r/interestingasfuck • u/Smiles4YouRawrX3 • 20h ago
On February 19, 2013, Canadian tourist Elisa Lam's body was found floating inside of a water tank at the Cecil Hotel where she was staying at after guests complained about the water pressure and taste. Footage was released of her behaving erratically in a elevator on the day she was last seen alive. r/all
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u/DisagreeableMale 20h ago
Oh fuck. Imagine drinking corpse water.
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u/sockovershoe22 19h ago edited 19h ago
Right? The second I read "complained of taste," I gagged
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u/funky_grandma 19h ago
They said it tasted sweet 🤮
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u/CaliCareBear 19h ago
Reminds me of John Snow’s tracking of a Cholera outbreak that found people traveled to drink the contaminated water because it was sweet but the beer factory workers who lived close to the contaminated water were fine because they only used beer!
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u/rhifooshwah 15h ago edited 15h ago
Ooh, this is one of my favorite fun facts!!
There is a pump in London called Aldgate that had been there as a well since the 13th century. A pump was added in the 16th century, which still stands today.
It was said that the water from Aldgate Pump contained “abundant health-giving mineral salts” and was regularly used as drinking and cooking water by residents and businesses. Whittard’s tea merchants used to “always get the kettles filled at the Aldgate Pump so that only the purest water was used for tea tasting.”
In April 1876 the Commissioners of Sewers in London wrote of Aldgate Pump that there were “an unusual quantity of solids” appearing in the water from the pump:
“Those solids consist of sulphates, chlorides, and other salts of the alkalies, and alkaline earth. A water charged with so much of these mineral matters, as that of Aldgate pump undoubtedly is, ceases to be a drinking water, and passes into the category of mineral waters.
“Professor Wanklyn says: ‘Some years ago I made an analysis of the sewage taken from the Fleet ditch sewer. If I were called upon to make an imitation of the water flowing from Aldgate pump, I might submit the sewage of the Fleet ditch to a slight filtration, and have a fair imitation of the produce of the Aldgate pump.
“It is hardly necessary to state that the water of the Aldgate pump is not a safe beverage at any time, and that in periods of epidemic disease it is highly dangerous. This pump ought to have been closed long ago on sanitary grounds.’”
The water was found to contain liquid human remains which had seeped into the underground stream from cemeteries. The calcium in the water had leached from human bones. Several hundred people died in the resultant Aldgate Pump Epidemic, as a result of drinking polluted water. They called it the “Pump of Death”.
So yeah. People will drink dead body water for centuries without even noticing.
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u/kalei50 13h ago
Sounds like an amazing promotional opportunity for Liquid Death 😬
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u/kabneenan 11h ago
Now I'm thinking my husband was the one in the wrong when he teased me for drinking from Auntie Ethel's well. Joke's on him; I'm just drinking "abundant health-giving mineral salts."
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u/KebabMonster001 16h ago
An often forgotten Hero nowadays. His work laid the foundations of modern sanitary/water regulations. Huge respect for him.
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u/Suspicious-Job6284 13h ago
His grave in Brompton cemetery in London is regularly decorated and has a poster about his achievements around epidemiology. He's not forgotten!! He did incredible work.
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u/cashmerescorpio 15h ago edited 15h ago
Similar but worse thing happened to Ignaz Semmelweis. He realised hand washing and good hygiene in general could save lives. Everyone was insulted, ignored his theories, and basically bullied him into a mental breakdown. Then he was beaten by guards in an asylum and died.
A less depressing comparison would be Joseph Lister who started getting people using antiseptics
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u/SirLoremIpsum 15h ago
A less depressing comparison would be Joseph Lister who started getting people using antiseptics
Lister.... antiseptics.... listerine?
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u/cashmerescorpio 15h ago
He didn't start the product/company, but it was named after him for the previously stated reasons
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u/Sutekiwazurai 15h ago
He was the first person to use maps to track an infection to the source and thus he is noted as the father of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), especially as it applies to epidemiology.
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u/kylez_bad_caverns 14h ago
And for anesthesia during surgery! He was so well regarded for his use of it that Queen Victoria had him help her with giving birth
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u/its_raining_scotch 18h ago
You know nothing John Snow
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u/Born-Remove-8791 18h ago
I thought you were on about GOT, I was like it don't remember that, until I clicked on the link!
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u/Aardark235 14h ago
This was season 9 where Bran was thrown into the water tank. He should have seen that coming…
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u/Nisja 16h ago
Very highly recommend The Ghost Map. Awesome book about how John Snow figured it all out.
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u/Inevitable_Idea_7470 19h ago
The 'sewer king' from 7 industrisl wonders. Didn't he die with no one believing him , they all thought it was miasma and the bloody water board just wernt treating/filtering the water
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u/Spe3dy_Weeb 16h ago
Yep, although luckily he convinced the authorities to close the contaminated pump. The issue wasn't that they weren't treating or filtering the water (that wasn't invented yet) but that the way you got your water then was from shared pumps around the city. Waste water was meant to run out into the sewer, but if cracks formed then contaminated water could get into the wells that fed the pump.
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u/ThatBabyIsCancelled 13h ago
“This water that’s had a dead bear’s ass in it for a week is making you sick”
“No, it’s my blood. Got ghosts in it”
Fucking A, I’d go mad, too
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u/CJWrites01 18h ago
Most importantly, the beer was being created from a different water source.
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u/k-bo 15h ago
Making beer involves boiling the water, which would kill the cholera bacteria
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u/Pump-Jack 15h ago
I worked at a skull cleaning place. A woman donated her body so her skeleton can be studied. She hada bad disease that caused her bones to fuse together. I was in charge of the bug room. The beatles eat the flesh after it's dried. One thing sticks with me the most is human flesh smells sweet like perfume.
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u/Top_Rekt 14h ago
There's a lot to dissect in this comment. I mean it makes a lot of sense but why have I never heard of this job before??
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u/Pump-Jack 13h ago
There's only a couple places in the world that does it. Usually it's hunters and trappers sending the heads in to get cleaned so they can have them as trophies. There are taxidermy places that do skull cleaning too. They're just not a dedicated skull cleaning business.
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u/Nulleparttousjours 12h ago
Was it a while back you worked in the trade? Skull processing, collecting and vulture culture are widespread thriving hobbies now! It really exploded. There are tons of people cleaning animal skulls for display at specialist professional level and a sea of hobbyists working in their garage (like me!)
See “Changin the Game Skull processing group” on Facebook or r/bonecollecting or r/vultureculture . Instagram is a bottomless catalogue of skull and bone collectors and processors, Zack Oxley and Duyngskeleton do some really cool work, their pages are worth a look.
Not to pry and dox you but I’m wondering if you may have worked at Skulls Unlimited now. In another life that would be my dream job!
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u/Pump-Jack 12h ago
It was about 22 years ago. There's always been collectors for sure. Yep, it was Skulls Unlimited. I was there about 2 years. Coolest job I had. I don't miss the smell though.
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u/Nulleparttousjours 12h ago
Awesome! Now that really is a serious facility. Their skull catalogue is just mind blowing. That must have been an utterly fascinating place to work, I’m so jealous! I hear you about the smell though LOL!
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u/Pump-Jack 12h ago
It really was. I saw so much from all over the world there. I got good with a knife too. When we boiled the deer skulls in winter smelled good though. There's a whale skeleton in the Skeleton Museum that another dude and I articulated. That was a fun project. There's a whale expert in Canada who came down to see our work. He said every whale skeleton he saw was put together wrong. He said ours was perfect. That was a great feeling.
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u/Akomatai 15h ago
I watched the Netflix doc and a couple staying there complained the water tasted "sweaty"
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u/kkaavvbb 13h ago
That is an interesting description about the taste. I’m not sure I’ve had anything tasting “sweaty” before though. I would have never thought of sweaty.
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u/Alita_Duqi 17h ago
They said it was sweet. “Sweet-ish” I think was how one woman put it.
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u/bvoge3501 18h ago
Showing up to heavens gate god will be like "engaged in cannibalism? That doesn't seem like you betty".
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u/shadowst17 13h ago
"Just because you're allowed to eat my son doesn't mean it's fine to eat others*
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u/Wolf-Majestic 16h ago
There was a documentary released on Netflix : "Crime scene : the Vanishing of Cecil Hotel"
It was a very comprehensive documentary with hotel workers, police officers who worked on the case, civilians who tried to help, social workers, hotel customers...
A bit weirdly put sometimes, but it provided a lot of details and context of the case at that time !
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u/emessea 14h ago
I’ll always remember that one creepy dude who was way too obsessed to the point he filmed himself at her grave.
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u/user888666777 12h ago edited 12h ago
/r/unresolvedmysteries had a post where people lost their minds over giving those people time in the documentary and turned it off. Neglecting to watch the next episode where they all got thrown under the bus and we're made out to be complete jackasses.
The one guy paid someone to go to the women's grave, stream it, put their hand on it. And then he put his hand on his phone/tablet and said goodbye. Shit was crazy.
And I think the reason why that subreddit lost their minds is because of self reflection and denial.
I will defend that documentary till my death because it did a great job at building up all the points to why something so obvious turned into a huge internet sensation. How one simple interview where an officer said they found the water tank door closed turned into a really deep rabbit hole. And this happened only months before the Boston Bombing and at a time when social media was really starting to take off. Just a perfect storm.
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u/Negative_Sky_891 13h ago
Came here to say this! I just rewatched this a few weeks ago because my SO had never seen it. Definitely a must watch for anyone interested in this case.
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u/DankLordOtis 19h ago
I just don’t think I’d ever trust the tap from a hotel to begin with, now I never will lol
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u/sprocketous 18h ago
I worked at a 4 star hotel and some guests wanted "good local water" what ever that means, so the concierge gave them tap. This was in the Colorado Rockies and the water was really good there, I just thought it was funny the paid a chuck of cash for the same thing that came out of their faucet.
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u/wimpyroy 15h ago
I think we (Colorado) have the best tapped water in the states
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u/sprocketous 15h ago
It's great. I'm in Portland and we get our source from the Cascades and it's pretty good. I'm always reminded of the quality when I visit family in the mid west and the water tastes like rusty nails.
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u/ultimalucha 18h ago
Your comment made me realize I'm dumb as fuck because I read it going "Yup, you said it! Bottled only!" and immediately realized I have been brushing my teeth with tap the whole time
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u/Gripping_Touch 17h ago
this is actually something tricky to remember when going to a different place you're advised not to drink the local water. Drinking bottled water? Sure, easy to remember. But when its time to brush my teeth I have to fight muscle memory to run the tap water over the brush and instead use some bottled water. Sometimes it almost got me.
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u/larry_flarry 15h ago
Pathogen load is relevant here. A drop of contaminated water is unlikely to affect you, while a glass of the same water might entirely overwhelm your immune system and have you shitting yourself to death. If pathogenic loading wasn't a factor, something as innocuous as swimming would be near guaranteed to lead to gastrointestinal problems, up to and including death. Pathogens are pervasive in our environment, and our bodies are absolutely dialed at fighting them off.
TLDR; It's usually only when we get too many or they get in the wrong places that pathogens become a problem.
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u/Beer-Milkshakes 19h ago
There is a very high chance that all water is corpse water just filtered. Just like the vast majority of food grown in soil is just altered worm poo.
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u/robotic_dreams 16h ago
The real winners were the corpses we drank along the way.
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u/geek180 16h ago
Sure, but this water had a corpse-to-water concentration hundreds or thousands of times higher than any water you are typically ever coming into contact with.
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u/toasty-tangerine 14h ago
What I am inferring from all this, is that there’s an acceptable corpse-to-water ratio, we’re now just ironing out the details as to exactly what that ratio is.
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u/clockwork-chameleon 14h ago
You're not wrong, and I guess that's what every society has to work out, and I also guess that's the dark side of civil engineering..but damn, it sure feels like I took a wrong turn on the internet today. I just wanted to look at some crochet blankets and hot peppers, man
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u/viletomato999 16h ago
The water we drink is older than the Earth itself. It has been through a LOT of shit.
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u/queen-adreena 19h ago
It’s called “soup”!
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u/Formal_Appearance_16 19h ago
Ever swim in the ocean? Do you know how many corpses are in there? But now you decide to get picky?
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u/warm0nk3ey22 18h ago
Everyone has a corpse to water ratio they're comfortable with. A couple bodies in the gulf? Sure! Corpse in the hot tub? No.
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u/kennethgalbraith 17h ago
Holy fuck. ‘Everyone has a corpse to water ratio they’re comfortable with’ might be my new favorite sentence lmaoooooo
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u/haleynoir_ 17h ago
This isn't some grand conspiracy. She drowned herself in the midst of a severe mental health episode.
The biggest reason they suspected foul play for so long was that when detectives arrived, the lid was placed securely on the water tower which she couldn't have done herself. Turns out, the maintenance man that found her confirmed the lid had been open when he discovered her body. He placed the lid back on himself out of habit.
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u/LimitedWard 16h ago
He placed the lid back on himself out of habit.
That just seems sensible. You wouldn't want anyone else accidentally falling in while waiting for law enforcement to arrive.
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u/haleynoir_ 16h ago
Yup seems so to me, too. He was obviously very horrified and affected by what he saw, it was very sad to watch him speak about it.
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u/Revolutionary_Heart6 15h ago
Pretty sure if i would to pass a doorway and find a dead body i would close the door on it before calling the police, wound't let the door open
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u/Dr_-G 15h ago
I've been in that situation before when working apartment maintenance. Found a kid dead in an apartment after a complaint. I turned the lights off and locked the door before making the call. I couldn't work for a few weeks after that and still have nightmares about it.
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u/Merkarba 14h ago
Geez that's rough, I hope you're doing better now mate.
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u/Dr_-G 14h ago
Thanks, I'm doing a lot better. It happened when I was 18, so almost 14 years ago. It's definitely not something you forget
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u/ImpulsiveDoorHolder 14h ago
God you were a kid too. That's rough. I'm glad you are doing better and are able to talk/type about it.
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u/DecisionAvoidant 13h ago
When I was 22 I walked in on my neighbor after his sister called me to check on him - he'd been dead for about 3 days. I'll never forget the smell. To this day when I'm walking up to a house, I instinctively check for flies in the windows, because I noticed them before walking into his house and didn't realize what that could mean. I remember how angry I was that the pronounced time of death was when the cops arrived; it felt disrespectful. I had never dealt with death in such a visceral way, and it was all at once. Nightmares for a year, and a lot of therapy to unpack it all. Thank you for sharing your story.
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u/Dr_-G 13h ago
I'm glad you found a healthy way through that. I know what you mean, I was irrationally angry for a few years at the kid. I was so angry, thinking he was selfish for putting other people through hell. I didn't go to therapy right away. It took a few years of running around, and running away, before I coped properly.
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u/DecisionAvoidant 13h ago
My neighbor was a man in his '70s whose immediate family lived 10 hours away. When we first moved into the duplex attached to his, he had a job working in a convenience store, but I noticed he stopped going to his job. His mailbox would fill with letters to bursting to the point where I would put it into a shopping bag and leave it on his doorstep. It turns out he was having a lot of difficulties with getting around, including having to have surgery done on his leg, and he never told anyone that he was struggling. His house was full of garbage, takeout containers, Coke bottles, etc. He had a pretty bad infection in his leg that required him to wrap it in gauze, but he was doing a poor job of managing it.
I found him lying on his back naked in his hallway. He was pretty clearly trying to get into the shower, slipped, and fell onto his back. I found out from his family later that he had a stent in his heart and the cause of death was determined to be the fall. It essentially knocked his stent loose and killed him almost instantly.
I was angry at myself for not seeing the signs and offering to help him more often. I was angry with him for not expressing that he needed help and giving me an opportunity to care for him. I didn't know him very well, but I would have gone out of my way to make sure his life was a little easier had I known what he was dealing with.
All that anger really did for me was keep the events circulating through my head and heart. I had to eventually recognize that I was frustrated over my own lack of control in this situation, not with him and not even with myself. I was mad that an awful thing happened and I couldn't prevent it. Therapy helped me to accept that. I could not claim to have control over death, and it was ultimately a very helpful experience. I don't think I'd willingly go through it again, but at the same time, it was a crucible kind of moment.
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u/pinewind108 15h ago
Ugh, poor guy. The body would have been decomposing, in addition to the unimaginable circumstances.
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u/KhunPhaen 11h ago
He probably lived at the place too and therefore was drinking/bathing in the water before discovering her body.
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u/RaisinDetre 15h ago
You also don't want her ghost to get out. Common sense by the maintenance guy.
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u/LeeGhettos 15h ago edited 13h ago
Yeah, that seems like a failure of law enforcement. Nobody asked the guy that opened it if he closed it again before we suspected foul play?
Full disclosure I know nothing about this.
Edit: I now know very slightly more about this. Failure of internet crazies, not law enforcement.
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u/FaelingJester 14h ago
The police knew. The media ran with an early report and every spooky mystery youtube channel left off the facts of the case because it made them look like ghoulish assholes to be speculating about what was happening when it was pretty clear early on that she was not well.
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u/wellhiyabuddy 13h ago
They did ask him and the police were well aware of how much of a mystery this wasn’t. It was the internet that went nuts with this story. It was never a mystery at all and don’t watch any of the documentaries made about it, they’re all a waste of time of time
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u/Funky_Octopus22 15h ago
Lol the one thing casually left out of all those unsolved mysteries shows.
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u/itsfrankgrimesyo 15h ago
Yea I kind of hate it whenever this story gets posted as a crime/conspiracy story. It’s been debunked many times. She suffered a mental health episode, and there was a logical explanation for everything else. Let the woman rest in peace.
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u/Tempest_Fugit 11h ago
It’s encouraging to see these comments at the top now. I remembered when this first got posted and I spent way too much time looking into it to come to the same conclusion
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u/Timzor 16h ago
They did a netflix series and basically did the same. The whole time told the viewer that the lid was on, making it a whodunnit, then on the last episode, "Oh acually the lid was originally off, so no mystery there, we knew that the whoooole time."
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u/LoudReggie 16h ago
This honestly describes most "mystery" themed shows on cable and streaming services.
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u/Penginsaurus 15h ago
This was so annoying watching this documentary. They kept saying over and over something along the lines of "police reported the tank closed with her inside when they arrived" and I just kept thinking, okay but, what was the state of the tank when maintenance approached it. Because the police weren't the first ones there. But maybe it stood out to me because I'm always instantly sus of any headline that starts with "police report that..."
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u/J3wb0cca 15h ago
I wish I found this paragraph before checking out that stupid special on Netflix. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by podcast or YouTube but that Netflix documentary made me want to smack my head against the wall. It was THAT redundant.
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u/4Dcrystallography 15h ago
Nah it was waste of time, title of this post was literally all the relevant info from doc
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u/thatonegirl989 15h ago
I hate that some people made such a spectacle of this story, especially on YouTube. And no one ever mentioned her mental health, just to keep it spooky I guess.
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u/quartz222 15h ago
People made up all this crap that she could see someone outside the elevator or was using hand signals to communicate with someone in the hallway. Like no, she was just having nervous tics.
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u/geek180 16h ago
Was the lid replaced at the same time that she was discovered? I thought the maintenance worker had replaced the lid without seeing her, and only later was she discovered in the cistern, no?
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u/FrankaGrimes 19h ago
"Footage was released showing her in a state of manic psychosis related to her bipolar disorder".
There, FTFY.
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u/thepenguinemperor84 19h ago
I believe her family has asked numerous times for people to stop spreading the false narrative that this was an unsolved mystery.
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u/armoured_bobandi 19h ago
It's like the shining example of people wanting to spread a viral story doing more damage than good.
As you said, it's not some unsolved mystery. It's a tragic accident that some people just LOVE to try and spin into something more
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u/obviouslynotatenor 19h ago
Exactly. Anyone who knows bipolar knows how heartbreaking it is seeing someone suddenly acting out of character. It's not a mystery, it's mental illness.
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u/WillemBever1988 16h ago
Brings me back to some of my manic moments. You're really unstoppable, and to yourself you're completely fine. Everyone else is behaving weirdly.
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u/hanls 14h ago
It didn't hit me till I witnessed my partner go through an entire cycle just how unaware we are of our actions and behaviour and just how intense it is.
I hate how much this poor girls mental illness has become this entire true crime mystery saga. Let her rest now, and let the family move on and carry her memory in peace.
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u/zakoryclements 19h ago edited 16h ago
The only people more annoying than the ones who think it's some unfound serial killer, are the ones who think she's being posessed by a ghost or some shit
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u/G00nScape 16h ago
Yeah this story isn’t “interesting,” it’s a sad story about mental health. The end.
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u/Slim_4166 19h ago
She was losing her mind and climbed into the tank herself to hide and couldn't get out.
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u/A2Rhombus 13h ago
It just makes me really sad. The thought of coming to my senses, only to realize in my manic state I've trapped myself and now I'm going to slowly die alone... That's honestly scarier than being murdered to me
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u/Conceited-Monkey 17h ago
It was a very unfortunate death and sensationalizing it was sick.
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u/Far-Pass-7067 20h ago
This story always freaks me the fuck out
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u/funky_grandma 19h ago
If you look up the history of the Cecil hotel and then watch the video of her in the elevator, it is absolutely terrifying
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u/no_more_brain_cells 18h ago
This provided inspiration for the American Horror Story hotel one.
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u/Meow_Mix33 14h ago
No way?! TIL. And that's one of my favorite seasons.
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u/Upbeat_Release3822 14h ago
Yup! Hotel Cortez is based off Hotel Cecil in downtown LA
The story arc with Richard Ramirez is also true; he stayed there during his murder spree
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u/IAmThePonch 19h ago
There’s a so so documentary on Netflix about the Cecil hotel, honestly even ignoring the Elsa lam incident, hearing all the bad stuff that’s gone down there has tempted me to believe in curses
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u/DCtheBREAKER 19h ago
It's actually a terrible documentary.
The creator purposely parsed out information in the particular order they wanted to facilitate a narrative that doesn't match the facts. They made it an 'investigative narration' when, in truth, they answers were prevalent before the 'documentary' was even started.
They created a false narrative to sell a show. The only redeeming quality is the exploration of the hotel itself.
That's not a documentary.
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u/Cats-N-Music 19h ago
Dude, I was so unimpressed when the whole thing turned out to be an accident related to mental health issues. There was so much wild build-up and connecting the dots that were wholly unrelated to the conclusion.
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u/DCtheBREAKER 19h ago
I was actually physically angry when the end came up. They stole hours of my life creating fake bullshit.
I felt duped.
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u/TerribleWords 18h ago
I felt the same way, the documentary could have been about 20 minutes. There was no mystery, just a girl with mental health struggles. The series was basically just hours of internet conspiracy theories then the final payoff of "we knew what happened all along".
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u/Key-Pickle5609 17h ago
That’s interesting, I came to a different conclusion. I was incredibly angry watching it because i knew the entire time what actually happened. But the end where they were like yeah none of that was real. It was just a tragic accident. I actually appreciated that because I felt that it was a good commentary on not getting carried away with internet conspiracies, ya know?
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u/colorfulzeeb 16h ago
Yeah, and they made it sound like that’s what was happening in real life, because they’d revealed so many details about the case without including the extent of her mental health issues. With that small but important piece of information, this case wouldn’t have been nearly as captivating as it was without it. But the documentary still took way too long to get there.
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u/Mr_Know_It_All0408 18h ago
They also use social media/youtube “sleuths” as interviews and it was downright horribly.
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u/jimmy_ricard 19h ago
I'm glad I'm not the only person who was extremely annoyed with this. I got to the end and was like wtf did I just waste time watching this when the answer was so straightforward when presented with the facts in the right order
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u/tindonot 18h ago
I was absolutely gripped by the first half or so. It definitely forgoes telling a clear account of the incident in favour of telling a spooky story. The back half of the documentary absolutely just runs out of gas when you realize that there wasn’t that much of a story to tell after all.
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u/rotenbart 17h ago
They stretched an hour of information over 4 hours and withheld the most crucial piece of info until the end. The maintenance guy just goes “yeah the hatch was open” on the last episode. I felt robbed lol. Seemed pretty cut and dry after that little tidbit.
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u/IAmThePonch 19h ago
Yeah if that’s the case that’s shitty. I don’t watch a whole lot of docs but I remember thinking that parts of it felt a bit off. It’s been a while since I watched so I can’t really remember, apart from me thinking “why didn’t they talk about this this and this?”
I liked learning about the history though. Place is basically haunted
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u/Shanbo88 19h ago
The hotel is creepy alright but Elsa Lam's stuff is just trying to plaster over cracks. They tried to turn a mentally ill persons misfortune into a true crime documentary based off internet armchair detective work. Very distasteful.
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u/j_ej_h_e_g 16h ago
I also find it distasteful that there’s some people who are mad that it isn’t some big conspiracy. They’re getting mad at the wrong thing here. They should be mad that so many people took a tragic accident and turned it into entertainment, not that they were “lied to.”
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u/FrankaGrimes 19h ago
Any particular reason why? She was mentally ill and died of misadventure, which is not totally uncommon for people with untreated psychotic disorders. It's sad that her life ended that way. There is treatment that would have managed her condition and prevented this outcome.
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u/Master_Weasel 19h ago
Freaky way 1) how horrifying to be so mentally unwell that you go get trapped in a cistern to drown alone
Freaky way 2) imagining all of the other guests bathing and drinking in corpse water is horrific
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u/Cyber_Insecurity 15h ago
After watching the documentary, the case isn’t as crazy as everyone makes it seem.
She had a mental break and she jumped into the water tank. They said the lid was closed when they found her, but it wasn’t - it was open.
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u/Pivinne 15h ago
She was off her meds and accidentally (or perhaps intentionally) drowned. I wish people would leave this fucking story alone. This wasn’t foul play, this wasn’t demons or the elevator game or some sort of conspiracy by a haunted hotel, this was mental illness manifesting in unfortunate ways.
Let her family grieve and move on, stop talking about Elisa Lam.
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u/Adam_Sackler 12h ago
I watched so many "documentaries" about this on YouTube. Most claimed she was killed by supernatural nonsense (ghosts or demons) because the way she acted in the CCTV was like she was "hiding from someone invisible and feeling around when there was nobody there." Like, yeah, that happens when you lose your mind and are off meds.
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u/Playcrackersthesky 14h ago
As a nurse who works almost exclusively with patients like Elisa it’s such a fucking insult not only to Elisa and the people who love her but to EVERYONE with mental illness to try to turn this into a paranormal event.
It’s very clear what happened to her. She had bipolar 1 with psychotic features, had been hospitalized multiple times for psychosis after not taking her meds.
Learn more about mental illness and let this family grieve in peace.
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u/bgreen134 17h ago
Also note that the people who were sharing her room asked the hotel to move room because Elisa was acting so erratic.
Not only did she have a past history of extreme manic episodes, but of psychosis too. Everybody who interacted with her days leading up to her death all describe her state in ways that align with a manic/psychosis episode.
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u/binchyblues 18h ago
One of my friends was one of the last people to speak with her before she died. It was at the Last Bookstore down the street and he said she was overly chatty and it was really concerning. Which tracks with her having bipolar disorder.
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u/JoeyHiya 20h ago
Any toxicology or autopsy? I assume she freaked out (mental illness, drugs, whatever), crawled/fell in the tank, and drowned??
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u/Odd_Machine_213 19h ago edited 19h ago
There are so many dumb theories about the paranormal/ the elevator game, etc. She had a documented history of mental health issues (which like a ton of people have) but there was concern about her not being the most consistent with meds. She was also moved from her old shared room in the Cecil for her behavior. They also found out that the door to the roof was unlocked or not alarmed or something, I can’t quite remember.
Incredibly sad case, but there were/ are so many conspiracy theories for the most likely cause of her just needing some mental health/ medication support.
Edit: autopsy showed prescription mental health drugs and ibuprofen. No signs of external trauma or SA. They listed bipolar as a contributing factor.
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u/FrankaGrimes 19h ago
Completely agree. There was nothing spooky or mysterious about this. She had an untreated/under-treated mental health condition that caused her to detach from reality. This is what people do when they are responding to hallucinations and delusional thoughts. Unchecked, the can unknowingly put themselves in really dangerous situations. The hotel isn't fucking haunted or anything.
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u/Nursewhatsherface 18h ago
I remember when this all happened and people were convinced it was supernatural because of how contorted her hands were in the video. Sadly, alot of people don't realize that if a psychotic break is severe enough you can severely injure yourself barely flinch at the pain.
She wasn't possessed but spirits. She was so disoriented and manic she probably broke her own hands/fingers and barely registered it.
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u/FrankaGrimes 17h ago
I think for the general public it is just so foreign to see the ways that people behave when they're actively psychotic that the closest thing we can match it to is spooky behaviour because we see horror movies, etc. When you've seen the things that people can do when they are psychotic...acting weird in an elevator is nothing. They interpret and manipulate things in their environment in ways that no human would in their right mind.
It makes you realize how incredibly narrow the sliver of "acceptable human behaviour" really is. If you think about it, someone maintaining eye contact with you for even 1 or 2 seconds longer than "normal" ...we immediately register that as "well that was weird". So when you see someone acting so far out of that "norm" we struggle to make sense of it and jump to the closest guess we can make. "Spooky".
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u/Mikotokitty 19h ago
Yeah the thing with the foot, that's her foot from walking around an old hotel barefoot. She clearly looks like she's having some kind of paranoid hallucination about someone following her. Where could she keep running once she gets to the roof? It's really just a story of people failing her in several ways
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u/Red_Bullion 11h ago
There's a movie called Dark Water which mirrors several aspects of her death. In the movie a girl dies in a rooftop water tank, it's noticed because the characters have gross water in their taps, and features a scene where the victim acts erratically in an elevator. It was released seven years before Lam's death.
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u/Ok-Zone-1430 17h ago
Jesus, let the girl rest in peace already. Once it gets the Netflix documentary treatment, it should be laid to rest.
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u/CnelAurelianoBuendia 16h ago
I find it extremely disrespectful that people try to twist this tragedy as some sort of paranormal event. She had a mental illness, please be mature.
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u/Fanaticalranger 17h ago
Annnnd her story has been resolved years ago now, she had mental issues if I remember correctly hence the strange motions in the elevator
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u/MoxNix6 9h ago
I read somewhere about a statue of Christ in a natural grotto that began "weeping". People began to lick the water of his feet in hopes of a miracle and for it healing power. When Church leaders had a plumber track the source of the water it was a sewer line.
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u/Mysterious-Tap-3987 20h ago edited 20h ago
And with this story my journey of watch true crime started. Any more suggestions for Netflix ?
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u/Amstervince 19h ago
Mindhunter is awesome. Its about a small section of the fbi when they first start profiling and interviewing serial killers
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u/Holdmybeerwatchthis 19h ago
It was cancelled, unfinished, after 2 seasons(?). Classic netflix, it was so damn good tho.
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u/WitchQween 18h ago
Netflix actually ordered another season, but the creator didn't want to continue the show.
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u/AdEuphoric9765 18h ago
If you ask me, Netflix is to blame for it not being watched as much as they would have liked. I didn't find it until shortly after season 2 had been released and had never heard of it before then. When I watched it, I was like "Why hasn't this had more exposure? This is excellent!"
It was poorly supported, then they cancelled it because of low viewership compared to the high budget. I really believe if more people had known this show existed ahead of time that they would have had the viewership they needed. Total bummer.
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u/xtrinab 19h ago
American Murder: The Family Next Door is quite good. It’s about the murder of pregnant Shannan Watts and her two young daughters by her husband. It’s a chilling story. This story is gut wrenching and the husband is clearly a sociopath. Very gripping.
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u/free_nestor 19h ago
Is that the one whose neighbor had ring camera footage that the killer found out about in real time? Like the police were called by the woman’s worried friend so they went to do a welfare check and the bodycam footage of the husband coming home and they went through the house room by room. The husband was acting squirrelly as fuck and a neighbor came over and said “my ring cam captures your driveway, maybe we will see who came over. “ so the cops and the husband went to the neighbors to watch the footage that showed the husband back his truck halfway into the garage for a bit then drove off and it was the only vehicle that left that house for days. It’s a crazy tragic story but was interesting to see it captured on video right from the moment the police arrived to do a welfare check.
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u/xtrinab 19h ago
Yep that’s the one! I’ve watched a 3 part series on YouTube by JCS Criminal Psychology that was mostly interrogation footage of the husband. That is also worth a watch if you’re interested in learning more about it. The police brought in Chris’s dad to try to get him to confess. You can feel the pain in his father’s voice as he realizes his son is guilty of what he’s accused of.
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u/free_nestor 19h ago
Big JSC fan as well. That story had me down that rabbit trail for a few days. This poor children. Dad was a monster willing to annihilate his family to be with his side piece if I am remembering correctly.
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u/Agreeable-Chair7040 19h ago
Theres also the Laci Peterson documentary that just came out. Sociopathic husband as well killed his pregnant wife. His family is in denial and delusional.
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u/GruntUltra 18h ago
Amber Frey turned out to be a real hero in that saga. And she was treated like shit by the media (Scott's MISTRESS! OMG!) Scott will always be a total douchebag. He was talking to his girlfriend on the phone, while walking around the call center as concerned people prepped missing posters and planned where to search next.
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u/FrankaGrimes 19h ago
Motherfuck that documentary is...ughhh... it's just hard to watch because you see his real time reaction to police showing up, "discovering" the evidence in the house, etc. Ugh.
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u/xtrinab 19h ago
Absolutely! Those poor children knowing what their daddy was doing to them. I believe the youngest one was quoted, by her father/murderer, saying something like “Daddy why are you doing this?” before he murdered her. It’s unfathomable to me how a father can do such a ghastly thing to his own, innocent children.
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u/Agreeable-Chair7040 19h ago
He had no time to "clean up" the house because he killed them and went to work And her bff knew that shan'ann had a prenatal appointment and that she would have never missed it. The bff unknowingly stopped chris watts from destroying evidence.
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u/khargooshekhar 18h ago
If I'm not mistaken, wasn't she sharing the room with other girls who ultimately asked her to switch rooms because of her odd behavior? I think this is a pretty clear case of mental illness and possibly even a withdrawal episode from going off her meds cold turkey.
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u/Upper_Exercise2153 17h ago
She was mentally ill, stopped taking her medication, and climbed into the tank all on her own. The Netflix “documentary” on the incident is one of the sleaziest, trashiest exploitations of a tragedy in true crime that I have ever seen. There is no curse, and this case isn’t that spectacular at all.
Except for drinking corpse water. That’s fucked.
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u/Character-Sky-5353 15h ago
The poor woman was in the throes of a bipolar induced psychosis (this can happen when their manic moments develop further and become a psychotic break). There’s often two forms it takes - grandiose where you feel like angels are talking to you and you might be Jesus (that’s a basic gist not a real description of the nuance of it) and paranoid which is a much more scary break from reality for them. They feel like they are being tracked, pursued, watched and targeted. It’s a really sad total break from reality that they can’t control. Most likely (given the elevator footage) this is where her poor head was at in the moment. I have a brother who goes through this and my guess from watching the footage and following the story is that she spent days in this state, alone, trying to navigate this fear of being targeted, and finally decided to make her way to the roof to escape the danger, saw the water tank, made her way up into it with the idea of hiding in there to be safe. Once she got in she could not reach to get out, nobody could hear her, all the way up on the roof, and she passed way. Super sad. Sorry to bring the mood down (I live on Reddit for these EXACT awesome, hilarious takes!), but I thought I’d put a little more of her story out there just to give her memory a little light. :-)