Despite the flimsiness of these theories, however, the filmmakers take their sweet time examining the merits of each one.Īll of these theories are introduced throughout the series, usually by people with no tangible connection to either the case or Lam herself. The case against Morbid is the weakest of all: internet sleuths jumped to accuse him based on the fact that he had stayed at the hotel a full year before Lam’s disappearance, and in the documentary he says he was so tormented by the accusations that he was almost driven to suicide. neighborhood where the Cecil was located, which is depicted as a haven of homelessness and crime? Was she murdered by a hotel employee who was protected by a subsequent cover-up? Or was she killed by a struggling black metal musician named Morbid? The answers to these questions are no and no: no recreational drugs were found in Lam’s system, it seems highly unlikely that a low-budget hotel like the Cecil would have the resources to orchestrate such a cover-up. Was Lam on powerful hallucinogenic drugs, possibly procured in Skid Row, the downtown L.A. In its four installments, The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel weaves a dizzying web of various potential scenarios for the viewer to consider, dropping her extensive Tumblr posts as breadcrumbs along the way. But it is not the story told by the vast majority of The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, or the internet sleuths captivated by Lam’s story who serve as the engine driving its narrative. This is the story of Elisa Lam’s death as told by the police and by many mainstream media reports: a tragic accident that could have been prevented by any number of factors, such as her taking her medication or one of the employees or other travelers at the hotel checking up on her mental state. Her roommates at the hotel had also complained about her “ odd behavior” days before her death, leading her to transfer to a private room perhaps most significantly, her sister also confirmed that Lam had a history of suffering delusions of paranoia and persecution, explaining her behavior in the elevator. The fact that Lam suffered from bipolar disorder - and that a toxicology report revealed only traces of pharmaceuticals in her system at the time of her death, indicating that she may not have been taking her medication - further contributed to the theory that she may have had a psychotic episode, causing her to climb the roof and end up in the tank. Police eventually found her decomposing body in a water tank on the roof, and while it is still unclear how she got to the roof or ended up in the tank, an autopsy determined her cause of death was accidental drowning, finding no evidence of physical or sexual assault. For those unacquainted with the facts of the case, Lam disappeared in 2013 while traveling through L.A., with the mystery of her fate only deepening once the Los Angeles Police Department released surveillance footage of her on an elevator behaving erratically, pacing, gesticulating wildly, and at one point appearing to hide from someone, or something. These tropes are all present in Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, a four-part Netflix series from director Joe Berlinger ( Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes) about the death of 21-year-old Elisa Lam at a budget hotel in downtown Los Angeles with a history of murders, suicides, and overdoses. And there are the red herrings, the tantalizing alternative theories or explanations of the case spliced into the narrative to build suspense and justify the fact that the story is told in multiple installments, rather than just the hour-and-a-half of a standard documentary. There are the journalists and “experts” on the case (more often than not, YouTubers or message board posters) offering their own versions of what may have occurred, with little to no evidence to back it up. There are the moodily lit reenactments, complete with perky voiceovers from the victim’s diary or blog, written during happier times. If you watch enough true crime documentaries on streaming platforms, you start to notice a template emerging.
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