Elisa Lam: The Internet’s Mystery, a Woman’s Story

Right Answers Mostly

Claire Donald & Tess Bellomo

Society & Culture, History, Tv & Film

4.6 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2013, a young woman named Elisa Lam checked into the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, and never checked out. Her mysterious disappearance and the viral elevator footage that followed turned a private mentalhealth crisis into a global guessing game. In this episode, we unpack how Elisa’s story became one of the internet’s first true-crime obsessions ,and what that says about our collective relationship with mystery, voyeurism, and mental health. We trace the Cecil’s dark history, from the glamor of old-Hollywood travelers to its tragic ties to serial killers, and explore how an online army of “sleuths” blurred the line between empathy and exploitation. TW: This episode contains conversations around mental health struggles, suicide, and rape. Created and produced by Tess Bellomo & Claire Donald For more RAM, go here To get 3 bonus episodes a month, subscribe here! Just $7.99 for THREE! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The Welcome back to Right Answers, mostly a podcast on what you didn't learn in history class, but you really wanted to.
0:31.9	My name is Tess Belomo.
0:33.4	And my name is Claire Donald.
0:35.2	And spooky season has arrived.
0:38.1	Tess, I've been getting the chills thinking about this episode.
0:40.6	We knew that we had to cover something spooky for you guys.
0:43.7	We knew that we had to ask the Rammies.
0:46.2	And what you guys said, I mean, we got like tons and tons of responses about covering
0:51.1	Alyssa Lam and the Cecil.
1:28.7	The Cecil Hotel. It's very complicated to pronounce for me for some reason. Of course, you know, those five letters. Exactly. I'm like, what could it be? What could it be? But it is such a haunting L.A. story. And we love covering like L.A. things. We've done the Black Doll. Yes. And this one just really, I mean, hey, we used to record right around the corner from this hotel. I know. Every time I'm in the presence of this hotel, it's downtown LA, there's a dark energy about it. Have you? Oh, so you've never been, but you've seen? No, I've never physically been in, but I've seen it. It's right behind some musical theater. and it does like stop you in your tracks. Yeah, it is on Skid Row. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yes. Which is, you know,
1:35.2	notoriously not a great part of Los Angeles. You know, downtown L.A. has really changed
1:40.2	throughout the years. And the hotel was actually built, Claire, in 1924. And when it was built,
1:47.5	it was very, like, post, you know, American Industrial Revolution. It was, like, beat bopping.
1:53.9	And everyone was like, ooh, downtown L.A. is so chic and fun and modern. And then it was hit by
1:59.0	the Great Depression, like, a few, you know, really a few years later.
2:02.1	And it never recovered.
2:03.7	And it has since been this hotel that is known for like suicides and murders and supernatural
2:11.6	things happening.
2:13.9	And there's just this haunting element to it that like it's crazy that actually still is
2:19.0	right it like still exists yeah can you like rent a room there oh yeah absolutely you i think you
2:23.1	still can for like 80 to 100 dollars a night so well listen you're not finding that anywhere so
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Claire Donald & Tess Bellomo, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Claire Donald & Tess Bellomo and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.