Daily BrewQuestions linger after Vancouver’s Elisa Lam found in L.A. hotel water tank
The search for a missing Vancouver woman in Los Angeles has ended in tragic fashion, after her body was found in a rooftop water tank at the questionable hotel where she was last seen.
The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed the identity of the body discovered late Tuesday as Lam, who disappeared in January while on a trip through the United States.
CBC News reports the body was found by an employee of the Cecil Hotel, who was investigating complaints of low water pressure.
Lam's disappearance was considered suspicious, and neither police nor her family could explain why Lam had travelled to L.A., or why she chose to stay in a particularly dangerous part of the city.
[ Related: Missing Canadian woman's body found at L.A. hotel ]
Last week, police released security footage of the 21-year-old student acting strangely while riding in a hotel elevator. The video shows Lam pressing all the buttons in the elevator and shifting back and forth.
It was the last time she was seen.
L.A. police continue to investigate Lam's death and told CBC that while anyone could open the water tank where she was discovered, the roof itself was secured by a lock and alarm.
The Cecil Hotel is a two-star, 600 room hotel near the area of L.A. known as "skid row," an area with a history of drugs, homelessness and crime.
[ More Brew: Elisa Lam was staying in L.A.’s ‘skid row’ ]
A Los Angeles travel blog, In SRO Land, recently posted a story about several historic deaths at the Cecil Hotel, including Goldie Osgood, found raped and strangled to death in 1964, and Pauline Otton (spelled Otten in other accounts), who jumped from a hotel window after a fight with her husband in 1962 and landed on a passerby, killing them both instantly.
Two other women were also reported to have jumped to their deaths while staying at the Cecil Hotel.
The L.A. Observed magazine also wrote that Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger, two serial killers, stayed at the Cecil Hotel during their sprees in 1991 and 1985.
Detectives are still not sure about the chain of events that led to Lam’s death, but it is the latest of a bizarre deaths s at the downtown hotel.
