My Thoughts After Watching Netflix’s Crime Scene: The Vanishing at Cecil Hotel

I remember seeing a creepy footage of a lady behaving strangely in an elevator on YouTube but didn’t think much of it. Fast-forward to today, I finally know who she was.

Netflix’s latest true crime documentary series, Crime Scene: The Vanishing at Cecil Hotel, tells the story of Elisa Lam, a college student from Canada who disappeared without a trace and eventually found dead. She was the lady I saw in the YouTube video that went viral.

There were 4 episodes in this docuseries. I binge-watched and finished it because I want to know the ending. There were a few thoughts running through my mind while I was watching it and some were mentioned at the final episode.

1. Elisa Lam’s journal entries in her Tumblr about her depression caused by bipolar disorder were hauntingly similar to thoughts that have crossed my mind many times. But I believe I’m not alone. I’m sure those who are suffering from depression can relate as well.
2. People are quick to jump to conclusions or conjure up conspiracy theories with the little information they obtained via the Internet without knowing all the facts.
3. These same people (keyboard warriors) make the Internet a scary place because they started the virtual manhunt for a guy named Pablo Vergara whom they thought was the murderer of Elisa Lam. He was innocent and the people who wrongly accused him didn’t even apologize for ruining his life.
4. People are quick to judge others by their appearances. Pablo Vergara was accused of being a murderer simply because they found references of death and murder in his music.
5. Reality can be simple, straightforward, and sometimes, rather sad but people don’t want to accept the truth and would rather believe in the alternate realities.

The death of Elisa Lam was truly a tragic one. If she’s still alive today, she would have been an amazing writer. Such authenticity and realness to what she wrote in her Tumblr blog.