This podcast details true crime cases. It contains adult themes and may contain descriptions of violence.

It is not intended for children. Listener discretion is advised.

Thank you for joining me for today's episode of Once Upon a Crime.

In this episode, I'll wrap up the series infamous locales with a strange and sad story

that took place at the Cecil Hotel in 2013. A young student goes missing from the hotel while

visiting from Canada, where she is found, and the strange and disturbing last sightings of her,

caught on the hotel's video surveillance camera,

would become a thing of legend, and an enduring mystery that is still debated to this day.

Join me for the story of the mysterious death of Elisa Lam.

Elisa Lam was 21 years old in the winter of 2013, when she decided to take a trip from her home in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to the United States to visit California.

Elisa's parents, originally from Hong Kong, settled in Burnaby and opened a restaurant before Elisa was born.

Elisa grew up in the suburbs of

Vancouver. After high school, she enrolled at the University of British Columbia. However,

as 2013 was beginning, Elisa had yet to enroll for the winter semester. According to her blog

and Tumblr account posts, she was feeling somewhat adrift.

She wrote about feeling alone.

Sometimes she shared very deep and unhappy thoughts on her blog titled Etherfields.

One of her last posts on the blog in the spring of 2012 read,

I spent about two days in bed hating myself.

At some point, Elisa was diagnosed with depression

and bipolar disorder. She received treatment and began taking several medications to help her stay

balanced, but her moods would often fluctuate, something she wrote about in her blog posts.

...