Season 07 Episode 14: If These Walls Could Scream (Pt.2 of 3)

the Cecil Building. To Nelly observed the vast building as it came into view, looming, hulking and high over the street. It had recently been repainted in alabaster, the color of new beginnings, the colour of a pale skin. On the side, a large painted sign, the color of deoxygenated blood red Cecil Hotel, low daily weekly rates. Tornelli and Sterns pulled up outside and stepped into the cool winter air as

thick dark clouds hung low in the sky above. Once inside, Tonelli and Sterns took a moment to admire the recently refurbished grand foyer, no less spectacular than the day when

the hotel first opened. You could almost imagine the boisterous guests of eighty years ago sweeping through in sharp suits and party dresses on their way to the theater, an image soon punctured by a sign on the wall warning that no visitors were allowed upstairs and for guests to show keys upon request for their own protection, a mark

perhaps of the hotel's more recent sketchy reputation. A few residents shuffled in and out as detectives to Nelly and stern snooped around before a member of staff directed them to the Stay On Main reception located next door. As it transpired, the main entrance was only used by Stay On Main guests after eleven PM. A single receptionist was stationed at a bright white and orange desk to Nelly

approached them and requested to speak to the manager. A moment later, General manager Amy Price appeared from a back room to Nelly confirmed with her that Elisa was traveling alone. Then he asked Price if she could remember seeing the young woman entering or leaving the hotel with anyone else during her stay. But Price was adamant that Elisa had last been seen by a member of staff entering the

big building alone on the afternoon of January thirty. First Manager Amy Price took the men through Elisa's booking history, explaining that she had initially made reservations to stay for three nights, starting on the evening of Monday, January twenty eight, with the intention of checking out on January thirty first. However, Elisa had decided to extend her stay for one more night.

Price didn't know why. Then she mentioned something intriguing. Elisa had originally booked into Room five oh six B, a six bed shared dorm, but she'd later be moved to a private room after some of Eliza's roommates made complaints about Elisa's odd behavior. The detectives made a note and requested all CCTV footage covering the duration of Elisa's stay be handed over to them. Next, the detectives examined the

belongings that had been removed from Elisa's room. They found a backpack full of clothes, as well as a large handbag, an overnight bag full of cosmetics, and Elisa's laptop, but conspicuously no mobile phone. This collection of items was troubling to Tonelli and Sterns. These weren't ordinarily the type of things you abandoned out of choice. There was one other item among Eliza's possessions, that the detectives hadn't expected, a

small bag of pill bottles. To Nelly didn't recognize all the names, but knew enough to understand that it was psychiatric medication. Tonelli had an officer bag it all up before they made their way to the fifth floor, led by maintenance worker Santiago Lopez. To Nelli and Sterns stepped out of the lift into the quiet of an empty corridor that stretched out in front of them its walls.

An oppressive shade of brown, muffled sounds emanated from behind closed doors as the detectives made their way down the hall, deeper into the heart of the building. Finally, they stopped outside room five to one, one, where Elisa had last stayed inside. It was small and cramped, taken up mostly by a single queen sized double bed. Its orange and white sheets clashed garishly with the sky blue walls and

umber colored carpet. A small flat screen bolted to the back wall played soundless scenes of the day's news as Tonelli inspected the tiny en suite, its shower and lavatory separated only by a flimsy shower curtain. To Nelli listened for a moment as the sound of clanging pipes drifted up from the depths of the building. Stepping back into the dimly lit corridor to Nelly clocked the communal bathroom and shower area at the far end of the floor.

Maintenance worker Santiago Lopez confirmed that each floor was set up in a similar fashion, with a fire exit at each end, allowing access onto the floor from anywhere else in the building. It only then became clear to the detectives just how big a task they had on their hands. Though the Stay on Maine operated independently to the Cecil, thanks to the fire exits, any of the main building's temporary or permanent residents technically had access to the Stay

on Mainz rooms. In other words, that meant there were seven hundred rooms worth of potential suspects related to Elisa's disappearance. By early afternoon, with more officers requested to join the search, a command post was set up in the lobby of the main building. LAPD officers, grouped in pairs were instructed to go from room to room searching for any sign

that a body might be hidden in sight. Maintenance worker Santiago Lopez was requested to assist in the opening of doors, along with chief engineer Pedro Tova, who'd worked at the Cecil for over thirty years. A team of sniffer dogs who'd been given some samples of Elisa's clothing were also brought in to help. Vancouver, Elisa's family waited with increasing desperation for any more news. Having learned that afternoon that there was still no sign of a Lisa, they made

the decision to fly down to Los Angeles. Back at the Cecil, the last floor of the hotel to be checked whilst the fifteenth, though as low Pairs explained to Tanelli, technically it was actually the fourteenth. Like many hotels for superstitious reasons, the Cecil had no thirteenth floor because you know,

something terrible might happen if it did. Although it was possible to get to the fifteenth floor in the lift, it was off limits to guests and residents alike, and the doors would not open up on it without a maintenance key. After a quick sweep of the floor with the dogs, nothing of note was found, and attention then turned to the roof. There were four ways to gain access to it, by one of the three fire escapes that ran the full height of the building, or through

the access door on the fifteenth floor. As the detectives had already established the fire escapes could be accessed from any floor of the hotel, but Pedro Tovar, the engineer, suspected it would be difficult for anyone to get up them without being noticed. As for the access door, not only was it located on the top floor only accessible with a maintenance key, but it was also kept locked at all times and was linked to the fire alarm system.

Tovar led them to the access door, then by way of demonstration, pushed it open, instantly triggering the fire alarm. As he headed off to disable it. Detectives to Nelly and Stern stepped back to let the dog team head out first before following them onto the roof. The roof was much as they expected, comprised of three large rectangular sections following the shape of the hotel, like the three prongs of the letter E, stretching out from the back

of the hotel to the front. Each section was completely empty, while at the very back of the roof, just behind them stood four large water cisterns raised on a four foot high platform. Each of the tanks stood roughly ten feet high by six feet wide and could hold up to a thousand gallons of water pumped up from below street level. A small and empty maintenance hut overlooked the tanks.

To Nelli gazed out at the downtown Los Angeles skyline, rendered even more flat and dull than usual by the low hanging cloud, remembering again the pills he found in Elisa's bag. Might she have been suicidal? He thought. He wandered across to the edge of the roof and peered over the side, taking in the full fourteen story drop, then looked back across the empty roof. There was nothing there for them. Okay, let's wrap it up, he said.

The following day, Elisa's parents, Yena and David, and sister Sarah flew to LA to assist the police with their inquiries. With the press beginning to sniff out the story, the LAPD decided to hold a press conference to get ahead of them, but also to make an appeal to the public for help. A host of journalists and photographers jostled

for position outside one hundred West first Street. Lieutenant Walter Tigue took to the microphone and announced that Alisa Lamb, a Canadian citizen, who'd last been seen at the Cecil Hotel on January thirty first, was officially missing. As members of the press shouted out questions, Sarah, Yina and David, who was barely able to bring his eyes up from

the floor, stirred in somber silence. Behind Teague, a large photo of a smiling a Lisa in puce colored glasses and a pink and blue checkered hoodie was displayed prominently on a poster to their right. Within days, it would be plastered throughout the downtown area for the rest of the day to Nelly and Stearns interviewed the family in the hope of getting a better understanding of Elsa's carriay. First, they wanted to know about the pills they found. In total.

Among the sinus and pain relief tablets, the officers found seventy LAMYCHTYL tablets, twenty SERA cole tablets, one hundred and twenty four Offexa x R capsules, as well as fifty seven bupropion tablets, all commonly used in the treatment of psychiatric ailments. As the detectives had suspected her sister, Sarah confirmed that Elisa suffered from depression. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her final year of high school and had taken medication for it ever since. The medication was

not insignificant. Lamictyl is a brand name of lamotrogene, an anticonvulsant that prevents the rapid fire of neurons that can lead to epileptic seisure, but it's also used to treat bipolar depression by preventing the onset of mania. Seraquel, a brand name of quettiepine, helps manage the balance of dopamine and serotonin levels in the brain. Although both medications are fairly common in the treatment of bipolar they are not

without potentially harmful side effects. Limotrogene can lead to blurring of vision, loss of balance, and memory loss, and quetiepine can often cause a hellish combination of insomnia and fatigue, although Eleas's prescribed dosage was at the lower end of the scale for this drug. Venlafaccine, the chemical compound of effexa, is also commonly prescribed for sufferers of depression, which, like quetiepine, is used to control potentially dangerous chemical imbalances in the

brain that can lead to suicidal thoughts. Pupropion is one of the most frequently prescribed antidepressants in the States. It was a difficult subject approach, but one that had to be addressed. The detectives in quiet if Elisa had ever expressed any suicidal tendencies, but her sister Sarah was adamant

that she hadn't. It's not uncommon for sufferers of depression to have long periods of lucidity and apparent happiness, only for that to be offset by one event or other that could trigger a dangerous and sometimes irretrievable downward spiral. The detectives wondered whether anything specific might have happened in Elisa's life recently that could have caused such an event.

The family weren't entirely sure either way. The more the detectives learned about the missing woman, the more tangible their sense of who exactly they were searching for became. Elisa was twelve years old when she arrived in Vancouver from

China with her family in two thousand and three. It hadn't been an easy adjustment for a young girl to make, coming to a due culture and facing stereotypical prejudices, but Elisa was smart, warm, and approachable, and despite being a little self conscious, she was outgoing and always eager to meet new people. At school, she was a high achiever, but as she neared the end of high school, things

began to change. Elisa's parents sensed her listlessness, but talking about it was complicated and nothing they did seemed to help. A doctor consulted, prescriptions were written, and by the time Elisa was applying for college, she was regularly taking medication for depression. Elisa earned a place to study history at the University of British Columbia, but by the summer of her third year in twenty twelve, she had yet to

complete a single year of her studies. Her parents, David and Yena, were all too aware that she was failing her course, but perhaps they didn't know how much she appreciated what it took for them to afford her that opportunity, only for her to be throwing it all away, and

how much that crippled her. Neither did they know about the anonymous blog and tumbler pages that she kept online, added with the Chuck Paula nick quote, You're always haunted by the idea you're wasting your life, and how her emotions would often leave her feeling isolated, but her sister Sarah knew, as she explained to Detective to Nelly, that

Eliza wasn't suicidal like most people. She just wanted time to figure out who she was supposed to be before the world and all its potential, spiraled away from her. In August twenty twelve, Aliza was told that she wouldn't be kicked out of college after all, but was advised to take the year off and return the following summer to begin again. Slowly, she found a renewed sense of purpose and she was determined to make the most of

her unofficial year out. In October, she made inquiries about volunteering on a farm and found the perfect location in Santa Cruz, California. She had always wanted to visit la and made a plan to stop off there on the way. In November, Elisa suffered a sudden drop in her mood, and, unknown to her family, she wrote anonymously about having suicidal thoughts on tumbler. However, things had sufficiently lifted by the end of the month for her to undertake a seemingly

much enjoyed solo trip to Toronto and Ottawa. Detective to Nelly asked the family about relationships and discovered that Elisa had a relatively long term boyfriend until recently. Although they'd broken up shortly before the New Year, she hadn't seemed too upset by it, But perhaps Elisa hadn't shared with anyone how the emotion of the break up had suddenly caught up with her in the weeks prior to leaving

for America. Another area of concern for the detectives was the possibility that Elisa may have come off her drugs, but as Elisa's parents attested, she'd always been good at taking her medication and didn't seem to suffer any obvious side effects from it. What's more, the drugs appeared to be working. Prior to her trip, the family had enjoyed a pleasant holiday season together, with Elisa appearing in good

spirits right up to the time she'd left. Having booked the flights in early January, Alisa was looking forward to getting out there, and from what they could tell from her daily calls back home, she'd been positively buoyant. Elisa began what she called her West Coast tour on January twenty second, and spent a week in San Diego before she arrived in Los Angeles by train on January twenty eighth.

The family didn't know if she'd planned to meet up with anyone, but she'd definitely been alone when she checked into the Stay on Maine. They knew little about her subsequent movements, other than the fact that she attended that recording of the Conan O'Brien show on the night at Wednesday,

January thirtieth, presumably alone, they thought. Before her disappearance, Elisa had called her parents every day and sounded happy to Nellie asked them if Elisa had mentioned anything about having to move rooms at the Stay on Maine, but it was the first they'd heard about it. The detectives thanked the family for their time and reassured them they would

do everything they could to find their daughter. The lap press conference led to a flood of phone calls and speculative reports of Elisa's whereabouts, but nothing much of use turned up. That was until the following day, when Katie Orphan, the manager of the last bookstore located just a few minutes walk from the Stay on Maine, got in contact with the police. Orton had seen Alsa in the store on the afternoon of January thirty first, the day she'd

last been seen by hotel staff. Often even remembered speaking with the young woman who dropped in to buy presents for her family around about noon. This put her whereabouts at least in the vicinity of the hotel prior to returning there later that afternoon. Perhaps most significantly, Katie Orten remembered that Elisa was not only alone, but that she

was outgoing, friendly and completely lucid. Then, after days trawling through over eight hundred hours of CCTV footage taken from inside the hotel and surrounding eight ms, the police tech team finally made a breakthrough. Elisa was picked up on security footage recorded from inside the lobby of the Stay on Maine on the afternoon of the thirty first. The first piece of footage showed Elisa engaged in a short

and seemingly innocuous conversation with two men. The men appeared to handle Lisa a small box before they each said their goodbyes, with the men then leaving the hotel and Elisa heading off alone in the other direction toward the lift and presumably back to her room. Detectives to Nellie and Stearns were called in to take a look at

the footage for themselves. They watched the first clips eagerly, flush with excitement at the possibility of having a major lead to follow up on, maybe even potential suspects they could interview. However, they had disappointed to learn that the two men, whose faces were not easy to see, didn't appear on any further clips entering or exiting the building. But that wasn't the footage the tech team wanted the detectives to see. The footage they really wanted them to

watch was something altogether different. Detectives to Nelly and Sterns watched on as the next clip was loaded up. Then the technician hit play. The footage that played out before all of them had been recorded in one of the hotel's lifts later that evening, to Nelly and Sterns moved in closer to the screen as a silent colored shot flickered up on the monitor of an empty lift car.

The car then begins to move up through the levels until stopping at the fourteenth floor, or what would have been the thirteenth if it wasn't for the superstitious contractors. A short time later, the lift doors open to reveal an empty corridor from out of which a young woman matching Elisa's description appears from the left hand side and

enters the lift. The woman, wearing a burgundy hooded sweater, black shorts and sandals, turns immediately to the control panel, bends in close to the buttons, and bizarrely presses the entire middle row, lighting up fl ten seven four, the mezzanine level the basement, and one further button below. After pressing the buttons, the woman casually steps back into the corner of the lift, keeping her eyes fixed on the seemingly empty corridor beyond as her hands dangle by her side.

But the doors don't close as might be expected. Then something even more strange happens. The woman takes a small step toward the open door, then, in one quick movement, slides herself forward on one leg before sticking her head out into the corridor. After a quick look left and right, the woman then steps hurriedly back into the lift and retreats first against the right wall before backing into the corner, pulling her body in tight as if she is hiding

from somebody. When no one comes, the woman then steps back into the open doorway of the lift. She stays there for a moment, peering out into the apparently empty corridor, before jumping out suddenly, as if trying to surprise someone. But again there seems to be nobody else there, and all the while the doors remain open, refusing to shut,

and there is more as detectives. To Nelly and Steren's struggle to comprehend what it is they are looking at, the CCTV footage gets increasingly strange as the woman continues to stand in the corridor. She puts her arms above her head for a moment and walks back into the lift.

Her moods are now languid and off balance. She turns back to the control panel and once again presses the same middle row of buttons, going back over them a number of times before stepping again into the empty corridor beyond. She waits for a moment, then turns to the right, and for a brief second, it appears that she is speaking to someone, her arms moving up and down in a strange, undulating manner, but still there is seemingly nobody there.

To Nelly and Stern's watch transfixed as the woman's peculiar dance of hand gestures plays out. At one point, she seems to move them speculatively in front of her, as if she were fumbling her way across a dark room. Then suddenly she grabs at her fingers, twisting them as if ringing out a wet cloth. After a few more seconds, the woman simply spins to the left and walks away to Nellie keeps his eyes locked on the corridor, waiting for a glimpse of whommeever she'd been speaking to, But

nobody comes. As the timecode continues running, the doors finally close softly, and the now deserted lift begins to move, slowly, making its way through each of the different floors that the woman had selected. The footage was taken a matter of hours after an outgoing, friendly and lucid Elisa had spoken to bookshop manager Katie Orphan. But that isn't all. With no subsequent footage found of Alisa leaving the building, detectives to Nellie and Sterns have something solid at last

to go on whether Elisa is alive or dead. She is still somewhere inside the hotel. You've been listening to part two of Unexplained, Season seven, episode fourteen if these Walls could scream. The third and final part will be released next Friday, February second. This episode was written by Richard McLain smith. Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard McLain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me Richard mc

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