seemed like really alive. UM. And the SESA was
9:50
Speaker 1: kind of built at the outskirts of that between what
9:53
Speaker 1: would become skid Row and then one of the nicest
9:56
Speaker 1: parts of l A at the time, Bunker Hill. UM.
9:59
Speaker 1: And everything was hunky dory for the Cecil when it
10:02
Speaker 1: first opened in either seven depending on who you ask,
10:06
Speaker 1: I could not confirm one way or the other because
10:09
Speaker 1: both dates have kind of taken off so much. UM.
10:13
Speaker 1: But when the stock market crashed, that area that was
10:15
Speaker 1: just kind of colorful and a little bit low rent
10:18
Speaker 1: that it quickly became uh skid Row as we understand it,
10:23
Speaker 1: beginning around the Great Depression. UH. And not only UM
10:28
Speaker 1: did the proximity to skid Row kind of like lower
10:33
Speaker 1: the Cecil star rating. UM. When the tenants started the
10:39
Speaker 1: hotel guests started to dry up, they had to lower
10:42
Speaker 1: their rights and start catering to um people who are
10:46
Speaker 1: people have less means, and so the hotel just kind
10:48
Speaker 1: of stopped taking care of itself little by little starting
10:52
Speaker 1: around the Great Depression and continuing on through World War Two. Yeah,
10:56
Speaker 1: and you know it kind of became a last resort
10:59
Speaker 1: kind of destination for people with addiction problems, um, people
11:04
Speaker 1: in the in the sex working industry, and you know
11:08
Speaker 1: it got that reputation and pretty soon got a reputation
11:11
Speaker 1: for all kinds of bad things happening there. Um. There
11:15
Speaker 1: have been no less than fifteen or sixteen um what's
11:18
Speaker 1: classified I guess as an unnatural death at the Cecil.
11:22
Speaker 1: Many people took their own lives there, Um, quite a few.
11:27
Speaker 1: I mean, if you read down the laundry list, it's
11:29
Speaker 1: like quite a few people in ingested poison. Quite a
11:32
Speaker 1: few people jumped or maybe we're pushed out windows. Uh.
11:36
Speaker 1: There have been some murders by gun. There have been
11:39
Speaker 1: murders by strangulation. There have been sexual assaults. Uh. This
11:43
Speaker 1: one sad case of a woman who gave birth to
11:47
Speaker 1: a baby and was um suffering from some sort of
11:50
Speaker 1: mental illness. Evidently thought her baby was was born not alive,
11:55
Speaker 1: and went to throw the baby out the window. And
11:58
Speaker 1: it turns out the baby was a I've been then died.
12:02
Speaker 1: She was found um not guilty. I think temporary insanity
12:06
Speaker 1: was the plea there and just weird kind of tragic
12:11
Speaker 1: awful things happening over the years, time and time again
12:15
Speaker 1: at the hotel cecil Yeah. Like another UM frequently referred
12:19
Speaker 1: to incident was where a woman named Pauline oughten Um
12:25
Speaker 1: she jumped from I think like the ninth or tenth
12:27
Speaker 1: floor to take her own life and um landed on
12:32
Speaker 1: a guy who was a passerby who happened to just
12:35
Speaker 1: be walking unluckily beneath the cecil at that moment on
12:39
Speaker 1: the sidewalk and was struck by Pauline. Uh, and they
12:43
Speaker 1: were both killed and UM like that that doesn't usually
12:47
Speaker 1: happen very often. Like that's a pretty remarkable thing, and
12:50
Speaker 1: I know that that. Like the most I could find
12:53
Speaker 1: was I think eighteen incidents, but it seems like those
12:56
Speaker 1: are just ones that have been documented. There seems to
13:00
Speaker 1: be quite a bit more. UM. There was a Netflix
13:04
Speaker 1: UM series I think of four part series on this
13:06
Speaker 1: recently and they interviewed UM a woman who had spent
13:10
Speaker 1: ten years managing the cecil Um and she said that
13:16
Speaker 1: her name is Amy Price. She said that under her
13:18
Speaker 1: ten year tenure, at least eighty people died, that she
13:21
Speaker 1: knows of, and you can kind of imagine like like
13:25
Speaker 1: you know, you could find newspaper right ups from like
13:28
Speaker 1: the twenties and thirties and fourties when somebody jumps out
13:31
Speaker 1: of window, and definitely when somebody jumps out of window
13:33
Speaker 1: and lands on a hapless pedestrian, like, it's definitely going
13:36
Speaker 1: to be documented to make news. But if somebody on
13:39
Speaker 1: skid row overdoses and dies in this hotel, you know,
13:43
Speaker 1: is that going to be documented. So it's possible that
13:45
Speaker 1: there are a lot more people who have died at
13:48
Speaker 1: the cecil Um Under from unnatural causes UM over the
13:53
Speaker 1: years than than just those seventeen or eighteen Did you
13:56
Speaker 1: watch all of that documentary? No, I haven't seen it actually, Okay, yeah,
14:03
Speaker 1: you know, I feel terrible because um the director was
14:07
Speaker 1: is the great Joe Burlinger, who actually had on movie
14:09
Speaker 1: Crush Um and one of my favorite episodes where we
14:13
Speaker 1: kind of just talked about documentary filmmaking. He's a legend.
14:16
Speaker 1: He did the Paradise Law series, he did that documentary
14:19
Speaker 1: on Metallica when they're all in therapy. Yeah, uh yeah,
14:23
Speaker 1: I mean, he's just he's just sort of the a
14:25
Speaker 1: legend in the genre. And he's had the Ted Bundy
14:28
Speaker 1: tapes recently. That's like, yeah, he did that. And then
14:30
Speaker 1: he directed the movie version with what's his face Zack
14:35
Speaker 1: Fron with who I said, Ryan Gosling? Oh close, another
14:41
Speaker 1: super handsome hunk. Uh. And that was a good movie.
14:44
Speaker 1: But this wasn't so great. I didn't love it. It
14:46
Speaker 1: felt kind of over long and a little salacious, and like, yeah,
14:49
Speaker 1: that's the impression I had from reading about it. Yeah,
14:52
Speaker 1: so I was disappointed. But Joe was a great filmmaker
14:54
Speaker 1: and a good guy. So I feel kind of bad.
14:56
Speaker 1: I think that's a fair caveat a great filmmaker and
14:59
Speaker 1: a good guy can still make a hunko poop? What
15:04
Speaker 1: unko poop? That was all right? Uh, but maybe let's
15:08
Speaker 1: take a break and I'll email Joe and tell him
15:11
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I had a time, all right, and we'll
15:12
Speaker 1: be right back. So uh, okay, we're we're so we're.
15:35
Speaker 1: The Cecil hotel starts to get a pretty pretty not
15:39
Speaker 1: a great reputation even around town. I read a article
15:42
Speaker 1: on ksey et dot org, which I guess is a
15:44
Speaker 1: PBS station in so Cow, and they said that local
15:50
Speaker 1: residents started to refer to the Um the Cecil as
15:54
Speaker 1: the suicide. That was the name of the hotel for
15:57
Speaker 1: people around there. Um, and it just it just kind
16:01
Speaker 1: of like it just kept going like every time, you know,
16:04
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of years of pass without some high
16:06
Speaker 1: profile death in the hotel, and then it would happen again,
16:10
Speaker 1: and and it would just reaffirm everybody's ideas that there
16:13
Speaker 1: was that place just wasn't quite right, there was something
16:16
Speaker 1: wrong with it, almost like it was a magnet for
16:19
Speaker 1: that kind of tragedy. You know. Yeah, I mean I
16:22
Speaker 1: think most major cities have had at least one of
16:26
Speaker 1: these hotels that just sort of is inexpensive, maybe in
16:31
Speaker 1: the wrong part of town, and has the reputation sometimes
16:33
Speaker 1: for luring activities and checking in and not checking out. Uh.
16:38
Speaker 1: And this was l A's and l A for sure
16:41
Speaker 1: had more than one. Um it did not help their
16:44
Speaker 1: reputation in the nineteen eighties when Richard Ramirez a k a.
16:49
Speaker 1: The night Stalker and one of the more sensational serial
16:53
Speaker 1: killers in American history. Uh, he stayed there for a
16:57
Speaker 1: while and um lived there and apparently brought body parts
17:01
Speaker 1: back to the Cecil hotel. Said Cecil like I'm British
17:05
Speaker 1: uh Cecil Hotel from some of his victims to Ingest there,
17:10
Speaker 1: Uh and that's certainly like super creepy. Ingest. I hadn't
17:14
Speaker 1: come across that he eat that victim's eyeballs. I think,
17:19
Speaker 1: so wow, we and other he wasn't like I don't
17:25
Speaker 1: think he was Dahmer level, but he was known to
17:27
Speaker 1: eat some body parts. He has a there's a great
17:30
Speaker 1: documentary on his his case too. It's super disturbing. Yeah,
17:34
Speaker 1: that's on Netflix as well. I think, um, if I'm
17:36
Speaker 1: not mistaken, But um, one thing I hadn't realized before
17:39
Speaker 1: that I ran across when I was researching some of
17:41
Speaker 1: his stuff was how he was caught. It's just absolutely triumphant.
17:47
Speaker 1: It was a mob of people in the neighborhood in
17:50
Speaker 1: East l A. He he was spotted. He saw himself
17:54
Speaker 1: on the front page of the newspaper and just instinctively
17:57
Speaker 1: started running trying to car jack aman hit her was
18:02
Speaker 1: seen hitting her an older man. UM basically ran over
18:06
Speaker 1: and helped the help. The woman pulled Richard Ramirez out
18:10
Speaker 1: of his car, and Um, the woman whose car was
18:14
Speaker 1: husband came over and started beating him. Uh. And he
18:17
Speaker 1: tried to get away, and just an increasingly large mob
18:20
Speaker 1: chased him and would beat him, and he'd get away
18:23
Speaker 1: some more, and they chase him down and catch him again,
18:25
Speaker 1: and they finally pinned him down and waited for the
18:26
Speaker 1: cops to come. That's how he was the best. Yeah,
18:30
Speaker 1: caveat that. I'm not down with a mob justice, but
18:34
Speaker 1: a group of people finding a serial killer on the
18:37
Speaker 1: street and like subduing him. Way okay with that now,
18:40
Speaker 1: I totally am in this particular instance, like I'm all
18:43
Speaker 1: fine with that that kind of justice for sure. Yeah.
18:47
Speaker 1: It was and about a badge of honor for East
18:49
Speaker 1: l A. Because the the entire city of Los Angeles
18:52
Speaker 1: was I mean, it was a scary situation there. Yeah,
18:55
Speaker 1: I can imagine that's where cheech Marin was born, according
18:58
Speaker 1: to that one song of it. That's right. So the
19:04
Speaker 1: Ninth Stalker he was not the only serial killer that
19:06
Speaker 1: checked in there. He actually inspired just a few years
19:10
Speaker 1: after he was convicted in I think, uh, I think
19:14
Speaker 1: like in ninety two, maybe ninety three, there was another
19:18
Speaker 1: serial killer named Jack Unterweger, who was Austrian um who
19:24
Speaker 1: had already been convicted I think when he was like
19:26
Speaker 1: nineteen or early twenties of killing a woman by strangling
19:30
Speaker 1: her with her own braw um and went to prison.
19:34
Speaker 1: He was very, very smart, very charming. He used this
19:38
Speaker 1: to basically get early parole. He convinced the public that
19:42
Speaker 1: he was actually reformed and apparently was held up as
19:45
Speaker 1: like a great example of how, you know, the the
19:50
Speaker 1: prison system could rehabilitate someone, and it was just a
19:54
Speaker 1: complete false fabrication. He was basically posed as a true
19:59
Speaker 1: crime journal list like he reinvented himself as that went
20:02
Speaker 1: to l a and other parts. He went to Europe,
20:05
Speaker 1: traveled through Europe a little bit too, but also ended
20:07
Speaker 1: up in l a Um to do research on his
20:10
Speaker 1: true crime novels. Went along on ride along with the
20:13
Speaker 1: l A. P. D Um and ended up using that
20:16
Speaker 1: to scout Um victims. He killed three sex workers and
20:21
Speaker 1: the whole time he was staying at the Cecil hotel.
20:24
Speaker 1: And they think probably as an homage to Um, to
20:28
Speaker 1: Richard Ramirez or at least a connection to him, you know. Yeah,
20:32
Speaker 1: so that I mean at this point, like the reputation
20:36
Speaker 1: for the hotel, it's not the kind of thing that
20:39
Speaker 1: is gonna appear online. You know. Fifteen years ago, when
20:44
Speaker 1: young people like a Lisa lam Are searching for an
20:46
Speaker 1: inexpensive place to stay. Uh, And sadly that's exactly what happened.
20:51
Speaker 1: Was a Canadian traveler, she was twenty years old, was
20:56
Speaker 1: on her way kind of up the West coast, traveling
20:59
Speaker 1: by herself. Her parents were a little unnerved by her
21:02
Speaker 1: traveling by herself, so she was you know, asked to
21:05
Speaker 1: check in every day what she was doing. Uh. And
21:08
Speaker 1: at the time, it was you know, they had kind
21:11
Speaker 1: of dorm style rooms, kind of youth hostile style rooms
21:13
Speaker 1: where you had bunk beds in a shared bathroom and
21:16
Speaker 1: so you could stay there. It was a travelers hotel.
21:19
Speaker 1: And if you uh, you know, I hate to say it,
21:22
Speaker 1: but if you if you didn't know much about l a,
21:24
Speaker 1: you may end up at the hotel Cecil because you
21:27
Speaker 1: could stay there for like seventy five bucks a night
21:29
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, from what I could tell,
21:31
Speaker 1: Stay On Maine did a really good job of making
21:34
Speaker 1: their you know, using their website to their advantage and
21:37
Speaker 1: making it seem like this is a really hip happening spot.
21:42
Speaker 1: And I mean in some ways they were. They were
21:44
Speaker 1: kind of like just a little ahead of their time
21:46
Speaker 1: because apparently the area around skid Row in downtown l
21:49
Speaker 1: A is like the hippiest spot to live in now again. Um,
21:54
Speaker 1: But at the time it was still really really um
21:58
Speaker 1: skid rowe basically yum. And it could be it could
22:02
Speaker 1: be you know, it could be dangerous. Yeah, and I
22:04
Speaker 1: think it still is. But I think it's just becoming
22:06
Speaker 1: more and more gentrified and it's becoming I guess, less
22:08
Speaker 1: dangerous in that sense. Um. But at the time when
22:11
Speaker 1: Alisa Lamb showed up in two thousand and thirteen, it was,
22:14
Speaker 1: you know, it was it was a dangerous place to be.
22:16
Speaker 1: But um, this particular spot was just full of you know,
22:21
Speaker 1: especially European kids on basically budget holidays, uh, staying in
22:27
Speaker 1: l A basically in hostiles. And I know originally she
22:31
Speaker 1: was put into a room with a couple of other
22:33
Speaker 1: girls that I think we're traveling together, but she was
22:36
Speaker 1: traveling alone. So it was very hostile. Um. And not
22:40
Speaker 1: hostile with an eight Well yeah, there's an E, but
22:43
Speaker 1: it's in a different place than you'd expect. Um, youth hostily.
22:48
Speaker 1: It was very youth hostily, like she was put in
22:50
Speaker 1: a room with other people at first. Yeah, l A
22:53
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of that. I remember there was
22:55
Speaker 1: a youth hostile in Venice that for some reason, and
23:00
Speaker 1: I always wanted to stay there. When I lived in
23:01
Speaker 1: l A. I was like, I didn't go down stay
23:02
Speaker 1: in the hostel one night because the beach was so
23:07
Speaker 1: the beach was really far when you lived on the
23:08
Speaker 1: east side and you kind of never went over there
23:10
Speaker 1: much unless someone came to town and wanted to go
23:12
Speaker 1: to the beach. That makes sense, sure, so, and you
23:15
Speaker 1: know I was broke back then, so it could have
23:17
Speaker 1: been like a little staycation. Did you ever do it? Yeah,
23:22
Speaker 1: It's one of the things you think about late night
23:24
Speaker 1: and then you wake up the next day and you're like, yeah,
23:28
Speaker 1: you blew all your money on taco balance day. Oh man,
23:32
Speaker 1: I missed Taco Bell, do you? I don't, Uh. I
23:36
Speaker 1: mean I didn't need it that much, but like I
23:38
Speaker 1: haven't had it in years. I've had too much, I
23:40
Speaker 1: think was my problem. Okay, what's that the deal? By
23:44
Speaker 1: the way, side note, speaking of weird late night foods, um,
23:49
Speaker 1: we had a guy on our front door camera the
23:50
Speaker 1: other day come in the middle of the night and
23:53
Speaker 1: leave a package and we're like, what is this. We
23:57
Speaker 1: went out the next day and it was a bag
23:59
Speaker 1: full of crystals. Wow. And I think it was creepy delivery,
24:05
Speaker 1: like a door dash or something. Crystals. I thought you
24:07
Speaker 1: meant like amethysts or no, no, no, I mean tiny
24:10
Speaker 1: square sliders. He had the wrong I think so either
24:15
Speaker 1: that or your daughter is has mastered the telephone by now.
24:19
Speaker 1: It was really weird. And the course, the first thing
24:21
Speaker 1: I did was I feel terrible that someone's late night
24:25
Speaker 1: mun cheese didn't get satisfied. Did you eat him the
24:27
Speaker 1: next morning? Just says you don't like crystals, or it
24:33
Speaker 1: was it because it was sitting there overnight. Both. I
24:35
Speaker 1: never was into crystal for some reason. Man, I like crystals.
24:40
Speaker 1: It was the thing I just was. I don't know why.
24:42
Speaker 1: I think I was just a waffle house guy. I
24:45
Speaker 1: don't I'm fine with waffle house. To the big problem
24:48
Speaker 1: with crystals, Chuck, I'll tell you is there fries or
24:51
Speaker 1: probably the worst fries of any fast, the most bland somehow,
24:58
Speaker 1: if you just bit into raw potato, it would be
25:01
Speaker 1: less bland and tasteless than if you ate a crystal spry. Yeah.
25:08
Speaker 1: And if you're from the other places in the country,
25:10
Speaker 1: you might white Castle sort of an analog to Crystal. Yeah, anyway,
25:17
Speaker 1: this is not an episode of The Doughboys. This is
25:20
Speaker 1: stuff you should know. And back to Alisa Lamb. She
25:25
Speaker 1: was supposed to be there for about I think four
25:27
Speaker 1: days and check out on February one, and did not
25:32
Speaker 1: get in touch with their parents like she had been
25:34
Speaker 1: doing each day. Um, she had been seen shopping for
25:38
Speaker 1: books at a nearby bookstore and then bought some books.
25:42
Speaker 1: And this is one of the things in the documentary.
25:44
Speaker 1: Like you know, they didn't really have any footage of
25:47
Speaker 1: her with any other people inside the hotel before her disappearance. Well,
25:50
Speaker 1: she was also reported to be constantly by herself too
25:53
Speaker 1: by people who saw her. Yeah, I mean she was
25:56
Speaker 1: traveling alone, so that that makes sense. But um, she
25:59
Speaker 1: she did get handed off. There were two gentlemen that
26:02
Speaker 1: handed off a kind of the largest largish box to
26:05
Speaker 1: her on camera in front of the hotel. And of
26:09
Speaker 1: course the internet sluice or like, who are these guys?
26:12
Speaker 1: What was in the box? And apparently in the box
26:15
Speaker 1: were these books that she got because she had spoken
26:17
Speaker 1: with the book read um seller about like the size
26:20
Speaker 1: of them, and boy, I don't even know if I
26:22
Speaker 1: can carry these and I think had them delivered to
26:24
Speaker 1: the hotel or whatever. So kind of nothing to see here,
26:28
Speaker 1: and another example of how annoying this case can be
26:31
Speaker 1: with people online speculating like wrong stuff. Yeah, I can
26:35
Speaker 1: be a little annoying for sure. But yes, so she was.
26:38
Speaker 1: She was alone, traveling alone. I think she had started
26:42
Speaker 1: out in San Diego, or at least her last stop
26:45
Speaker 1: had been San Diego. Her next stop was going to
26:47
Speaker 1: be Santa Cruz. Um. And Yeah, her parents have been like, okay,
26:51
Speaker 1: you need to call this every single day um and
26:54
Speaker 1: she had been pretty faithfully until that February one came
26:58
Speaker 1: and went with no call, and I believe they pretty
27:01
Speaker 1: much immediately contacted the hotel and the l a p
27:04
Speaker 1: D and said, hey, you know, our daughter hasn't checked in.
27:07
Speaker 1: Can you see what's going on. I don't know if
27:10
Speaker 1: they did it on February first or not, but in
27:13
Speaker 1: pretty short order, the l a p D determined that
27:17
Speaker 1: she she was just gone, she wasn't she was nowhere
27:20
Speaker 1: to be found, and that there was some suspiciousness going
27:24
Speaker 1: on for sure. Yeah, I mean they did a thorough inspection.
27:27
Speaker 1: They went to her room. Uh, they had found that
27:29
Speaker 1: the hotel had gathered all her stuff and bagged it
27:33
Speaker 1: and was holding it in storage, which was UM regular
27:36
Speaker 1: protocol when someone UM doesn't check out and just leave stuff.
27:40
Speaker 1: Nothing shady going on there. They checked around the hotel, uh,
27:44
Speaker 1: in the alleyways and sidewalks, They checked up on the roof.
27:47
Speaker 1: They didn't find anything, and UH, things got really strange.
27:51
Speaker 1: And I guess we should take another ad break here.
27:54
Speaker 1: But things got really strange when the hotel sent them
27:57
Speaker 1: footage from inside the elevator of the still hotel. And
28:00
Speaker 1: we'll get to that right after this, all right, Chuck,
28:21
Speaker 1: So Alsa Lamb is now known to be missing. She
28:24
Speaker 1: left her stuff behind at the Cecil Hotel, and she
28:27
Speaker 1: didn't check out, She didn't call her parents as she
28:29
Speaker 1: usually did, UM, and she's officially a missing person. UM.
28:35
Speaker 1: Within a couple of days, I think maybe February six,
28:38
Speaker 1: the police held a press conference and explained what was
28:41
Speaker 1: going on to the public. UM and UH basically asked
28:46
Speaker 1: for everybody's help and and if anyone had any info,
28:49
Speaker 1: you know, where did she go? Where is she? How
28:52
Speaker 1: she doing? Is she okay? UM? And I guess I don't.
28:56
Speaker 1: I didn't see anything about any getting any crazy leads
28:59
Speaker 1: or anything. Like at um it doesn't seem to have
29:02
Speaker 1: really kind of captured the public's interest at first. And
29:06
Speaker 1: I saw there's this guy named Josh Dean who's written
29:09
Speaker 1: written several articles on on the Elisa Lamb disappearance, and um,
29:15
Speaker 1: I believe one of the one of the ones that
29:18
Speaker 1: he wrote kind of pinpoints why there wasn't a huge
29:22
Speaker 1: public interest in the first like week or even two
29:25
Speaker 1: of her case. Um, it was because Christopher Dorner had
29:30
Speaker 1: gone on his rampage against the l A p D,
29:33
Speaker 1: basically declared war on the l A p D and
29:36
Speaker 1: was killed. And I think the Mountains of San Bernardino
29:39
Speaker 1: in a standoff like right when Elisa Lamb went missing.
29:43
Speaker 1: So not only were was the public's attention on this,
29:46
Speaker 1: especially in l A, the l A p d S
29:48
Speaker 1: attention was definitely on that as well. Um So Elisa
29:51
Speaker 1: Lamb was kind of like this faint little chirp in
29:54
Speaker 1: this huge mailstrom at the time, faint chirp in a mailstrom.
29:59
Speaker 1: It's the US that could come up with on shorts. Amazing,
30:01
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? You just made that up? Yeah? Yeah,
30:05
Speaker 1: I did you like it? Yeah? But I just have
30:09
Speaker 1: a feeling that next time I meant your house, it's
30:11
Speaker 1: gonna be like that's gonna be carved into your desk
30:13
Speaker 1: or something. It's on a T shirt and right, did
30:18
Speaker 1: you put you make Momo wear that T shirt every
30:20
Speaker 1: Day's right? Uh? Yeah. And you know the other big
30:23
Speaker 1: reason was until this footage actually came out of the elevator.
30:28
Speaker 1: Uh car, then you know that's when, Um, that's when
30:32
Speaker 1: the public's attention really caught hold. Yeah. I mean, there's
30:36
Speaker 1: no way around it. It's it's a very sort of unsettling.
30:40
Speaker 1: And I remember when this happened, before any of the
30:42
Speaker 1: facts of the case we're kind of out. I remember
30:45
Speaker 1: looking at this video and it is very unsettling, and
30:48
Speaker 1: it does appear to be very creepy, and that a
30:51
Speaker 1: young woman gets on an elevator, um, very kind of
30:54
Speaker 1: casually presses all the center buttons on all the floors.
30:58
Speaker 1: I think they determined she was on the fourteenth floor
31:01
Speaker 1: and sort of pressed all the floors on the way down. Uh.
31:06
Speaker 1: Elevator doesn't do anything. The doors don't shut. She moves
31:09
Speaker 1: to the back corner and sort of standing there, she
31:13
Speaker 1: goes and she's she looks outside of the elevator both
31:16
Speaker 1: ways a couple of times in the hallway and then
31:19
Speaker 1: kind of retreats back quickly. Um. At one point she
31:22
Speaker 1: steps out into the hallway and appears to be gesturing
31:26
Speaker 1: towards somebody, or she's at least making hand gestures to
31:30
Speaker 1: the right down the hallway. Yeah, they're unusual hand gestures.
31:34
Speaker 1: They're not like the normal hand gestures you might make.
31:36
Speaker 1: They're not at all subtle or casual or almost even
31:39
Speaker 1: like um, like you know, you might not even realize
31:44
Speaker 1: you're using your hands when you're talking sometimes, Like these
31:46
Speaker 1: are are more gesticulations than your gestures, you know what
31:50
Speaker 1: I mean? Yeah, And you know, there's there's no doubt.
31:53
Speaker 1: And eventually she kind of leaves around to the left
31:57
Speaker 1: and exits to the left, and the door stays open
31:59
Speaker 1: for a while, but for it shuts. Um. But there
32:02
Speaker 1: there's no getting around the fact that having known nothing
32:05
Speaker 1: and knowing that this person disappeared, this young woman, and
32:08
Speaker 1: then you see this, it seems very suspicious. Um, I
32:12
Speaker 1: don't think creepy. I think it looks I don't even
32:16
Speaker 1: even think it looks that creepy. It looks to me
32:17
Speaker 1: like that she is trying to get away from someone
32:20
Speaker 1: and is afraid someone has followed her, or is gesturing
32:23
Speaker 1: at a person who she feels threatened by. It's what
32:26
Speaker 1: it looks like to me. I know other people online
32:28
Speaker 1: there talk about other worldly spirits, and she's kind like
32:32
Speaker 1: you said earlier, she's conjuring spirits with her hands, Like
32:35
Speaker 1: I just, uh, that never occurred to me. It just
32:38
Speaker 1: looked like she might be in some kind of peril
32:41
Speaker 1: and was trying to get away from someone. Right. Um,
32:44
Speaker 1: but that's creepy in and of itself, you know, Yeah,
32:47
Speaker 1: I just mean not creepy and like a supernatural like
32:51
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Way now? I think the thing
32:53
Speaker 1: that really when it really turns creepy to me is
32:55
Speaker 1: when she turns around and hides in the corner of
32:59
Speaker 1: the elevator her like she's she's hiding. And then the
33:02
Speaker 1: second part that's that's genuinely creepy is when she like
33:06
Speaker 1: leans out and like looks both ways and then kind
33:09
Speaker 1: of jumps back into the elevator. It's just I mean,
33:12
Speaker 1: it's really hard not to kind of put yourself in
33:14
Speaker 1: her shoes, and she's clearly frightened at that time. To
33:18
Speaker 1: see somebody frightened like that, Uh, it's that's creepy, and
33:22
Speaker 1: you're and you're waiting on someone to enter the elevator,
33:26
Speaker 1: but that never happens. Um And with the internet sleuthing,
33:30
Speaker 1: you couldn't really make out the time code very well.
33:34
Speaker 1: And so all the people online are like, well, why
33:36
Speaker 1: can't you make out the time code and the time stamps,
33:38
Speaker 1: like what would degrade that? And not the rest of it?
33:41
Speaker 1: And and then they think they're right, and then they
33:44
Speaker 1: think they decoded it and there's almost a full minute missing,
33:48
Speaker 1: and the hotel cecil edited out a portion clearly, and
33:51
Speaker 1: before they send it to the cops, and and they
33:54
Speaker 1: interviewed the woman and that you're talking about the manager,
33:56
Speaker 1: and she was like, no, of course we didn't edit
33:58
Speaker 1: anything out, like we were horrified by this disappearance, and
34:01
Speaker 1: just send him everything we had, right. Plus I'm sure
34:05
Speaker 1: also that most of the employees that stay on main
34:07
Speaker 1: know exactly how to edit video out before handing things
34:11
Speaker 1: over to the cops. Anyway, that's true. That is a
34:15
Speaker 1: good point, actually, but I don't buy it. I think
34:18
Speaker 1: it was it is what it was, which was a
34:22
Speaker 1: person in an elevator who had some uh was having
34:26
Speaker 1: some mental issues, and you know, we'll get to that
34:28
Speaker 1: in a second. UM. And I think you know, it's
34:31
Speaker 1: sort of like the easiest explanation of the video, at
34:36
Speaker 1: least to me, seems to be the most accurate. Um
34:40
Speaker 1: that that's what I buy. That's how I buy it too. UM.
34:44
Speaker 1: That was so that video was released on February and
34:46
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, the public is taking notice. Um,
34:51
Speaker 1: she becomes an Internet meme, like almost overnight, Um, with
34:55
Speaker 1: people like watching and analyzing that video, like you were saying,
34:58
Speaker 1: and yet they still can't find No one has any
35:00
Speaker 1: idea where she hasn't been two weeks now since she
35:03
Speaker 1: went missing. This videos out there, that whole the entire
35:06
Speaker 1: internet is on the case now. And UM, it wasn't
35:10
Speaker 1: until a couple of days I think two days after
35:13
Speaker 1: the video came out. Chuck that. Um. One of the guys,
35:17
Speaker 1: one of the custodians of the Cecil Hotel of stay
35:21
Speaker 1: on me and I should say, Um, I was asked
35:24
Speaker 1: to go check on the water supply on the roof
35:27
Speaker 1: because the Cecil Hotel used uh, gravity fed water. They
35:33
Speaker 1: had four one thousand gallon tanks on the top of
35:37
Speaker 1: the roof. Uh and when you open the tap, the
35:40
Speaker 1: water would come pouring down from those tanks into your
35:43
Speaker 1: room and out the faucet, and some of the tenants
35:47
Speaker 1: don't I don't know if it was just the hotel
35:49
Speaker 1: or some long term tenants, but they were complaining that
35:51
Speaker 1: the water pressure had suddenly gotten really low and that um,
35:56
Speaker 1: the water that was coming out had a strange odor
35:59
Speaker 1: and taste and weird kind of color to it. And
36:03
Speaker 1: so they dispatched the custodian to the roof UM and
36:07
Speaker 1: he went and checked, and I think as he was
36:10
Speaker 1: approaching the main water tank, I think tank number one,
36:14
Speaker 1: he noticed that the hatch was open, and uh, in
36:17
Speaker 1: very short order, made the grizzly discovery of Alicia Lam's body. Yeah,
36:23
Speaker 1: he was. He was kind of like the super He
36:24
Speaker 1: was a maintenance guy. His name is Santiago Lopez and
36:28
Speaker 1: he's in the documentary to UM. I don't think he
36:31
Speaker 1: saw the hatch because the hatches on top of the tank,
36:34
Speaker 1: but he went to go and he said it was
36:36
Speaker 1: a routine thing if there was any kind of water issue,
36:39
Speaker 1: was to climb the ladder to the tanks and go
36:41
Speaker 1: look and see what was going on because there's probably
36:43
Speaker 1: a clog or something. And uh, he saw her body, um,
36:49
Speaker 1: naked about a foot below the water, just sort of
36:52
Speaker 1: suspended there. And you know, when they interviewed this guy
36:56
Speaker 1: in the documentary, it's really sad. You know, he was
36:58
Speaker 1: sort of at the center of a lot of the
37:00
Speaker 1: US with interviews and he uh, he was speaking through it, um,
37:04
Speaker 1: I guess, not through a translator but through US subtitles,
37:06
Speaker 1: but he was clearly, you know, still very upset about
37:09
Speaker 1: this and it it it scarred him to see this
37:12
Speaker 1: woman floating in the tank and he knew immediately who
37:15
Speaker 1: it was and called down to the hotel manager who
37:18
Speaker 1: we've been talking about and said, you know, she's she's
37:21
Speaker 1: up here in the tank, and uh, you know, the
37:24
Speaker 1: cops came. They found her clothes, which were determined to
37:27
Speaker 1: be the same clothes she was wearing in the elevator video. Um,
37:31
Speaker 1: kind of at the bottom of the tank they had sunk.
37:34
Speaker 1: And you know, immediately the new mystery is not what's
37:38
Speaker 1: going on in this video, although you know that played
37:41
Speaker 1: apart because they were still trying to figure that out
37:43
Speaker 1: as far as foul play goes, but was how she
37:46
Speaker 1: made it in here and and why she made it
37:49
Speaker 1: in there? Yeah, because she she she it was like,
37:53
Speaker 1: the hatch is not easy to get in or out of.
37:56
Speaker 1: They had to like cut her out of the They
37:59
Speaker 1: did cut a hole in the bottom of the tank
38:00
Speaker 1: so they could access it, right, They couldn't just pull
38:03
Speaker 1: her back out of that hatch. So that's kind of
38:06
Speaker 1: weird in and of itself. She's also nude. UM. That
38:09
Speaker 1: also kind of added to the mystery of the whole thing. Um.
38:13
Speaker 1: And then also the you know the coroner, uh when
38:17
Speaker 1: when he made his his toxicology report available, he basically
38:20
Speaker 1: said it was he wasn't able to make any conclusive,
38:25
Speaker 1: um find any conclusive results because there wasn't enough blood
38:28
Speaker 1: to take a sample from. You know, she just kind
38:31
Speaker 1: of permeated the water and that her blood had uh,
38:35
Speaker 1: and it wasn't you just couldn't like take a water
38:38
Speaker 1: sample and be like, oh, yeah, there's no you know,
38:41
Speaker 1: there's no drugs in here anything like that. So all
38:44
Speaker 1: of that combined really kind of um just just took
38:48
Speaker 1: that mystery. Um. You know that people have been primed
38:51
Speaker 1: to start thinking about with that video and then just
38:53
Speaker 1: blew it through the roof. You know, I mean, the
38:56
Speaker 1: the the water being you know, going to are people's
39:00
Speaker 1: taps in the hotel, and you know, Lisa Land basically
39:03
Speaker 1: being a part of that water really kind of solidified
39:08
Speaker 1: her legendary status or the legendary status of her mystery.
39:11
Speaker 1: I think in people's imagination, anybody who comes across that
39:14
Speaker 1: case can't help, but like let the mind wander in
39:16
Speaker 1: that respect. Oh for sure. I mean the idea of
39:19
Speaker 1: drinking water and bathing in water with a decomposing body.
39:23
Speaker 1: I mean the body had was in a pretty pretty
39:26
Speaker 1: rough state of decomposition at that point. Uh. They did
39:30
Speaker 1: do obviously in the autopsy, they didn't find any signs
39:33
Speaker 1: of foul play. There were no obviously no uh like
39:37
Speaker 1: obvious wounds, There were no internal wounds, there was no strangulation. Um.
39:43
Speaker 1: They they pretty much said, this doesn't look like foul
39:46
Speaker 1: play at all. Um. The one one of the mysteries
39:49
Speaker 1: was how she got up there, because you, um, if
39:53
Speaker 1: you want to go just through the regular staircase to
39:54
Speaker 1: the rooftop, and this is not a rooftop that you
39:57
Speaker 1: you know, doesn't have like a rooftop hangout area or what.
40:00
Speaker 1: Although people you know, there was plenty of graffiti and
40:03
Speaker 1: beer bottles and drug needles, and some people would make
40:06
Speaker 1: their way up there. But UH, if you go through
40:08
Speaker 1: the regular door, it's one of the alarm doors which
40:12
Speaker 1: would trigger downstairs and all throughout the lobby. UM that
40:16
Speaker 1: never came on and you have to have a key
40:18
Speaker 1: to disable it. But there is a fire escape entry
40:22
Speaker 1: with the ladder basically for the last like for the
40:25
Speaker 1: last story, it's a little precarious, but she could have
40:29
Speaker 1: just simply gone out the window to the fire escape
40:31
Speaker 1: and climbed up the ladder and then up the ladder
40:33
Speaker 1: to the tanks. It's not you know, it's a little UM.
40:38
Speaker 1: It would be a little bit of a scary trip
40:40
Speaker 1: up that ladder, I think. But considering what happened, she
40:44
Speaker 1: she clearly was was not in a good place mentally.
40:47
Speaker 1: So I think that's completely believable that journalist Josh Dean
40:51
Speaker 1: Um went and I think two thousand fifteen to see
40:54
Speaker 1: this himself. He had gotten obsessed with the case, so
41:00
Speaker 1: he went and kind of investigated it in person, and
41:04
Speaker 1: UM he quickly found that open window was still open, UH,
41:08
Speaker 1: and the fire escape was easily accessible and UM in
41:11
Speaker 1: the UH. I think one of his articles is called
41:14
Speaker 1: American Horror Story, which is a reference to UM. What
41:18
Speaker 1: I think the Hotel season of American Horror Story was
41:21
Speaker 1: based on or inspired by Elsa Lamb's disappearance. Um. But
41:25
Speaker 1: there's a picture that he took of that ladder leading
41:30
Speaker 1: from the fire escape on the fifth or fourteenth floor
41:33
Speaker 1: up to the roof, and all you see is up,
41:37
Speaker 1: like you just see the ladder and then above it
41:39
Speaker 1: is sky. But after reading about it, your imagination just
41:44
Speaker 1: thinks of like the fifteen stories behind you, like as
41:48
Speaker 1: you're you know, as you're looking up this ladder. It's
41:51
Speaker 1: one of the most unsettling pictures I've ever seen. If
41:53
Speaker 1: you read the text, uh, you know that surround it. Um.
41:57
Speaker 1: But he said, by his judgment, an average person could
42:01
Speaker 1: easily make it up that ladder, especially if you don't
42:03
Speaker 1: look down. He said, if you're carrying a body or
42:07
Speaker 1: another person, you could not do it. He said, it
42:09
Speaker 1: just would be too difficult. And you know, it's one
42:12
Speaker 1: of those straight up vertical ladders on the side of
42:14
Speaker 1: the building. Yeah, but if you were in a manic state,
42:16
Speaker 1: as a lot of people believe Alsa Lamb was, um,
42:20
Speaker 1: you could probably make it up that ladder pretty quickly.
42:23
Speaker 1: You wouldn't even necessarily consider looking down and all of
42:25
Speaker 1: a sudden, you'd be on the roof, and after you
42:27
Speaker 1: were on the roof, it would be a fairly easy
42:30
Speaker 1: proposition to get into one of those tanks, especially I
42:33
Speaker 1: think she weighed about a hundred and fifteen pounds and
42:35
Speaker 1: was about five ft four inches, so it was possible
42:39
Speaker 1: for her to get into one of those tanks through
42:42
Speaker 1: that hatch. But um, either she was too scared to
42:47
Speaker 1: come out conceivably, or she couldn't get out when she
42:51
Speaker 1: wanted to get out and tired of treading water because
42:54
Speaker 1: the water would have been about eight feet deep and
42:56
Speaker 1: drowned after a while. Yeah, I mean they did. I
43:01
Speaker 1: think the police dogs did pick up her scent near
43:04
Speaker 1: that window, so that seems to be what happened. And uh,
43:08
Speaker 1: you know, this is one of those cases where the
43:10
Speaker 1: more I read, like all I could feel was despair
43:13
Speaker 1: about this poor woman having what looked to be some
43:18
Speaker 1: sort of medication related manic episode, maybe scared, maybe thinking
43:24
Speaker 1: someone was following her and trying to get away and
43:27
Speaker 1: and going at great links, going to great links to
43:30
Speaker 1: maybe hide somewhere like inside of a water tank. Um,
43:34
Speaker 1: I don't know, like why her clothes were off or
43:37
Speaker 1: why her clothes ended up in the tank. I'm not
43:39
Speaker 1: saying any of this makes sense, but it is something
43:42
Speaker 1: that could happen. And all I can think about is
43:45
Speaker 1: what an awful place that she must have been for
43:49
Speaker 1: something like this to have happened. Yeah, and I mean
43:51
Speaker 1: to kind of back up the mental break UM theory,
43:57
Speaker 1: which is what I buy. That's that's that's where I
44:00
Speaker 1: put my stock. UM. She remember, I said she was
44:04
Speaker 1: originally put in a room with a couple of other
44:07
Speaker 1: girls she didn't know at the stay on Maine. They
44:10
Speaker 1: complained about her behaving strangely, so she was moved to
44:14
Speaker 1: her own private room. UM. Apparently she went to a
44:17
Speaker 1: taping of the Conan O'Brien show and was escorted out
44:22
Speaker 1: because she was behaving strangely. And then UM detectives also
44:26
Speaker 1: found she was on four different medications for bipolar one
44:30
Speaker 1: disorder and depression, and UM the l a p D
44:35
Speaker 1: based on the the the prescription dates on the bottles,
44:40
Speaker 1: and then the number of pills that were left and
44:42
Speaker 1: the instructions on the bottles, UM the l A p
44:45
Speaker 1: D were able to determine that she hadn't been following
44:49
Speaker 1: UM the dosage recommendations or taking her pills or medications.
44:54
Speaker 1: So if you put all of that together, and then
44:56
Speaker 1: also that, um, people taking their clothes off as part
45:00
Speaker 1: of a psychotic episode happens. It's been documented. Um you like,
45:05
Speaker 1: there's no there's no pieces missing on the table, like
45:08
Speaker 1: she could have gone out on that fire escape, gone
45:10
Speaker 1: up the ladder, like there's nothing that is well yeah,
45:14
Speaker 1: but then there's this really big thing that remains unexplained,
45:17
Speaker 1: like it explains absolutely everything, and then suddenly it kind
45:20
Speaker 1: of makes all the other stuff like government mind control
45:24
Speaker 1: or ghosts or whatever seemed just kind of gross. You know,
45:28
Speaker 1: totally agree. I believe her parents brought a lawsuit against
45:32
Speaker 1: the hotel that was eventually dismissed. If I'm not mistaken,
45:36
Speaker 1: and um, it just remains a very very sad situation
45:40
Speaker 1: in a sad case. And and it is very annoying
45:43
Speaker 1: when you get online and everyone thinks that they're spirits
45:46
Speaker 1: being conjured and in all this wacky stuff. It's just
45:50
Speaker 1: not the case, not the case. Indeed, you got anything else?
45:54
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. Well that's it for the Cecil
45:57
Speaker 1: Hotel and Na Lisa lamb r I p uh And
46:01
Speaker 1: since I said our, I p that means it's time
46:03
Speaker 1: for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this follow up
46:08
Speaker 1: to Y two k. Uh. And this is something that
46:11
Speaker 1: we actually had in our notes that we I guess
46:15
Speaker 1: just kind of failed to bring up, right, Yeah, I
46:19
Speaker 1: mean you had it in your notes as well. Yeah, yeah,
46:22
Speaker 1: the problem. Um, and we got a lot of emails
46:25
Speaker 1: about this, and and we're not gonna fully probably explain
46:29
Speaker 1: to everyone's satisfaction how it works. But um, hey, guys,
46:34
Speaker 1: just got done listening to the Y to K podcasts,
46:36
Speaker 1: which brought back an interesting range of memories of living
46:39
Speaker 1: through that time. In case you weren't aware, there's something
46:41
Speaker 1: called the Unix y two K problem that still exists
46:45
Speaker 1: but is slowly being fixed by smart people behind the scenes.
46:48
Speaker 1: The majority of computers in the world run Unix based
46:52
Speaker 1: operating systems, not Windows or mac os, and unless these
46:56
Speaker 1: systems are patched at three fourteen on January nineteen uh,
47:02
Speaker 1: their clocks will roll over to think it's midnight January first,
47:06
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy. Yes. Uh. The cause is basically the same.
47:10
Speaker 1: In the early versions of the OS only had so
47:12
Speaker 1: much memory allocated to time representations, but more modern versions
47:16
Speaker 1: now have this fixed and hence computers aren't susceptible once
47:19
Speaker 1: they're updated or upgraded, although not all systems can be
47:22
Speaker 1: easily updated. Uh. And that is from a bunch of people,
47:27
Speaker 1: but specifically from PhD Allen Chalker. That's great, Thanks Alan
47:32
Speaker 1: and everybody who wrote in. I was like, oh me,
47:35
Speaker 1: and I'm meant to include that. But apparently unix um
47:39
Speaker 1: represents time as the number of seconds from the epoch date,
47:42
Speaker 1: which is some date in nineteen seventy and then eventually
47:46
Speaker 1: it's going to have more seconds than it can represent
47:49
Speaker 1: in the number of digits, so it will just roll
47:51
Speaker 1: back over, like he was saying, which it's pretty neat
47:53
Speaker 1: unix pretty cool. But also I'm glad to hear that
47:57
Speaker 1: they're smart people working on that because we got seventeen years. Man,
48:01
Speaker 1: you guys, take it easy, take a weekend, you know, sure,
48:05
Speaker 1: go go send in your house and social distance from everybody.
48:10
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, we also got a lot of emails
48:12
Speaker 1: just from people that some people whose parents helped rewrite
48:16
Speaker 1: code or we're heading up projects rewriting code, and it
48:19
Speaker 1: was it was pretty cool. We got a lot of
48:20
Speaker 1: a lot of emails about that. When he struck a
48:22
Speaker 1: chord Yeah, it was a good idea, Chuck um. Well,
48:25
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us, like
48:26
Speaker 1: Alan and everybody else did, you can send us an
48:29
Speaker 1: email send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio
48:33
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
48:38
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the
48:42
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
48:45
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.