22 hours ago, by Victoria Messina Find her on Twitter @angelusatani. The so-called Night Stalker was regularly seen around Skid Row during his mid-'80s crime spree and, as a then-night clerk at the Cecil told theL.A. Times (opens in new tab),reportedly checked into the hotel for several weeks in July and August 1985, shortly before his arrest in late August. Crime Scene: The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel unveils a lot of mysteries behind the Cecil Hotel, but what was left out of the Netflix documentary? The documentary leans into the verdict that it was an accident that Lam was having an episode brought on by not taking her medication for bipolar, that she climbed out of the fire escape, climbed up the outside of the building, got into the water tank, removed her own clothing, was unable to get out (assuming she tried) and drowned. var d = document, After three episodes of unpacking the mysterious disappearance of Elisa Lam, the infamous Cecil Hotel in which she was last seen, the fraught history of downtown Los Angeles, and even several truly confusing web sleuth theories about what might have happened, the new Netflix series reaches a perhaps unsatisfying conclusion: that the simplest explanation is almost definitely the right one. Osgood had lived at the Cecil for six years and was known for wearing her trademark Dodgers baseball cap when feeding the birds. We are one of the worlds fastest growing ga('ads.send', { The true crime genre has exploded over the past decade, and is becoming an unavoidable part of mainstream media. document.querySelector("#google_image_div").addEventListener('click',function(){ In the following years, the hotel fell faced hard times and it became the site for suicides and violent murders. She resides in Toronto, Ontario in Canada with her husband and young son. 'gtm.start': Lam's death, officially ruled an accidental drowning, was met with sensational speculation because of the Cecil's gruesome history. The docuseries named Richard Ramirez, known as The Night Stalker (also the subject of one of Netflix's latest true crime docuseries)as one of the notorious serial killers who had stayed at the Cecil Hotel before. Lam's body was discovered on February 19 by maintenance worker Santiago Lopez, who went to examine the hotel water tanks after complaints from residents about low water pressure and a weird taste in the tap water. The series focuses on a small online community that becomes obsessed with tracking down the source of anonymous internet videos that show a man killing kittens, and eventually, a person. by Sarah Wasilak // console.log('Changed ' + all_links.href); But it's nothing compared to the treatment of Pablo "Morbid" Vergara, a death metal singer bizarrely caught in a vortex of baseless speculation. Whether the hatch to the water tank where Lams body was found was open or closed is a major point of contention. Not long after, another serial killer, Jack Unterweger of Austria, reportedly stayed at the Cecil for a time in the summer of 1991 after his previous prison sentence for murder had been cut short due to the belief that he had been successfully rehabilitated. 'https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id=' + i + dl; eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), To truly get a sense of this you need to watch for yourself. } The historic landmark in Los Angeles was built in 1924, just a few years before the Great Depression hit. s.async = true; Her murder has not been solved. } else { The gore and mystery are, lets be honest, intriguing elements, but theyrenot the priority. Elizabeth Short, for one, was reportedly seen at the hotel's bar in the days before her horrific (and still unsolved) murder branded her the "Black Dahlia," though those reports have long beendisputed (opens in new tab). Needlessly long. While the docuseries points to the many sinister things that happened at the Cecil Hotel over the decades, from suicides to murders, drug use, prostitution, and domestic disturbances, one thing presented as fact hasn't exactly been corroborated. if(document.querySelector("#google_image_div")){ Investigators would often find occult symbols scrawled at crime scenes, like an inverted pentagram as the mark of the devil. Netflix. j = d.createElement( s ), dl = l != 'dataLayer' ? Does Netflix demand documentarians stretch their projects endlessly? if(all_links.href.search(/^http/) != -1 && all_links.href.search('www.pedestrian.tv') == -1 && all_links.href.search(/^#/) == -1) { [CDATA[ */ Ahead, we've broken down the most notable crimes connected to the Cecil, from the Black Dahlia's gruesome murder to Jack Unterweger's heinous homicides. },false) ga('ads.send', { It sets itself up as the first of a series that would investigate crimes that all unfolded at a specific location. She arrived in Los Angeles on January 26. Elisa Lam in the elevator. Netflix owes us answers after that ending. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('slotOnload', function(event) { Shows like Criminal Minds base episodes on real casesall the time. Want CNET to notify you of price drops and the latest stories? Here's a rundown of the Cecil Hotel's sordid past, from its opulent beginnings in the 1920s to its involvement in the Black Dahlia and Night Stalker cases. } The person is Richard Born, while New York-based Simon Baron Development has a ground lease on the property. But it's none of these things. Vancouver pop duo The Zolas created a music video for their song "Ancient Mars" in 2014 that is set up to look like the last day of Lam's life,humanizing her as a regular young woman versus just someone suffering from mental illness. We break down the evidence, theories and what might have happened. More than two weeks after Elisa was last seen her body was discovered in a water tank on top of the hotel, after guests at the hotel reported a drop in pressure and discoloration of the water. Send me updates about Slate special offers. You can trace the lineage of the recent boom in true crime series back through Making a Murderer to 2004s The Staircase, the eight-part documentary about the murder trial of novelist Michael Peterson. She can usually be found binging a new show at night, coupled with a glass of red wine. Less than a year after Lam died at the hotel, an 11-year-old captured a photo that looks like a person hanging outside the window on the fourth floor. j.async = true; With the help of Serial and its podcast descendants, a love of true crime became a respectable pastime, an accomplishment that Netflixs recent productions risk undoing with their emphasis on dramatization and flare. Alas, the building's various owners throughout the years have instead merely attempted surface-level rebrands of the hotelto little or no effect. American Murder: The Family Next Door: How Far is Too Far for True Crime? Years after Richard Ramirez hung out at the Cecil, Unterweger came along. Footage of Elisa Lam at the Cecil Hotel encouraged "internet sleuths" to investigate her death, often with negative consequences. Since it opened in the 1920s, the Cecil has been an epicenter of crimes such as robbery, assault, rape, and more. The fact is no one knows and while her behavior is certainly very odd it is not necessarily inconsistent with someone having a psychotic episode, the documentary explains. },false) Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel series director and 2012 Oscar nominee Joe Berlinger delivers a magnetizing and jaw-dropping account of one of Committing the bulk of his attacks in 1985, Ramirez entered homes through unlocked doors and windows. If Crime Scene werent too busy spinning a wildly compelling yarn, it might have been able to do something far more interesting in taking apart the true crime obsession that makes this hotel and case such phenomena at all. Please select the topics you're interested in: Would you like to turn on POPSUGAR desktop notifications to get breaking news ASAP? And while the four-part docuseries covers a lot of details about the famous California hotel located near Skid Row, as well as the details of the Elisa Lam case, there are some facts it leaves out. The fascination with The Elevator Game has continued to grow following the release of the documentary, with former American Horror Story DOP Michael Goi still to direct a movie based on the ritual. WebLos Angeles' notorious Cecil Hotel grows in infamy after the disappearance of guest Elisa Lam. ga('ads.send', { }); Feb. 10, 2021 6 AM PT The first installment of Netflixs anthology series Crime Scene explores the dark history of downtown Los Angeles Cecil Hotel home to Marie Claire is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel vaulted to the top of Netflixs Top 10 when it was released, part of the streaming services relentlessly growing portfolio change_link = true; Some conjectured he may have committed suicide by jumping from the hotel, although a spokesperson for the .podcast-banner.show_mobile { Netflix's Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel explores the strange and tragic case of Elisa Lam, a 21-year-old Canadian traveler who was found dead in the Cecil Hotel's water tank in early 2013. She is also seen stepping in and out, and at one point moving to the corner, as if hiding inside the elevator. The Cecil Hotel had a total of 14 floors, and many people have taken their lives by jumping from the top floors or roof of the building. This speculation was exacerbated by the fact the 700-room Cecil Hotel was a hub for notorious crimes, even serving as a temporary home for criminals like serial killers Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger. When Lam did not contact her parents on January 31, her parents reached out to the Los Angeles Police Department. While we were all still reeling from the docs released at the end of last year (The Ripper, anyone? Variety is a part of Penske Media Corporation. In the middle of the day, somebody raped, stabbed, and strangled Osgood, leaving her on her bed. The Den of Geek quarterly magazine is packed with exclusive features, interviews, previews and deep dives into geek culture. hitType: 'event', Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel - Den of Geek An autopsy, along with security footage from the hotel that appeared to show Lam behaving erratically in the hours before her disappearance, led investigators toconclude (opens in new tab)that her death was an accident. This is an unsatisfying conclusion for many internet detectives but with absolutely no suspects, no evidence of injury to her body, no reason to think it was suicide and no other logical explanation, this is where we find ourselves. (Its worth noting that The Staircase also includes loopier aspects of conspiracy such as the notorious owl theory, but at least these elements were explored by the subjects and included in the trial as genuine possibilities, not just foisted on from the outside like the conjectures in Crime Scene.) He was sentenced to life in prison for a second time, but was found dead in his Austrian prison cell just hours after his sentencing. , Crime Scene: A Brief Guide to the Dark Crimes Associated With the Cecil Hotel, Image Source: Getty / Mark Rolston / Staff, Miley Cyrus Takes the No-Pants Trend to a New Level in a One-Legged Catsuit, "Daisy Jones & The Six" Inspired This New Amazon Luxury Storefront, Are the "Daisy Jones & The Six" Cast Really Singing in the Show?