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Thread: LAPD Detectives Investigating Body Found in Hotel Water Tank

  1. #1
    Admiral CnCP Legend JT's Avatar
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    LAPD Detectives Investigating Body Found in Hotel Water Tank

    You might want to pass on reading this article if you're about to eat...




    Corpse found in L.A. hotel water tank



    Los Angeles (CNN) -- Tourists staying at a Los Angeles hotel bathed, brushed teeth and drank water from a tank in which a young woman's body was likely decomposing for more than two weeks, police said.

    Elisa Lam's corpse was found in the Cecil Hotel's rooftop water tank by a maintenance worker who was trying to figure out why the water pressure was low Tuesday.

    Lam's parents reported her missing in early February. The last sighting of her was in the hotel on January 31, Los Angeles Police said.

    Detectives are now investigating the 21-year-old Canadian's suspicious death, police Sgt. Rudy Lopez said.

    It was not clear whether the water presented any health risks to those who consumed it. Results on tests on the water done Wednesday by the Los Angeles Public Health Department were expected later in the day.

    The hotel management has not responded to CNN requests for comment.

    Video appears to show four cisterns on the hotel roof.

    People who stayed at the Cecil since Lam's disappearance expressed shock about developments.

    "The water did have a funny taste," Sabrina Baugh told CNN on Wednesday. She and her husband used the water for eight days.

    "We never thought anything of it," the British woman said. "We thought it was just the way it was here."

    What she described was not normal.

    "The shower was awful," she said. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."

    The hotel remained open after the discovery, but guests checking in Tuesday were told not to drink it, according to Qui Nguyen, who decided to find a new hotel Wednesday.

    Nguyen said he learned about the body from a CNN reporter, not the hotel staff.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/20/us...pse/index.html
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  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    I just read the autopsy on Lam was inconclusive and the police are calling the death suspicious.

    Hotel with corpse in water tank has notorious past

    The Cecil Hotel's dark past earned it a spot on Los Angeles tours long before a woman's body was found inside its rooftop water tank.

    "It's the place where serial killers stay," said tour guide Richard Schave.

    Schave and his wife, Kim Cooper, conduct a "true crime and oddities" tour they call "Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice."

    The new mystery surrounding Elisa Lam's death will be added to Cooper's spiel during the tour stops at the Cecil Hotel, she said.

    Cooper and Schave have made it their job to compile details on those who have killed or been killed while staying at the Cecil.

    The killers

    The most famous on their list are serial killers Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger.

    Ramirez, known as the "Nightstalker," now resides on California's death row, but in 1985 he was living on the Cecil's top floor in a $14 a night room, Cooper said.

    The Cecil, filled then with hundreds of transients living in the cheap rooms, was a good place for Ramirez to go unnoticed as he killed 13 women, Schave said. He was "just dumping his bloody clothes in the Dumpster at the end of his evening and going in the back entrance."

    Jack Unterweger worked as a journalist covering Los Angeles crime for an Austrian magazine in 1991 when he moved into the Cecil.

    "We believe he was living at the Cecil in homage to Ramirez," Schave said.

    He is blamed with killing three prostitutes in Los Angeles while a guest at the Cecil.

    The Killed

    During the 1950s and 1960s, the Cecil had a reputation as a place where people would kill themselves by jumping out upper-floor windows, Cooper said. "It's just what people do when they are at the end of their rope," she said.

    Helen Gurnee, in her 50s, leaped from a seventh floor window, landing on the Cecil Hotel marquee on October 22, 1954, Cooper said.

    Julia Moore jumped from her eighth floor room window on February 11, 1962, she said. Moore left behind a bus ticket from St Louis, 59 cents and an Illinois bank account book showing a balance of $1,800.

    Pauline Otton, 27, jumped from a ninth floor window after an argument with her estranged husband on October 12, 1962, Cooper said. Otton landed on George Gianinni, 65, who was walking on the sidewalk 90 feet below. Both were killed instantly.

    Not everyone on Cooper's list committed suicide.

    "Pigeon Goldie" Osgood, a retired telephone operator, was found dead in her ransacked room on June 4, 1964, Cooper said. Osgood, known for protecting and feeding the pigeons at nearby Pershing Square, was stabbed, strangled and raped. The crime has not been solved.

    Not an ordinary hotel

    Schave and Cooper have theories about why the Cecil's past has been so sordid.

    It was built in the 1920s as a hotel "for businessmen to come into town and spend a night or two," Cooper said.

    But it was soon upstaged by nicer hotels in a better part of town, she said. When the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, it became more of a transient hotel. Eventually, it transitioned into a single room occupancy business, known as an SRO. Long-term tenants rented individual rooms and shared bathrooms with neighboring residents.

    "This was just a place where people who were really down on their luck were going," Schave said. "These hotels are filled with people who are at the edge of being integrated in society."

    During the 1970s, '80s and '90s, hundreds of people who were "down on their luck" called the Cecil home, he said. "They were all hustling to make ends meet."

    "It's not like that any more, of course," Cooper said.

    New owners converted three of the floors back to hotel rooms around 2007, but most of the building remains SRO, Schave said.

    Another section serves as a hostel that is marketed toward European tourists, he said

    It was not clear if Lam was staying in one of the hotel rooms, which offer more privacy, or the hostel.

    Repeated calls by CNN to the Cecil Hotel management were not returned Wednesday and Thursday.

    http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/21/us/cal...tel/index.html
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  3. #3
    Senior Member Member Diggler's Avatar
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    Thats why you should always dilute your water with vodka or similar strong drink. Kills the germs.

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  4. #4
    Admiral CnCP Legend JT's Avatar
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    It's no surprise the autopsy was inconclusive: bodies deposited in moving water can lose a substantial amount of forensic evidence in the space of two weeks. But it doesn't take Hercule Poirot to figure out that the body got in there somehow. It seems unlikely that she went up on the roof freely, decided to take a quick dip in the water tank, and drowned.
    "I have adopted the Italian way of life... I may stab you!"
    — Heidi

    "You make the British Lion seem like a declawed, toothless, neutered fat tabby with the mange."
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    "Maybe you think your being clever."
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  5. #5
    Senior Member Member Diggler's Avatar
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    If it was a suicide its bloody cold water to get in and drown.
    Traces of drugs that might cause her to fall asleep and drown would be in her system.
    I think CCTV in the hotel of someone carrying a body and having access to the roof would be informative.

    On principle I think you should always challenge a person carrying a dead body. You know it makes sense.

    Diggler
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  6. #6
    Banned TheKindExecutioner's Avatar
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    Super strange and disgusting!

  7. #7
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    If water doesen´t taste/smell like water I wouldn´t drink/use it.
    No murder can be so cruel that there are not still useful imbeciles who do gloss over the murderer and apologize.

  8. #8
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    Death Of Woman Found In Los Angeles Hotel Water Tank Ruled An Accident

    The death of a 21-year-old woman who was found floating in the water tank of Los Angeles hotel in February has been ruled an accident.

    The medical examiner says Elisa Lam accidentally drowned at Cecil hotel near skid row.

    A maintenance worker checking out complaints about the hotel's water found the decomposing body.

    Officials said the remains may have been in the water for as long as 19 days.

    Tests conducted by the health department found no harmful bacteria in the tank or the pipes.

    The system was drained and sanitized after the find.

    http://www.kmvt.com/news/regional/212493921.html
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    Parents Sue Over Daughter Found Dead in Hotel Water Tank

    The parents of a young woman whose body was found in a water tank on the roof of a downtown hotel in February are suing the establishment’s owners.

    David and Yinna Lam, father and mother of Elisa Lam, filed the wrongful death suit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Cecil Hotel Management Inc. They are seeking unspecified damages as well as compensation for the burial costs of their daughter.

    The Cecil Hotel operators had an obligation to make the premises safe for Lam and “inspect and seek out hazards in the hotel that presented an unreasonable risk of danger to (Lam) and other hotel guests,” the suit states.

    The hotel staff did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

    The 21-year-old's body was discovered in one of four 4-foot-by-8-foot tanks on the roof Feb. 19 when a worker inspected the tank after reports of water pressure problems at the 15-story hotel (map).

    Lam's death was was ruled accidental due to drowning, according to the Los Angeles County coroner. The report also listed "bipolar disorder" under other significant conditions.

    Lam, of Vancouver, was visiting Los Angeles and staying at the hotel on Main Street on LA's Skid Row when she was reported missing. Her parents called police after they had not heard from her for a few days.

    http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/lo...224713422.html
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    Disgust at plan to turn Elisa Lam’s water tank death into horror movie

    A supernatural thriller supposedly based on the death of Chinese Canadian student Elisa Lam is drawing a horrified reaction even before it is made.

    Lam, who drowned in the rooftop water tank of a Los Angeles hotel early last year, suffered from bipolar disorder and her death was ruled accidental. But the movie penned by screenwriting brothers Brandon and Phillip Murphy is being touted as an otherworldly horror story.

    Disgusted critics of the project, which was announced on Friday, February 28, have called it a tasteless attempt to exploit Lam’s sad death.

    Lam’s Hong Kong immigrant parents, David and Yinna Lam, have lodged a wrongful death lawsuit against the owners of the Cecil Hotel for allegedly allowing their 21-year-old daughter to access the rooftop, which should have been locked.

    Lam’s disappearance achieved notoriety after a video of her behaving strangely in a hotel elevator went viral. The video showed Lam gesticulating, conversing, and appearing to hide from someone, despite appearing alone.

    The Hollywood Reporter said that the movie, tentatively titled The Bringing, will be “based on true events” and follows a private investigator who uncovers the “dark supernatural history” of a downtown Los Angeles hotel.

    The Reporter incorrectly describes Lam’s death as a “mysterious murder” on which the project is based. It said the Murphys sold the script to Sony for US$300,000, with an extra US$700,000 payable if the film is actually produced.

    Although some industry watchers applauded the young Murphy brothers for their initiative in getting a script to market so quickly, others condemned the project.

    “Girl has only been dead a year and a half [sic] and people are already trying to make a profit off her. Classy. Way to break into the business, boys,” wrote one person posting on the industry site Deadline Hollywood.

    Another wrote: “Is the family of the innocent victim of this tragedy getting paid? Doubtful. Calling karma police.”

    Others suggested that Lam’s family could sue the producers. “They [the Murphys] don’t automatically have the right to exploit the woman who died with a fictional supernatural scary movie story and unless they make a deal with her family for rights they are liable for a lawsuit and I think they will be sued over this.”

    The Murphy brothers are represented by Langley Perer of the Mosaic Media Group, a Hollywood talent agency and film producer.

    A person who answered Perer’s phone on Monday confirmed that she represented Brandon and Phillip Murphy and that their script for The Bringing, based on Lam’s death, had been sold. Perer did not respond to the South China Morning Post’s request for further comment.

    Lam had been missing for three weeks before a maintenance worker discovered her body last February 19 in the Cecil Hotel’s water tank, after guests complained about low water pressure. Others said the water in the hotel had a foul taste but health officials said it posed no health risk.

    The University of British Columbia student had been travelling alone in California when she stopped making daily phone calls to her parents in Vancouver, prompting them to call police.

    A coroner for Los Angeles County ruled that Lam’s death was "accidental … due to drowning. Other significant conditions being bipolar disorder". Investigator Fred Corral said that Lam had simply made her way to the roof, climbed into the tank and drowned.

    The video released by police during the search for Lam garnered worldwide attention and was viewed millions of times.

    The 2-1/2-minute clip shows Lam acting in a manner that appears alternately fearful and confused. Lam hides, goes in and out of the open lift and waves her hands about. At one stage, she appears to be talking and gesturing to a second person, perhaps outside the view of the elevator's camera.

    It emerged during the investigation that Satanist serial killer Richard Ramirez, known as the Nightstalker, had lived at the Cecil Hotel for several months in 1985. Ramirez died of cancer in June 2013 while on death row for 13 killings and 11 rapes.

    Deadline reported that The Bringing will be produced by Matt Tolmach and Daniela Cretu. Tolmach is the producer of the latest installment of the Spider-Man franchise, due in cinemas in April.

    http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/a...h-horror-movie
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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