Episode 7: The Girl Above the Hotel — The Elisa Lam Case

She arrived in Los Angeles alone.
Just another traveler—passing through a city full of strangers.

At first, nothing seemed out of place.
She explored the city, spoke with people, and stayed in a downtown hotel.

But within days, something began to change.

Her behavior became increasingly unusual.
Guests grew concerned.
And then—she vanished.

Weeks later, what was discovered inside the hotel…
would turn the case into one of the most unsettling mysteries in recent memory.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

At first nothing about her stood out. She was friendly, traveling around. Something began to change. And the last time she was seen, she was alone inside an elevator. Reacting to something no one else could see.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Episode seven of Tell Me the Crime.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Tell me the Crime.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

So we got a good one today, or what?

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Yeah, so I will tell you the story. I'll tell you the crime today.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Okay. So today's episode uh the title is The Girl Above the Hotel.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Hmm. The girl above the hotel. Okay, so on the roof. Is that what it means?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

More about the prepositional phrasing.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Prepositional phrasing. Yeah, your nerdy little linguistic language. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Okay. So today's story is about a young girl. She was 21 years old.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

21, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Yeah. But before we start, I want you to picture a place. Um one of the busiest cities in the United States.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Oh. Okay, so a big city. Like Chicago or LA, maybe, or LA. California. Yeah. Where everyone wants to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yeah, so the setting is in LA. A city where people come to start over, um, to reinvent themselves.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

So there are so many seems to be like the number one place that people go to disappear. It was a pretty easy guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I I can just sneak in and hide, and probably people will never know that I am there.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

All of the uh all the failed actors and people that go there to to lose themselves and you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Midlife crises. Maybe that's maybe that's what I'm doing right now. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Hopefully not.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

No, no, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Okay. Yeah, so uh the setting is on is in Los Angeles. Okay. In a place like that, it's really easy to disappear.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Okay. Um again the story is about a young woman who came here alone and she never made it home.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Ooh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Okay. Her name was Alyssa Lamb.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Alyssa Lamb, okay. And she went to LA on her own.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Yeah. Um she had her own trip. She's actually from Canada. So I was wondering, oh, before I actually studied this uh podcast and when I was you know planning the story, I was thinking that you probably have known this story before.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

No, I actually have never heard this story. Or at least I don't I don't recognize the name anyway.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

But um not all Canadians know each other, by the way. Well, yeah, but this is this this is one of the big just to let you know that too, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

This is one of the big news, you know. Oh yeah. So I'm sorry. Well he's a Canadian, he probably knows this.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Have you heard of the Canon Barbie doll murders? No?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

No.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Okay, that was that's a good one that you that I should that maybe I'll tell that one one day because that one's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

I'm not supposed to Yeah, that one's dark.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

That one's really dark. No, you can't look for it. You can't look for it.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Okay, I probably will forget that title after this.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Okay. So Ellie Salem, she was twenty-one years old, um, a university student from Canada.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

And uh on the outside, people describe her as friendly, outgoing, and kind.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Mm-hmm. Um she's she's social and was she social? Was she an extrovert, or was she just like I don't know, because you're you're kind of like a social introvert, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

I am, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Yeah, I I can get along with people easily, but then I also need some time to be in the corner at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Yeah, and for those who are not aware of um what the hell I'm talking about because it sounds really counterintuitive, um i introversion and extroversion is not what a lot of people assume it is. Um introverts are just people that replenish their energy from um r retracting, right? So they need some alone time in order to regain their energy. Whereas people that are extroverts need to be around people to regain their energy, right? So that's the biggest difference. It's not anything to do with how social you are. So you can be very, very social and um also be an introvert. So it's um, yeah, and and and I would say that you know, sometimes I need my alone time too, but I would say I'm mostly pretty so I'm very social.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Well, at least they socialize with me all the time.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Yeah, I well, yeah, you don't count. I can relax with you, so it doesn't count. Okay, but yeah, I think most people would assume I'm I'm an extrovert, but um no, I'm not. I would I would say I'm more of an introvert, I think. Actually, I don't know. I'm kind of in between because sometimes I'm like, oh, I just need to be surrounded by people right now. Is that a thing? Is that even a term?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

I heard that people like that. Okay, well then that's people use that term, Ellifert.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Then that's probably me.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Something something in the intermediary position between Stropher and Elf.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Yeah, well, that's probably me. Okay, so anyway, I'll let you get on your theorist story. Okay. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Alright. So the uh character here is Alice Alem. She was 21 years old, um, a university student, and she used to uh write blog posts quite a lot.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Okay, blog posts. So what sorry, did you say what year it was? Or did my ADHD just get in?

SPEAKER_00 6:10

I have not I have not mentioned the year, but she was twenty one years old when this happened to her. Okay. Um in her blog post I found something interesting. Uh I'm not sure if this blog post is the original one, but this is at least what I found. And I would like to read some of the lines to you to kind of give you the context of probably her personality.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Is this was this on like Facebook? Was it on like Instagram?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Was it like on etherfelds.blogspot.com.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

It's on what? Etherfelds?

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Etherfelds, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

Huh. I haven't gotten a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Well, it's in 2012. It's in 2012. I did not even use that.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Oh, so it's early. Okay, so that's like that's like 13 14 years ago. Mm-hmm. Yeah, wow, 14 years ago. So I guess like blog posts were a big thing rather than vlogs or like you know, Instagram and all that was not even really I mean TikTok wasn't even around. No. I think it originated as like Music Lee or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Music Lee?

SPEAKER_02 7:16

I think music.lee, like L-Y, I think that's what it was.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Um because oh okay, okay, okay. I think I saw that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Because I was because I was taught like I was listening to like a Gary V podcast a while back, like a few years ago, and he was like, You gotta look into this. He's like, this is the next big thing, this is the next big thing, and he kept saying it, and he's like, Yeah, this thing called Music Lee, and I was like, Oh shit, really. And um I but I I kept looking around, like I'm always wondering, like, how the hell do you invest in things like that? Because I would have, because I you know, I was like, how can I invest before it like gets big? But I had no idea how to do that. So if anyone knows, shoot me an email. Like, tell me how I can get in on these things, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Are you gonna develop a lot of apps?

SPEAKER_02 7:59

I would like to be rich, that would be nice.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Okay. Um, that's an ad everyone.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Yep, yep. Whoops.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Okay, let's go back to her blog post. Okay, so one of uh one of her writing pieces, the title was the title is Worries of a Twenty Something.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Worries of a Twenty Something, okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

So some of the lines, okay, I'm gonna read some of them. I spent about two days in bed hating myself. Why don't I simply do the things that I know will make me feel better?

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Isn't that the age-old question? Like, I know I should do this, but I'm still not doing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

It is not rocket science. It isn't that difficult. Get out of bed, eat, see people, talk to people, exercise, write, read. If you want to do something with your life, well, okay, just go ahead and do something. Ugh, it's too much work, and I don't even know where to start. I don't know how to do anything, and it will never work. I'll be judged. I can't do it. I'm gonna say it in a British way. I can't do it alone.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

I can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

No.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

I don't know anybody who would be a complete utter disaster and so on.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Okay, what okay, so she sounds like she's super like in a depression right now. Like she sounds like she's super down. Obviously, very discouraged or like depleted in some capacity because she's just like kind of it sounds like she's giving up, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah, that's uh related to the theories that people were developing at that time, uh, when this mystery or the crime quote unquote happened to her.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Okay, so it's not quite a crime. Is that quote unheard?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Okay, okay. Okay. And the line of that pose, well, there are some paragraphs, um, and she wrote, God, I hate you so much.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Like referring to herself.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Is that um Oh god or you mean like God, like well, you know, if we do the discourse analysis over here, my guess would be I think she uh said, Oh, like, you know, like God. Yeah, I hate you so much.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Yeah, but who is she referring to in terms of like I hate? Do you think she's referring to God as in like the deity or or yourself?

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Like baby, we're not gonna do the linguistic analysis in here.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

My sense will be I think she's referring to either either God, God, or like to actually herself. Like, oh God, I hate you so much. She's talking to herself, you know.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Oh, I know she's talking. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Anyway, she's Anyway, yeah, that's one of the uh pieces that she wrote in her blog. Okay. Okay. And now you get a sense of something that she probably was going through at that time.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Mm-hmm. Gives a little information about her mental state, I guess, at the time, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah. And then in one post, she also wrote about experiencing a relapse and feeling like she was A relapse?

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Was she like an alcoholic or like uh No, she was not.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

She was not an alcoholic, at least from uh the uh sources that I read.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Okay, so what do you mean by relapse then?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Um she was diagnosed, diagnosed with um mental disorder. Okay. So she had bipolar disorder. Okay, which is yeah Can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Bipolar disorder? Yeah, it's just it's it's a form of depression, right? Where you go through phases of mania, right, and then phases of like deep depression. So it's like it's biphasic. You go up and down, right? There's there's extremes essentially of mood swings in the sense of like one, you know, maybe a a few days you'll be in a manic episode where you have like a million amazing ideas and everything is great, and you're gonna change the world, and you're just like super, super manic, right? And you're you're you're very um out there and positive. And then the opposite happens a few days later where you'll crash, right? And you have this like deep depression and you can't get out of bed, and you just like so it there's a lot of mood mood swings up and down in that sense, right? Where they go through these phases. But I'm not a clinical psychologist, so I just you know, I'm just I that's you know, that's that's what I know, at least as far as I I'm aware.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Okay. Well, I experiencing a friend, but you know, I cannot share a lot of details about it. Um, a friend who was experiencing it, and to me, I think it was like 14 years ago probably. Um, so the doctor diagnosed her with bipolar disorder, and that was the very first time I heard about the term. Um yeah, and she was just staying in the hospital for a month. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Um well you can have some pretty deep um depressive phases with with that. You know, there's it's it's on a spectrum, of course, right? Like every almost every disorder has like a spectrum of experiences where sometimes it's really severe, sometimes it's not as bad, right? But but it it does have to meet a threshold if you're diagnosed.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yeah, but she was uh well I could really I I saw that myself. So she came to um our apartments were next door. Well, she she was actually uh no, she was staying in front of my apartment. And then she could come inside and then took the knife and said, Hey, I s I see ghost here and there, and she was creamy.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Yeah, it just made people around her very confused and I wonder if people heard the thunder that just happened in the background because it's raining outside, and I'm like, that was a big boom, like right as you were talking about these like dark things and being ominous.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

It's actually morning here, but it looks like what 7 p.m. already.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

I know. It yeah, it looks like uh it's gross out right now. It's very depressing, yeah. Seems to give me headaches too, whenever I get like around you know, when there's thunder and like stormy weather. It j I don't know why it must be like a pressure change or something.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's get back to the story. Okay, so again, I would like to remind um the listeners that in one post she wrote about experiencing a relapse and feeling like she was wasting her time compared to her fellow peers. And that line is important, you know. As you said, uh it shows pressure, and uh we can also see that she's probably experiencing the stage where she was comparing herself probably too much. Right, right, and a sense of falling behind. Uh but she also wrote about self-improvement.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Okay I mean there's you know, they're not they're not, you know, necessarily incompatible, right? And and also if she's writing about self-improvement, you know, she might have She is probably trying to help herself too. Right, right, exactly. But also, I mean, you know, if if maybe she wrote those things during a manic phase or something.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

But yeah, it could be.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Okay. But now we know that one of the background stories is uh she had bipolar disorder. Okay. And in early 2013, uh Elisa began traveling alone through California.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

For what purpose? Was it just for like a vacation?

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Just for a vacation.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

It's just part of her journey.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Um people like traveling. I do. I like traveling alone.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

I do too, yeah, exactly. Yeah, which is surprising that you you travel alone so much. Well, at least you used to anyway. Well, I mean, you're you're just like it's not it's just not very common. Like you're you're a tiny like 93-pound woman who's like 4'11 and like you travel alone. It can be scary for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

No, it's not scary.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

No, not at all. She's she's like, no, nothing could bad could ever happen to me alone.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

I didn't think about I didn't think about that at all. I didn't think about that.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. That's why you're not normal. I think most women do think of those things. No.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

It's like uh I would be um I would have my own flight, I would enjoy it. I like uh when the plane is taking off. I see in another country, you know?

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

No, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

So yeah, she went traveling to California. Um, she first visited San Diego, even uh posted pictures from the zoo, and then she continued to Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Okay. And now on January twenty-sixth, twenty thirteen, she arrived in LA.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Mm-hmm. So what do you think people would do when in LA? What when they first arrive in L.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

When they first arrive in LA, I mean I would probably explore the city.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Uh before you explore the city, what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Get out of the airport? I mean, I don't know. I don't know, eat some food, maybe go to the go to the hotel. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Right? Like shortly after she checked into the Cecil Hotel.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

Ah, okay, Cecil Hotel. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Okay. Um, and apparently the hotel was not a typical place. It also had a long history.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Um located near the Skid Row with many long-term and transient residents.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Hmm. And Skid Row, that's like an area that's kind of like a is that a bad area? Like I I don't know. This is coming from like an ignorant Canadian, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Really?

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Yeah, yeah. Do you know anything about Skid Row?

SPEAKER_00 18:09

No.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

No, okay. So yeah, no, I I don't know. I just I've heard the name.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

You have heard the name before?

SPEAKER_02 18:16

I've I've just heard the area before. I just don't really know anything about it. I just for some reason I have this idea that it might not be the best neighborhood, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Yeah, I also heard about the same thing about the area. Um, but now let's move on to what happened to her. Okay. So some people noticed the behavior changes in her.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

So the uh reason for this is shortly after arriving, um she was actually sharing a room with other guests, and they became concerned. So those guests became concerned.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

So she was initially, like you said, she was described as like someone who was bubbly and social and um good with people, I guess, and then something changed.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah, but probably not to the uh dimensions of like very social. It's just normal, yeah. Like just normal.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

But they noticed something enough that it was you know, that it was worth noting, I guess, is what you said.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

She was sharing a room with other guests, right? And then uh those other guests uh became concerned because she locked them out.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Oh wow. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

And she left notes telling them to go away, go home, you know. So yeah, because of this, um, she was moved into a private room in the hotel.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Oh, really? Okay. So like the staff like said, hey, you're gonna have to like move. So why did did she did anyone explain why she locked them out? Like what was the what was it she was just feeling like down? Was she just having like one of her episodes or something? Probably.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Yeah, okay, probably.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Um, and then fast forward to January 31st, Elisa was last seen alive.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

And that day she visited a bookstore called the Last Bookstore. Um, she talked to the stuff in there, she bought gifts for her family.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

And the place was called the Last Bookstore. Damn, that's ominous. It was like a foreshadow of some sort. Yeah. Okay. And that was you said January 13th.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

January 31st.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Oh, 31st. Okay. So end of January. End of January. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

So yeah, the witness uh described her as friendly, lively, just completely normal. But later that day, she returned to the hotel.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

So January 31st, she went out to buy gifts and then she went back to the hotel.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Now, inside the hotel, her behavior became more unusual.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Hmm. Even then before when she was locking people out. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Well, there's another thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Okay. So at one point she reportedly said, I'm crazy, but so is LA.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Huh. Okay. I mean, that sounds like a kind of a fun thing to say though, right? Like, I yeah, I'm crazy, but so is that you know, like I've I've heard lots of people say things like that. Well, I know, but I wouldn't be like, oh, that person's actually crazy. Oh, these dogs are like, so they're they're they're they're looking back in retrospect. They're thinking, oh, this is what did happen. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yeah. If I say, baby, I'm crazy now, like, yeah, you're crazy.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah. So she was also seen in areas guests um where she were not allowed to be.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Like in like the kitchen and stuff, or like you said in areas like where areas where guests were not allowed to be.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

I'm not sure what areas. Areas in the hotels, but you know, some of the rooms in the hotel that she were not allowed to be.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

And then she walked toward the elevators, um, and that was the last time anyone saw her.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Near the elevators.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Near the elevators, and what did people see?

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Okay, this is a very interesting one.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Um, and you could actually watch the video on YouTube about the elevator footage. Oh, yeah. And there is also Netflix um uh documentary about her vanishing.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Huh. So this is an interesting enough case to be on Netflix. Okay, that's it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

So I was very surprised. I thought that you would know this story.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

No, I've never heard it.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Okay, so the elevator footage, okay? Later, oh my god, did you hear that?

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Can everyone hear the thunder? Like this is crazy loud. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

It's like a Halloween vibe while it's in April.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

It's crazy. Okay. It's kind of appropriate though for a crime podcast.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

It gives the best.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Yeah, it gives like the big boom and like the bass of like, okay, here's something crazy happening. And it's right about when she's last seen, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Okay, yeah, let's see it.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Later, the investigators review the surveillance footage inside an elevator.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

She was alone. Okay. Okay. In the elevator. And she presses multiple buttons in the elevator.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Okay. So was she doing it like a little kid does that, where they just like hit all the buttons and like just a personality?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Kind of kind of things, but she was alone.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

So that's alone. That's kind of weird.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

She was alone. She pressed multiple buttons, and then after that she went outside and then she came back again to the elevator.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Uh yeah. So she stepped in and out.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

She stepped in and out. And what what was her demeanor like? Was she was she being erratic? Like was she, you know, excited? Was she like just playing around?

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Or was she look like um she was seeing something, you know?

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Like paranoid.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Like she's talking to something.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

You think someone was like following her, or like is there or was it something more of like she was imagining things?

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Looks like she was imagining things from the video footage that I saw. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

Okay. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

So it's like she's talking to, you know, something, or maybe somebody invisible.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Well, I wonder, you know, if it's like some sort of comorbid disorder, because a lot of um you know, a lot of mental disorders do come with uh comorbid disorders as well. So they have like several that come together, right? They're often highly correlated, right? If you have one, you often have you know a couple more. Um that that tends to be the case with a lot of people. So yeah, exactly. Exactly. Something that co-occurs together, exactly. Are you giving me a stats lesson here? Is that what's going on? Yeah, but um, yeah, I wonder if she had something like schizophrenia or I don't know. I don't know if that one's coming more business with bipolar, but but it's uh possible. Yeah, who knows? Yeah, right? Okay, okay, let's hear it.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Yeah, she was like reacting to something, talking to something, and then getting back and stepping outside. But no one else was around. No, no, no. You couldn't see anyone in the video. No, okay. Yeah. Okay. Then February 1st, um, Elisa does not check out from the hotel. And more importantly, she does not call her parents, and this is very unusual.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

She's close with her parents, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So she had been calling them every day, and then because of that, her re her parents report her missing on February 1st.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Okay. Yeah, then police began searching. Uh they check her room, the hotel on the rooftop. Her belongings are still there.

unknown 26:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

And they found the wallet, computer, medication. So it's just a sign of someone going missing, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

There are no signs of violence at all. None at all. Okay, she just disappears. She just disappears.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

So she was seen in the elevator, and then all of a sudden she just disappears. She doesn't talk to her parents, she doesn't talk to anyone, there's no text messages or anything. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Then uh two weeks later, there is this video release. So the police release the elevator footage.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Um, and the video then spreads rapidly, right? Because oh wow, people see.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Well, it sounds like a creepy video, right? Especially before someone goes missing like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah. Um so millions of people watch that and speculations came out, obsessions came out. You know, when you watch something, you will react to it and you come up with it.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

What what you think is happening. Yeah. Exactly. Huh. Okay. So so what do you know any of the theories that were out there or was it kind of just all over the place?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

It's all over the place. But those cues that I gave you, like the blog post and uh the mental health uh condition that she had at that time.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Plus the video that she's acting all erratic, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Exactly. So people try to connect those dots.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

And they're ex they're suspecting something was going on with her, maybe that wasn't necessarily anyone after her.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

No, doesn't seem like it. Okay, alright. Okay. And then there is this very interesting finding um about the water complaints in the hotel.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Water complaints in the hotel. Okay, so what were the water complaints in the hotel?

SPEAKER_00 28:04

So the guests began complaining about the water in the hotel because they say the water tastes strange.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

Um, I'm not liking where this is going.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

It looks discolored and low pressure. What would be your guess?

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Well, I'm guessing that her body was somehow being introduced into the water.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

Right? Like, I don't know. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

That is the answer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Gross.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

So that happened on February 19th, 2013. So almost three weeks, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

After she went missing.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

So three weeks. Okay. And and where did did they end up where did they find her? Like what what was the deal with that?

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Uh the rooftop.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

The rooftop?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah. So maintenance.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Okay, I don't really see how what that has to do with water, but okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Well, okay. So on the rooftop, uh the hotel has four tanks, like big tanks, you know? And those things also had the heavy uh lids.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

And in one of those things, this maintenance worker found her body.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

Oh shit. What the hell was she doing in a water tank on top of a roof?

SPEAKER_00 29:18

We don't know.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Huh. Okay. So that's what makes this case really interesting is her behavior. Yeah. Did they think maybe it was like a suicide or something?

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Could be. So one of uh well, I don't know how many sisters I should actually look into. Yeah. Okay, fair. Um, let's say one of her sisters uh actually share that when she was afraid she used to hide. And uh sometimes she's also delusional.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

Oh, so she did say she had delusions when she had episodes before. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

And she's trying to hide. So maybe, you know, my theory, she probably was trying to find a safe place for her to hide, and that tang was a safe place, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

That's kind of ironic, huh? Yeah. I mean, damn.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

And she probably did not intend to kill herself, but she was just trying to hide. And then when she jumped to the tank, she could not get out.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Like, we we don't know, but they found but that's where they found her, and that's why the water was tasting strange too. Oh my god. Can you imagine finding out you were drinking someone?

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah, that's what the taste was, right? It was a dead body, it was a dead body water.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

The body was probably decomposed already, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Yeah, I guess in three weeks. Three weeks in a in a tank of water, uh huh. Your body would get all bloated, your skin would start to peel off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Oh god, that's that's really disturbing.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

I wonder how many lawsuits the hotel ended up getting because of that.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Oh, I need to check that.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Because, like, yeah, because I can imagine, you know, if I was a a guest there, I'd be like, oh, I'm gonna sue this shit up.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

It's actually not the hotel's fault.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

No, it's not. It's not it's not the hotel's fault. Of course not, but at the same time, it would be pretty disturbing. No. And uh I would be surprised if they didn't get lawsuits, even if it's not their fault, I I would be surprised.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

And the toxicology also shows that uh she had low levels of her medication. Um, so apparently she probably did not take the medication regularly. Did they know what medication she was on or was it? Uh well, there are some I don't know, you probably know some of them.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

But was it like her bipolar medicine? Yeah, the the bipolar medicines.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Yeah. So she probably do not take uh the medications regularly.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Right, right. Yeah. And I guess the idea about like what I mentioned earlier with comorbid, you know, um diagnoses, right? Having multiple diagnoses beyond the the bipolar, because bipolar doesn't at least as far as I know, it doesn't make you paranoid and you know, you you usually just have these really massive swings, right, of up and down. Um but I don't know, who knows? And that's why it's called bipolar, right? It's opposite ends of the spectrum, really, really positive outgoing. Exactly, exactly. Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah, so that's a story today. It's a sad story about a young girl who So they still don't know what happened.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

They still don't know anything.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

I think we should watch the documentary.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

But again, like the theory is going around her psychological condition and why she did that. Because police did not find any violence footage at all.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

My yeah, my ga yeah, my guess is that she had some sort of psychotic break and just uh Yeah, could be Yeah, just like started becoming delusional. Maybe she thought she was hiding from someone. Because if she was like in an elevator pressing buttons, going out, pressing more buttons, and then like stepping in, looking around to other floors, yeah, doing the same thing again and again.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

So it's kind of like relapse, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:10

It almost looks yeah, it sounds like well, I haven't seen the video yet, but it almost sounds like she was yeah, just thinking that someone was chasing her or following her, and she was trying to be like super cautious about where to go.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Maybe she didn't think her room was safe anymore. Um so she went up to the roof and like, oh, where can I where can I hide? Well, no one's gonna look in this water tank.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

But I mean, though, yeah. Well that maybe she got trapped in there, right? Because I I I don't even know what those lids are like. Like, how do you get into those water tanks?

SPEAKER_00 33:44

I mean, is there Well from the pictures that I uh saw, they're all massive and pretty heavy.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

I don't think I can open the open the lid, but okay, so there's like a lid on the top. Yeah, there is a lid on the top. Um so there's a way that you can you can get it, but imagine if you open that heavy lid and then you get inside and you can get it.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

Oh, and then you have nothing. Oh, if it's if it's tall enough, you wouldn't have anything to like push back against, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Because it's super heavy, you can get out.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

Oh, that's sure. Yeah, that would that I could see that happening because like you can lift it if your feet are planted on the ground, you could lift that lid, right? If your feet were planted on like the sides of the container and then you lift up the lid, that's fine, right? Because, well, physics, right? You actually have enough force to do that. But if you're in the water and you're not tall enough to be touching the bottom and you're trying to push that lid open, it's just gonna push you down into the water further.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Oh damn.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

And they found um have found her naked body and uh clothes. Naked the the clothes were off, yeah. So I don't know, maybe it's the water pressure, or she actually uh did that.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

Oh yeah, I wonder if that would happen like post-mortem or or if that happened like if she took them off purposely.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

We don't know.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Maybe she was kind of scrambling and trying to see if she could like get a grip with her clothes on something, right? Like maybe there was something inside that she was like, Oh, maybe if I get my clothes underneath gear, I can float. Yeah, who knows what she was thinking, but at at some point you'd probably get pretty desperate, right? Damn, that's a that's a that's a really creepy one.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Oh that's creepy.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

Yeah, you you have to watch the uh Okay, I'm gonna yeah, I need to dig deeper into this one. This is crazy. And and sorry, what was her name again?

SPEAKER_00 35:34

It was Alisa Lamb.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

Alyssa Lamb. Okay. The case of Alyssa Lamb and the Roof. Damn. Well, thanks for that story. This is a this is a good one.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

So that's the episode for today.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

Yeah, for telling me the crime. I don't know if it would be classified as a crime, but it would it's it's it's a very interesting, you know, case where I mean who knows? It could be someone could have set that whole thing up and yeah, it could be.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

We have watched a lot of uh shows on the well there's a lot, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

There's yeah, we watch too many episodes on TV where people are just crazy psychotic. What's the show we're watching? The following.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

The following. I like that. Yeah, Kevin Bacon.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

And these with a probably Joe Carroll. Yeah, Joe Carroll, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Oh, that character is so interesting.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

Yeah, he's nuts. Oh my god. I don't know how so many people follow him. It's just insane to me.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

Why follow a serial from the colour?

SPEAKER_00 36:32

From a literature from the obsessions of uh a poet? Edgar Allan Poe. Oh, Edgar Allan Poe, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Yeah, he's really dark, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

And then in the second season, uh Joe Carroll went to the next level. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:49

Oh, don't don't give any spoilers though. You can't you can't give spoilers, bro. Okay, you can't give spoilers, bro. People might actually watch that show and then they'd be like, you guys suck, you give away my favorite show, and I'd be like, ah shit.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

Anyway, okay, well, enough of uh Joe Carroll in that show. Thank you for listening in to Tell Me the Crime. And uh we'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Bye.