0:10

You're listening to the third and final part

0:13

of Unexplained, Season seven,

0:15

episode fourteen, If These

0:17

Walls Could Scream.

0:26

Twenty one year old at Lisa Lamb, visiting

0:28

La from Vancouver, who was last

0:31

seen at the Stay on Maine hostel, has

0:33

been missing for almost three weeks.

0:36

On the morning of February nineteenth,

0:39

Sabrina Barr, a guest at the

0:41

Cecil Hotel along with her husband

0:43

Michael, where the Stay on Maine was

0:45

located, got up from bed

0:48

and went to take a shower. But

0:51

when she turned the dial to release the

0:53

water, only a few dribbles

0:55

came out of the shower head. Turning

0:57

it on full did nothing to help.

1:01

Annoyed, she tried the taps at the

1:03

sink again. There seemed

1:05

to be something wrong with the pressure. She

1:08

decided at least to try and brush her teeth

1:11

after applying some toothpaste. She

1:13

held her toothbrush under the water for a

1:15

moment and then brought it up to her

1:17

mouth. It was then that

1:19

she noticed that water color seemed

1:22

a little bit off. She put

1:24

the brush in her mouth and spat the toothpaste

1:27

out immediately. The water

1:29

was putrid. By

1:31

the time Sabrina called reception

1:34

to complain they'd already had three

1:36

similar calls that morning. Around

1:39

the same time, maintenance worker

1:41

Santiago Lopez was already

1:44

on the case. Over in the bathroom

1:47

of room seven twenty, he

1:49

turned the taps at the sink and watched

1:51

with revulsion as dark, discolored

1:54

water trickled into the white

1:56

ceramic basin below. Santiago

1:59

packed up his tools and took the

2:01

elevator to the fifteenth floor. From

2:05

there, he made his way to the roof

2:07

access door, and after

2:09

disabling the fire alarm, he

2:11

pushed open the door and stepped

2:13

out into the cool morning air of

2:16

the roof. Beyond,

2:19

with the sounds of the morning traffic rising

2:22

up from the streets below, Santiago

2:25

climbed up the steps leading

2:27

to the cistern platform containing

2:29

the hotels four large

2:32

water tanks. He squeezed

2:34

through to the main tank at the back. There

2:37

was a small wooden ladder tucked in

2:39

behind it. He grabbed it and

2:41

leaned it against the tank, then

2:43

started to climb. All

2:46

four cisterns were completely covered

2:48

over by heavy metal lids,

2:51

each with an access hatch cut into

2:53

it one and a half foot square

2:55

in size. Ordinarily,

2:58

these hatches were left shut, but

3:00

as Santiago near the top of the

3:02

ladder, he was surprised to find

3:05

that this one was open and

3:07

there was something floating inside

3:10

the tank. Santiago

3:13

pulled himself over the hatch to get

3:15

a closer look and recoiled

3:18

in horror. It

3:26

had just gone one in the afternoon when

3:29

Detective Wallace to Nelly received

3:31

a call from Lieutenant Cheryl mcquillie

3:34

to let him know that a body had been found

3:36

on the roof of the Cecil Hotel, the

3:39

same roof his team had searched just

3:42

over ten days previously. He

3:45

arrived an hour and a half later, stepping

3:49

out onto the roof under a light

3:51

drizzle, to Nelly made his way

3:53

up to the platform and to the top

3:55

of the main water tank. Moments

3:58

later, he was staring down through

4:00

the hatch at the naked, floating

4:02

body of a young female

4:04

of Chinese descent. Her

4:07

long jet black hair stretched

4:09

out behind her head and waved

4:11

gently in the dark waters.

4:15

A marbling of liver mortars covered

4:17

the abdomen, and much of the

4:19

body had turned a pale green

4:22

in color despite

4:24

significant decomposition and

4:27

skin slippage. To Nelly recognized

4:30

the woman's face immediately as

4:32

Elisa Lambs. For

4:36

the next two hours, news

4:38

helicopters circled overhead as

4:41

La Fire Department nine worked

4:43

to extricate the body from the cistern,

4:46

Unable to lift it out of the small

4:49

access hatch. Instead, the

4:51

fire crew drained the tank before

4:53

cutting a large hole out of the side

4:55

of it. The body was finally

4:58

pulled free shortly year before

5:00

four o'clock in the afternoon, with

5:04

a light rain continuing to fall.

5:06

The body was carefully laid out under

5:08

a forensic tent and inspected

5:11

momentarily by detectives to

5:13

Nelly and Sterns before

5:15

it was placed in a black bag and

5:17

taken to the Department of Coroner.

5:21

Once the body was removed inside

5:23

the tank, the fire crew discovered

5:26

a Lisa's room key and her

5:28

watch, as well as a pair of black

5:30

shorts, a green shirt underwear,

5:34

a red American Apparel hoodie,

5:36

and a pair of black polka dot sandals.

5:40

They were the exact same clothes that

5:43

the woman was wearing in the unsettling

5:45

lift footage from January thirty

5:47

first, confirming that

5:50

it was Alisa they had seen behaving

5:52

strangely. Elisa's

5:55

devastated family were informed

5:58

of the discovery only moment before

6:00

images of their daughter's body being

6:02

taken from the water tank played

6:05

out live and nationwide on

6:07

the news. For

6:09

Danelli and Sterns, although never

6:12

wanting to presume anything, given

6:14

the circumstances, it seemed

6:16

likely that Elisa had been murdered

6:19

and placed inside the water tank.

6:23

An assessment of the scene was quickly

6:25

initiated. Danelli ordered

6:27

a dusting of the area for prints

6:30

and anything that might contain DNA.

6:34

Naturally, attention then turned

6:36

to trying to imagine how Alisa got

6:39

on to the roof in the first place, whether

6:42

by her own accord or at

6:44

the hands of someone else. If

6:56

indeed, Elisa had been

6:58

murdered and inc flactated

7:00

before her body was placed in the tank,

7:03

it was unlikely that she'd been carried

7:05

up via one of the three fire escapes.

7:09

All required scaling a

7:11

final vertical ladder up the

7:13

side of the building before squeezing

7:16

through a small square hole at the top

7:18

of it to reach the roof. Such

7:21

a feat would require an inordinate

7:23

amount of strength. The

7:26

only other realistic possibility

7:28

was that she was carried through the roof access

7:31

door, but as chief Hotel

7:33

engineer Pedro Tovar again

7:36

insisted the door was locked

7:39

and alarmed at all times, although

7:42

of course there was no reason to rule out

7:45

the possibility that any potential

7:47

perpetrator could be a member

7:49

of staff with keys to the

7:51

roof. Alternatively,

7:54

if she was murdered, Elisa

7:57

may have made her own way to the roof, either

7:59

willingly or under juress.

8:02

It was possible, too that she'd made

8:04

her way up alone, only to

8:06

later be attacked unexpectedly.

8:10

Such immediate theorizing was hard

8:12

to resist, but for the diligent

8:14

and methodical to Nelli, who

8:16

was more than aware of any number of possibilities,

8:20

such hypotheticals were pointless.

8:23

All that mattered were the facts, and

8:25

right then they had very little

8:27

to go on. He

8:30

also knew only too well that

8:32

with Elisa's body likely to

8:34

have been lying in the tank for over two

8:36

weeks, and with no CCTV

8:39

footage covering the roof, any

8:41

vital evidence to the crime would

8:43

have long since been washed or blown

8:45

away. In

8:47

the early afternoon, Elisa's

8:49

body was delivered to the Herzburg

8:52

Davis Forensic Science Center. The

8:56

building perched just above

8:58

Route ten on the eastern fringes

9:00

of Los Angeles stands out

9:03

monolithic and pristine amid

9:05

a backdrop of soft rolling hills

9:08

topped with desert shrubs and

9:10

colorful suburban villas. Few

9:13

motorists who passed the centre daily

9:15

on their regular commutes would recognize

9:18

the Squat five story building as

9:20

one of the leading forensic science

9:23

centers in the world. That

9:25

afternoon, in one of its newly

9:27

constructed labs, Elisa's

9:29

body was carefully laid out on

9:31

a service table by medical

9:34

examiner Dr Ulay Wang around

9:37

five thirty. Senior criminologist

9:40

Mark Schuckart diligently

9:43

took snippets of fingernail hair

9:45

and pubic hair from the body, as

9:48

well as a number of swabs, before

9:50

bagging it all up along with Elisa's

9:53

clothes for further analysis.

9:56

They hoped the tests would help to determine

9:59

whether Elisa had suffered

10:01

any kind of physical or sexual

10:03

assault before her death. Two

10:12

days after Elisa's body was taken

10:14

to the Morgue, doctor Wang conducted

10:17

the autopsy in anticipation

10:19

of finally discovering a cause of

10:21

death, as detectives

10:23

to Nelly and Sterns looked on incredibly.

10:27

After three hours of procedure. The

10:30

examiners drew a blank. There

10:33

was no evidence of trauma whatsoever.

10:36

No bones were broken, and there

10:38

were no abrasions or bruises in

10:40

evidence on the skin, and

10:42

nothing was found to be obstructing

10:45

the body's airways.

10:47

Inside the stomach, they discovered

10:49

the remains of tablets and capsules,

10:52

suggesting that Elisa had been

10:54

taking at least some of her medication shortly

10:57

before her death. One

10:59

startling discovery came when

11:01

doctor Wang investigated the chest

11:04

and abdominal cavity. Elisa's

11:07

lungs were filled with water, suggesting

11:10

she had been alive when she entered

11:12

the water tank, but

11:15

with no clear cause of death, doctor

11:17

Wang had no choice but to mark

11:19

it down as undetermined, prostrated

11:24

by the findings of the autopsy to

11:26

Nelly and Stearns, not to mention,

11:28

Elisa's devastated family, who

11:31

traveled down to retrieve their daughter's

11:33

body, were left waiting on the

11:35

toxicology report. Elsewhere,

11:39

both maintenance worker Santiago

11:41

Lopez and chief engineer

11:43

Pedrotova were spoken to

11:45

by the detectives, but promptly

11:48

discredited as suspects, with

11:50

no DNA or fingerprint

11:52

evidence to suggest the involvement

11:55

of unknown persons. The detectives

11:57

were stumped as to how a Lisa Caud

12:00

possibly have got inside the tank. When

12:03

the toxicology results finally

12:06

came back, they revealed no evidence

12:08

of intoxication save for

12:10

the smallest trace of alcohol, along

12:13

with traces of two of the drugs

12:15

that Elisa had been prescribed to

12:17

help with her depression, ven

12:20

la faccine, which commonly helps

12:22

to ward off suicidal thoughts,

12:25

and lamotro gene, used

12:27

to prevent the onset of mania in

12:29

patients who suffer from depression.

12:33

Having analyzed the results of

12:35

criminologist Mark chuckat swabs

12:37

and clippings, it was determined

12:40

that Elisa had not been the victim

12:42

of a sexual assault. After

12:45

another month of investigations,

12:47

the LAPD detectives were

12:50

left with only one explanation that

12:53

Elisa, who the police knew

12:55

had a history of mental health complications,

12:58

had somehow climbed into

13:00

the tank herself. On

13:03

June nineteenth, twenty thirteen,

13:06

Dr Wang, in agreement with detectives

13:09

to Nelly and Stearns and the Los

13:11

Angeles Coroner, broughed

13:14

Elisa's death to be caused by

13:16

accidental drowning, with

13:18

her bipolar disorder, considered

13:21

a significant contributing factor

13:30

in a peculiar coincidence to the case.

13:33

A few days after Elisa's body

13:35

was discovered, Los Angeles County

13:37

health officials were alerted to a

13:40

serious outbreak of tuberculosis

13:43

among the homeless population of skid

13:45

Row, just minutes from the Cecil

13:47

Hotel. Health workers

13:50

eventually called on federal assistance

13:52

from the Centers for Disease Control

13:54

and Prevention in order to stem

13:56

the outbreak. The

13:58

causative agent of TB is

14:01

a bacteria known as Mycobacterium

14:04

tuberculosis, with its most

14:06

common strain found in America being

14:09

the type four Latin American

14:11

Mediterranean strand, or

14:14

LAMB for short. One

14:17

popular and frequently used technique

14:19

to detect the presence of antigens

14:22

in the body a substance that causes

14:24

the immune system to produce antibodies

14:28

is known as an enzyme linked

14:30

immunosorbent assay, better

14:33

known by its acronym ELISA.

14:36

The test kit specific to the type

14:38

four strain of TB found

14:41

in downtown LA around

14:43

the same time of Elisa Lamb's

14:45

death is known as the LAMB

14:48

Elisa. Inevitably,

14:53

due to the mysterious nature of Elisa

14:56

Lamb's death. It has been poured

14:58

over endlessly by internets Sluth's

15:00

keen to offer all manner of theories

15:03

as to how she died. Such

15:05

attention was due in no small part

15:08

to the questionable decision to

15:10

release the peculiar footage taken

15:13

from inside the Cecil building's

15:15

elevator. Within

15:17

hours, the clip was a creepy

15:19

online sensation, going

15:22

viral across the globe. In

15:24

China alone. After being

15:26

shared on the video hosting site Yuku,

15:30

it was watched three million times,

15:32

racking up forty thousand comments

15:35

in just a week. Never

15:37

before had an ongoing investigation

15:40

sparked the public imagination in

15:42

quite this way, and it wasn't

15:44

long before the hotels troubled

15:47

past became part of the conversation.

15:50

Soon reports emerged

15:52

of strange activity said

15:55

to have been occurring there for years. One

15:58

woman claimed that her father, who

16:01

lived at the hotel in the nineteen sixties,

16:03

had often woken in the night with

16:06

the sensation of being choked.

16:09

Former staff claimed guests

16:11

in the room in which retired telephone

16:14

operator and full time resident

16:16

of the Cecil, Goldie Osgood,

16:19

was raped and murdered in nineteen sixty

16:21

four often complained of

16:23

similar experiences. One

16:26

couple had apparently checked into a room

16:28

on the eleventh floor, only to find

16:31

it in a state of complete disarray,

16:33

with a woman in a white dress already

16:35

staying in it. After complaining

16:38

to the front desk, they were led back

16:40

to the room, only to find it

16:42

in perfect order, ready for

16:44

their arrival, and the woman

16:47

nowhere to be seen.

16:50

In twenty fourteen, a young resident

16:52

of Riverside County apparently

16:55

photographed a ghostly apparition

16:58

that appeared outside a window on

17:00

the fourth floor. Numerous

17:12

floggers and paranormal investigators

17:15

have visited the Cecil Building in

17:17

recent years, hoping to capture

17:19

evidence of its apparent inner darkness.

17:23

Some have pointed out that the fourteenth

17:25

four where Elisa stepped

17:27

into the elevator and was seen

17:30

apparently conversing with someone, was

17:32

the floor on which notorious serial

17:35

killer Richard Ramirez once

17:37

stayed, the inference

17:39

being that maybe something

17:41

of Ramirez still haunted

17:44

the hotel's many narrow corridors

17:47

and had somehow contributed to

17:49

the young woman's death. Presumably,

17:52

those making such claims were

17:54

unaware that Ramirez was in fact

17:57

very much still alive when Elisa

17:59

Lamb died. Ramirez

18:02

would die five months later after

18:05

spending twenty eight years in prison.

18:08

Whether or not a full account of the investigation

18:11

into the Lamb case will ever be made

18:14

public, it will remain intricately

18:17

linked to the building in which it occurred.

18:20

What I find interesting, however, in

18:23

the absence of this explanation, is

18:25

how easily we seem drawn not

18:28

to those present in the hotel at the

18:30

time, but to those who are

18:32

no longer there. We

18:34

seem unable to shake the sense

18:37

that somehow, something of all

18:39

that had happened previously within its

18:41

walls was ultimately responsible

18:44

for the horrifying event. Similarly,

18:48

what spooked and inspired Stephen King

18:50

so much during that terrifying

18:53

night at the Stanley Hotel had

18:55

nothing to do with what was present during

18:57

his stay. It was because he and

19:00

his wife Tabby were the only guests

19:02

there. With the place

19:05

due to close for the winter, the building

19:07

was almost completely deserted. As

19:10

King wandered the empty corridors

19:12

and lifeless dining rooms, ringing

19:15

with the silence of people's past,

19:18

something in the emptiness bled

19:21

into his mind. In

19:24

classical mythology, everything

19:26

from rivers and valleys to

19:28

the forests and mountains were

19:31

considered the domain of unseen

19:33

and unnamed spirits that

19:35

would have to be placated with shrines

19:38

and offerings in order to bring

19:40

good fortune. The ancient

19:42

Romans termed these spirits

19:45

genii loci or

19:48

spirits of place. Today,

19:52

the term unmoored from its

19:54

theistic connotations, has

19:56

come to signify something a

19:58

little more abstract. Writer

20:01

John Repian describes it as

20:04

the echoes of people, of

20:06

events, of ideas which

20:08

have become imprinted upon a location

20:11

for better or worse, the

20:13

disquieting atmosphere of a former

20:16

battlefield, the comfort

20:18

and familiarity of a childhood

20:20

home. And, in my personal

20:23

opinion, nowhere are these so

20:25

called spirits more noticeable

20:28

than in ruined and abandoned urban

20:30

archaeology.

20:39

Nicholas Geyahlter's hypnotic

20:41

twenty sixteen documentary Homer

20:44

Sapiens. The filmmaker presents

20:47

us with a series of long, locked

20:49

off shots of nothing but

20:52

abandoned buildings and empty,

20:54

human scarred landscapes, accompanied

20:58

only by atmospheric sounds. Flies

21:02

buzz round a long, disconnected

21:04

vending machine standing solitary

21:06

in a wilderness of ferns. The

21:09

interior of a crumbling, snow

21:11

covered theater, ice melting

21:14

from the rafters and dripping

21:16

steadily into muddy puddles below.

21:20

A deserted hospital ward

21:22

with beds placed at odd angles,

21:25

and the wind entering through an open

21:27

window, blowing sheets of plastic

21:30

about the floor. It

21:32

is utterly captivating. Ruins

21:35

of antiquity are not without their

21:37

charm, but there is something especially

21:40

evocative about this more recently

21:43

abandoned detritus of human existence,

21:46

mesmerizing in its sense of being

21:48

both familiar and modern, yet

21:51

distant and strange.

21:54

I've always been fascinated by such

21:56

places at first.

21:59

There is something profoundly unsettling

22:01

about old and decaying structures,

22:04

and how the unhuman elements of

22:06

the natural world claim them

22:08

with such utter disinterest. What

22:11

unsettles is their temporality.

22:15

To paraphrase social and cultural

22:17

geographer Tim Adenza, who's

22:19

written extensively on the evocative

22:22

power of ruins, writing

22:24

in his book Industrial Ruins

22:26

Spaces, Aesthetics and Materiality

22:29

in two thousand and five, they

22:32

present as manifestations of

22:34

passing time, holding us between

22:36

life and death, confronting

22:38

us with the inevitability of our

22:41

own obsolescence. Despite

22:44

their modern familiarity. There

22:46

is the distinct impression that you're

22:48

in fact looking at an ancient artifact

22:51

from a once great but lost alien

22:54

civilization, only to

22:56

realize with Osymandian horror

22:59

that that civilization is ours.

23:03

To observe these places is

23:05

to be left with the uncanny sense

23:07

of being haunted by our future

23:09

mortality through echoes

23:12

of the past. Tim

23:14

Adenzer points out that the eighteenth

23:16

century fashion for depicting ruins

23:19

in art and the construction of

23:21

follies, grand ornamental

23:23

buildings with no purpose other

23:26

than to stir the spirit was,

23:28

as he says, allied to a

23:30

sense of melancholia, which

23:32

saw ruins as symbolic of

23:35

the inevitability of life passing.

23:38

These ventures were also heavily emblematic

23:41

of the sublime in their attempts

23:43

to conjure a sense of quote magical

23:46

forces that remain unseen.

23:49

But for Tim Adensa and myself,

23:52

however, it is something a little

23:54

closer that grips.

24:03

While conducting research for The Unexplained

24:05

Book, I visited some of the most

24:07

entrancing abandoned places

24:09

I've ever seen in the British Isles. From

24:12

the eerily deserted air base at

24:14

arif Rendelsham and the magnificent

24:17

desolation of Alford Ness

24:20

to the interstitial scrublands of

24:22

Middlesbrough's industrial past.

24:25

In Middlesbrough, I walked along the

24:27

train line from the site of German

24:30

Heinrich Richter's Second World

24:32

War plane crash, who, along

24:34

with Carl Eden, who some believe

24:37

might have been Richter reincarnated,

24:40

was the subject at the first chapter

24:42

of the Unexplained Book. From

24:45

there I moved past the towering

24:47

structures of the vacant Dorman

24:50

Long Steel Works that have since

24:52

been demolished, to the Grange

24:54

Town signal box where Carl Eden

24:57

was so tragically murdered. In

24:59

each these places, I was spellbound

25:02

by the magnetic presence of absence.

25:06

Like every deserted office, disused

25:09

theatre, or empty hotel lobby

25:12

or these places tell a story they

25:16

confront us with. As Tim Edinzer

25:18

again wrote in twenty thirteen,

25:21

weird vistages of the past, unfathomable

25:24

artifacts, cryptic signs

25:27

and unfamiliar textures that

25:30

we can't help but try and piece

25:32

together. And once we

25:34

see beyond the obsolescence

25:37

of a disused space, something

25:39

else begins to emerge.

25:42

Ghosts. This

25:45

is true for any sight of past

25:47

human activity, but the

25:49

ones that are constructed by humans

25:51

are especially evocative because

25:54

they're composed from a language that

25:56

we understand. As tim

25:58

Adenser notes, these places

26:00

are full of signs of the past

26:03

that can be intuitively grasped,

26:06

even if their true significance is

26:08

ultimately evasive and elusive.

26:11

When we go into a derelict building

26:14

or disused space, as

26:16

we intuit their previous uses,

26:18

much like a film projector, our

26:21

minds will conjure the past back

26:23

into these places right before

26:26

our eyes. Like

26:28

Stephen King, perhaps it's almost

26:30

impossible not to sense the ghostly

26:33

movements of absent presences,

26:35

as tim Adenser puts it, for

26:37

example, across a once bustling

26:40

but now vacant factory floor,

26:43

or feel the vague linger of previous

26:45

guests as we make our way down an

26:47

empty hotel corridor, or

26:49

indeed to hear distant, faint

26:52

strains of music and feel

26:54

the soft feet and flow of

26:57

long vanished revelers as

26:59

we step a disused ballroom.

27:03

Because these are the traces of ourselves

27:05

that we leave behind anywhere

27:08

we go. Whether

27:11

you believe in self aware, autonomous

27:14

ghosts and spirits or not,

27:17

it is hard not to at least think of the

27:19

spectral echoes of those

27:21

whose pasts we retrace as

27:23

we move through all the many different

27:26

spaces we share. As

27:28

such, paradoxically, it

27:31

isn't really the presence of the spirits

27:34

of place that haunt us, but

27:36

their absence, And

27:39

as long as we have the clues with which

27:41

to construct them, there will always

27:43

be ghosts around, just

27:45

waiting for us to help

27:47

them emerge.

27:54

This episode was written by Richard

27:56

McLain smith. Unexplained

27:59

as an Avy Club Productions podcast

28:01

created by Richard McClain smith. All

28:04

other elements of the podcast, including the

28:06

music, are also produced by me

28:08

Richard mclinsmith. Unexplained.

28:11

The book and audiobook, with stories

28:14

never before featured on the show, is

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now available to buy worldwide.

28:18

You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes

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Please subscribe to and rate the show

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28:31

regarding the stories you've heard on the show.

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