David and Yinna Lam, parents of Elisa Lam, found it odd that Elisa didn’t check in with them on the day she was supposed to check out of the Cecil hotel on January 31st of 2013. They were already concerned about her traveling alone as a college student, so when she didn’t respond they called LAPD. Elisa had gone missing. Soon after, the police department had released uncanny CCTV footage from the hotel elevator. There are two possible ways that Elisa could have died. She either killed herself or she was murdered. I believe she killed herself, and this is how I think she did it.
Elisa Lam was a 21-year-old Canadian college student who went to school at University of British Columbia in Vancouver as a traveling student. She was a 5’4, 115-pound young woman with black hair, dark brown eyes and a smile that was probably forced most of the time. Her dream job was to work on a farm in Santa Cruz, which some of her friends thought was “pretty strange.”
Lam was known for being depressed and bipolar. She was even supposed to be taking medicine for it. Because of her depression, she had trouble being active, and doing the things she loved didn’t quite excite her anymore. She even dropped out of school for a while because she couldn’t get out of bed. Just doing the normal things like eating and being social was hard for her. Elisa blogged, “Why don't I simply do the things that I know will make me feel better? It isn't rocket science . . . It isn't that difficult. Get out of bed. Eat. See people. Talk to people. Exercise. Write. Read" (1).
Her depression made her feel as if everything was her fault. “I spent about two days in bed hating myself” (Lam 1). She wanted to get back on track in her life, which included finishing school. “I'm very disappointed in myself for breaking down during the term forcing me to withdraw from courses. That means I've been a first year for three years and this September it will be for the fourth year because I require 30 credits in order for second year status” (1).
Elisa doubted herself nearly all the time. Her depression did not make things easy for her. Even if she was taking medicine, it seemed like her depression was getting worse. She had been depressed for about three years when she was writing in her blog:
“If you weren't so lazy, you'd probably wouldn't have dragged out this depression for so long. God why do you give up so easily. You make it like a snap decision. Why do you have no commitment and diligence? You're so freakin lazy. You're a phony. You want to cruise by and fool everyone into thinking you're smart but really you did the least amount of work and pretended you worked really hard and you deserve this mark. If there's an easy way you will manipulate people into getting it. And then feel guilty afterwards because oh, you didn't live up to your morals and ideals” (1).
Elisa would also be described as lazy. In her blog she talks about how it's hard for her to get up and do anything. "So far all I've done is lay on my bed and watch episodes of Chopped” (1). She felt ashamed that she only got three credits the three years she was in college. “I’ve been at university for 3 years and I've only managed to complete three courses” (1). She even dropped out because it was too overwhelming for her. “I had a relapse at the start of the term and had to drop 2 of the 3 courses I was taking” (1). “My room is still a mess. I haven't actually done any schoolwork and I berate myself for being such a lazy person. Ah yes laziness.”
To her, merely being able to get up and make the bed in the morning was considered active. Elisa used to even run in high school, but she stopped her senior year. She felt like that’s what started the spiraling downward:
“I believe the biggest reason why I got depressed was because I stopped running in my last year of high school. Up until that point I was on the cross country and track and field team. Mind you I wasn't very good runner, but I did it. I lacked the discipline to actually train. And now I am still lacking the discipline to run or do any sport of sort” (1)
She wanted to get up and exercise, but she lacked the motivation. This corresponds with her depression as well. When depressed, being physically active is probably one of the hardest tasks. A depressed person might say they want to do something, but they usually never have the energy or motivation to do it. “If I weren't so lazy, I would exercise” (1).
Being lazy also made her unhealthy. She didn’t eat healthy foods. Instead, she mostly consumed “junk food.” “I have been living off of junk food and if I were not so lazy, I would actually go try to learn how to feed myself,” Elisa mentions in her blog (1). Getting up and cooking or even going to get fast food felt like too much effort for her. “I simply have no motivation to do anything, let alone leave my bed” (1).
The first conspiracy theory about Elisa Lam was that she was murdered, and somebody put her body in the water tank. According to the hotel worker that found her, Elisa could not have gotten into that water tank by herself. The tank was 10 feet tall and required a latter which was nowhere to be found in the crime scene. In addition, to get on top of the roof, the person had to go through a fire escape door. When the person opens the door, they would hear a loud ringing alarm. Considering that the water tanks door was heavy, the police are confused as to how she would be able to close the door on herself. The people who think Elisa was murdered are also saying that she was being followed around the hotel. In the video of her in the elevator, it seems like she was running from somebody. Then, she steps out and it looks like Elisa is talking to somebody and then walks away.
Another conspiracy theory is that she killed herself. Elisa was on medication for her depression and her bipolar disorder. However, according to her friends, “sometimes Elisa would skip out on taking her medication” (Ristea, 1). A few days before she disappeared, she was kicked out of her room full of roommates because she was having a bipolar episode and was yelling at everyone in the room. The autopsy reported that she had her medication in her system, but it was a few days old, meaning she didn’t take her regular medication that night. When Elisa does not take her medicine, she tends to get paranoid and very frantic, so she might have thought she was being followed. That would explain the weird video of her in the elevator. In the video, she makes gestures like she is talking to somebody and her mouth is moving, but nobody else is shown in the video. However, she also had schizophrenia, so maybe she did think she was talking to somebody and that she was being chased as well. That would explain the possibility of her killing herself. She could have thought it was a good hiding place.
At first, a great percentage of people thought she killed herself. The facts do make sense, but there are a few things that do not add up. For example, she was found naked in the water tank, and on her clothes, there were specs of sand as if somebody dragged her body. Another example would be that only employees of the hotel had keys to the fire escape, and if she opened the door by herself it should have triggered an alarm that alerts the entirety of the building. However, the guest staying at the hotel that night said they heard nothing. My last example would be the elevator video. Everyone had seen the video that the police leaked out, but nobody has seen the original video. The video has been edited a few times by the hotel before they gave it to the police. The editing of the video makes it seem like the hotel is hiding something.
At first, the theory I agreed with was that she killed herself, however, as I started to learn more about the case and more about Elisa, her killing herself just didn’t make sense. My conclusion is that she was killed by an employee. How else would she have gotten on the roof if the employees are the only people with keys. Learning about her as a person, she just wanted to get better, so her ending her own life would not be the correct theory.
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