Mystery of woman who died at Cecil Hotel in chilling circumstances still hasn't been solved
Niamh Spence
Featured Image Credit: Netflix
There are many mysteries that continue to fascinate us to this day, and leave us speculating about what might have happened.
The strange Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles is no stranger to mysteries, including the death of Canadian student Elisa Lam in 2013, who was captured on CCTV footage in and out of an elevator before she seemingly vanished.
19 days later her body was found in the water tank on top of the hotel, with many claiming her death was down to a supernatural occurrence, while others said conspiracy theories were behind the 21-year-old's death.
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As her death was investigated, CCTV footage of her appearing to talk to someone and step in and out of an elevator was widely shared with many commenting that it looks like a supernatural or paranormal incident.
In the footage, she also appears to press every button on the elevator panel, peers into the hallway, then leaves the elevator while its doors remain open.
When the doors fail to close after she returns, and appears to be speaking with someone that isn't picked up on the camera.
One of the last sightings of Elisa was by bookstore manager Katie Orphan, who told CNN: "She was outgoing, very lively, very friendly."
She added: "[She was] talking about what book she was getting and whether or not what she was getting would be too heavy for her to carry around as she traveled."
Elisa's death also features in the Netflix series The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, which investigates the weird happenings at the hotel, and also covers other ghostly sightings and paranormal accounts that the LA accommodation has become famous for.
The ghost stories aren't the only thing the hotel is known for, as the strange goings on actually inspired American Horror Story: Hotel, which starred Lady Gaga as a vampire living in a penthouse overcrowded by ghosts.
Yet Elisa's bizarre CCTV footage and her mysterious death have been an unsolved mystery that has fascinated people for over a decade.
Speaking to the BBC, hotel manager Amy Price explained: "From the beginning, when Elisa went missing, I just had a bad feeling about it.
"She was traveling alone and I really thought that she must have gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd and that wouldn't be hard to do in downtown Los Angeles."
Yet she mentions Elisa wasn't the only story many people liked to speak about when they thought of the Cecil Hotel.
She added: "There's a lot of darkness that people like to revisit, like Richard Ramirez, Jack Unterweger and of course, Elisa Lam, but I mean, it wasn't awful to work there.
"We had a great team, we were running a business, and I enjoyed it."