[URBAN NOTE] "American Horror Story: The Cecil Hotel"

[rfmcdonald]

Via Reddit's Unresolved Mysteries forum I came across Josh Dean's article on Elisa Lam. The young British Columbian woman's death by misadventure in a seedy Los Angeles hotel has been mythologized. Carefully, with interviews and photos and fine attention to detail, Dean demythologizes this.

ithin hours, forums were open and buzzing at Reddit and Websleuths, two popular hangouts for the discussion of unsolved crimes, where amateur detectives congregate to pore over clues and trade sometimes reasonable but often ridiculous speculation.

In Elisa’s case, the early comments circled around two conclusions. Either this missing Canadian girl was under the influence of some illicit substance, or she was flirting with someone who’s not seen. Perhaps it was even both. These are not outlandish theories, having watched that footage with no sound. But the way in which theories spiral out of control was evident within the first 10 comments on Reddit, where one user suggests that Lam seems to be on “heavy psychedelics” and points out that the papers had reported the next stop on her tour was Santa Cruz — a city which, he notes, “is renowned for heavy drug use.” From here, the conversation rapidly spirals into the possibility (and feasibility) of covertly dosing someone with LSD via skin contact.

People imagined all kind of things in that footage: that Elisa Lam was hallucinating, that she was having a psychotic break, that she was playing hide and seek, that she was taken at gunpoint by someone who never appears in the frame. Follow the wrong thread and you can wind up through the looking glass, where theories get truly outrageous: Malicious poltergeists, demonic possession, an assailant using “cloaking technology,” even government mind control experiments.

Many users seized on what appears to be a third foot, connected to a body otherwise out of frame, at 2:27. This foot is often cited in arguments for a mystery murderer. If you look closely, it is probably a shadow of Lam’s foot. But many, many viewers are sure it’s proof of another person who was there, in the hall, calling for Lam, drawing her out. This is who Lam’s talking to when she’s waving her arms around. It’s the only possible conclusion. And the owner of this mysterious foot, they were sure, took Elisa, and had either killed her, or was still holding her, somewhere out there — possibly even inside one of the Cecil’s hundreds of rooms.

This is a longform must-read.