If you like suspenseful mysteries mixed with some ghost stories, then do I have the mini docuseries for you. “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” dropped on Netflix in February. In four episodes, you are able to learn about the legends surrounding the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles along with a mystery surrounding one of its guests.
The Cecil Hotel was a massive place to stay, with 15 floors and hundreds of rooms. Since its opening in the 1920s, the management of the Cecil Hotel always offered low rates for guests to stay, which made this place appealing to low-income people or those who were homeless. As time went on, the hotel’s location proved to be less than ideal for the average traveler. Located only a few blocks from Skid Row, the Cecil Hotel became a temporary home for the homeless and those who could not pass background checks for apartments and houses.
The hotel became a hotspot for criminal acts over the many years it was in service. It wasn’t uncommon for staff to see drug use, prostitution or domestic violence happen behind the doors. Along with these acts, the hotel also became a hotspot for death. Amy Price, the hotel’s manager from 2007 until 2017, said that during her 10 years of working for the hotel she saw about 80 deaths on the property. From overdoses to murders and suicides, it was clear that this hotel held some dark energy within.
“Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” focuses on one disappearance of a specific guest. In 2013, 21-year-old Elisa Lam left her home in Canada to explore the West Coast. She documented all her thoughts about life and her trip by making posts on the Tumblr app. Lam was excited about the adventure. She booked a stay at a trendy and cheap hotel called Stay on Main.
Stay on Main was created by management at the Cecil Hotel to help deal with bad reviews that deterred potential guests. Stay on Main was essentially the Cecil Hotel but with a trendy rebrand. The new hotel, located inside the Cecil, was a way for management to try to give the hotel a fresh start from its dark past.
The mini docuseries follows the story of Lam and her stay at the Cecil. Just a few days after checking in, Lam goes missing. She called her parents every day as part of an agreement to let her go exploring, and when she hadn’t called, they knew something was wrong. Immediately, Lam was classified as a missing person, and police began investigating at the Cecil Hotel.
Upon reviewing security footage, the police were able to confirm that Lam never left the Cecil. There was footage of her at the entrance receiving a box from two men, but the box only contained books she ordered from a local bookstore. The other piece of security footage Lam was seen on is what really causes people to scratch their heads.
If you’ve heard of the case of Elisa Lam, odds are you know about the elevator video. This footage is no longer than five minutes but shows Lam behaving very oddly. In the docuseries, many web sleuths come forward with their own conspiracies about Lam’s erratic behavior. Some suggested she was on mind-altering drugs, while others said it seemed like she was interacting with someone off camera.
The rest of the series follows the police and their search for Lam.
Overall, I really enjoyed this docuseries, but it made me sleep with my lamp on. I was glued to the story of Lam, but I wish there was more history about the Cecil Hotel in the series.
One thing I didn’t like was the way the docuseries was framed. It presented conspiracies and held off on pieces of evidence until the end, which made it harder for me to come to terms with Lam’s true cause of death. Trust me, it kept me in suspense, but it made the facts of her death harder to believe.
If you’re not easily scared and like a lot of suspense, I’d watch this docuseries. Honestly, as long as you have a lamp ready to go in your bedroom then you should give this docuseries a good watch.