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Elisa Lam was born on April 30, 1991, in Vancouver, Canada to parents who immigrated from Hong Kong. Lam was a student at the University of British Columbia and traveled to Santa Cruz as a getaway from her studies. On January 26th, she arrived in LA. On January 28th, she had a shared room in the Cecil Hotel, where she was last seen alive on January 31. Her roommates complained about “certain odd behavior” such as leaving notes telling them to go away, go home and lock the door, and requiring a password to be let in. Elisa had contacted her parents every day leading up to the day she disappeared. The day she was to check out of the hotel, she stopped responding to her parents, David and Yinna Lam, who immediately called the police and reported her missing. While investigators were searching for Lam, hotel guests complained that the water was black and had an abnormal taste. On February 19th, 2013, Lam was found in a water tank on top of the hotel with her outfit, watch and room key floating next to her. In the years leading up to her death, Lam was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression which led people to think she committed suicide. However, the autopsy reports stated that her cause of death was undetermined and then an accidental drowning. 

Interest in Lam’s case spiked when a video was uploaded to social media, showing her acting very erratic and random. Her actions included putting her hands out in front of her carefully as if she were petting something, pressing elevator buttons excessively, checking the hallway outside the elevator, and tucking herself into the corner of the elevator as if she were hiding. The elevator also didn’t close during this, even when she had gotten out or was standing still. Some believe that the security footage had been tampered with to protect or hide the identity of someone who was with Elisa that night and who may or may not be linked to her disappearance and death. Lam also had a history of not taking her bipolar medication and as a result, experienced hallucinations in which she would hide. 

On the morning of February 19th, a hotel maintenance worker, Santiago Lopez, found Lam’s body in a 1,000-pound tank that provided guests, the kitchen, and the coffee shop with water. The hatch to the water tank was open and from there, he could see Lam lying face up in the water. The tank had to be drained and cut open because the hatch was too small to get any equipment for Lam’s body. To go into more detail concerning the autopsy report, her body wasn’t very decomposed, but was bloated. Her body was green along with mold spots on her legs and buttocks. The autopsy report was later questioned due to it being incomplete. For example, Lam’s body had hypodermic blood pooling in her anal area, and her rectum was prolapsed. Toxicology reports found traces of prescription pills consistent with meds found in her belongings and non-prescription medications like ibuprofen and flonase. The number of pills in her pill bottle and the low amount of drugs in her system suggest she hadn’t been taking her medication, which could’ve led to a psychotic episode. To this day, no one knows how she would’ve gotten in the tank to begin with because doors and stairs that led to the roof are locked and only workers with the passcode or key can unlock it. She would’ve been able to get onto the roof herself through the fire escape without those, but there’s no way she could have climbed into a water tank and closed it all on her own. The worker who found her said the lid was open, removing the theory that she opened and closed the tank herself. 

One theory regarding Lam’s death is that she was murdered by a Mexican death metal star and photographer, Morbid, whose real name is Pablo Vergara.  He was accused of Elisa’s death by true crime fans trying to crack her case, although he wasn’t in the United States at the time. The reason he was accused of murder is because he had a YouTube channel showing his lifelong obsession with death, as well as his music videos having photos associated with death and violence which true crime fans took as clues. He stars in the Netflix documentary and states how conspiracy theorists had ruined his life. He states “The web sleuths go on with their life like nothing happened. I feel like I have lost my freedom of expression. I actually haven’t made any more music. When I try, it’s not the same.” After hundreds of people reported his social media and email accounts, all of his accounts were taken down.  

As for Elisa’s friends and family, not much is known about them. They filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against The Cecil Hotel in September 2013 claiming that the hotel failed to “inspect and seek out hazards in the hotel that presented an unreasonable risk of danger to Lam and other hotel guests” while also seeking unspecified damages and burial costs. Unfortunately, the judge dismissed the lawsuit as it would be unreasonable and unlikely for a hotel guest to fall into water tanks as no guests were even allowed on the roof.