Elisa Lam v Hotel Cecil

For those of you that don’t know what I’m talking about, Elisa Lam was a tourist that came from Canada (although she herself was 1st generation from a family that immigrated from Hong Kong), and found herself on a tour of California.  She checked into the Hotel Cecil, which is located in downtown Los Angeles.  The Cecil has had numerous tragedies and darkness attached to it since it was created in the late 1920s/early 1930s. Supposedly, even the tragic Black Dahlia had been there just days before her gruesome murder, and then we go on to mention another piece of trivia: Richard Ramirez the Night Stalker serial killer actually lived in Hotel Cecil for a while during his crime spree. 

The Elisa Lam case is being looked at by Netflix as almost a purely true crime case, although they do mention the terrible things that just seem to keep occurring there. Although, I think the Elisa Lam case is so strange because not only do we have bizarre footage of her exiting and entering an elevator that doesn’t seem to be working, but then suddenly shuts when she disappears from the scene.   This was the last footage of Elisa Lam, which looks as if she’s almost hiding or talking to someone/something that isn’t there, before her body was later found in one of the water tanks on the roof of the building.  It turns out that multiple guests had complained about the water pressure, and a certain taste or smell coming from the water. 

Everything about this case makes my hair stand on end.  She seemed like a very excitable and extroverted girl.  Elisa’s favorite social media platform was Tumblr, a site that even my wife used to blog on quite frequently. She seemed like a normal 21 year old girl, wanting to explore the world, and who was almost my age at the time.  A sweet girl, but she seemed to have issues where she would perhaps be too friendly with people, even saying on her blog that her mouth could possibly get her in trouble at some point.  

I believe in ghosts and the supernatural, although I think a genuine haunting is actually pretty rare.  Many people have experiences, but it’s not common to find a vortex or place with energy enough to sustain an entity, whether that entity be good or bad.  Yet the Hotel Cecil, from the moment I heard about this case, there seems to be some darkness around the place.  The decades went by, and more murders, overdoses, suicides, etc would all be common occurrence at the hotel, especially when the infamous “Skid Row” of Los Angeles sprouted around the area surrounding the hotel like some kind of toxic growth upon what from the outside looks like an old luxurious hotel.   You walk only feet away from the lobby, and you’re met with the dead, dirty, and toilet like smells that permeate from blocks of people suffering in poverty. 

I don’t think we will ever know what exactly happened to Elisa. I can only imagine being one of the people in the rooms as they showered in what turned out to be water that was soaking her decomposing body.  It makes me gag even now, and I think it’s the kind of things that nightmares are made of.  And there have been many parts of me that wanted to go visit the Hotel Cecil since it’s really not more than an hour away from where I live here in Southern California. I keep telling myself I would only stay for one night, and bring food and water for myself PURCHASE NOTHING FROM THE HOTEL.  However, I don’t know, I keep feeling like my curiosity of what is there is really just whatever type of darkness that lurks there wants us to have.  It’s the little light dangling on the end of the angler fish’s antenna, right before it’s maw opens and eats you whole.  

I hope that wherever you are, you’re at peace Elisa Lam.  And that we can all resist the call of places like Hotel Cecil if we are ever faced with them.