Cecil Hotel: Other Terrifying Deaths, Crimes That Occurred Before Elisa Lam's Disappearance

(Photo : Fox Photos)
A car leaving the Hotel Cecil is attracting the attention of a crowd.

With the release of a new Netflix documentary, the Cecil Hotel was subject to investigations because of the deaths and crimes that occurred in the place.

It rang and gathered even more attention when the case of Elisa Lam was exposed to the public.

But did you know that apart from Elisa Lam's case, more crimes and violence cases were reported to happen in the notorious hotel?

According to Yorkshire Evening Post, at least three murders and at least 16 unexplained deaths and suicides happened in Cecil hotel with its nearly 100 years of existence.

Located in Skid Row, an area of downtown Los Angeles, Cecil Hotel has now known as Stay on Main, but the stigma of being the Death Hotel is still known up to the present.

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Elisa Lam Disappearance

The 21-year-old Canadian student, Elisa Lam, was one of the most bizarre deaths in the hotel. The Crime Buzz notes that the student disappeared in 2013 when she stayed on the rebranded Cecil hotel. Disturbingly, her body was found on the hotel roof's water tank.

The Oprah Magazine notes that an employee from the hotel discovered the body in a large water tank. When the employee noticed that the main water tank was open, her body was found lying face up.

The Oprah Magazine also notes that a bizarre event was covered by camera footage in the elevator when Lam was seen to think someone was following her, then she pushed the buttons crouching then steps to the right back corner.

After a moment, she was seen looking right to the left, stepping out then stepping in the lift, then after 2 minutes, she steps back out then moves her hand in a manner that she was conducting music.

They add that she appears to talk to someone, but nobody is seen in the footage. The mystery of how Lam got in the water tank with heavy metal as a cover still stays unsolved.

Other deaths

Apart from the eerie case of Elisa Lam in 2013, other cases occurred way back to Cecile Hotel's glory days. Yorkshire Evening Post shares that the first crime happened in 1927 when a man shot himself after failing to reconcile with his wife and child.

Medium adds that in 1947, Robert Smith died because he jumped out of one window in Cecil's seventh building. Suicided in jumping out the window of the hotel is usually the cause of death among people who stay in the hotel.

Medium notes that cases from March 1937, February 11, 1962, and October 12, 1962, killed Grace E. Magro, Julia Frances Moore, and Pauline Otton.

They also mentioned one notable case where a pregnant woman named Dorothy Jean Purcell gave birth in the bathroom to an infant where she ended up hurling the baby out the window, and the infant was found on the roof of the next building. However, she was not charged for murder due to her insanity plea.

The horrifying deaths, including Elisa Lam, made the Cecil Hotel have its reputation for being notorious for attracting crime.

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WATCH: The Bizarre Death Of Elisa Lam from BuzzFeed Unsolved Network