The Horrifying Cecil Hotel

Water Tank Elisa’s Body Found

The Cecil Hotel could be one of the spookiest places to stay on the planet. Currently known as the Stay on Main Hotel, it is located in Downtown Los Angeles and is only a few blocks away from Skid Row. The Cecil started off as a comfortable stop for traveling business men as well as families on vacation. This all changed when drug use, sex, and violence became trending themes throughout the hotels future history. There are many scary events on the Cecils list, but I am going to focus on two specific stories.

The first story is about a young girl by the name of Elisa Lam. She is a student from Canada and happened to be staying at the Cecil Hotel. A few days into her stay she vanishes without a trace. Nineteen days later her body was found in the water supply tank on the roof of the hotel, due to guests complaints about tainted water. The location of her body was not only suspicious but the last seen footage of Elisa Lam is even more disturbing. The video footage shows her franticly running into the elevator, looking around suspiciously as if someone was chasing her. She also exits the elevator for a brief moment and seems to be talking to someone outside the elevator doors. All of the attention focused on this tragedy created many conspiracy theories about the truth behind Elisa Lams death. Many people believe she might have taken a psychedelic drug while passing through Skid Row or that the hotel might be covering something up. It is still unknown how Elisa ended up in the water tank and I believe this story is one of the scariest stories because of this.

Elevator Footage of Elisa Acting Strange

The Hotel has also been a home to the notorious Richard Ramirez. He is a serial killer who viciously murdered thirteen people in the span of one year. When staying at the Cecil, other guests reported him returning to the hotel covered in blood with no clothes on because he had just previously threw his clothes away. Richard Ramirez’s presence in the hotel just adds on to the overall eerie aspect of the Cecil Hotel.

Dexter’s Double

The TV show Dexter, is about how a splatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department battles with his inner psychotic urges to kill. Dexter’s father notices these urges surfacing during Dexters younger years as a child. His father teaches him how to blend in with normal society suppressing these urges by following a moral code. This is to only kill other killers causing harm to others as well as never getting caught and blending in with his community so that no one will ever look at him as a suspect. Dexter has done well at keeping his “dark passenger” (this is what he calls his urges or double consciousness) satisfied and hidden. That is until he meets a girl by the name of Rita and all of his preconceptions about being a psychopath and feeling no emotion fly out the door. Eventually marrying Rita, Dexter starts to actually care for her creating conflict between his hidden identity and his true emotions. It seems like all of us have some type of dark passenger, not necessarily in a negative sense but in the way of having two different ideas or thoughts within. Throughout the rest of the show, Dexter keeps fighting to balance his inner urges with his normal life as a father and splatter analyst. He dives into fully submitting to his dark passenger and realizes the moral code his father instilled within him is there for an obvious reason. Dexter has to balance both consciousnesses and understand that fulfilling his urges the right way is the only way he can stay out of trouble.