Gone at Midnight
GONE AT MIDNIGHT
The Mysterious Death of ELISA LAM
Jake Anderson
CITADEL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
CITADEL PRESS BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2020 Jake Anderson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
CITADEL PRESS and the Citadel logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-8065-4005-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019944529
Electronic edition:
ISBN-13: 978-0-8065-4007-8 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 0-8065-4007-9 (e-book)
For Elisa and Jill, who will always belong in our hearts
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PART 1 - DISCOVERY
CHAPTER 1 - Missing
CHAPTER 2 - Found
CHAPTER 3 - The Investigation Begins
CHAPTER 4 - Rise of the Websleuths
CHAPTER 5 - The West Coast Tour
CHAPTER 6 - City of Demons
CHAPTER 7 - Further Down the Rabbit Hole
CHAPTER 8 - The “Suicide Hotel”
CHAPTER 9 - The 14th Floor
CHAPTER 10 - The Autopsy
PART 2 - SEROTONIN & SYNCHRONICITY
CHAPTER 11 - The Art of the Meltdown
CHAPTER 12 - David and Yinna Lam vs. the Cecil Hotel
CHAPTER 13 - Friends and Enemies of Occam’s Razor
CHAPTER 14 - Inbound Train
CHAPTER 15 - A World with Evil
CHAPTER 16 - Dark Synchronicity
CHAPTER 17 - The Last Bookstore
CHAPTER 18 - Return to the Cecil
PART 3 - COVERUP
CHAPTER 19 - Revisiting the Cause of Death
CHAPTER 20 - Whoever Chases Monsters
CHAPTER 21 - Inside Job
CHAPTER 22 - A Missing Element and a Bombshell
CHAPTER 23 - What Happened to Elisa Lam?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SOURCE NOTES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I wrote this book after several years of research into the Elisa Lam case. On a journalistic level, I faced significant hurdles, namely that after the investigation was officially closed, the three ostensible sources for information on the case—the LAPD, the Cecil Hotel, and the family—remained completely silent.
I had one critical asset, though, a primary source that changed the trajectory of my investigation: the departed left behind a wealth of online posts. Initially, I viewed these as potential sources for clues to what happened in Elisa’s final days. To my surprise, what I discovered after reading and studying hundreds of pages of her writing is that Elisa and I had a great deal in common. The full extent of this affinity didn’t become apparent until about midway through the project, and it truly shocked me.
Though I have been unable to interview her family (no one has), Elisa’s public-facing, first-person monologues, in addition to stories and analysis provided to me by her friends, allowed me to reconstruct aspects of her life. While I did, in a couple sections, take creative license to reconstruct scenes, characterizations, and pastiches, the majority of material featuring Elisa is based strictly on her own autobiographical descriptions.
It took time (years, in fact), but I slowly began to discover new evidence in the criminal investigation. Since the vast majority of LAPD personnel and Cecil Hotel employees refuse to discuss the case, I had to cast a wide and unconventional fact-finding net. In addition to Elisa’s writing and the police and court records, my sources eventually included a police informant, an investigative journalist, a private investigator, a retired deputy coroner, a forensics expert, an LAPD psychologist, several hotel tenants, a bouncer, a family member of a Cecil Hotel employee, and many others. The information they disclosed to me casts considerable shade on the official explanation of Elisa’s death.
Normally, the lack of involvement by the family—who, tragically, I imagine was doubly traumatized from the sensational media coverage after Elisa’s death—would have prevented me from pursuing a commercial project on the subject. However, I strongly believe that since there are already tens of thousands of blog posts and videos (many of them monetized) depicting Elisa in an antagonistic, stigmatizing, and often inaccurate light, there is room for one more entry that takes a hard dive into previously unknown facts of the case and, just as important, provides a larger context for the reality of her psychological struggles. In this sense, the book is a cross-pollination of true-crime and psychological memoir as well as a call for justice that requires equal parts criminal and sociological reckoning.
I believe Elisa’s story can help others by humanizing and de-stigmatizing mental illness so that more people speak openly about their problems with friends and family and seek help. The case—and Elisa herself—became part of the zeitgeist, veritable obsessions for some (at one point garnering 70,000 organic Google searches a month on top of the feverishly viral social media activity). My analysis of this response suggests a sociological component to the case that involves analysis of pathology, conspiracy theories, identity, and the desire for meaning in the Internet age.
Elisa’s story also has ramifications for criminal justice and the burgeoning websleuth movement.
My methodology throughout this journey has been simple but painstaking. I only formed conclusions based on facts or the debunking of falsehoods; I avoided confirmation bias in support of my hypotheses and continually revised these hypotheses after faithfully following the trail of facts and evidence; I let analysis of the facts lead the narrative and not the other way around; I aimed for transparency where possible (though several of my sources requested to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution); and I used primary materials as much as possible.
On a logistical note, the Cecil Hotel is referenced hundreds of times in the book. Though the hotel was renamed Stay On Main earlier this decade, I decided to stick with its original name to avoid confusion.
I plan to use a portion of the proceeds earned from this book for donations to the Lam family as well as to several cutting-edge mental health research and advocacy groups.
PART 1
DISCOVERY
That’s the thing about potential; it was so close, what could have been but didn’t happen and will never happen. The events did not line up perfectly. And it breaks your heart.
Fear of death is very silly to me. I am reassured that death is something that all things before me and all things after me will go through. When it comes, I will know what it is. I just hope for a chance to say my goodbyes.
I am more scared of going before my time, without having lived a full and meaningful life. —ELISA LAM
CHAPTER 1
Missing
ON A SUNNY, WARM WINTER DAY in Los Angeles, during one of the most historic and tumultuous weeks in LAPD history, detectives ushered a grieving family before a hungry press corps that had assembled at the downtown precinct. Six days earlier, a Chinese-Canadian student, Elisa Lam, vanished from the Cecil Hotel while vacationing alone. The police had since searched the building twice and canvassed the neighborhood; now they beseeched anyone who might have pertinent information to come forward.
Shortly after this press conference, though, the LAPD cu
t off the flow of all incoming and outgoing information regarding the case. Looking back years later, their plea for a synergistic relationship between law enforcement and the citizenry carries an ironic, disingenuous tone.
Detective Walter Teague of the Robbery and Homicides Division, looking appropriately grave, led the press conference, the ostensible purpose of which was to enlist the public’s help in finding the twenty-one-year-old Elisa. A posterized photograph erected next to the podium featured her in autumn colors flashing an ebullient smile, cascading, obsidian hair swept over one shoulder, her eyes gazing out from behind thick-rimmed glasses.
With an anxious and unsettled air, Teague outlined what the police knew so far. Elisa was last seen on January 31, 2013. She had verbally checked in with her parents every day while on her solo “West Coast Tour” of California, but on February 1 she didn’t call. And they hadn’t heard from her since. Nor had anyone. No texts. No calls. All communication—including Elisa’s prolific social media posts and blog entries—had abruptly ceased. Her parents reported her missing and flew with their eldest daughter from Vancouver, Canada, to Los Angeles to assist with the search.
Flanking Teague, the family looked ashen and devastated, their body language melting downward in the panicked countenance of loved ones who know something has gone horribly wrong.
The day before the press conference, on the sixth of February, the LAPD had posted flyers around the neighborhood.
“Lam is described as an Asian woman of Chinese descent,” the flyer stated. “She has black hair, brown eyes and stands five feet four inches tall. She weighs about 115 pounds. Lam is fluent in English and also speaks Cantonese.”
It concluded with a directive telling people to contact the LAPD with information.
Teague told reporters that Cecil Hotel management had confirmed Elisa was booked for four nights and scheduled to check out on February 1, the morning she disappeared. They also confirmed that Elisa was last seen by hotel employees in the lobby, shortly after returning from The Last Bookstore with gifts she bought for her family.
Police believed Elisa intended to travel to Santa Cruz next, but they were still piecing together the timeline of her travels.
Lead Detective Wallace Tennelle noted that particular attention was being paid to the case because it involved a foreign national.
“We’ve had some tips come in, not many, but nothing that has proven to be her,” Tennelle stated. “Some sightings, but they proved not to be her.”
When later asked about the nature of the investigation, he said, “We’re just investigating whatever personal habits she may have. And trying to follow up on where she was headed to or what she wanted to see. Like the murders that I investigate, they may grow cold but we don’t close them. I’m pretty sure that’s the same with missings, we don’t close them out.”
Tennelle, whose own son was murdered in cold blood only a few years earlier, mentioned that he was keeping Lam’s family updated with their progress. “We can’t give them everything we have but we do try to keep them in the loop as to what’s going on.”
In the preceding days, the LAPD had set up a command post in the lobby of the Cecil Hotel, where they deployed numerous search teams who were paired with a hotel employee with access to a master key. This effort produced an “extensive and exhaustive search of the entire hotel, including the roof.” The search lasted several days, but did not turn up any substantial evidentiary clues as to Elisa’s location.
A second search was conducted, this time with a K9 unit attached. Again, the entire hotel was searched, “every nook and cranny,” including the roof. Again, police obtained zero clues.
Finally, after a full week had elapsed since Elisa was last seen, the LAPD turned in desperation to the public. In an age when milk carton photos have been replaced by social media hashtags and online web-sleuth forums, word spread quickly that the notorious Cecil Hotel—known by locals as the “Suicide Hotel”—was at the heart of another potentially dark mystery.
Not even Aleister Crowley himself could have predicted how much darker it was about to become.
MISSING PERSONS
Teague looked worried. YouTube users commenting on an uploaded video of the press conference remarked that he sounded like he wanted to cry. Indeed, with a grief-stricken family behind him, the emotional burden must have been heavy.
I’ve always wondered what detectives say to families when a loved one is missing. What can be said? I doubt it plays out like in the movies, where a steely-eyed detective tells the parents, “I’ll find her, I promise.”
Los Angeles has had its fair share of missing persons. For a city that prides itself on visibility, hubris, and conspicuous consumption, the rate of disappearance is staggering. According to the Missing Persons Unit (MPU), approximately 3,900 adult Missing Person (M/P) reports are filed annually. “Approximately 80 percent of all reported missing persons are found or voluntarily return within 48 to 72 hours.” That still leaves hundreds of people who disappear from Los Angeles each year, never to be found again.
There are around 750,000 cases reported annually in the U.S. and in the majority of them, the person is found. However, many are not. Over the last few decades, hundreds of thousands of people have vanished from the face of the earth.
On its website, the Los Angeles Police Department lists the following most common reasons for a Missing Person report: mental illness, depression, substance abuse, credit problems, abusive relationships, or marital discord.
The site goes on to state the following: “The difficulty with a missing persons report is that the person missing has a right to be ‘missing.’ In other words, this person may have a legitimate or personal reason that he or she wants to be left alone and the police do not have the right to violate that right. This can be frustrating for family members or loved ones who may be (perhaps justifiably) convinced that foul play is involved. Once foul play is reasonably established—or the police have a reason to suspect the person’s life is endangered (for example, if they require timely medication and are without it)—an investigation can be launched.”
Law enforcement agencies urge family members or friends to report a missing person as early as possible. However, in the case of adults, it is virtually impossible for police to rapidly determine if they are missing or if they have simply left their old life and started a new one. And in the case of children or young women, investigators simply can’t respond to every missing persons case assuming it’s a sexually motivated non-family abduction. Most of the time people go missing, they either return safely or the case was a misunderstanding of some kind.
“If you just spent two extra hours and went to the hairdresser, would you want the chief of police pulling up?” said Todd Matthews, communications director for the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). “You don’t want to be controlled or watched.”
In those first crucial forty-eight hours, there is a slippery slope investigators must navigate in respecting the privacy rights of the missing while doing right by the family.
While an individual has the right to disappear, their families have the right to file a Missing Person report. They can do this at any time; there is not a requisite number of days one must wait before contacting the police. In California, a missing person is simply “someone whose whereabouts is unknown to the reporting party.” In fact, in the case of children or other dependents, each hour counts and family members should report as soon as possible.
However, prematurely reporting someone missing can lead to wasted police resources. In 2017, the mother of twenty-two-year-old Rebekah Martinez reported her daughter missing, igniting a statewide manhunt only to find out that Rebekah had absconded to Los Angeles and was an aspiring reality TV star on The Bachelor.
Other cases don’t have such warm endings. In early 2018, the parents of nineteen-year-old University of Pennsylvania student Blaze Bernstein reported their son missing. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department used
Blaze’s Snapchat posts to pinpoint his last sighting to around midnight on January 2, when a friend dropped him off at a park. He hadn’t been seen since.
In the ensuing search of Borrego Park in Foothill Ranch, police deployed drone technology. But Blaze was only found when rain runoff exposed his body, which had been buried in a shallow grave. The friend, Samuel Woodward, who dropped Blaze off was charged not only with stabbing Blaze twenty times but with a hate crime, as it was later determined Woodward was associated with a white supremacist group and may have targeted Blaze because he was Jewish and gay.
Drones are increasingly utilized in missing persons cases because they allow detectives to explore large swathes of land and then judiciously narrow in on the areas that should be searched on foot by people and dogs. In another case, the search for three-year-old Sherrin Matthews, police hired the North Texas Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Response Team to scour Richardson County, Texas. Like the Bernstein case, the search for Matthews ended with a tragic discovery. Her father was later charged with capital murder, her mother with child endangerment and abandonment.
Drones are part of a growing suite of new technological tools used in the search for missing persons. This arsenal includes predictive analytics, closed-circuit television, GPS darts, blockchain, and even experimental facial recognition. In 2008, Seattle police found a missing suicidal man by tracking his cellular phone data, in a case that would portend a controversial debate over privacy rights that persists today.
Cell phones and smartphones have assisted greatly in missing-persons cases. If police actually physically have the phone, they may be able to piece together what happened based on the most recent text messages or calls. But even if they do not have the missing person’s phone, investigators can usually learn a great deal about a person’s location based on “tower dumps” from network providers, which let them track a phone’s serial number. They can use network towers pinged by the phone to “triangulate” a specific location.