‘The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel’: The most disturbing facts from the doc
The True Crime show – Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel explored the deepest secrets of the Cecil Hotel. Spoiler alert – it gets spooky!
The documentary about Elisa Lam’s death actually raised many questions about the twenty-one-year-old who was found dead in the Cecil Hotel in 2013.
According to Marie Claire, Cecil Hotel was in 1924 with approximately $13 million in investments from three people. The hotel also includes a total of nineteen floors with 600 suites and was known for its “classy” reputation in Los Angeles.
Hotel struggles
As reported by Marie Claire, the Cecil Hotel started fading out of Los Angeles’s classy hotel scene when a suicide was documented in 1931. And after that, many more suicides soon followed.
Unfortunately, the Cecil Hotel was the hot spot for crazy crimes and became a place of death & decay. In fact, Los Angeles residents started calling Cecil Hotel: “The Suicide”.
In the 20th century, the Cecil Hotel changed the hospitality game by becoming a destination for criminals like drug dealers & bank robbers. Eventually, many of Cecil’s guests were in constant fear for their belongings & their lives.
Later in the 1960s, CNN reported that the sexual assault & killing of “Pigeon Goldie” Osgood was recorded at the Cecil Hotel.
Hotel from hell
The number of deaths reported at the Cecil Hotel rose every year. Decider noted that the first recorded suicide was shooter Percy Ormond Cook in the later 1920s and then W.K Norton, who poisoned himself in 1931.
In the 1930s, Benjamin Dodich was shot & killed in his hotel room and found by Cecil Hotel’s housekeeping. The murders continued when Louis D. Borden was found dead after a slash to his throat with a sharp razor blade.
Cecil Hotel’s ghost stories grew in 1937 when Grace E. Magro reportedly fell from a ninth-floor window. Per Decider, Magro didn’t immediately die from the fall and was taken to the hospital where she slowly died.
Another jump was recorded when fireman Roy Thompson apparently took his own life when he jumped from the Cecil Hotel roof. The number of cases only continued with names like: Dorothy Seger, Dorothy Jean Purcell, Helen Gurnee, and Julia Frances Moore.
Elisa Lam’s death
Elisa Lam’s death at the Cecil Hotel is one of the most interesting True Crime cases around. According to USA Today, Lam actually documented her life on Tumblr before her tragic passing which has helped many detectives discover why & how she died.
For example, Lam wrote in a Tumblr post: “I don’t do any drugs, I don’t drink alcohol.” This meant that the deceased couldn’t have taken any form of drugs, but might have met someone that did.
Elisa Lam also publicly spoke about her issues with mental illness: “A few good days followed by a week of sleeping. That is the pattern.” Once Lam announced her bipolar disorder & suicidal thoughts, she stated: “It’s a vicious cycle, isn’t it? I’m just so tired. So very tired. I don’t want to live like this.”
Despite Elisa Lam’s social media clues, the Netflix True Crime series presented the camera footage from the Cecil Hotel just before she went missing. Though the elevator was empty, Lam aggressively started moving and looking out of the elevator. Eventually, Lam walks out and gestures her arms in alarming ways. Who was Lam talking to?
LAPD’s discovery
The LAPD’s discovery of Elisa Lam’s disappearance at the Cecil Hotel was nothing less than mind blowing. According to The Guardian, the LAPD announced that Elisa Lam’s family & friends had nothing to do with the disappearance of Lam.
Only with a team of eighteen detectives, scent-tracking dogs, and a giant helicopter – LAPD eventually realized that the twenty-one-year-old’s corpse was found in a water tank on Cecil Hotel’s roof. R.I.P. Elisa Lam.
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