![]() There’s no obvious explanation for this series of events, which is what sparked such wild online speculation, and what gives Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel its beguiling hook. Her behavior is bizarre, as is the fact that the elevator’s doors stay open for a stunningly long time, and even after they close, they then reopen to reveal the same floor Lam was on-this despite the many buttons pushed on its control panel that should have sent it elsewhere. Over the course of four minutes, that footage depicts Lam entering the elevator, pushing multiple buttons, hiding in the corner, repeatedly poking her head out to look for (or engage?) an unseen figure, moving her hands about erratically (as if in a trance), and finally departing. the sorts of amateur detectives who helped take down Luka Magnotta, as depicted in Don’t F**k With Cats-to try to unravel what was going on in the confounding clip. What followed was a bona fide internet sensation, as the Lam elevator video quickly went viral, sparking intense scrutiny and debate, and inspiring a legion of “web sleuths”-i.e. ![]() Until, that is, cops discovered security camera video of Lam inside one of the Cecil’s elevators and, hoping everyday citizens could help decipher its enigmas, they posted it online. Through interviews with the detectives who worked the case, as well as dramatic recreations and narrated readings from Lam’s extensive Tumblr blog-which she treated as a veritable online diary- Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel establishes its perplexing scenario, which initiated a significant LAPD investigation of the hotel that turned up few concrete clues. After a few days’ stay, however, she went MIA, and flyers posted around town did little to bring in promising leads. It was that “separate” hostel which Lam visited in early 2013. Under the stewardship of manager Amy Price (featured in new interviews), the hotel split itself in two, creating a second lobby and entrance, cordoning off three floors, and renaming that new section “Stay on Main” as a means of luring budget-conscious travelers. The Cecil’s scandalous past made it the inspiration for American Horror Story: Hotel, but Lam likely didn’t know about its reputation. As a cheap short- and long-term residence for inhabitants of Skid Row-among the poorest and most crime-ridden metropolitan areas in America-the Cecil had a long, notorious history, including having been one of the last reported residences of the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short, as well as the temporary home of Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker, who used to walk through its halls, naked and bloody, on his post-slaughter way to his room. At the time, Lam was staying at downtown’s Cecil Hotel, an establishment with a grand entrance and lobby that misrepresented its true, shady nature as a haven for drug users, pimps, and killers. 1, 2013, while visiting Los Angeles as part of a West Coast vacation. 10) is its conclusion, which delivers a stinging critique of the very conspiracy theorists-and theories-that first turned its tale into a cause célèbre.ĭirected by Joe Berlinger, who’s no stranger to the genre-having helmed the Paradise Lost trilogy as well as Netflix’s Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes- Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel concerns Elisa Lam, a 21-year-old Vancouver student who disappeared on Feb. ![]() Everything one could crave from a genre effort is here, although ultimately, what’s best about this four-part Netflix series (premiering Feb. ![]() C rime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel has all the ingredients of a great true-crime mystery: a missing potential victim an infamous locale a dangerous urban environment a host of suspects an avalanche of puzzling details a viral video that provides far more questions than answers and a series of coincidences-or are they synchronicities?-that suggest the affair could be the byproduct of either a government plot or supernatural phenomena. ![]()
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