Los Angeles (CNN) -- Two days after the grisly
discovery, the case of the Los Angeles hotel water tank corpse is a
mystery with many unanswered questions.
The decomposing body of Elisa Lam floated inside a water tank on the roof of the Cecil Hotel while guests brushed their teeth, bathed and drank with water from it for as long as 19 days.
A maintenance worker,
checking on complaints about the hotel's water, found the 21-year-old
Canadian tourist inside one of four water cisterns Tuesday morning, Los
Angeles Police Sgt. Rudy Lopez said.
How and where did Elisa Lam die?
Los Angeles
robbery-homicide detectives are treating this as a suspicious death for
obvious reasons, Lopez said. Falling into a covered water tank behind a
locked door on top of a roof would be an unusual accident.
An autopsy was completed,
but the cause of death is deferred pending further examination,
assistant chief coroner Ed Winter said Thursday. That may take six to
eight weeks.
It will be several weeks
before investigators have the toxicology lab report which would show
whether Lam had any drugs in her system.
Any marks, injuries or wounds may suggest Lam died elsewhere and was dumped into the tank by her killer.
Water in Lam's lungs could be a sign that she drowned, but it might not tell why she was inside the small tank.
One clue comes from security camera video of Lam inside a hotel elevator the last day she was seen.
She is seen walking into
the elevator, pushing the buttons for four floors and then peering out
of the opened elevator door as if she is hiding or looking for someone.
Clad in a red hoodie, Lam at one point walks out of the elevator before
returning to it, pushing the buttons again. She then stands outside the
open elevator doorway, motioning with her hands, before apparently
walking away.
Lam checked into the
Cecil Hotel five days earlier, January 26, on her way to Santa Cruz,
California, according to police in her hometown of Vancouver, British
Columbia.
Why did it take so long to find Lam?
Lam's parents reported
the University of British Columbia student missing in early February.
Her daily calls home stopped on January 31, police told reporters on
February 6 at a Los Angeles news conference.
Because it was an
international case -- and her parents and sister flew to California to
find answers -- the case may have gotten more attention than most of the
several thousand missing person reports made in Los Angeles each year.
A search of the hotel then found no sign of Lam, including a trip to the roof with a police search dog, Lopez said.
Strange things began
happening with the hotel's water supply later in the month, according to
Sabina and Michael Baugh, a British couple who spent eight days there
until checking out Wednesday. The water pressure dropped to a trickle at
times.
"The shower was awful,"
Sabina Baugh said. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming
black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."
The tap water "tasted
horrible," Baugh said. "It had a very funny, sweety, disgusting taste.
It's a very strange taste. I can barely describe it."
But for a week, they
never complained. "We never thought anything of it," she said. "We
thought it was just the way it was here."
Knowing now what they
didn't know then about the water is sickening, Michael Baugh said. "It
makes you feel literally physically sick, but more than that you feel it
psychologically. You think about it and it's not good."
Eventually, the hotel
maintenance department investigated the water problem, sending a worker
to look into the tank, police said. He saw Lam's lifeless body at the
bottom.
A hard-working family
Randy Schmidt, a
spokesman for the University of British Columbia, said Lam was
registered in a class in August, but was not registered in any classes
this year, according to records.
"Unfortunately, we do not have much more to say, other than to extend our deepest sympathies to the family," said Schmidt.
According to Los Angeles police, Lam tended to use public transportation.
Teika Steins, manager of
a hostel in Toronto, Canada, said Lam stayed a week there in early
December. Steins called the young woman friendly and outgoing.
Flowers and signs were left Thursday outside the temporarily-closed Lam family restaurant in Burnaby, British Columbia.
Tanya Grohmann, who
works nearby, said she was saddened by the loss and the fact the family
did not know what happened to the young woman.
"They are a hard-working
family. They immigrated here," she told CNN affiliate CTV. "They've
been in the neighborhood for nine years working. ... They're honest
people."
Why did hotel stay open after discovery?
New guests continued to
check into the Cecil in the hours after firefighters removed Lam's body
from the water tank. But each guest was asked to sign a waiver releasing
the hotel from liability if they become ill. "You do so at your own
risk and peril," the hotel's release said. Guests who already paid for
their rooms would not get refunds if they move out, it said.
CNN's repeated calls to the hotel for comment were unreturned Wednesday and Thursday.
The Los Angeles Public
Health Department immediately tested the water supply, but told the
manager they could stay open as long as they provided bottle water and
warned guests not to drink the tap water.
The results of the
testing showed no harmful bacteria in the tank or the pipes, according
to Angelo Bellomo, director of environmental health for the department.
Chlorine in the city's water may be the reason it is safe, he said.
All of the tanks and
pipes in the building still must be drained, flushed and sanitized,
Bellomo said. The water will be retested after that process, which
should take several days, he said.
Several guests
interviewed by CNN on Wednesday indicated the hotel management did not
tell them about the body in the water supply they had been drinking and
bathing in.
Qui Nguyen learned about
it from a CNN reporter Wednesday morning. He decided not to sign the
waiver and instead find a new hotel.
Many of its guests are
tourists from other countries drawn by the hotel's billing as a
"European-style" hotel that is the perfect accommodation for
"spend-thrifty travelers."
But if they take Kim
Cooper's tour bus ride through the neighborhood, they would hear about
the Cecil being the former temporary home to at least two convicted
murderers, including "Night Stalker" serial killer Richard Ramirez.
Ramirez paid $14 a day to stay on the 14th floor during his 1980s
killing spree, Cooper said.
The Cecil Hotel is "in
the heart of the action, allowing our guest to embrace the city and the
surrounding areas that make Los Angeles famous," according to the
description you'll hear when you call there and are placed on hold.
In fact, the hotel is
just a few blocks away from the infamous Skid Row district in downtown
Los Angeles, but 16 miles from the beaches of Santa Monica, eight miles
from Hollywood's Walk of Fame and 12 miles from glamorous streets of
Beverly Hills that are prominently featured on the Cecil's website.
If you want a
reservation at the Cecil you will have to wait until next month. The
website said the hotel is "sold out" until March 1. After then, you can
book a room for $65.
