Los Angeles. February 19, 2013. Hotel guests at the Cecil Hotel on South Main Street had been complaining about the water for days. Low water pressure. Discoloured water. A strange, sweet taste. A maintenance worker was sent to the roof to check the four large water storage tanks. He opened the hatch of one of them. Inside, floating naked, was Elisa Lam. She had been in there for 19 days. For those 19 days, guests had been drinking, bathing and cooking with that water. Elisa Lam was a 21-year-old student from Vancouver, British Columbia, travelling alone down the West Coast of America. She had a travel blog, a love of books, and a diagnosed bipolar disorder for which she took prescribed medication. She checked into the Cecil Hotel on January 26, 2013 — a building with a history of at least 16 deaths, including suicides and murders, that had hosted serial killers Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger as guests, located directly on the edge of Skid Row. She was moved from a shared room to a private room after her roommates reported odd behaviour. She was last seen by hotel staff on January 31, 2013. On February 14, as part of the investigation into her disappearance, police released surveillance footage of Elisa in the hotel elevator at 10:53pm on January 31. In the footage she presses multiple floor buttons at once, flattens herself against the elevator wall, peers around the doorframe in both directions, steps into the hallway and makes unusual flowing gestures with her hands, then returns to the elevator doorway. The elevator doors never closed during the entire footage. This has never been explained. The coroner ruled her death an accidental drowning, with bipolar disorder listed as a significant contributing factor. Her toxicology showed her prescribed antidepressants were present — but her mood stabilisers were absent. In bipolar patients, antidepressants without mood stabilisers can induce manic episodes including psychosis and hallucinations. Three physical questions have never been answered: The roof of the Cecil required a hotel staff key to access. The water tanks required climbing an external ladder. The hatch of the tank where Elisa was found was closed when the maintenance worker arrived — from the outside. During the weeks Elisa was missing, a tuberculosis outbreak was declared in the Skid Row community directly below the Cecil Hotel. The test used to diagnose that TB outbreak was named LAM-ELISA — Elisa Lam's name, spelled backwards. This is a confirmed coincidence. It is not related to her death. It is real. The Cecil Hotel was declared a Los Angeles historical landmark in 2017. It remains closed as of 2025. No additional findings have been added to the official record. If you are travelling alone and need support — someone is always reachable. NAMI Helpline: 1-800-950-6264. Like and subscribe to GraveFile TV — new file every week. The roof needed a staff key. The lid was found closed. The elevator doors never shut. How do you explain any of that?