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SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: The Creepy Legacy of the Hotel Cecil · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: The Hotel Cecil is probably best known as the site
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: for the very sad death of Elisa Lamb in 2013,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: or maybe you know it as a setting in American
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Horror Story. It turns out that Elisa was just one
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: in an unusually long line of deaths that took place
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: in the Cecil, which seems to have had way more
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: than its fair share of tragedy since it was built
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: in 1924. I'll leave it to you to get to
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the bottom of what's up with the Hotel Cecil. Welcome
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there, and Jerry's hanging around
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: in the sun here, lurking like an unison spirit in
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a haunted hotel. And this is Stuff You Should Know.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, can... We do a couple of quick announcements.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Without singing that announcement song.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Did we have an announcement song ever?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Well, not us, but like summer camp.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: You never did that?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm not going to sing it now then.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I kind of want to hear it now.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Was it like announcements, announcements? It's announcements time.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Sort of, almost. Yeah, that's close enough. Trigger warning for
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: this one. First announcement.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Because there's some grisly stuff in here. I guess that's
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: all we need to say. And then also, we've been
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: remiss in that we haven't mentioned the fact that there's
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: a Stuff You Should Know board game out.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not grisly at all.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: No, it's very family-friendly, in fact.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: It's one of the highest honors that's ever been bestowed
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: upon us in Stuff You Should Know, Chuck, because out
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of the blue, out of nowhere, about a year and
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a half ago, maybe?
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Trivial Pursuit. The makers of Trivial Pursuit got in touch
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: with us and said, we want to do a Stuff
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: You Should Know Trivial Pursuit game. And they did. It
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't a practical joke.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: The fine people at Hasbro, who I got to say,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've worked with a lot of outside companies
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: for various projects. And boy, Hasbro is about as tight
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: and buttoned up and awesome as any company we've ever
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: worked with. Right.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: But also like super friendly, super fun, super nice.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: And not in that creepy, everybody's trying to be nice way.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: They're all just a genuinely pleasant group to work with.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: But yes, they are super buttoned up as well. Very
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: rare animal.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they make games. They all seem like they make
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: games for a living, which would mean that you have
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: a pretty cool job. And developing the game with them
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: was fun. And the questions are based on real stuff
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: you should know, episodes. And it is not just Trivial Pursuit.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: It is co-branded, so it is not Do not expect
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: to get the Trivial Pursuit game with the little pieces
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: of pie.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Just want to be clear.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: They said, we want to make up a brand new
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: game for this. Brand new game. And they did. They
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: made up a game. And this is the Stuff You
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Should Know Trivial Pursuit game.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: That's right. And you can get it wherever you get games.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I recommend your local little indie toy gaming store if
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: they have it. But otherwise, we would love to support.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: You got a weirdo in your town who dresses up
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: in wizard clothes and goes to work? Go buy your
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: game there.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: A great Christmas gift, by the way.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Also, why just stop there? It's great
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: for dads, grads, moms, proms, everything.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I think it's like $ 20, right?
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like really, really reasonably priced, if you ask me. $ 20. $ 20.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: You got two 20s in your wallet. You could buy
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: our book and the game at the same time. So
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: we did the TV show. We did a book. We
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: do a podcast. Don't forget our YouTube series.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Sure. You can.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: And now Chuck.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: And now the game.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: It's amazing.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: And now the Hotel Cecil.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Yes. On to the show. So I'm glad you did
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: that little trigger warning because there is some grisly stuff
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: in here. But there's also, I think, some like fact settings,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: some facts straightening that, you know, we should do from
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the outset because. One of the things that people who
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: get into the Elisa Lam story, which we'll talk about
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: in a little bit, quickly find that there are all
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: manner of Internet urban legends and myths and conspiracy theories
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: surrounding it. And none of those seem to be true.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: It's pretty annoying, actually.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is very annoying. It's just so Internet-y, too.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, this... This goes on a lot these days,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: but it seems like this one may be more so
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: than even others because the bizarre nature of one part
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: of this story. And I don't know. I found myself
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: slightly annoyed.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I am, too, in the exact same way that I'm
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: annoyed by people who believe that the couple from The
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Conjuring were like, you know, legit in real life. Right.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, it goes even further than that.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I think I ran across a couple of articles that
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I really think struck home what's genuinely annoying and even
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: disrespectful about that is that like Elisa Lam died because
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: she had serious mental illness that had been diagnosed and
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: she wasn't managing properly with the medications that she was on.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And that happens a lot. And she died because of it.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: And so to say that she was, you know, possessed
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: by evil spirits and Um, or that there were, you know,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: ghosts at the Cecil or even that she was murdered
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: by an unknown suspect. It's really, it really, um, it
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: really disrespects the reality of the situation, which is, you know,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: sad enough as it is. But at the same time, Chuck,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: there's one more thing I have to caveat all this with.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: It's understandable. The impulse to, to bring in, you know,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: restless spirits and, you know, you know, the, It's just
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. It's understandable in this particular situation because of
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: the setting.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I guess, you know, the first part of
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: this show will be about the setting, which is the
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles, which is not open
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: right now. It may be open in the future. I
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: think they were doing a this thing was open in
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: the 1920s during the height of the Depression. And it's
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: a very large hotel, 19 floors, 700 rooms. And in
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: the 1920s, it was sort of like a big deal
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: for downtown Los Angeles. It was near a major rail station.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And it was kind of just what L.A. needed. And
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: it was kind of fancy schmancy for the time. And
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: over the years, you know, we'll talk a little bit
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: about the downfall. But at the time of Elisa Lamb's stay,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: they had carved out three floors of and built a
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: separate lobby entrance to try and, uh, in an effort
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: to rebrand this hotel as something called stay on main, uh,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: and that they had three kind of floors that were
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: a little bit redone cosmetically, uh, a little bit of
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: a nicer lobby that was, you know, sort of away from, um,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: you know, some of the situations that we're going to
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: detail here in a second. Uh, but they did all
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: share a common elevator and, um, Elisa Lam was staying
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: in the Stay on Main section. Stayed on Main?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: But that's just to point out the fact that the
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: hotel was going to eventually supposedly undergo a massive renovation
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: and that it was all sort of put on hold
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: because of COVID. And I think now it's just being
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: sat on with some of the long-term tenants that are
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: protected to stay there.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's like 30. But there's, like you said,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: 700 rooms there.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: But you said it, that the Cecil Hotel, which is
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: very much down at the heels now, started life in
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: a much different way where it was meant to be
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: like a pretty nice hotel designed for middle class travelers
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: to L.A. And that situation next to the rail station
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: was a big draw for it. It was definitely a
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: feather in its cap. And I saw it's in the
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Beaux-Arts style. Um, it's not incredibly pretty from the outside,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: but the inside lobby is still pretty neat looking. Sure.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Lots of terrazzo tile and, uh, columns and there's fake, um,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Roman statuary and a big clock and like the, at the,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: over the check-in desk, it's really pretty and a really like,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: you know, 1920s original, um, original style still, although it's
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: just kind of got this drab air that's kind of
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: fallen over it over the years.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is in large part because, like you said,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of unhoned people there today, a
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: lot back then. The area called Skid Row of downtown
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles is kind of right there. I used to
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: drive through that area sometimes when I lived in L.A.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: when we would go downtown to eat sushi. Back then
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: when I lived there, downtown was not as much of
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: a destination unless you were going to Staples Center or something,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: but it's made a real resurgence since I've left. and
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: kind of trying to build downtown back up. But Skid
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Row is still an issue. And they're, you know, like
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: you said, that there are people there that work with
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: unhomed folks that are really trying their best to take
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: care of them. And the fact that that hotel is
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: right there, just sort of looming large is a bit
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: of a thumb in the eye. Yeah.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: And I get the impression that the area that's now
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Skid Row in Los Angeles had, at least since the 1880s,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: kind of had an unusual reputation. It wasn't always, you know,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: for people down on their luck or anything like that, but,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: you know, it was a little more low rent than
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: other parts of Los Angeles. Like, there was just a
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: mishmash of all sorts of different people. It seemed like
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: really alive. And the Cecil was kind of built at
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the outskirts of that between what would become Skid Row
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: and then one of the nicest parts of LA at
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the time, Bunker Hill. And everything was hunky-dory for the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Cecil when it first opened in either 1924 or 1927,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: depending on who you ask. I could not confirm one
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: way or the other because both dates have kind of
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: taken off so much. But when the stock market crashed,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: that area that was just kind of colorful and a
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: little bit low rent that it quickly became Skid Row
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: as we understand it, beginning around the Great Depression. And
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: not only did the proximity to Skid Row kind of
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: like lower the Cecil Star rating, when the tenants started,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the hotel guests started to dry up, they had to
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: lower their rates and start catering to people of less means.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And so the hotel just kind of stopped taking care
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: of itself little by little, starting around the Great Depression
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and continuing on through World War II.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, you know, it kind of became a last
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: resort kind of destination for people with addiction problems, people
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: in the sex working industry. And, you know, it got
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: that reputation and pretty soon got a reputation for all
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: kinds of bad things happening there. There have been no
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: less than 15 or 16 what's classified, I guess, as
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: an unnatural death at the Cecil. Many people took their
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: own lives there. I mean, if you read down the
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: laundry list, it's like quite a few people ingested poison.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Quite a few people jumped or maybe were pushed out windows.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: There have been some murders by gun. There have been
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: murders by strangulation. There have been sexual assaults. This one
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: sad case of a woman who gave birth to a
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: baby and was suffering from some sort of mental illness,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: evidently thought her baby was born not alive and went
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: to throw the baby out the window. And it turns
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: out the baby was alive, then died. She was found
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: not guilty. I think temporary insanity was the plea there.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: And just weird, kind of tragic, awful things happening. over
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: the years, time and time again at the Hotel Cecil.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like another frequently referred to incident was where a
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: woman named Pauline Otten, she jumped from, I think, like
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the ninth or tenth floor to take her own life
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: and landed on a guy who was a passerby who
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: happened to just be walking unluckily beneath the Cecil at
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: that moment on the sidewalk and was struck by Pauline.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: And they were both killed. And that doesn't usually happen
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: very often. That's a pretty remarkable thing. And I know
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: that the most I could find was, I think, 18 incidents.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: But it seems like those are just ones that have
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: been documented. There seems to be quite a bit more.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: There was a Netflix series, I think a four-part series
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: on this recently. And they interviewed a woman who had
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: spent 10 years managing the Cecil. Um, and she said that, uh,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: her name is Amy Price. She said that under her
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: 10 year tenure, at least 80 people died that she
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: knows of. And you can kind of imagine like, like,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: you know, you could find newspaper write-ups from like the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: twenties and thirties and forties when somebody jumps out a
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: window and definitely when somebody jumps out a window and
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: lands on a hapless pedestrian, like that's definitely going to
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: be documented and make news. But if somebody on skid
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: row overdoses and dies in this hotel, you know, You know,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: is that going to be documented? So it's possible that
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: there are a lot more people who have died at
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the Cecil under from unnatural causes over the years than
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: than just those 17 or 18.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Did you watch all of that documentary?
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: No, I haven't seen it actually yet.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: OK.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Have you seen it? Yeah.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: You know, I feel terrible because the director was is
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: the great Joe Berlinger, who actually had on Movie Crush.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: In one of my favorite episodes where we kind of
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: just talked about documentary filmmaking, he's a legend. He did
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: the Paradise Lost series. He did that documentary on Metallica
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: when they were all in therapy.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah? Yeah.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's just sort of a legend in the genre.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I saw he did the Ted Bundy tapes recently.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he did that. And then he directed the movie
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: version with, what's his face?
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Zac Efron.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: With who?
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I said Ryan Gosling.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay. close. Another super handsome hunk. Uh, and that
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: was a good movie, but this wasn't so great. I
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: didn't love it. It felt kind of overlong and a
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: little salacious and like, yeah.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: That's the impression I had from reading about it.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I was disappointed, but Joe is a great
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: filmmaker and a good guy. So I feel kind of bad.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I think that's a fair caveat. A great filmmaker and
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a good guy can still make a hunk of poop.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It wasn't a hunk of poop. It was all right.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Uh, but maybe let's take a break and I'll, email
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Joe and tell him I'm sorry ahead of time.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: And we'll be right back.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: So, okay. So the Cecil Hotel starts to get a
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: pretty big, not a great reputation, even around town. I
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: read an article on kcet.org, which I guess is a
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: PBS station in SoCal. And they said that local residents
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: started to refer to the Cecil as the suicide. That
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: was the name of the hotel for people around there.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And it just, it just kind of like, it just
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: kept going. Like every time, you know, maybe a couple
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: of years would pass without some high-profile death in the hotel,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: and then it would happen again. And it would just
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: reaffirm everybody's ideas that that place just wasn't quite right.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: There was something wrong with it, almost like it was
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: a magnet for that kind of tragedy, you know? Yeah.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think most major cities have had at
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: least one of these hotels that just sort of is inexpensive,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: maybe in the wrong part of town, and has a
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: reputation sometimes for Lurid activities and checking in and not
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: checking out. And this was L.A. 's and L.A. for
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: sure had more than one.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: It did not help their reputation in the 1980s when
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Richard Ramirez, a.k.a. the Night Stalker and one of the
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: more sensational serial killers in American history. He stayed there
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: for a while and lived there and apparently brought body
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: parts back to the Cecil Hotel. Said Cecil like I'm British.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Cecil Hotel from some of his victims to ingest there.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: And that's certainly like super creepy. Wait, did you say ingest?
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: I hadn't come across that. Did he eat that victim's eyeballs?
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I think so. Wow. He wasn't like, I don't think
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: he was Dahmer level, but he was known to eat
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: some body parts. There's a great documentary on his his
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: case too.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Super disturbing.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's on Netflix as well. I think, um, if
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, but, um, one thing I hadn't realized
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: before that I ran across when I was researching some
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: of his stuff was how he was caught. It's just
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: absolutely triumphant.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: It was a mob of people in a neighborhood.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: He was spotted. He saw himself on the front page
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: of the newspaper and just instinctively started running, tried to
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: carjack a woman, uh, hit her, was seen hitting her
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: and an older man basically ran over and helped the woman,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: pulled Richard Ramirez out of his car. And the woman
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: whose car it was, husband came over and started beating him.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: And he tried to get away and just an increasingly
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: large mob chased him and would beat him and he'd
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: get away some more and they'd chase him down and
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: catch him again. And they finally pinned him down and
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: waited for the cops to come. That's how he was caught.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: It's the best. It's so great. A caveat that I'm
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: not down with mob justice, but a group of people
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: finding a serial killer on the street and like subduing him.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I'm way OK with that.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: No, I totally am. In this particular instance, like I'm
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: all fine with that. That kind of justice for sure.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And a badge of honor for East L.A. because
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: the entire city of Los Angeles was I mean, it
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: was a scary situation there.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine. That's where Cheech Marin was born,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: according to that one song of his.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: So the Night Stalker, he was not the only serial
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: killer that checked in there. He actually inspired just a
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: few years after he was convicted in, I think, 1989.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I think like in 92, maybe 93, there was another
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: serial killer named... Jack Unterweger, who was Austrian, who had
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: already been convicted, I think when he was like 19
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: or early 20s, of killing a woman by strangling her
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: with her own bra and went to prison. He was very,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: very smart, very charming. He used this to basically get
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: early parole. He convinced the public that he was actually
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: reformed and apparently was held up as like a great
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: example of how, you know, the, the, the prison system
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: could rehabilitate someone. And it was just a complete false fabrication.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: He was basically posed as a true crime journalist. Like
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: he reinvented himself as that went to LA and other parts.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: He went to Europe, traveled through Europe a little bit too,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: but also ended up in LA and, to do research
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: on his true crime novels. Went along on ride-alongs with
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the LAPD and ended up using that to scout victims.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: He killed three sex workers, and the whole time he
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: was staying at the Cecil Hotel, and they think probably
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: as an homage to Richard Ramirez, or at least a
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: connection to him, you know?
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that, I mean, at this point, like, the
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: reputation for the hotel... It's not the kind of thing
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: that is going to appear online 15 years ago when
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: young people like Elisa Lam are searching for an inexpensive
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: place to stay. And sadly, that's exactly what happened was
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: a Canadian traveler. She was 20, 21 years old, was
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: on her way kind of up the West Coast traveling
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: by herself. Her parents were a little unnerved by her
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: traveling by herself. So she was asked to check in
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: every day, which she was doing. Uh, and at the
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: time it was, uh, you know, they had kind of
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: dorm style rooms, kind of youth hostel style rooms where
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: you had bunk beds and a shared bathroom. And so
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: you could stay there. It was a traveler's hotel. And
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: if you, uh, you know, I hate to say it,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: but if you, if you didn't know much about LA,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: you may end up at the hotel Cecil because you
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: could stay there for like 75 bucks a night or
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: something like that.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. From what I could tell, stay on Maine did
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: a really good job of making their you know, using
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: their website to their advantage and making it seem like
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: this is a really hip happening spot. And I mean,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: in some ways they were kind of like just a
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: little ahead of their time because apparently that area around
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Skid Row in downtown LA is like the hippest spot
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: to live in now again. But at the time it
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: was still really, really Skid Row-y basically.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it could be it could be, you know,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: could be dangerous.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think it still is. But I think
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: it's just becoming more and more gentrified and it's becoming,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I guess, less dangerous in that sense. But at the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: time when Elisa Lam showed up in 2013, it was
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: you know, it was it was a dangerous place to be.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: But this particular spot was just full of, you know,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: especially European kids on basically budget holidays.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Staying in L.A., basically in hostels. And I know originally
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: she was put into a room with a couple other
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: girls that I think were traveling together, but she was
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: traveling alone. So it was very hostile, um, and not
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: hostile with an E. Right. Well, yeah, there's an E,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: but it's in a different place than you'd expect. Um,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: youth hostily. It was very youth hostily. Like she was
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: put in a room with other people at first.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. LA didn't have a lot of that. I remember
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: there was a youth hostel in Venice that, uh, For
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: some reason, I always wanted to stay there when I
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: lived in L.A. I was like, I'm going to go
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: down and stay in that hostel one night because the
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: beach was so far. The beach was really far when
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: you lived on the east side and you kind of
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: never went over there much unless someone came to town
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: and wanted to go to the beach.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, that makes sense. Sure.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: So, and, you know, I was broke back then, so
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: it could have been like a little staycation.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Did you ever do it?
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Nah.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: No.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: It's one of those things you think about late night
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: and then you wake up the next day and you're like, nah.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You blew all your money on Taco Bell instead?
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, man. I miss Taco Bell.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Do you? I don't.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, I didn't eat it that much, but I
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: haven't had it in years.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I've had too much, I think, was my problem.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay. Was that the deal? By the way, side note,
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: speaking of weird late night foods, we had a guy
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: on our front door camera the other day come in
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: the middle of the night and leave a package. And
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: we were like, what is this? We went out the
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: next day and it was a bag full of crystals. Wow.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: And I think it was a delivery, like a door
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: dash or something.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, crystals. I thought you meant like amethysts.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. I mean, tiny square sliders.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: He had the wrong address.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Either that or your daughter has mastered the telephone by now.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: It was really weird. And of course, the first thing
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: I did was feel terrible that someone's late night munchies
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: didn't get satisfied.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Did you eat them the next morning? Just as a homage?
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, God, no.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: No, no, no. No? You don't like crystals? Or was
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: it because it was sitting there overnight?
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Both. I never was into crystal for some reason.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Man, I like crystals.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: It was the thing. I just was, I don't know why.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: I think I was just a Waffle House guy.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I don't, I'm fine with Waffle House too. The big
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: problem with crystals though, Chuck, I'll tell you, is they're
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: fries or Probably the worst fries of any fast food.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: They're the most bland. Somehow, if you just bit into
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a raw potato, it would be less bland and tasteless
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: than if you ate a Crystal's Fry.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know how they do it.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: And if you're from the other places in the country,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: White Castle is sort of an analog to Crystal.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Anyway, this is not an episode of the Doughboys. This
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: is stuff you should know. And back to Elisa Lam,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: she was supposed to be there for about, I think,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: four days and check out on February 1st and did
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: not get in touch with her parents like she had
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: been doing each day. She had been seen shopping for
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: books at a nearby bookstore and then bought some books.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: And this is one of the things in the documentary, like,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: you know, they didn't really have any footage of her
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: with any other people inside the hotel. before her disappearance.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Well, she was also reported to be constantly by herself too,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: by people who saw her. Yeah.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, she was traveling alone. So that, that makes sense. But, um, she,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: she did get handed off. There were two gentlemen that
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: handed off a kind of a largest, uh, large-ish box
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: to her.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: On camera in front of the hotel. And of course
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: the internet sleuths are like, who are these guys? What
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: was in the box? And apparently in the box were
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: these books that she got because she had spoken with
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: the book read, um, seller, um, About like the size
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: of them. And boy, I don't even know if I
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: can carry these. And I think had them delivered to
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: the hotel or whatever. So kind of nothing to see here.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: And another example of how annoying this case can be
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: with people online speculating like wrong stuff.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Can be a little annoying for sure. But yes, so
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: she was she was alone traveling alone. I think she
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: started out in San Diego or at least her last
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: stop had been San Diego. Her next stop was going
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: to be Santa Cruz. And yeah, her parents have been like, okay,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: you need to call us every single day. And she
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: had been pretty faithfully until that February 1st came and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: went with no call. And I believe they pretty much
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: immediately contacted the hotel and the LAPD and said, hey,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you know, our daughter hasn't checked in. Can you see
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: what's going on? I don't know if they did it
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: on February 1st or not, but in pretty short order,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: the LAPD determined that She she was just gone. She
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't she was nowhere to be found and that there
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: was some suspiciousness going on for sure.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, they did a thorough inspection. They went
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: to her room. They had found that the hotel had
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: gathered all her stuff and bagged it and was holding
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: it in storage, which was regular protocol when someone doesn't
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: check out and just leave stuff. Nothing shady going on there.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: They checked around the hotel in the alleyways and sidewalks.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: They checked up on the roof. They didn't find anything.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: And things got really strange. And I guess we should
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: take another ad break here. But things got really strange
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: when the hotel sent them footage from inside the elevator
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: of the Cecil Hotel. And we'll get to that right
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: after this.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: All right, Chuck. So Elisa Lam is now known to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: be missing. She left her stuff behind at the Cecil
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Hotel and she didn't check out. She didn't call her
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: parents as she usually did. And she's officially a missing person.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Within a couple of days, I think maybe February 6th,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the police held a press conference and explained what was
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: going on to the public. And basically asked for everybody's help.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: And if anyone had any info, you know, where did
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: she go? Where is she? How's she doing? Is she OK?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: And I guess I don't I didn't see anything about
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: any get any crazy leads or anything like that. It
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to have really kind of captured the public's
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: interest at first. And I saw there's this guy named
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Josh Dean who's written written several articles on the Elisa
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Lam disappearance. And I believe one of the ones that
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: he wrote kind of pinpoints why there wasn't a huge
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: public interest in the first like week or even two
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: of her case. It was because Christopher Dorner had gone
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: on his rampage against the LAPD, basically declared war on
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the LAPD and was killed in, I think, the mountains
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: of San Bernardino in a standoff, like right when Elisa
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Lam went missing. So not only was the public's attention
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: on this, especially in L.A., the LAPD's attention was definitely
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: on that as well. So Elisa Lam was kind of
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: like this faint little chirp in this huge maelstrom at
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the time.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: They ain't chirping in Maelstrom.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: It's the best I could come up with on short notes.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: It's amazing. Are you kidding me?
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, thanks.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: You just made that up?
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I did. You like it?
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I just have a feeling that next time
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I'm in your house, it's going to be like, that's
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: going to be carved into your desk or something. Right.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: It's on a t-shirt.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Right. That you put, you make Momo wear that t-shirt
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: every day.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, the other big reason was until
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: this footage actually came out of the elevator in uh, car, then,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: you know, that's when, um, that's when the public's attention
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: really caught hold.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: That changed everything.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, there's no way around it. It's, it's
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: a very sort of unsettling. And I remember when this happened, uh,
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: before any of the facts of the case were kind
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: of out, I remember looking at this video and it
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: is very unsettling and it does appear to be very
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: creepy and that, uh, a young woman gets on an elevator, um,
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: very kind of casually presses all the center buttons, uh,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: on all the floors. I think they determined she was
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: on the 14th floor and sort of pressed all the
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: floors on the way down. Elevator doesn't do anything. The
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: doors don't shut. She moves to the back corner and
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: sort of standing there. She goes and she looks outside
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: of the elevator both ways a couple of times in
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: the hallway and then kind of retreats back quickly. At
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: one point, she steps out into the hallway and appears
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: to be gesturing towards somebody or she's at least making
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: hand gestures to the right down the hallway.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And they're unusual hand gestures. They're not like the
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: normal hand gestures you might make. They're not at all
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: subtle or casual or almost even like, like, you know,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: you might not even realize you're using your hands when
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: you're talking sometimes. Like these are, these are more gesticulations
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: than just mere gestures. You know what I mean?
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, there's, there's no doubt. And eventually
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: she kind of, leaves around to the left and exits
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: to the left and the door stays open for a
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: while before it shuts um but there's no getting around
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: the fact that it having known nothing and knowing that
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: this person disappeared uh this young woman and then you
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: see this it seems very suspicious um.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: And creepy i don't think it's creepy i think.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: It looks i don't even think it looks that creepy
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: it looks to me like That she is trying to
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: get away from someone and is afraid someone has followed
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: her or is gesturing at a person who she feels
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: threatened by. It's what it looks like to me. I
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: know other people online talk about otherworldly spirits. And she's
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: like you said earlier, she's conjuring spirits with her hands.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Like I just that never occurred to me. It just
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: looked like she might be in some kind of peril
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: and was trying to get away from someone. Right.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: But that's creepy in and of itself, you know.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just mean not creepy in, like, a supernatural, like,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: what's going on here way.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: No, I think the thing that really, when it really
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: turns creepy to me is when she turns around and
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: hides in the corner of the elevator. Like, she's hiding.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: And then the second part that's genuinely creepy is when she, like,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: leans out and, like, looks both ways and then kind
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: of jumps back into the elevator. It's just, I mean,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: it's really hard not to kind of put yourself in
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: her shoes. And she's clearly frightened. And to see somebody
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: frightened like that, it's creepy.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: And you're waiting on someone to enter the elevator, but
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: that never happens. And with the internet sleuthing, you couldn't
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: really make out the time code very well. And so
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: all the people online are like, well, why can't you
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: make out the time code and the timestamps? Like what
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: would degrade that and not the rest of it? And
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: then they think they decoded it and there's almost a
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: full minute missing in the hotel. Cecil edited out a
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: portion clearly. And before they send it to the cops and,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: and they interviewed the woman and that you were talking
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: about the manager. And she was like, no, of course
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: we didn't edit anything out. Like we were horrified by
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: this disappearance. It just sent him everything we had.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Right. Plus I'm sure also that most of the employees
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: that stay on main know exactly how to edit video
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: out before handing things over to the cops. Anyway, it
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: is LA. That's true. That is a good point. Actually.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: But I don't buy it. I think it was, it
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: is what it was, which was, uh, a person in
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: an elevator who had some, uh, was having some mental
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: issues and, you know, we'll get to that in a second. Um,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: and I think, you know, it's sort of like, uh,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: the easiest explanation of the video, at least to me,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: it seems to be the most accurate.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: All right. Um, that, that's what I buy. That's how
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: I buy it too. Um, So that video was released
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: on February 13th, and now all of a sudden the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: public is taking notice. She becomes an internet meme almost
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: overnight with people watching and analyzing that video, like you
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: were saying. And yet they still can't find her. No
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: one has any idea where she is. It's been two
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: weeks now since she went missing. This video is out there.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: The entire internet is on the case now. And it
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: wasn't until a couple days, I think two days after
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: The video came out, Chuck, that one of the guys,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: one of the custodians of the Cecil Hotel of Stay
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: on Main, I should say, was asked to go check
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: on the water supply on the roof because the Cecil
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Hotel used gravity fed water. They had four 1,000 gallon
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: tanks on the top of the roof. And when you
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: open the tap, the water would come pouring down from
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: those tanks into your room and out the faucet. And
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: some of the tenants, I don't know if it was
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: just the hotel or some long-term tenants, but they were
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: complaining that the water pressure had suddenly gotten really low
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: and that the water that was coming out had a
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: strange odor and taste and weird kind of color to it.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: And so they dispatched the custodian to the roof Um,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: and he went and checked and I think as he
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: was approaching the, the main water tank, I think tank
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: number one, he noticed that the hatch was open and, uh,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: in very short order made a, the, the grizzly discovery
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: of Elisa Lamb's body. Yeah.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: He was, uh, he was kind of like the super,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: he was a maintenance guy. His name is Santiago Lopez
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: and he's in the documentary too. Um, I don't think
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: he saw the hatch cause the hatch is on top
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: of the tank. But he went to go and he
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: said it was a routine thing if there was any
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: kind of water issue was to climb the ladder to
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: the tanks and go look and see what was going
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: on because there's probably a clog or something. And he
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: saw her body naked about a foot below the water,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: just sort of suspended there. And, you know, when they
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: interviewed this guy in the documentary, it's really sad. You know,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: he was sort of at the center of a lot
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: of this with interviews and He he was speaking through it,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: I guess not through a translator, but through subtitles. But
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: he was clearly, you know, still very upset about this.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: And it scarred him to see this woman floating in
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: the tank. And he knew immediately who it was and
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: called down to the hotel manager who we've been talking
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: about and said, you know, she's she's up here in
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: the tank. And, you know, the cops came. They found
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: her clothes, which were determined to be the same clothes.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: She was wearing in the elevator video kind of at
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: the bottom of the tank. They had sunk. And, you know,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: immediately the new mystery is not what's going on in
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: this video. Although, you know, that played a part because
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: they were still trying to figure that out as far
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: as foul play goes. But was how she made it
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: in here and and why she made it in there.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because she she it was like the hatch is
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: not easy to get. in or out of, they had
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: to like cut her out of the, they had to
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: cut a hole in the bottom of the tank so
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: they could access it, right? They couldn't just pull her
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: back out of that hatch. So that's kind of weird
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: in and of itself. She's also nude. That also kind
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: of added to the mystery of the whole thing. And
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: then also the, you know, the coroner, when he made
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: his toxicology report available, he basically said it was, he
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: wasn't able to make any conclusive statements find any conclusive
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: results because there wasn't enough blood to take a sample from.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: You know, she just kind of permeated the water in
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: that her blood had. And it wasn't you just couldn't
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: like take a water sample and be like, oh, yeah,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: there's no you know, there's no drugs in here or
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: anything like that. So all of that combined really kind
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: of just. just took that mystery, you know, that people
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: had been primed to start thinking about with that video
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: and then just blew it through the the roof you
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: know i mean the the the water being you know
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: going to other people's taps in the hotel and you
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: know lisa lamb basically being a part of that water
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: really kind of solidified her legendary status or the legendary
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: status of her mystery i think in people's imagination anybody
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: who comes across that case can't help but like let
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: the mind wander in that respect Oh.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: For sure. I mean, the idea of drinking water and
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: bathing in water with a decomposing body. I mean, the
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: body was in a pretty rough state of decomposition at
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: that point. They did do, obviously, in the autopsy, they
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: didn't find any signs of foul play. There were obviously
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: no obvious wounds. There were no internal wounds. There was
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: no strangulation. They pretty much said this doesn't look like
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: foul play at all. Um, the one, one of the
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: mysteries was how she got up there because you, um,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: if you want to go just through the regular staircase
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: to the rooftop, and this is not a rooftop that you,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't have like a rooftop hangout area
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: or whatever, although people, you know, there was plenty of
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: graffiti and beer bottles and drug needles. And so people
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: would make their way up there. But, uh, if you
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: go through the regular door, it's one of the, um,
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: alarm doors, which would trigger downstairs and all throughout the lobby. Um,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: that never came on. and you have to have a
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: key to disable it, but there is a fire escape, uh,
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: entry with a ladder basically for the last, like for
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: the last story, it's a little precarious, but she could
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: have just simply gone out the window to the fire
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: escape and climbed up the ladder and then up the
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: ladder to the tanks. It's not, you know, it's a little, um,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: it would be a little bit of a scary trip
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: up that ladder, I think. But, uh, considering what happened, she, she,
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: clearly was, uh, was not in a good place mentally.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: So I think that's completely believable.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: That journalist, Josh Dean, um, went in, I think, 2015
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: to see the CISO himself. He had, uh, gotten obsessed
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: with the, the, um, case. So he went and kind
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: of investigated it in person. And, um, he quickly found
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: that open window was still open, uh, and the fire
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: escape was easily accessible. And, um, in the, uh, I
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: think one of his articles is called American Horror Story,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: which is a reference to what I think the hotel
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: season of American Horror Story was based on or inspired
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: by Elisa Lam's disappearance. But there's a picture that he
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: took of that ladder leading from the fire escape on
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: the 15th or 14th floor up to the roof. And
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: all you see is up, like you just see the
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: ladder and then above it is sky. But after reading
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: about it, your imagination just thinks of like the 15
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: stories behind you. Like as you're, you know, as you're
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: looking up this ladder, it's one of the most unsettling
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: pictures I've ever seen. If you read the text, you know,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: that surround it. But he said by his judgment, an
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: average person could easily make it up that ladder, especially
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: if you don't look down. He said, if you're carrying
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: a body or another person, you could not do it.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: He said, it just would be too difficult.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: And, you know, it's one of those straight up vertical
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: ladders on the side of the building.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But if you were in a manic state, as
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of people believe Elisa Lam was, you could
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: probably make it up that ladder pretty quickly. You wouldn't
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: even necessarily consider looking down and all of a sudden
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: you'd be on the roof. And after you were on
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the roof, it would be a fairly easy proposition to
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: get into one of those tanks, especially I think she
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: weighed about one hundred and fifteen pounds and was about
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: five feet, four inches. So it was possible for her
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: to get into one of those tanks through that hatch.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: But either she was too scared to come out conceivably,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: or she couldn't get out when she wanted to get
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: out and tired of treading water because the water would
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: have been about eight feet deep and drowned after a while.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, they did. I think the police dogs
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: did pick up her scent near that window. So that
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: seems to be what happened. And you know, this is
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: one of those cases where the more I read, like
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: all I could feel was despair about this poor woman
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: having what looked to be some sort of medication related
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: manic episode, maybe scared, maybe thinking someone was following her
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: and trying to get away and, and going at great lengths,
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: going to great lengths to maybe hide somewhere like inside
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: of a water tank. I don't know, like, why her
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: clothes were off or why her clothes ended up in
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: the tank. I'm not saying any of this makes sense,
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: but it is something that could happen. And all I
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: can think about is what an awful place that she
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: must've been for something like this to have happened.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I mean, to kind of back up the, um, the,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the mental break, um, theory, which is what I buy. That's,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: that's where I put my stock. Um, She remember I
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: said she was originally put in a room with a
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: couple other girls she didn't know at the stay on Maine.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: They complained about her behaving strangely. So she was moved
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: to her own private room. Apparently, she went to a
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: taping of the Conan O'Brien show and was escorted out
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: because she was behaving strangely. And then detectives also found
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: she was on four different medications for bipolar one disorder
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: and depression. And the LAPD, based on the prescription dates
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: on the bottles and then the number of pills that
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: were left and the instructions on the bottles, the LAPD
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: were able to determine that she hadn't been following the
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: dosage recommendations or taking her pills or medication. So if
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: you put all of that together and then also that–
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: people taking their clothes off as part of a psychotic
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: episode happens. It's been documented. You like, there's no, there's
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: no pieces missing on the table. Like she could have
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: gone out on that fire escape, gone up the ladder.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Like there's nothing that is, well, yeah, but then there's
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: this really big thing that remains unexplained. Like it explains
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: absolutely everything. And then suddenly it kind of makes all
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: the other stuff like government mind control or ghosts or
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: whatever seem just kind of gross, you know?
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Totally agree. I believe her parents brought a lawsuit against
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: the hotel that was eventually dismissed, if I'm not mistaken.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: And it just remains a very, very sad situation and
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: a sad case. And it is very annoying when you
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: get online and everyone thinks that their spirit's being conjured
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: and all this wacky stuff. It's just not the case.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Not the case indeed. You got anything else?
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: I got nothing else.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Well, that's it for the Cecil hotel and the Lisa
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: lamb RIP. Uh, and since I said RIP, that means
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Uh, I'm going to call this follow up to Y2K.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Oh yes.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Uh, and this is something that we actually had in
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: our notes that we, I guess just kind of failed
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: to bring up.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, you had it in your
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: notes as well. Yeah. Yeah.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: The, the 2038 problem. Um, We got a lot of
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: emails about this, and we're not going to fully probably
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: explain to everyone's satisfaction how it works. But, hey, guys,
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: just got done listening to the Y2K podcast, which brought
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: back an interesting range of memories of living through that time.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: In case you weren't aware, there's something called the Unix
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Y2K problem that still exists but is slowly being fixed
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: by smart people behind the scenes.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: The majority of computers in the world run Unix-based operating systems.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: not Windows or Mac OS. And unless these systems are
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: patched at 3.14 on January 19th, 2038, their clocks will
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: roll over to think it's midnight, January 1st, 1970.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: The cause is basically the same in the early versions
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: of the OS. Only had so much memory allocated to
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: time representations, but more modern versions now have this fixed
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: and hence computers aren't susceptible once they're updated or upgraded.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: Although not all systems can be easily Updated. And that
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: is from a bunch of people, but specifically from PhD
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Alan Chalker.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: That's great. Thanks, Alan, to everybody who wrote in. I
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, man, I meant to include that. But
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: apparently Unix represents time as the number of seconds from
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: the epoch date, which is some date in 1970. And
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: then eventually it's going to have more seconds than it
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: can represent in the number of digits. So it'll just
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: roll back over like he was saying. Which is pretty neat.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Come on, Unix.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Pretty cool. But also I'm glad to hear that there
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: are smart people working on that because we got 17 years. Man,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: you guys take it easy. Take a weekend, you know? Sure.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Go sit in your house and social distance from everybody.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: That's right. We also got a lot of emails just
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: from people that, some people whose parents helped rewrite code
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: or were heading up projects rewriting code and It was
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: pretty cool. We got a lot of emails about that
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: when you struck a chord.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a good idea, Chuck. Well, if you
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us like Alan and
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: everybody else did, you can send us an email.