184: Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel Part 1
- Jun 8, 2021
- 1 min read
Can a building be evil? (Gillian: “NO, IT’S JUST A BUILDING!”). Can web sleuths solve a truly bizarre death? (Patrick: “NO! GET OFF FACEBOOK AND GO. OUT. SIDE.). And what exactly is a hotel general manager’s job? (Patrick and Gillian: (“UNCLEAR!”) Welcome to the Cecil Hotel—a once grand hotel which rotted from the inside and became a place where “dreams go to die” and “serial killers let their hair down.”
Elisa Lam knew none of that, of course, when she checked in on January 28, 2013. She went missing a few days later. And two weeks after that, out of desperation to find her, the LAPD released the now infamous “elevator video” of her which set the internet ablaze. Join us and the investigators and internet…sleuths?...as we all try to put together the pieces of her disappearance and death. And I promise, we land on an answer as to what happened to her.
The Cecil Hotel stories always give me chills—staying in sketchy old places during solo trips back in my twenties, I'd hear the creaks and wonder about the history. The Elisa Lam case hits different; that elevator footage still feels eerie, and hearing the hosts unpack the hotel's dark past and the internet frenzy around it kept me hooked. Makes you think about how much we don't see behind closed doors. On long drives now, I tune into true crime pods via SiriusXM. When signal drops or app glitches, the customer service contacts on https://sirius-xm-radio.pissedconsumer.com/customer-service.html help get it back on track fast. Solid episode—left me reflecting.