Richard in court series.

I believe that they said that Elisa was a fan of roof top! and she saw the movie dark waters! but I am speculating here!, I must say though the video of her in the elevator is just simply creepy! the whole thing is creepy! but I don't believe in ghost demons or the shinning elevators. Rip Elisa!

That’s my baby 😍

The Cecil Hotel Ghost Photo

The Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles is notorious for its dark and haunted history: serial killer Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker) and “Black Dahlia” murder victim Elizabeth Short had both stayed there, and the building has played host to numerous gruesome deaths – the most recent of which involved the body of a missing student discovered in a rooftop water tank after hotel guests reported foul-smelling black water coming from their taps.Now it seems a new ghostly guest has signed in at the Cecil, as reported by L.A. affiliate KABC: this week their website revealed the photo, taken by Riverside resident Koston Alderete, which seems to depict a spectral figure outside a window on the building’s fourth floor.

"When I looked at that window, it just looked kind of creepy to me,” Alderete told KABC, “and then I showed my friend, and he kind of freaked out.” He also claims to have suffered nightmares after taking the photo.

Hotel Cecil, Most haunted hotel in Los Angeles.

2023

purgatorie

In September 1944, a 19-year-old guest at Los Angeles' Cecil Hotel, Dorothy Jean Purcell, unexpectedly gave birth to a baby boy in her room. Believing the baby was stillborn, she tragically threw him out the window. This incident is just one chilling episode in the dark history of the Cecil Hotel, known for grisly homicides and mysterious disappearances.

Okay, two weird things about this 1985 Diet Coke commercial featuring Andy Warhol (and several other celebrities such as Devo and Sgt. Slaughter):

1. It’s got Andy fucking Warhol in it.

2. It was filmed in front of the Cecil Hotel (see second gif) where the bizarre death of Tumblr user Elisa Lam took place (as well as many other deaths throughout the years).

Definitely a cursed soda commercial.

The Weird Death of Elisa Lam

For her trip to California, Lam travelled alone on Amtrak and intercity buses. She visited the San Diego Zoo and posted photos taken there on social media. On January 26, she arrived in Los Angeles. After two days, she checked into the Cecil Hotel, near downtown’s Skid Row. Lam was initially assigned a shared room on the hotel’s fifth floor; however, her roommates complained about what the hotel’s lawyer would later describe as “certain odd behavior” and Lam was moved to a room of her own after two days.

Lam had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. She had been prescribed four medications – Wellbutrin, Lamictal, Seroquel and Effexor – to treat her disorders. According to her family, who supposedly kept her history of mental illness a secret, Lam had no history of suicidal ideations or attempts, although one report claimed she had previously gone missing for a brief period.

Lam contacted her parents in British Columbia every day while traveling. On February 1, 2013, the day she was scheduled to check out of the Cecil and leave for Santa Cruz, her parents did not hear from her and called the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD); her family flew to Los Angeles to help with the search.

Hotel staff who saw Lam that day said she was alone. Outside the hotel, Katie Orphan, manager of a nearby bookstore, was the only person who recalled seeing her that day. “She was outgoing, very lively, very friendly” while getting gifts to take home to her family.

Police searched the hotel to the extent that they legally could. They searched Lam’s room and had dogs go through the building, including the rooftop, but the dogs were unsuccessful in detecting her scent. “But we didn’t search every room,” Sgt. Rudy Lopez said later, “we could only do that if we had probable cause” to believe a crime had been committed. On February 6, a week after Lam had last been seen, the LAPD decided more help was needed. 

On February 15, after another week with no sign of Lam, the LAPD released a video of the last known sighting of her taken in one of the Cecil’s elevators by a video surveillance camera on February 1. In approximately two and a half minutes of footage, Lam, alone, makes unusual moves and gestures, leaving the elevator at one point while its doors remain open, even after she appears to have pressed every button. When the doors fail to close after she returns, she leaves; the doors close later.

The video drew worldwide interest in the case due to Lam’s strange behavior, and has been extensively analyzed and discussed. It was reposted widely, including on the Chinese video-sharing site Youku, where it got 3 million views and 40,000 comments in its first 10 days. Many of the commentators found it unsettling to watch.

Several theories evolved to explain her actions. One was that Lam was trying to get the elevator car to move in order to escape from someone who was pursuing her. Others suggested that she might be under the influence of ecstasy or some other party drug, but none was detected in her body. When her bipolar disorder became known, the theory that she was having a psychotic episode also emerged.

Other viewers argued that the video had been tampered with before being made public. Besides the obscuring of the timestamp, they claimed, parts had been slowed down and nearly a minute of footage had been removed. This could have been done to protect the identity of someone who otherwise would be in the video, either related or not to the disappearance.

During the search for Lam, guests at the hotel began complaining about low water pressure. Some later claimed their water was colored black and had an unusual taste. On the morning of February 19, Santiago Lopez, a hotel maintenance worker, found Lam’s body in one of four 1,000-gallon (3,785 L) tanks located on the roof providing water to guest rooms, a kitchen, and a coffee shop. Through the open hatch he saw Lam lying face-up in the water. The tank was drained and cut open since its maintenance hatch was too small to accommodate equipment needed to remove Lam’s body.

On February 21, the Los Angeles coroner’s office issued a finding of accidental drowning, with bipolar disorder as a significant factor. The full coroner’s report, released in June, stated that Lam’s body had been found naked;  clothing similar to what she was wearing in the elevator video was floating in the water, coated with a “sand-like particulate”. Her watch and room key were also found with her.

Lam’s body was moderately decomposed and bloated. It was mostly greenish, with some marbling evident on the abdomen and skin separation evident. There was no evidence of physical trauma, sexual assault, or suicide. Toxicology tests showed traces consistent with prescription medication found among her belongings, plus non-prescription drugs such as Sinutab and ibuprofen. A very small quantity of alcohol (about 0.02 g%) was present, but no other recreational drugs. Investigators and experts have however noted that the concentration of her prescription drugs in her system indicated that she was under-medicating or had stopped taking her medications recently.

The investigation had determined how Lam died, but did not initially offer an explanation as to how she got into the tank in the first place. Doors and stairs that access the hotel’s roof are locked, with only staff having the passcodes and keys, and any attempt to force them would supposedly have triggered an alarm. The hotel’s fire escape could have allowed her to bypass those security measures; her scent trail was lost near a window that connected to it. A video posted to the Internet after Lam’s death showed that the hotel’s roof was easily accessible via the fire escape and that two of the lids of the water tanks were open.

Apart from the question of how she got on the roof, others asked if she could have gotten into the tank by herself. All four tanks were 4-by-8-foot (1.2 by 2.4 m) cylinders propped up on concrete blocks;  there was no fixed access to them and hotel workers had to use a ladder to look at the water. They were protected by heavy lids that would be difficult to replace from within. The hotel employee who found the body said that the lid was open at the time, removing the issue of how she could have closed the lid from inside. Police dogs that searched through the hotel for Lam, even on the roof, shortly after her disappearance was noted, did not find any trace of her.

Theories arose pertaining to the elevator video. Some argued that she was attempting to hide from a pursuer, perhaps someone ultimately responsible for her death, while others said she was merely frustrated with the elevator’s apparent malfunction. Some proponents of the theory that she was under the influence of illicit drugs are not dissuaded by their absence from the toxicology screen, suggesting that they might have broken down during the period of time her body decomposed in the tank or that she might have taken rare cocktails of such drugs that a normal screen would not detect. The very low level of her prescription drugs in her system, and the amount of pills left in her prescription bottle, suggested she was under-medicating or had recently stopped taking her medication for bipolar disorder, which might have led to a psychotic episode.

The autopsy report and its conclusions were also questioned based on the incomplete information. For instance, it does not say what the results of the rape kit and fingernail kit were or even if they were processed. It also records subcutaneous pooling of blood in Lam’s anal area, which some observers suggested was a sign of sexual abuse; one pathologist noted it could also have resulted from bloating in the course of the body’s decomposition, and her rectum was also prolapsed. Even the coroner’s pathologists appeared to be ambivalent about their conclusion that Lam’s death was accidental.

Since her death, her Tumblr blog was updated, presumably through Tumblr’s Queue option that allows posts to automatically publish themselves when the user is away. Her phone was not found either with her body or in her hotel room; it has been assumed to have been stolen at some time around her death. Whether the continued updates to her blog were facilitated by the theft of her phone, the work of a hacker, or through the Queue, is not known; nor is it known whether the updates are related to her death.

Realistic Richard Ramirez Tattoo

How EL PASO, TEXAS would of looked like in the 1980s:

I accept the answer that it was probably an accident while Elisa Lam had a psychotic episode, yadda yadda yadda, but they just glossed over the fact that the tank's lid was closed? like okay maybe she opened the tank and jumped in and then couldn't get out and drowned, but she couldn't have closed the lid herself. who the fuck closed the lid. literally no one cares

Cecil hotel

I always think about the things that happend at the cecil and i can‘t explain myself how they happend ! How did Elisa Lam open the watertanks when it should be locked ? Also what was up with the elevator video ? It creeps me out thinking that there could have been anyone next to the elevator ! And why did no one ask themselfes why Richard Ramirez came to the hotel coverd in blood ? I love unsolved cases but NOTHING is adding up .

Watching the Elisa Lam documentary on Netflix and what better platform to post bout it than Tumblr itself. So I'm on E3 and this lady...Amy Price, the former manager, is roasting my cerebrum. Quoting

"I know there are a lot of questions about the water tank and how she got up there, but the answer is quite simple of how she got up there. I believe that she took the exterior fire escape"

Ma'am, I don't think a girl would just go up to the terrace through a fire escape, and try to perform an exceptional su*ide by going near the water tank and go "Oh a water tank? Well I'll just take all my clothes off and take a deadly bath" would they? If she intended to take herself out she could have jumped off or something? Why the tank?

Also, I have a question, normally the internal organs of a body starts to decompose in about 24-72 hours. And in around 8-10 days after death, the body will turn from green to red as the blood decomposes and the organs in the abdomen accumulate gas. According to study.com

"Pallor mortis occurs as the skin starts to take on a paler tone lacking circulating blood. This process happens to everyone who dies but is more apparent in persons with less melanin in their skin. Pallor mortis occurs fairly rapidly after death, within twenty minutes or less. It is not really helpful to establish the time of death for forensic scientists because it happens so quickly."

Now though water tends to slow down the decomposition process, according to Santiago Lope, one who found Elisa Lam's body in the tank said, quoting

"She floated up. She was white. Like a ghost."

Now according to britannica.com

"The first visible change to the body—occurring 15 to 20 minutes after death—is pallor mortis, in which the body begins to pale. Pallor mortis occurs because blood stops moving through the capillaries, the smallest of the body's blood vessels."

According to this, I think it's fair to raise the questions,

WAS SHE JUST KILLED THAT VERY DAY?

WHEN DID SHE REALLY DIE?

WAS SHE KILLED THAT MORNING AND DUMPED INTO THE TANK DUE TO NIL WAY OF GETTING RID OF HER BODY?

THEN DOESN'T THAT MEAN THAT IT COULDVE BEEN DUE TO ONE OF THE EMPLOYEES?

WAS SHE ALIVE THE WHOLE 13 DAYS OF INVESTIGATION, KNOWING THAT EVERYONE'S SEARCHING FOR HER?

The fact that there's a killer in the case of Elisa Lam, still around and free till this day and it's about to be 10 years since her death is honestly just sickening. It's a shame tbh.

I made this account to look at Elisa Lams posts ! It’s just sad looking at her blogs again and again knowing what happened to her :( it creeps me out seeing what can happen to people if you skip one medication! Pls stay safe you never know what could happen ! </3

The Curse of the Cecil Hotel

One of the most famous hotels in Los Angeles, California the Cecil Hotel is rumored to be one of the most cursed hotels in the world, so much so that it is the inspiration behind Stephen King’s story 1408 and the television series American Horror Story: Hotel. Many believe that the hotel is haunted by the many people who have met their gruesome ends in the building and that they encourage others to kill themselves and commit murder.

When the hotel first opened in the 1920′s it enjoyed a great success as a tourist destination. This changed in the 1930’s when it became a budget hotel for transients and salesmen. After that suicides started to happen regularly at the hotel. Many people have died due to throwing themselves from the windows of the hotel, earning itself the nickname of Suicide Tower by the 1950s. One woman jumped to her death after an argument with her husband and landed on a man in the street below, killing him instantly. Several murders have also been linked to the Cecil Hotel, including the death of Goldie Osgood, who was found robbed, strangled and raped in her hotel room. Her murder has never been solved. Years later, in the 1980’s, the hotel became home to serial killer Richard Ramirez, The Night Stalker who killed 13 women during his stay at the Cecil. He was not the only serial killer to call the Cecil Hotel home because in the 1990’s, another killer called Jack Unterweger murdered three prostitutes while staying at the hotel. Unterweger was an Austrian serial killer who murdered several woman in his home town in Austria before fleeing to America. It is also believed that the Cecil Hotel was one of the last places Elizabeth Short, The Black Dahlia was seen alive.

One of the most well known and modern deaths that occurred in the Cecil Hotel occurred in February 2013 when the body of 21-year-old Elisa Lam was found naked in one of the water tanks on top of the hotel. She had been decomposing inside the water tank for two weeks before guests and hotel staff started complaining that the water had turned black and started to taste odd. No one knows how Elisa got into the water tank. Not only would she had had to get through a locked and alarmed door but then she would have had to push open the heavy lid of the water tank and somehow close it after her. The last known sighting of Elisa was on CCTV in the hotel elevator where she is seen acting strangely and apparently talking to someone who is not there. During her autopsy she was found to have no drugs or alcohol in her system so that was ruled out hallucinogens as the cause of her strange behavior on camera. Her death remains unsolved to this day and some believe that she was just another victim of the ghosts of the hotel.