September 7, 2021 • 48 mins
The Hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles has had no less than 16 unnatural deaths, from suicides to murders and everything in between. Listen in to the history of this decidedly creepy hotel.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, you're welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Barton.
There's Charles Chuck Bryant over there. Yea, hear it Haunted
(00:23):
Hotel and this is stuff you should know. Yeah we can.
Can we do a couple of quick announcements? Yeah? Sure,
without singing that announcement song. Did we have an announcement
song ever? Know? Not us? But it's like summer Camp? Okay,
(00:43):
you never did that? No, yeah, well I'm not gonna
sing it now. Then I kind of want to hear
it now. No, no, no, no no, was it like
announcements announcements? It's announcements time. It's sort of almost Yeah,
that's close enough. Trigger warning for this one first announcement
because there's some grizzly stuff in here. Uh, I guess
(01:06):
that's all we need to say. And then also we've
been remissing that we haven't mentioned the fact that there's
a stuff you should know board Game out. Yeah, it's
it's not grizzly at all. No, it's it's very family friendly.
In fact, it's one of the highest honors that's ever
been bestowed upon us. And stuff you should know Chuck
because out of the blue, out of nowhere, about a
(01:29):
year and a half ago, maybe yeah, Trivial Pursuit. The
makers of Trivial Pursuit got in touch with us and said,
we want to do a stuff you should know trivial
pursuit game, and they did. It wasn't a practical joke.
The fine people it has Bro, who I gotta say.
I mean, we've worked with a lot of outside companies
for various projects, and boy, Hasbro is about as tight
(01:53):
and buttoned up and awesome as any company we've ever
worked with, right, but also like super friendly, super fun,
super narmazing and not in like that creepy everybody's trying
to be nice way like they're all just like a
genuinely pleasant group to work with. But yes they are
super buttoned up as well, very rare games games. They
all seem like they make games for a living, which
(02:14):
would mean you that you have a pretty cool job.
And developing the game with him was fun and the
questions are based on real stuff you should know episodes
and it is not just Trivial Pursuit. It is co branded,
so it is not Do not expect to get the
Trivial pursuit game with the little pieces of pie. No, no,
I just want They said, we want to make up
(02:34):
a brand new game for it, and they did. They
they made up a game. And this is the stuff
you should know. Trivial pursuit game. That's right, and you
can get it wherever you get games. I recommend your
local little indie toy gaming store if they have it,
but otherwise we would love the sport. You got a
weirdo in your town who dresses up in wizard clothes
and goes to work, go buy your game there. Yeah,
(02:57):
great Christmas gift by the way, Yeah for sure. Also,
why why just stop there? It's great for dad's, grads, moms, proms, everything.
I think it's like twenty bucks, right, yeah, it's like
it's really really reasonably priced. If you ask me, twenty dollars.
You got two twenties in your wallet. You could buy
a book and the game at we did, We did
(03:21):
the TV show, We did, uh a book, we do
a podcast. Don't forget our YouTube series. Sure you can.
And now now Chuck and now the game. It's amazing,
and now the hotel cecil. Yes, onto the show. Um,
(03:42):
so I'm glad you did that little trigger warning, because
there is some grizzly stuff in here, but there's also
I think some like fact settings, some facts straightening that, um,
you know, we should do from the outset. Because one
of the things that people who get into the Elisa
Lamb story, which we'll talk about in a little bit,
(04:05):
um quickly find that they are all manner of internet
urban legends and myths and conspiracy theories surrounding it, and
none of those seemed to be true, um, and which
is pretty annoying. Actually, yeah, it is very annoying. It's
just so internet e too, you know what I mean? Yeah,
I mean this, This goes on a lot these days,
(04:27):
but it seems like this one, maybe more so than
even others, because the bizarre nature of one part of
this story. And uh, I don't know, I found myself
slightly annoyed. I I am too, in the exact same
way that I'm annoyed by people who believe that the
couple from the Conjuring were like, you know, legit in
real life, you know what I mean. But at the
(04:51):
same time, it goes even further than that. I think
I ran across a couple of articles that I really
think struck home. What's genuinely annoying and even disrespect full
about that is that like Alisa Lamb died because she
had serious mental illness. I had been diagnosed and she
wasn't managing properly with the medications that she was on,
and that happens a lot, and she died because of it.
(05:13):
And so to say that she was you know, possessed
by evil spirits um or that there were you know,
ghosts at the Cecil, or even though she was murdered
by an unknown suspect, it's really really um well, it
really disrespects the reality of the situation, which is you know,
sad enough as it is. But at the same time, checked,
(05:34):
there's one more thing I have to caveat all this with.
It's understandable the impulse to to bring in you know,
restless spirits and you know, you know, the just conspiracy theories.
It's understandable in this particular situation because of the setting.
Yeah uh, and I guess you know, the first part
(05:56):
of the show will be about the setting, which is
the hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles, which is not
open right now. Um it may be open in the future.
I think they were doing a. Uh. This thing was
open in the nineteen twenties during the height of the depression,
and it's a very large hotel, nineteen flour or seven
hundred rooms. And in the nineteen twenties it was sort
(06:18):
of like a UM, a big deal for downtown Los Angeles.
It was near a major rail station and it was
kind of just what l A needed and it was
kind of Nancy schmancy for the time. UM. And over
the years, you know, we'll talk a little bit about
the downfall. But at the time of Elisa Lambs Stay,
they had carved out three floors and built a separate
(06:42):
lobby entrance to try and UH in an effort to
rebrand this hotel as something called Stay on Maine. UH,
and that they had three kind of floors that were
a little bit redone cosmetically, UH, a little bit of
a nicer lobby that was, you know, sort of away
from UM. You know, some of the situations that work
(07:03):
at a detail here in a second, But they did
all share a common elevator and UM at least Lamb
was staying in the State on Maine, Stay on Main
section State on Main. But that's just to point out
the fact that the hotel was gonna eventually supposedly undergo
a massive renovation and that it was all sort of
put on hold because of COVID. And I think now
(07:26):
it's just being sat on with some of the long
term tenants that are protected to stay there. Yeah, I
think it's like thirty but there's like you said, seven rooms,
but you said it um that the Cecil Hotel UM,
which is very much down at the heels now UM
started life in a much different way where it was
(07:47):
meant to be like a pretty nice hotel designed for
middle class travelers to l A and that situation next
to the rail station was a big draw for it.
It was it was definitely a feather in its cap
um and I saw it's in the Bozard style. UM.
It's not incredibly pretty from the outside, but the inside
(08:09):
lobby is still pretty neat looking. Lots of torrazzo tile
and uh columns, and there's fake um Roman statutory and
a big clock and like the at the over the
check in desk, it's really pretty and I really like,
you know, nineteen twenties original UM original style still, although
it's just kind of got this drab air that's kind
(08:30):
of fallen over it over the years. Yeah, and that
is in large part because, um, like you said, there
are a lot of unknowned people there today a lot
back then. The area called skid Row of downtown Los
Angeles is kind of right there. I used to drive
through that area sometimes when I lived in l A,
when we would go downtown to eat sushi or if
(08:52):
we you know, back then when I lived there, downtown
was not as much of a destination unless you were
going to Staples Center or something. But it's made a
real resurgence since I've left and kind of trying to
build downtown back up. Um, but skid Row is still
uh an issue. And there you know, like you said
that that there are people there that work with unhomed
(09:14):
folks that are really trying their best two take care
of them. And the fact that that hotel is right
there just sort of looming large is a bit of
a thumb in the eye. Yeah. And I get the
impression that skid the area that's now skid Row in
Los Angeles had had, at least since the eighties, kind
of had a an unusual reputation. It wasn't always you know,
(09:35):
for people down on their luck or anything like that.
But um, you know, it was a little more low
rent than other parts of Los Angeles, like there were
there was just a mishmash of all sorts of different people.
It seemed like really alive. UM. And the SESA was
kind of built at the outskirts of that between what
would become skid Row and then one of the nicest
(09:56):
parts of l A at the time, Bunker Hill. UM.
And everything was hunky dory for the Cecil when it
first opened in either seven depending on who you ask,
I could not confirm one way or the other because
both dates have kind of taken off so much. UM.
But when the stock market crashed, that area that was
just kind of colorful and a little bit low rent
(10:18):
that it quickly became uh skid Row as we understand it,
beginning around the Great Depression. UH. And not only UM
did the proximity to skid Row kind of like lower
the Cecil star rating. UM. When the tenants started the
(10:39):
hotel guests started to dry up, they had to lower
their rights and start catering to um people who are
people have less means, and so the hotel just kind
of stopped taking care of itself little by little starting
around the Great Depression and continuing on through World War Two. Yeah,
and you know it kind of became a last resort
kind of destination for people with addiction problems, um, people
(11:04):
in the in the sex working industry, and you know
it got that reputation and pretty soon got a reputation
for all kinds of bad things happening there. Um. There
have been no less than fifteen or sixteen um what's
classified I guess as an unnatural death at the Cecil.
Many people took their own lives there, Um, quite a few.
(11:27):
I mean, if you read down the laundry list, it's
like quite a few people in ingested poison. Quite a
few people jumped or maybe we're pushed out windows. Uh.
There have been some murders by gun. There have been
murders by strangulation. There have been sexual assaults. Uh. This
one sad case of a woman who gave birth to
a baby and was um suffering from some sort of
(11:50):
mental illness. Evidently thought her baby was was born not alive,
and went to throw the baby out the window. And
it turns out the baby was a I've been then died.
She was found um not guilty. I think temporary insanity
was the plea there and just weird kind of tragic
(12:11):
awful things happening over the years, time and time again
at the hotel cecil Yeah. Like another UM frequently referred
to incident was where a woman named Pauline oughten Um
she jumped from I think like the ninth or tenth
floor to take her own life and um landed on
(12:32):
a guy who was a passerby who happened to just
be walking unluckily beneath the cecil at that moment on
the sidewalk and was struck by Pauline. Uh, and they
were both killed and UM like that that doesn't usually
happen very often. Like that's a pretty remarkable thing, and
I know that that. Like the most I could find
(12:53):
was I think eighteen incidents, but it seems like those
are just ones that have been documented. There seems to
be quite a bit more. UM. There was a Netflix
UM series I think of four part series on this
recently and they interviewed UM a woman who had spent
ten years managing the cecil Um and she said that
(13:16):
her name is Amy Price. She said that under her
ten year tenure, at least eighty people died, that she
knows of, and you can kind of imagine like like
you know, you could find newspaper right ups from like
the twenties and thirties and fourties when somebody jumps out
of window, and definitely when somebody jumps out of window
and lands on a hapless pedestrian, like, it's definitely going
(13:36):
to be documented to make news. But if somebody on
skid row overdoses and dies in this hotel, you know,
is that going to be documented. So it's possible that
there are a lot more people who have died at
the cecil Um Under from unnatural causes UM over the
years than than just those seventeen or eighteen Did you
(13:56):
watch all of that documentary? No, I haven't seen it actually, Okay, yeah,
you know, I feel terrible because um the director was
is the great Joe Burlinger, who actually had on movie
Crush Um and one of my favorite episodes where we
kind of just talked about documentary filmmaking. He's a legend.
He did the Paradise Law series, he did that documentary
(14:19):
on Metallica when they're all in therapy. Yeah, uh yeah,
I mean, he's just he's just sort of the a
legend in the genre. And he's had the Ted Bundy
tapes recently. That's like, yeah, he did that. And then
he directed the movie version with what's his face Zack
Fron with who I said, Ryan Gosling? Oh close, another
(14:41):
super handsome hunk. Uh. And that was a good movie.
But this wasn't so great. I didn't love it. It
felt kind of over long and a little salacious, and like, yeah,
that's the impression I had from reading about it. Yeah,
so I was disappointed. But Joe was a great filmmaker
and a good guy. So I feel kind of bad.
I think that's a fair caveat a great filmmaker and
a good guy can still make a hunko poop? What
(15:04):
unko poop? That was all right? Uh, but maybe let's
take a break and I'll email Joe and tell him
I'm sorry. I had a time, all right, and we'll
be right back. So uh, okay, we're we're so we're.
(15:35):
The Cecil hotel starts to get a pretty pretty not
a great reputation even around town. I read a article
on ksey et dot org, which I guess is a
PBS station in so Cow, and they said that local
residents started to refer to the Um the Cecil as
the suicide. That was the name of the hotel for
(15:57):
people around there. Um, and it just it just kind
of like it just kept going like every time, you know,
maybe a couple of years of pass without some high
profile death in the hotel, and then it would happen again,
and and it would just reaffirm everybody's ideas that there
was that place just wasn't quite right, there was something
wrong with it, almost like it was a magnet for
(16:19):
that kind of tragedy. You know. Yeah, I mean I
think most major cities have had at least one of
these hotels that just sort of is inexpensive, maybe in
the wrong part of town, and has the reputation sometimes
for luring activities and checking in and not checking out. Uh.
And this was l A's and l A for sure
(16:41):
had more than one. Um it did not help their
reputation in the nineteen eighties when Richard Ramirez a k a.
The night Stalker and one of the more sensational serial
killers in American history. Uh, he stayed there for a
while and um lived there and apparently brought body parts
back to the Cecil hotel. Said Cecil like I'm British
(17:05):
uh Cecil Hotel from some of his victims to Ingest there,
Uh and that's certainly like super creepy. Ingest. I hadn't
come across that he eat that victim's eyeballs. I think,
so wow, we and other he wasn't like I don't
think he was Dahmer level, but he was known to
(17:27):
eat some body parts. He has a there's a great
documentary on his his case too. It's super disturbing. Yeah,
that's on Netflix as well. I think, um, if I'm
not mistaken, But um, one thing I hadn't realized before
that I ran across when I was researching some of
his stuff was how he was caught. It's just absolutely triumphant.
It was a mob of people in the neighborhood in
(17:50):
East l A. He he was spotted. He saw himself
on the front page of the newspaper and just instinctively
started running trying to car jack aman hit her was
seen hitting her an older man. UM basically ran over
and helped the help. The woman pulled Richard Ramirez out
of his car, and Um, the woman whose car was
(18:14):
husband came over and started beating him. Uh. And he
tried to get away, and just an increasingly large mob
chased him and would beat him, and he'd get away
some more, and they chase him down and catch him again,
and they finally pinned him down and waited for the
cops to come. That's how he was the best. Yeah,
caveat that. I'm not down with a mob justice, but
a group of people finding a serial killer on the
(18:37):
street and like subduing him. Way okay with that now,
I totally am in this particular instance, like I'm all
fine with that that kind of justice for sure. Yeah.
It was and about a badge of honor for East
l A. Because the the entire city of Los Angeles
was I mean, it was a scary situation there. Yeah,
I can imagine that's where cheech Marin was born, according
(18:58):
to that one song of it. That's right. So the
Ninth Stalker he was not the only serial killer that
checked in there. He actually inspired just a few years
after he was convicted in I think, uh, I think
like in ninety two, maybe ninety three, there was another
serial killer named Jack Unterweger, who was Austrian um who
(19:24):
had already been convicted I think when he was like
nineteen or early twenties of killing a woman by strangling
her with her own braw um and went to prison.
He was very, very smart, very charming. He used this
to basically get early parole. He convinced the public that
he was actually reformed and apparently was held up as
(19:45):
like a great example of how, you know, the the
prison system could rehabilitate someone, and it was just a
complete false fabrication. He was basically posed as a true
crime journal list like he reinvented himself as that went
to l a and other parts. He went to Europe,
traveled through Europe a little bit too, but also ended
(20:07):
up in l a Um to do research on his
true crime novels. Went along on ride along with the
l A. P. D Um and ended up using that
to scout Um victims. He killed three sex workers and
the whole time he was staying at the Cecil hotel.
And they think probably as an homage to Um, to
(20:28):
Richard Ramirez or at least a connection to him, you know. Yeah,
so that I mean at this point, like the reputation
for the hotel, it's not the kind of thing that
is gonna appear online. You know. Fifteen years ago, when
young people like a Lisa lam Are searching for an
inexpensive place to stay. Uh, And sadly that's exactly what happened.
(20:51):
Was a Canadian traveler, she was twenty years old, was
on her way kind of up the West coast, traveling
by herself. Her parents were a little unnerved by her
traveling by herself, so she was you know, asked to
check in every day what she was doing. Uh. And
at the time, it was you know, they had kind
of dorm style rooms, kind of youth hostile style rooms
(21:13):
where you had bunk beds in a shared bathroom and
so you could stay there. It was a travelers hotel.
And if you uh, you know, I hate to say it,
but if you if you didn't know much about l a,
you may end up at the hotel Cecil because you
could stay there for like seventy five bucks a night
or something like that. Yeah, from what I could tell,
Stay On Maine did a really good job of making
(21:34):
their you know, using their website to their advantage and
making it seem like this is a really hip happening spot.
And I mean in some ways they were. They were
kind of like just a little ahead of their time
because apparently the area around skid Row in downtown l
A is like the hippiest spot to live in now again. Um,
But at the time it was still really really um
(21:58):
skid rowe basically yum. And it could be it could
be you know, it could be dangerous. Yeah, and I
think it still is. But I think it's just becoming
more and more gentrified and it's becoming I guess, less
dangerous in that sense. Um. But at the time when
Alisa Lamb showed up in two thousand and thirteen, it was,
you know, it was it was a dangerous place to be.
But um, this particular spot was just full of you know,
(22:21):
especially European kids on basically budget holidays, uh, staying in
l A basically in hostiles. And I know originally she
was put into a room with a couple of other
girls that I think we're traveling together, but she was
traveling alone. So it was very hostile. Um. And not
hostile with an eight Well yeah, there's an E, but
(22:43):
it's in a different place than you'd expect. Um, youth hostily.
It was very youth hostily, like she was put in
a room with other people at first. Yeah, l A
didn't have a lot of that. I remember there was
a youth hostile in Venice that for some reason, and
I always wanted to stay there. When I lived in
l A. I was like, I didn't go down stay
in the hostel one night because the beach was so
(23:07):
the beach was really far when you lived on the
east side and you kind of never went over there
much unless someone came to town and wanted to go
to the beach. That makes sense, sure, so, and you
know I was broke back then, so it could have
been like a little staycation. Did you ever do it? Yeah,
It's one of the things you think about late night
and then you wake up the next day and you're like, yeah,
(23:28):
you blew all your money on taco balance day. Oh man,
I missed Taco Bell, do you? I don't, Uh. I
mean I didn't need it that much, but like I
haven't had it in years. I've had too much, I
think was my problem. Okay, what's that the deal? By
the way, side note, speaking of weird late night foods, um,
(23:49):
we had a guy on our front door camera the
other day come in the middle of the night and
leave a package and we're like, what is this. We
went out the next day and it was a bag
full of crystals. Wow. And I think it was creepy delivery,
like a door dash or something. Crystals. I thought you
meant like amethysts or no, no, no, I mean tiny
(24:10):
square sliders. He had the wrong I think so either
that or your daughter is has mastered the telephone by now.
It was really weird. And the course, the first thing
I did was I feel terrible that someone's late night
mun cheese didn't get satisfied. Did you eat him the
next morning? Just says you don't like crystals, or it
(24:33):
was it because it was sitting there overnight. Both. I
never was into crystal for some reason. Man, I like crystals.
It was the thing I just was. I don't know why.
I think I was just a waffle house guy. I
don't I'm fine with waffle house. To the big problem
with crystals, Chuck, I'll tell you is there fries or
probably the worst fries of any fast, the most bland somehow,
(24:58):
if you just bit into raw potato, it would be
less bland and tasteless than if you ate a crystal spry. Yeah.
And if you're from the other places in the country,
you might white Castle sort of an analog to Crystal. Yeah, anyway,
this is not an episode of The Doughboys. This is
(25:20):
stuff you should know. And back to Alisa Lamb. She
was supposed to be there for about I think four
days and check out on February one, and did not
get in touch with their parents like she had been
doing each day. Um, she had been seen shopping for
books at a nearby bookstore and then bought some books.
(25:42):
And this is one of the things in the documentary.
Like you know, they didn't really have any footage of
her with any other people inside the hotel before her disappearance. Well,
she was also reported to be constantly by herself too
by people who saw her. Yeah, I mean she was
traveling alone, so that that makes sense. But um, she
she did get handed off. There were two gentlemen that
handed off a kind of the largest largish box to
(26:05):
her on camera in front of the hotel. And of
course the internet sluice or like, who are these guys?
What was in the box? And apparently in the box
were these books that she got because she had spoken
with the book read um seller about like the size
of them, and boy, I don't even know if I
can carry these and I think had them delivered to
the hotel or whatever. So kind of nothing to see here,
(26:28):
and another example of how annoying this case can be
with people online speculating like wrong stuff. Yeah, I can
be a little annoying for sure. But yes, so she was.
She was alone, traveling alone. I think she had started
out in San Diego, or at least her last stop
had been San Diego. Her next stop was going to
be Santa Cruz. Um. And Yeah, her parents have been like, okay,
(26:51):
you need to call this every single day um and
she had been pretty faithfully until that February one came
and went with no call, and I believe they pretty
much immediately contacted the hotel and the l a p
D and said, hey, you know, our daughter hasn't checked in.
Can you see what's going on. I don't know if
they did it on February first or not, but in
(27:13):
pretty short order, the l a p D determined that
she she was just gone, she wasn't she was nowhere
to be found, and that there was some suspiciousness going
on for sure. Yeah, I mean they did a thorough inspection.
They went to her room. Uh, they had found that
the hotel had gathered all her stuff and bagged it
and was holding it in storage, which was UM regular
(27:36):
protocol when someone UM doesn't check out and just leave stuff.
Nothing shady going on there. They checked around the hotel, uh,
in the alleyways and sidewalks, They checked up on the roof.
They didn't find anything, and UH, things got really strange.
And I guess we should take another ad break here.
But things got really strange when the hotel sent them
(27:57):
footage from inside the elevator of the still hotel. And
we'll get to that right after this, all right, Chuck,
(28:21):
So Alsa Lamb is now known to be missing. She
left her stuff behind at the Cecil Hotel, and she
didn't check out, She didn't call her parents as she
usually did, UM, and she's officially a missing person. UM.
Within a couple of days, I think maybe February six,
the police held a press conference and explained what was
(28:41):
going on to the public. UM and UH basically asked
for everybody's help and and if anyone had any info,
you know, where did she go? Where is she? How
she doing? Is she okay? UM? And I guess I don't.
I didn't see anything about any getting any crazy leads
or anything. Like at um it doesn't seem to have
(29:02):
really kind of captured the public's interest at first. And
I saw there's this guy named Josh Dean who's written
written several articles on on the Elisa Lamb disappearance, and um,
I believe one of the one of the ones that
he wrote kind of pinpoints why there wasn't a huge
public interest in the first like week or even two
(29:25):
of her case. Um, it was because Christopher Dorner had
gone on his rampage against the l A p D,
basically declared war on the l A p D and
was killed. And I think the Mountains of San Bernardino
in a standoff like right when Elisa Lamb went missing.
So not only were was the public's attention on this,
(29:46):
especially in l A, the l A p d S
attention was definitely on that as well. Um So Elisa
Lamb was kind of like this faint little chirp in
this huge mailstrom at the time, faint chirp in a mailstrom.
It's the US that could come up with on shorts. Amazing,
Are you kidding me? You just made that up? Yeah? Yeah,
I did you like it? Yeah? But I just have
(30:09):
a feeling that next time I meant your house, it's
gonna be like that's gonna be carved into your desk
or something. It's on a T shirt and right, did
you put you make Momo wear that T shirt every
Day's right? Uh? Yeah. And you know the other big
reason was until this footage actually came out of the elevator.
Uh car, then you know that's when, Um, that's when
(30:32):
the public's attention really caught hold. Yeah. I mean, there's
no way around it. It's it's a very sort of unsettling.
And I remember when this happened, before any of the
facts of the case we're kind of out. I remember
looking at this video and it is very unsettling, and
it does appear to be very creepy, and that a
young woman gets on an elevator, um, very kind of
(30:54):
casually presses all the center buttons on all the floors.
I think they determined she was on the fourteenth floor
and sort of pressed all the floors on the way down. Uh.
Elevator doesn't do anything. The doors don't shut. She moves
to the back corner and sort of standing there, she
goes and she's she looks outside of the elevator both
(31:16):
ways a couple of times in the hallway and then
kind of retreats back quickly. Um. At one point she
steps out into the hallway and appears to be gesturing
towards somebody, or she's at least making hand gestures to
the right down the hallway. Yeah, they're unusual hand gestures.
They're not like the normal hand gestures you might make.
(31:36):
They're not at all subtle or casual or almost even
like um, like you know, you might not even realize
you're using your hands when you're talking sometimes, Like these
are are more gesticulations than your gestures, you know what
I mean? Yeah, And you know, there's there's no doubt.
And eventually she kind of leaves around to the left
(31:57):
and exits to the left, and the door stays open
for a while, but for it shuts. Um. But there
there's no getting around the fact that having known nothing
and knowing that this person disappeared, this young woman, and
then you see this, it seems very suspicious. Um, I
don't think creepy. I think it looks I don't even
even think it looks that creepy. It looks to me
(32:17):
like that she is trying to get away from someone
and is afraid someone has followed her, or is gesturing
at a person who she feels threatened by. It's what
it looks like to me. I know other people online
there talk about other worldly spirits, and she's kind like
you said earlier, she's conjuring spirits with her hands, Like
I just, uh, that never occurred to me. It just
(32:38):
looked like she might be in some kind of peril
and was trying to get away from someone. Right. Um,
but that's creepy in and of itself, you know, Yeah,
I just mean not creepy and like a supernatural like
what's going on here? Way now? I think the thing
that really when it really turns creepy to me is
when she turns around and hides in the corner of
(32:59):
the elevator her like she's she's hiding. And then the
second part that's that's genuinely creepy is when she like
leans out and like looks both ways and then kind
of jumps back into the elevator. It's just I mean,
it's really hard not to kind of put yourself in
her shoes, and she's clearly frightened at that time. To
see somebody frightened like that, Uh, it's that's creepy, and
(33:22):
you're and you're waiting on someone to enter the elevator,
but that never happens. Um And with the internet sleuthing,
you couldn't really make out the time code very well.
And so all the people online are like, well, why
can't you make out the time code and the time stamps,
like what would degrade that? And not the rest of it?
And and then they think they're right, and then they
(33:44):
think they decoded it and there's almost a full minute missing,
and the hotel cecil edited out a portion clearly, and
before they send it to the cops, and and they
interviewed the woman and that you're talking about the manager,
and she was like, no, of course we didn't edit
anything out, like we were horrified by this disappearance, and
just send him everything we had, right. Plus I'm sure
(34:05):
also that most of the employees that stay on main
know exactly how to edit video out before handing things
over to the cops. Anyway, that's true. That is a
good point, actually, but I don't buy it. I think
it was it is what it was, which was a
person in an elevator who had some uh was having
(34:26):
some mental issues, and you know, we'll get to that
in a second. UM. And I think you know, it's
sort of like the easiest explanation of the video, at
least to me, seems to be the most accurate. Um
that that's what I buy. That's how I buy it too. UM.
That was so that video was released on February and
(34:46):
now all of a sudden, the public is taking notice. Um,
she becomes an Internet meme, like almost overnight, Um, with
people like watching and analyzing that video, like you were saying,
and yet they still can't find No one has any
idea where she hasn't been two weeks now since she
went missing. This videos out there, that whole the entire
internet is on the case now. And UM, it wasn't
(35:10):
until a couple of days I think two days after
the video came out. Chuck that. Um. One of the guys,
one of the custodians of the Cecil Hotel of stay
on me and I should say, Um, I was asked
to go check on the water supply on the roof
because the Cecil Hotel used uh, gravity fed water. They
(35:33):
had four one thousand gallon tanks on the top of
the roof. Uh and when you open the tap, the
water would come pouring down from those tanks into your
room and out the faucet, and some of the tenants
don't I don't know if it was just the hotel
or some long term tenants, but they were complaining that
the water pressure had suddenly gotten really low and that um,
(35:56):
the water that was coming out had a strange odor
and taste and weird kind of color to it. And
so they dispatched the custodian to the roof UM and
he went and checked, and I think as he was
approaching the main water tank, I think tank number one,
he noticed that the hatch was open, and uh, in
(36:17):
very short order, made the grizzly discovery of Alicia Lam's body. Yeah,
he was. He was kind of like the super He
was a maintenance guy. His name is Santiago Lopez and
he's in the documentary to UM. I don't think he
saw the hatch because the hatches on top of the tank,
but he went to go and he said it was
a routine thing if there was any kind of water issue,
(36:39):
was to climb the ladder to the tanks and go
look and see what was going on because there's probably
a clog or something. And uh, he saw her body, um,
naked about a foot below the water, just sort of
suspended there. And you know, when they interviewed this guy
in the documentary, it's really sad. You know, he was
sort of at the center of a lot of the
(37:00):
US with interviews and he uh, he was speaking through it, um,
I guess, not through a translator but through US subtitles,
but he was clearly, you know, still very upset about
this and it it it scarred him to see this
woman floating in the tank and he knew immediately who
it was and called down to the hotel manager who
we've been talking about and said, you know, she's she's
(37:21):
up here in the tank, and uh, you know, the
cops came. They found her clothes, which were determined to
be the same clothes she was wearing in the elevator video. Um,
kind of at the bottom of the tank they had sunk.
And you know, immediately the new mystery is not what's
going on in this video, although you know that played
apart because they were still trying to figure that out
(37:43):
as far as foul play goes, but was how she
made it in here and and why she made it
in there? Yeah, because she she she it was like,
the hatch is not easy to get in or out of.
They had to like cut her out of the They
did cut a hole in the bottom of the tank
so they could access it, right, They couldn't just pull
her back out of that hatch. So that's kind of
(38:06):
weird in and of itself. She's also nude. UM. That
also kind of added to the mystery of the whole thing. Um.
And then also the you know the coroner, uh when
when he made his his toxicology report available, he basically
said it was he wasn't able to make any conclusive,
um find any conclusive results because there wasn't enough blood
(38:28):
to take a sample from. You know, she just kind
of permeated the water and that her blood had uh,
and it wasn't you just couldn't like take a water
sample and be like, oh, yeah, there's no you know,
there's no drugs in here anything like that. So all
of that combined really kind of um just just took
that mystery. Um. You know that people have been primed
(38:51):
to start thinking about with that video and then just
blew it through the roof. You know, I mean, the
the the water being you know, going to are people's
taps in the hotel, and you know, Lisa Land basically
being a part of that water really kind of solidified
her legendary status or the legendary status of her mystery.
I think in people's imagination, anybody who comes across that
(39:14):
case can't help, but like let the mind wander in
that respect. Oh for sure. I mean the idea of
drinking water and bathing in water with a decomposing body.
I mean the body had was in a pretty pretty
rough state of decomposition at that point. Uh. They did
do obviously in the autopsy, they didn't find any signs
of foul play. There were no obviously no uh like
(39:37):
obvious wounds, There were no internal wounds, there was no strangulation. Um.
They they pretty much said, this doesn't look like foul
play at all. Um. The one one of the mysteries
was how she got up there, because you, um, if
you want to go just through the regular staircase to
the rooftop, and this is not a rooftop that you
(39:57):
you know, doesn't have like a rooftop hangout area or what.
Although people you know, there was plenty of graffiti and
beer bottles and drug needles, and some people would make
their way up there. But UH, if you go through
the regular door, it's one of the alarm doors which
would trigger downstairs and all throughout the lobby. UM that
never came on and you have to have a key
(40:18):
to disable it. But there is a fire escape entry
with the ladder basically for the last like for the
last story, it's a little precarious, but she could have
just simply gone out the window to the fire escape
and climbed up the ladder and then up the ladder
to the tanks. It's not you know, it's a little UM.
(40:38):
It would be a little bit of a scary trip
up that ladder, I think. But considering what happened, she
she clearly was was not in a good place mentally.
So I think that's completely believable that journalist Josh Dean
Um went and I think two thousand fifteen to see
this himself. He had gotten obsessed with the case, so
(41:00):
he went and kind of investigated it in person, and
UM he quickly found that open window was still open, UH,
and the fire escape was easily accessible and UM in
the UH. I think one of his articles is called
American Horror Story, which is a reference to UM. What
I think the Hotel season of American Horror Story was
(41:21):
based on or inspired by Elsa Lamb's disappearance. Um. But
there's a picture that he took of that ladder leading
from the fire escape on the fifth or fourteenth floor
up to the roof, and all you see is up,
like you just see the ladder and then above it
is sky. But after reading about it, your imagination just
(41:44):
thinks of like the fifteen stories behind you, like as
you're you know, as you're looking up this ladder. It's
one of the most unsettling pictures I've ever seen. If
you read the text, uh, you know that surround it. Um.
But he said, by his judgment, an average person could
easily make it up that ladder, especially if you don't
look down. He said, if you're carrying a body or
(42:07):
another person, you could not do it. He said, it
just would be too difficult. And you know, it's one
of those straight up vertical ladders on the side of
the building. Yeah, but if you were in a manic state,
as a lot of people believe Alsa Lamb was, um,
you could probably make it up that ladder pretty quickly.
You wouldn't even necessarily consider looking down and all of
a sudden, you'd be on the roof, and after you
(42:27):
were on the roof, it would be a fairly easy
proposition to get into one of those tanks, especially I
think she weighed about a hundred and fifteen pounds and
was about five ft four inches, so it was possible
for her to get into one of those tanks through
that hatch. But um, either she was too scared to
come out conceivably, or she couldn't get out when she
(42:51):
wanted to get out and tired of treading water because
the water would have been about eight feet deep and
drowned after a while. Yeah, I mean they did. I
think the police dogs did pick up her scent near
that window, so that seems to be what happened. And uh,
you know, this is one of those cases where the
more I read, like all I could feel was despair
(43:13):
about this poor woman having what looked to be some
sort of medication related manic episode, maybe scared, maybe thinking
someone was following her and trying to get away and
and going at great links, going to great links to
maybe hide somewhere like inside of a water tank. Um,
(43:34):
I don't know, like why her clothes were off or
why her clothes ended up in the tank. I'm not
saying any of this makes sense, but it is something
that could happen. And all I can think about is
what an awful place that she must have been for
something like this to have happened. Yeah, and I mean
to kind of back up the mental break UM theory,
(43:57):
which is what I buy. That's that's that's where I
put my stock. UM. She remember, I said she was
originally put in a room with a couple of other
girls she didn't know at the stay on Maine. They
complained about her behaving strangely, so she was moved to
her own private room. UM. Apparently she went to a
(44:17):
taping of the Conan O'Brien show and was escorted out
because she was behaving strangely. And then UM detectives also
found she was on four different medications for bipolar one
disorder and depression, and UM the l a p D
based on the the the prescription dates on the bottles,
(44:40):
and then the number of pills that were left and
the instructions on the bottles, UM the l A p
D were able to determine that she hadn't been following
UM the dosage recommendations or taking her pills or medications.
So if you put all of that together, and then
also that, um, people taking their clothes off as part
(45:00):
of a psychotic episode happens. It's been documented. Um you like,
there's no there's no pieces missing on the table, like
she could have gone out on that fire escape, gone
up the ladder, like there's nothing that is well yeah,
but then there's this really big thing that remains unexplained,
like it explains absolutely everything, and then suddenly it kind
of makes all the other stuff like government mind control
(45:24):
or ghosts or whatever seemed just kind of gross. You know,
totally agree. I believe her parents brought a lawsuit against
the hotel that was eventually dismissed. If I'm not mistaken,
and um, it just remains a very very sad situation
in a sad case. And and it is very annoying
when you get online and everyone thinks that they're spirits
(45:46):
being conjured and in all this wacky stuff. It's just
not the case, not the case. Indeed, you got anything else?
I got nothing else. Well that's it for the Cecil
Hotel and Na Lisa lamb r I p uh And
since I said our, I p that means it's time
for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this follow up
(46:08):
to Y two k. Uh. And this is something that
we actually had in our notes that we I guess
just kind of failed to bring up, right, Yeah, I
mean you had it in your notes as well. Yeah, yeah,
the problem. Um, and we got a lot of emails
about this, and and we're not gonna fully probably explain
(46:29):
to everyone's satisfaction how it works. But um, hey, guys,
just got done listening to the Y to K podcasts,
which brought back an interesting range of memories of living
through that time. In case you weren't aware, there's something
called the Unix y two K problem that still exists
but is slowly being fixed by smart people behind the scenes.
The majority of computers in the world run Unix based
(46:52):
operating systems, not Windows or mac os, and unless these
systems are patched at three fourteen on January nineteen uh,
their clocks will roll over to think it's midnight January first,
nineteen seventy. Yes. Uh. The cause is basically the same.
In the early versions of the OS only had so
(47:12):
much memory allocated to time representations, but more modern versions
now have this fixed and hence computers aren't susceptible once
they're updated or upgraded, although not all systems can be
easily updated. Uh. And that is from a bunch of people,
but specifically from PhD Allen Chalker. That's great, Thanks Alan
(47:32):
and everybody who wrote in. I was like, oh me,
and I'm meant to include that. But apparently unix um
represents time as the number of seconds from the epoch date,
which is some date in nineteen seventy and then eventually
it's going to have more seconds than it can represent
in the number of digits, so it will just roll
back over, like he was saying, which it's pretty neat
(47:53):
unix pretty cool. But also I'm glad to hear that
they're smart people working on that because we got seventeen years. Man,
you guys, take it easy, take a weekend, you know, sure,
go go send in your house and social distance from everybody.
That's right. Well, we also got a lot of emails
just from people that some people whose parents helped rewrite
(48:16):
code or we're heading up projects rewriting code, and it
was it was pretty cool. We got a lot of
a lot of emails about that. When he struck a
chord Yeah, it was a good idea, Chuck um. Well,
if you want to get in touch with us, like
Alan and everybody else did, you can send us an
email send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(48:38):
iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, you're welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Barton.
There's Charles Chuck Bryant over there. Yea, hear it Haunted
(00:23):
Hotel and this is stuff you should know. Yeah we can.
Can we do a couple of quick announcements? Yeah? Sure,
without singing that announcement song. Did we have an announcement
song ever? Know? Not us? But it's like summer Camp? Okay,
(00:43):
you never did that? No, yeah, well I'm not gonna
sing it now. Then I kind of want to hear
it now. No, no, no, no no, was it like
announcements announcements? It's announcements time. It's sort of almost Yeah,
that's close enough. Trigger warning for this one first announcement
because there's some grizzly stuff in here. Uh, I guess
(01:06):
that's all we need to say. And then also we've
been remissing that we haven't mentioned the fact that there's
a stuff you should know board Game out. Yeah, it's
it's not grizzly at all. No, it's it's very family friendly.
In fact, it's one of the highest honors that's ever
been bestowed upon us. And stuff you should know Chuck
because out of the blue, out of nowhere, about a
(01:29):
year and a half ago, maybe yeah, Trivial Pursuit. The
makers of Trivial Pursuit got in touch with us and said,
we want to do a stuff you should know trivial
pursuit game, and they did. It wasn't a practical joke.
The fine people it has Bro, who I gotta say.
I mean, we've worked with a lot of outside companies
for various projects, and boy, Hasbro is about as tight
(01:53):
and buttoned up and awesome as any company we've ever
worked with, right, but also like super friendly, super fun,
super narmazing and not in like that creepy everybody's trying
to be nice way like they're all just like a
genuinely pleasant group to work with. But yes they are
super buttoned up as well, very rare games games. They
all seem like they make games for a living, which
(02:14):
would mean you that you have a pretty cool job.
And developing the game with him was fun and the
questions are based on real stuff you should know episodes
and it is not just Trivial Pursuit. It is co branded,
so it is not Do not expect to get the
Trivial pursuit game with the little pieces of pie. No, no,
I just want They said, we want to make up
(02:34):
a brand new game for it, and they did. They
they made up a game. And this is the stuff
you should know. Trivial pursuit game. That's right, and you
can get it wherever you get games. I recommend your
local little indie toy gaming store if they have it,
but otherwise we would love the sport. You got a
weirdo in your town who dresses up in wizard clothes
and goes to work, go buy your game there. Yeah,
(02:57):
great Christmas gift by the way, Yeah for sure. Also,
why why just stop there? It's great for dad's, grads, moms, proms, everything.
I think it's like twenty bucks, right, yeah, it's like
it's really really reasonably priced. If you ask me, twenty dollars.
You got two twenties in your wallet. You could buy
a book and the game at we did, We did
(03:21):
the TV show, We did, uh a book, we do
a podcast. Don't forget our YouTube series. Sure you can.
And now now Chuck and now the game. It's amazing,
and now the hotel cecil. Yes, onto the show. Um,
(03:42):
so I'm glad you did that little trigger warning, because
there is some grizzly stuff in here, but there's also
I think some like fact settings, some facts straightening that, um,
you know, we should do from the outset. Because one
of the things that people who get into the Elisa
Lamb story, which we'll talk about in a little bit,
(04:05):
um quickly find that they are all manner of internet
urban legends and myths and conspiracy theories surrounding it, and
none of those seemed to be true, um, and which
is pretty annoying. Actually, yeah, it is very annoying. It's
just so internet e too, you know what I mean? Yeah,
I mean this, This goes on a lot these days,
(04:27):
but it seems like this one, maybe more so than
even others, because the bizarre nature of one part of
this story. And uh, I don't know, I found myself
slightly annoyed. I I am too, in the exact same
way that I'm annoyed by people who believe that the
couple from the Conjuring were like, you know, legit in
real life, you know what I mean. But at the
(04:51):
same time, it goes even further than that. I think
I ran across a couple of articles that I really
think struck home. What's genuinely annoying and even disrespect full
about that is that like Alisa Lamb died because she
had serious mental illness. I had been diagnosed and she
wasn't managing properly with the medications that she was on,
and that happens a lot, and she died because of it.
(05:13):
And so to say that she was you know, possessed
by evil spirits um or that there were you know,
ghosts at the Cecil, or even though she was murdered
by an unknown suspect, it's really really um well, it
really disrespects the reality of the situation, which is you know,
sad enough as it is. But at the same time, checked,
(05:34):
there's one more thing I have to caveat all this with.
It's understandable the impulse to to bring in you know,
restless spirits and you know, you know, the just conspiracy theories.
It's understandable in this particular situation because of the setting.
Yeah uh, and I guess you know, the first part
(05:56):
of the show will be about the setting, which is
the hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles, which is not
open right now. Um it may be open in the future.
I think they were doing a. Uh. This thing was
open in the nineteen twenties during the height of the depression,
and it's a very large hotel, nineteen flour or seven
hundred rooms. And in the nineteen twenties it was sort
(06:18):
of like a UM, a big deal for downtown Los Angeles.
It was near a major rail station and it was
kind of just what l A needed and it was
kind of Nancy schmancy for the time. UM. And over
the years, you know, we'll talk a little bit about
the downfall. But at the time of Elisa Lambs Stay,
they had carved out three floors and built a separate
(06:42):
lobby entrance to try and UH in an effort to
rebrand this hotel as something called Stay on Maine. UH,
and that they had three kind of floors that were
a little bit redone cosmetically, UH, a little bit of
a nicer lobby that was, you know, sort of away
from UM. You know, some of the situations that work
(07:03):
at a detail here in a second, But they did
all share a common elevator and UM at least Lamb
was staying in the State on Maine, Stay on Main
section State on Main. But that's just to point out
the fact that the hotel was gonna eventually supposedly undergo
a massive renovation and that it was all sort of
put on hold because of COVID. And I think now
(07:26):
it's just being sat on with some of the long
term tenants that are protected to stay there. Yeah, I
think it's like thirty but there's like you said, seven rooms,
but you said it um that the Cecil Hotel UM,
which is very much down at the heels now UM
started life in a much different way where it was
(07:47):
meant to be like a pretty nice hotel designed for
middle class travelers to l A and that situation next
to the rail station was a big draw for it.
It was it was definitely a feather in its cap
um and I saw it's in the Bozard style. UM.
It's not incredibly pretty from the outside, but the inside
(08:09):
lobby is still pretty neat looking. Lots of torrazzo tile
and uh columns, and there's fake um Roman statutory and
a big clock and like the at the over the
check in desk, it's really pretty and I really like,
you know, nineteen twenties original UM original style still, although
it's just kind of got this drab air that's kind
(08:30):
of fallen over it over the years. Yeah, and that
is in large part because, um, like you said, there
are a lot of unknowned people there today a lot
back then. The area called skid Row of downtown Los
Angeles is kind of right there. I used to drive
through that area sometimes when I lived in l A,
when we would go downtown to eat sushi or if
(08:52):
we you know, back then when I lived there, downtown
was not as much of a destination unless you were
going to Staples Center or something. But it's made a
real resurgence since I've left and kind of trying to
build downtown back up. Um, but skid Row is still
uh an issue. And there you know, like you said
that that there are people there that work with unhomed
(09:14):
folks that are really trying their best two take care
of them. And the fact that that hotel is right
there just sort of looming large is a bit of
a thumb in the eye. Yeah. And I get the
impression that skid the area that's now skid Row in
Los Angeles had had, at least since the eighties, kind
of had a an unusual reputation. It wasn't always you know,
(09:35):
for people down on their luck or anything like that.
But um, you know, it was a little more low
rent than other parts of Los Angeles, like there were
there was just a mishmash of all sorts of different people.
It seemed like really alive. UM. And the SESA was
kind of built at the outskirts of that between what
would become skid Row and then one of the nicest
(09:56):
parts of l A at the time, Bunker Hill. UM.
And everything was hunky dory for the Cecil when it
first opened in either seven depending on who you ask,
I could not confirm one way or the other because
both dates have kind of taken off so much. UM.
But when the stock market crashed, that area that was
just kind of colorful and a little bit low rent
(10:18):
that it quickly became uh skid Row as we understand it,
beginning around the Great Depression. UH. And not only UM
did the proximity to skid Row kind of like lower
the Cecil star rating. UM. When the tenants started the
(10:39):
hotel guests started to dry up, they had to lower
their rights and start catering to um people who are
people have less means, and so the hotel just kind
of stopped taking care of itself little by little starting
around the Great Depression and continuing on through World War Two. Yeah,
and you know it kind of became a last resort
kind of destination for people with addiction problems, um, people
(11:04):
in the in the sex working industry, and you know
it got that reputation and pretty soon got a reputation
for all kinds of bad things happening there. Um. There
have been no less than fifteen or sixteen um what's
classified I guess as an unnatural death at the Cecil.
Many people took their own lives there, Um, quite a few.
(11:27):
I mean, if you read down the laundry list, it's
like quite a few people in ingested poison. Quite a
few people jumped or maybe we're pushed out windows. Uh.
There have been some murders by gun. There have been
murders by strangulation. There have been sexual assaults. Uh. This
one sad case of a woman who gave birth to
a baby and was um suffering from some sort of
(11:50):
mental illness. Evidently thought her baby was was born not alive,
and went to throw the baby out the window. And
it turns out the baby was a I've been then died.
She was found um not guilty. I think temporary insanity
was the plea there and just weird kind of tragic
(12:11):
awful things happening over the years, time and time again
at the hotel cecil Yeah. Like another UM frequently referred
to incident was where a woman named Pauline oughten Um
she jumped from I think like the ninth or tenth
floor to take her own life and um landed on
(12:32):
a guy who was a passerby who happened to just
be walking unluckily beneath the cecil at that moment on
the sidewalk and was struck by Pauline. Uh, and they
were both killed and UM like that that doesn't usually
happen very often. Like that's a pretty remarkable thing, and
I know that that. Like the most I could find
(12:53):
was I think eighteen incidents, but it seems like those
are just ones that have been documented. There seems to
be quite a bit more. UM. There was a Netflix
UM series I think of four part series on this
recently and they interviewed UM a woman who had spent
ten years managing the cecil Um and she said that
(13:16):
her name is Amy Price. She said that under her
ten year tenure, at least eighty people died, that she
knows of, and you can kind of imagine like like
you know, you could find newspaper right ups from like
the twenties and thirties and fourties when somebody jumps out
of window, and definitely when somebody jumps out of window
and lands on a hapless pedestrian, like, it's definitely going
(13:36):
to be documented to make news. But if somebody on
skid row overdoses and dies in this hotel, you know,
is that going to be documented. So it's possible that
there are a lot more people who have died at
the cecil Um Under from unnatural causes UM over the
years than than just those seventeen or eighteen Did you
(13:56):
watch all of that documentary? No, I haven't seen it actually, Okay, yeah,
you know, I feel terrible because um the director was
is the great Joe Burlinger, who actually had on movie
Crush Um and one of my favorite episodes where we
kind of just talked about documentary filmmaking. He's a legend.
He did the Paradise Law series, he did that documentary
(14:19):
on Metallica when they're all in therapy. Yeah, uh yeah,
I mean, he's just he's just sort of the a
legend in the genre. And he's had the Ted Bundy
tapes recently. That's like, yeah, he did that. And then
he directed the movie version with what's his face Zack
Fron with who I said, Ryan Gosling? Oh close, another
(14:41):
super handsome hunk. Uh. And that was a good movie.
But this wasn't so great. I didn't love it. It
felt kind of over long and a little salacious, and like, yeah,
that's the impression I had from reading about it. Yeah,
so I was disappointed. But Joe was a great filmmaker
and a good guy. So I feel kind of bad.
I think that's a fair caveat a great filmmaker and
a good guy can still make a hunko poop? What
(15:04):
unko poop? That was all right? Uh, but maybe let's
take a break and I'll email Joe and tell him
I'm sorry. I had a time, all right, and we'll
be right back. So uh, okay, we're we're so we're.
(15:35):
The Cecil hotel starts to get a pretty pretty not
a great reputation even around town. I read a article
on ksey et dot org, which I guess is a
PBS station in so Cow, and they said that local
residents started to refer to the Um the Cecil as
the suicide. That was the name of the hotel for
(15:57):
people around there. Um, and it just it just kind
of like it just kept going like every time, you know,
maybe a couple of years of pass without some high
profile death in the hotel, and then it would happen again,
and and it would just reaffirm everybody's ideas that there
was that place just wasn't quite right, there was something
wrong with it, almost like it was a magnet for
(16:19):
that kind of tragedy. You know. Yeah, I mean I
think most major cities have had at least one of
these hotels that just sort of is inexpensive, maybe in
the wrong part of town, and has the reputation sometimes
for luring activities and checking in and not checking out. Uh.
And this was l A's and l A for sure
(16:41):
had more than one. Um it did not help their
reputation in the nineteen eighties when Richard Ramirez a k a.
The night Stalker and one of the more sensational serial
killers in American history. Uh, he stayed there for a
while and um lived there and apparently brought body parts
back to the Cecil hotel. Said Cecil like I'm British
(17:05):
uh Cecil Hotel from some of his victims to Ingest there,
Uh and that's certainly like super creepy. Ingest. I hadn't
come across that he eat that victim's eyeballs. I think,
so wow, we and other he wasn't like I don't
think he was Dahmer level, but he was known to
(17:27):
eat some body parts. He has a there's a great
documentary on his his case too. It's super disturbing. Yeah,
that's on Netflix as well. I think, um, if I'm
not mistaken, But um, one thing I hadn't realized before
that I ran across when I was researching some of
his stuff was how he was caught. It's just absolutely triumphant.
It was a mob of people in the neighborhood in
(17:50):
East l A. He he was spotted. He saw himself
on the front page of the newspaper and just instinctively
started running trying to car jack aman hit her was
seen hitting her an older man. UM basically ran over
and helped the help. The woman pulled Richard Ramirez out
of his car, and Um, the woman whose car was
(18:14):
husband came over and started beating him. Uh. And he
tried to get away, and just an increasingly large mob
chased him and would beat him, and he'd get away
some more, and they chase him down and catch him again,
and they finally pinned him down and waited for the
cops to come. That's how he was the best. Yeah,
caveat that. I'm not down with a mob justice, but
a group of people finding a serial killer on the
(18:37):
street and like subduing him. Way okay with that now,
I totally am in this particular instance, like I'm all
fine with that that kind of justice for sure. Yeah.
It was and about a badge of honor for East
l A. Because the the entire city of Los Angeles
was I mean, it was a scary situation there. Yeah,
I can imagine that's where cheech Marin was born, according
(18:58):
to that one song of it. That's right. So the
Ninth Stalker he was not the only serial killer that
checked in there. He actually inspired just a few years
after he was convicted in I think, uh, I think
like in ninety two, maybe ninety three, there was another
serial killer named Jack Unterweger, who was Austrian um who
(19:24):
had already been convicted I think when he was like
nineteen or early twenties of killing a woman by strangling
her with her own braw um and went to prison.
He was very, very smart, very charming. He used this
to basically get early parole. He convinced the public that
he was actually reformed and apparently was held up as
(19:45):
like a great example of how, you know, the the
prison system could rehabilitate someone, and it was just a
complete false fabrication. He was basically posed as a true
crime journal list like he reinvented himself as that went
to l a and other parts. He went to Europe,
traveled through Europe a little bit too, but also ended
(20:07):
up in l a Um to do research on his
true crime novels. Went along on ride along with the
l A. P. D Um and ended up using that
to scout Um victims. He killed three sex workers and
the whole time he was staying at the Cecil hotel.
And they think probably as an homage to Um, to
(20:28):
Richard Ramirez or at least a connection to him, you know. Yeah,
so that I mean at this point, like the reputation
for the hotel, it's not the kind of thing that
is gonna appear online. You know. Fifteen years ago, when
young people like a Lisa lam Are searching for an
inexpensive place to stay. Uh, And sadly that's exactly what happened.
(20:51):
Was a Canadian traveler, she was twenty years old, was
on her way kind of up the West coast, traveling
by herself. Her parents were a little unnerved by her
traveling by herself, so she was you know, asked to
check in every day what she was doing. Uh. And
at the time, it was you know, they had kind
of dorm style rooms, kind of youth hostile style rooms
(21:13):
where you had bunk beds in a shared bathroom and
so you could stay there. It was a travelers hotel.
And if you uh, you know, I hate to say it,
but if you if you didn't know much about l a,
you may end up at the hotel Cecil because you
could stay there for like seventy five bucks a night
or something like that. Yeah, from what I could tell,
Stay On Maine did a really good job of making
(21:34):
their you know, using their website to their advantage and
making it seem like this is a really hip happening spot.
And I mean in some ways they were. They were
kind of like just a little ahead of their time
because apparently the area around skid Row in downtown l
A is like the hippiest spot to live in now again. Um,
But at the time it was still really really um
(21:58):
skid rowe basically yum. And it could be it could
be you know, it could be dangerous. Yeah, and I
think it still is. But I think it's just becoming
more and more gentrified and it's becoming I guess, less
dangerous in that sense. Um. But at the time when
Alisa Lamb showed up in two thousand and thirteen, it was,
you know, it was it was a dangerous place to be.
But um, this particular spot was just full of you know,
(22:21):
especially European kids on basically budget holidays, uh, staying in
l A basically in hostiles. And I know originally she
was put into a room with a couple of other
girls that I think we're traveling together, but she was
traveling alone. So it was very hostile. Um. And not
hostile with an eight Well yeah, there's an E, but
(22:43):
it's in a different place than you'd expect. Um, youth hostily.
It was very youth hostily, like she was put in
a room with other people at first. Yeah, l A
didn't have a lot of that. I remember there was
a youth hostile in Venice that for some reason, and
I always wanted to stay there. When I lived in
l A. I was like, I didn't go down stay
in the hostel one night because the beach was so
(23:07):
the beach was really far when you lived on the
east side and you kind of never went over there
much unless someone came to town and wanted to go
to the beach. That makes sense, sure, so, and you
know I was broke back then, so it could have
been like a little staycation. Did you ever do it? Yeah,
It's one of the things you think about late night
and then you wake up the next day and you're like, yeah,
(23:28):
you blew all your money on taco balance day. Oh man,
I missed Taco Bell, do you? I don't, Uh. I
mean I didn't need it that much, but like I
haven't had it in years. I've had too much, I
think was my problem. Okay, what's that the deal? By
the way, side note, speaking of weird late night foods, um,
(23:49):
we had a guy on our front door camera the
other day come in the middle of the night and
leave a package and we're like, what is this. We
went out the next day and it was a bag
full of crystals. Wow. And I think it was creepy delivery,
like a door dash or something. Crystals. I thought you
meant like amethysts or no, no, no, I mean tiny
(24:10):
square sliders. He had the wrong I think so either
that or your daughter is has mastered the telephone by now.
It was really weird. And the course, the first thing
I did was I feel terrible that someone's late night
mun cheese didn't get satisfied. Did you eat him the
next morning? Just says you don't like crystals, or it
(24:33):
was it because it was sitting there overnight. Both. I
never was into crystal for some reason. Man, I like crystals.
It was the thing I just was. I don't know why.
I think I was just a waffle house guy. I
don't I'm fine with waffle house. To the big problem
with crystals, Chuck, I'll tell you is there fries or
probably the worst fries of any fast, the most bland somehow,
(24:58):
if you just bit into raw potato, it would be
less bland and tasteless than if you ate a crystal spry. Yeah.
And if you're from the other places in the country,
you might white Castle sort of an analog to Crystal. Yeah, anyway,
this is not an episode of The Doughboys. This is
(25:20):
stuff you should know. And back to Alisa Lamb. She
was supposed to be there for about I think four
days and check out on February one, and did not
get in touch with their parents like she had been
doing each day. Um, she had been seen shopping for
books at a nearby bookstore and then bought some books.
(25:42):
And this is one of the things in the documentary.
Like you know, they didn't really have any footage of
her with any other people inside the hotel before her disappearance. Well,
she was also reported to be constantly by herself too
by people who saw her. Yeah, I mean she was
traveling alone, so that that makes sense. But um, she
she did get handed off. There were two gentlemen that
handed off a kind of the largest largish box to
(26:05):
her on camera in front of the hotel. And of
course the internet sluice or like, who are these guys?
What was in the box? And apparently in the box
were these books that she got because she had spoken
with the book read um seller about like the size
of them, and boy, I don't even know if I
can carry these and I think had them delivered to
the hotel or whatever. So kind of nothing to see here,
(26:28):
and another example of how annoying this case can be
with people online speculating like wrong stuff. Yeah, I can
be a little annoying for sure. But yes, so she was.
She was alone, traveling alone. I think she had started
out in San Diego, or at least her last stop
had been San Diego. Her next stop was going to
be Santa Cruz. Um. And Yeah, her parents have been like, okay,
(26:51):
you need to call this every single day um and
she had been pretty faithfully until that February one came
and went with no call, and I believe they pretty
much immediately contacted the hotel and the l a p
D and said, hey, you know, our daughter hasn't checked in.
Can you see what's going on. I don't know if
they did it on February first or not, but in
(27:13):
pretty short order, the l a p D determined that
she she was just gone, she wasn't she was nowhere
to be found, and that there was some suspiciousness going
on for sure. Yeah, I mean they did a thorough inspection.
They went to her room. Uh, they had found that
the hotel had gathered all her stuff and bagged it
and was holding it in storage, which was UM regular
(27:36):
protocol when someone UM doesn't check out and just leave stuff.
Nothing shady going on there. They checked around the hotel, uh,
in the alleyways and sidewalks, They checked up on the roof.
They didn't find anything, and UH, things got really strange.
And I guess we should take another ad break here.
But things got really strange when the hotel sent them
(27:57):
footage from inside the elevator of the still hotel. And
we'll get to that right after this, all right, Chuck,
(28:21):
So Alsa Lamb is now known to be missing. She
left her stuff behind at the Cecil Hotel, and she
didn't check out, She didn't call her parents as she
usually did, UM, and she's officially a missing person. UM.
Within a couple of days, I think maybe February six,
the police held a press conference and explained what was
(28:41):
going on to the public. UM and UH basically asked
for everybody's help and and if anyone had any info,
you know, where did she go? Where is she? How
she doing? Is she okay? UM? And I guess I don't.
I didn't see anything about any getting any crazy leads
or anything. Like at um it doesn't seem to have
(29:02):
really kind of captured the public's interest at first. And
I saw there's this guy named Josh Dean who's written
written several articles on on the Elisa Lamb disappearance, and um,
I believe one of the one of the ones that
he wrote kind of pinpoints why there wasn't a huge
public interest in the first like week or even two
(29:25):
of her case. Um, it was because Christopher Dorner had
gone on his rampage against the l A p D,
basically declared war on the l A p D and
was killed. And I think the Mountains of San Bernardino
in a standoff like right when Elisa Lamb went missing.
So not only were was the public's attention on this,
(29:46):
especially in l A, the l A p d S
attention was definitely on that as well. Um So Elisa
Lamb was kind of like this faint little chirp in
this huge mailstrom at the time, faint chirp in a mailstrom.
It's the US that could come up with on shorts. Amazing,
Are you kidding me? You just made that up? Yeah? Yeah,
I did you like it? Yeah? But I just have
(30:09):
a feeling that next time I meant your house, it's
gonna be like that's gonna be carved into your desk
or something. It's on a T shirt and right, did
you put you make Momo wear that T shirt every
Day's right? Uh? Yeah. And you know the other big
reason was until this footage actually came out of the elevator.
Uh car, then you know that's when, Um, that's when
(30:32):
the public's attention really caught hold. Yeah. I mean, there's
no way around it. It's it's a very sort of unsettling.
And I remember when this happened, before any of the
facts of the case we're kind of out. I remember
looking at this video and it is very unsettling, and
it does appear to be very creepy, and that a
young woman gets on an elevator, um, very kind of
(30:54):
casually presses all the center buttons on all the floors.
I think they determined she was on the fourteenth floor
and sort of pressed all the floors on the way down. Uh.
Elevator doesn't do anything. The doors don't shut. She moves
to the back corner and sort of standing there, she
goes and she's she looks outside of the elevator both
(31:16):
ways a couple of times in the hallway and then
kind of retreats back quickly. Um. At one point she
steps out into the hallway and appears to be gesturing
towards somebody, or she's at least making hand gestures to
the right down the hallway. Yeah, they're unusual hand gestures.
They're not like the normal hand gestures you might make.
(31:36):
They're not at all subtle or casual or almost even
like um, like you know, you might not even realize
you're using your hands when you're talking sometimes, Like these
are are more gesticulations than your gestures, you know what
I mean? Yeah, And you know, there's there's no doubt.
And eventually she kind of leaves around to the left
(31:57):
and exits to the left, and the door stays open
for a while, but for it shuts. Um. But there
there's no getting around the fact that having known nothing
and knowing that this person disappeared, this young woman, and
then you see this, it seems very suspicious. Um, I
don't think creepy. I think it looks I don't even
even think it looks that creepy. It looks to me
(32:17):
like that she is trying to get away from someone
and is afraid someone has followed her, or is gesturing
at a person who she feels threatened by. It's what
it looks like to me. I know other people online
there talk about other worldly spirits, and she's kind like
you said earlier, she's conjuring spirits with her hands, Like
I just, uh, that never occurred to me. It just
(32:38):
looked like she might be in some kind of peril
and was trying to get away from someone. Right. Um,
but that's creepy in and of itself, you know, Yeah,
I just mean not creepy and like a supernatural like
what's going on here? Way now? I think the thing
that really when it really turns creepy to me is
when she turns around and hides in the corner of
(32:59):
the elevator her like she's she's hiding. And then the
second part that's that's genuinely creepy is when she like
leans out and like looks both ways and then kind
of jumps back into the elevator. It's just I mean,
it's really hard not to kind of put yourself in
her shoes, and she's clearly frightened at that time. To
see somebody frightened like that, Uh, it's that's creepy, and
(33:22):
you're and you're waiting on someone to enter the elevator,
but that never happens. Um And with the internet sleuthing,
you couldn't really make out the time code very well.
And so all the people online are like, well, why
can't you make out the time code and the time stamps,
like what would degrade that? And not the rest of it?
And and then they think they're right, and then they
(33:44):
think they decoded it and there's almost a full minute missing,
and the hotel cecil edited out a portion clearly, and
before they send it to the cops, and and they
interviewed the woman and that you're talking about the manager,
and she was like, no, of course we didn't edit
anything out, like we were horrified by this disappearance, and
just send him everything we had, right. Plus I'm sure
(34:05):
also that most of the employees that stay on main
know exactly how to edit video out before handing things
over to the cops. Anyway, that's true. That is a
good point, actually, but I don't buy it. I think
it was it is what it was, which was a
person in an elevator who had some uh was having
(34:26):
some mental issues, and you know, we'll get to that
in a second. UM. And I think you know, it's
sort of like the easiest explanation of the video, at
least to me, seems to be the most accurate. Um
that that's what I buy. That's how I buy it too. UM.
That was so that video was released on February and
(34:46):
now all of a sudden, the public is taking notice. Um,
she becomes an Internet meme, like almost overnight, Um, with
people like watching and analyzing that video, like you were saying,
and yet they still can't find No one has any
idea where she hasn't been two weeks now since she
went missing. This videos out there, that whole the entire
internet is on the case now. And UM, it wasn't
(35:10):
until a couple of days I think two days after
the video came out. Chuck that. Um. One of the guys,
one of the custodians of the Cecil Hotel of stay
on me and I should say, Um, I was asked
to go check on the water supply on the roof
because the Cecil Hotel used uh, gravity fed water. They
(35:33):
had four one thousand gallon tanks on the top of
the roof. Uh and when you open the tap, the
water would come pouring down from those tanks into your
room and out the faucet, and some of the tenants
don't I don't know if it was just the hotel
or some long term tenants, but they were complaining that
the water pressure had suddenly gotten really low and that um,
(35:56):
the water that was coming out had a strange odor
and taste and weird kind of color to it. And
so they dispatched the custodian to the roof UM and
he went and checked, and I think as he was
approaching the main water tank, I think tank number one,
he noticed that the hatch was open, and uh, in
(36:17):
very short order, made the grizzly discovery of Alicia Lam's body. Yeah,
he was. He was kind of like the super He
was a maintenance guy. His name is Santiago Lopez and
he's in the documentary to UM. I don't think he
saw the hatch because the hatches on top of the tank,
but he went to go and he said it was
a routine thing if there was any kind of water issue,
(36:39):
was to climb the ladder to the tanks and go
look and see what was going on because there's probably
a clog or something. And uh, he saw her body, um,
naked about a foot below the water, just sort of
suspended there. And you know, when they interviewed this guy
in the documentary, it's really sad. You know, he was
sort of at the center of a lot of the
(37:00):
US with interviews and he uh, he was speaking through it, um,
I guess, not through a translator but through US subtitles,
but he was clearly, you know, still very upset about
this and it it it scarred him to see this
woman floating in the tank and he knew immediately who
it was and called down to the hotel manager who
we've been talking about and said, you know, she's she's
(37:21):
up here in the tank, and uh, you know, the
cops came. They found her clothes, which were determined to
be the same clothes she was wearing in the elevator video. Um,
kind of at the bottom of the tank they had sunk.
And you know, immediately the new mystery is not what's
going on in this video, although you know that played
apart because they were still trying to figure that out
(37:43):
as far as foul play goes, but was how she
made it in here and and why she made it
in there? Yeah, because she she she it was like,
the hatch is not easy to get in or out of.
They had to like cut her out of the They
did cut a hole in the bottom of the tank
so they could access it, right, They couldn't just pull
her back out of that hatch. So that's kind of
(38:06):
weird in and of itself. She's also nude. UM. That
also kind of added to the mystery of the whole thing. Um.
And then also the you know the coroner, uh when
when he made his his toxicology report available, he basically
said it was he wasn't able to make any conclusive,
um find any conclusive results because there wasn't enough blood
(38:28):
to take a sample from. You know, she just kind
of permeated the water and that her blood had uh,
and it wasn't you just couldn't like take a water
sample and be like, oh, yeah, there's no you know,
there's no drugs in here anything like that. So all
of that combined really kind of um just just took
that mystery. Um. You know that people have been primed
(38:51):
to start thinking about with that video and then just
blew it through the roof. You know, I mean, the
the the water being you know, going to are people's
taps in the hotel, and you know, Lisa Land basically
being a part of that water really kind of solidified
her legendary status or the legendary status of her mystery.
I think in people's imagination, anybody who comes across that
(39:14):
case can't help, but like let the mind wander in
that respect. Oh for sure. I mean the idea of
drinking water and bathing in water with a decomposing body.
I mean the body had was in a pretty pretty
rough state of decomposition at that point. Uh. They did
do obviously in the autopsy, they didn't find any signs
of foul play. There were no obviously no uh like
(39:37):
obvious wounds, There were no internal wounds, there was no strangulation. Um.
They they pretty much said, this doesn't look like foul
play at all. Um. The one one of the mysteries
was how she got up there, because you, um, if
you want to go just through the regular staircase to
the rooftop, and this is not a rooftop that you
(39:57):
you know, doesn't have like a rooftop hangout area or what.
Although people you know, there was plenty of graffiti and
beer bottles and drug needles, and some people would make
their way up there. But UH, if you go through
the regular door, it's one of the alarm doors which
would trigger downstairs and all throughout the lobby. UM that
never came on and you have to have a key
(40:18):
to disable it. But there is a fire escape entry
with the ladder basically for the last like for the
last story, it's a little precarious, but she could have
just simply gone out the window to the fire escape
and climbed up the ladder and then up the ladder
to the tanks. It's not you know, it's a little UM.
(40:38):
It would be a little bit of a scary trip
up that ladder, I think. But considering what happened, she
she clearly was was not in a good place mentally.
So I think that's completely believable that journalist Josh Dean
Um went and I think two thousand fifteen to see
this himself. He had gotten obsessed with the case, so
(41:00):
he went and kind of investigated it in person, and
UM he quickly found that open window was still open, UH,
and the fire escape was easily accessible and UM in
the UH. I think one of his articles is called
American Horror Story, which is a reference to UM. What
I think the Hotel season of American Horror Story was
(41:21):
based on or inspired by Elsa Lamb's disappearance. Um. But
there's a picture that he took of that ladder leading
from the fire escape on the fifth or fourteenth floor
up to the roof, and all you see is up,
like you just see the ladder and then above it
is sky. But after reading about it, your imagination just
(41:44):
thinks of like the fifteen stories behind you, like as
you're you know, as you're looking up this ladder. It's
one of the most unsettling pictures I've ever seen. If
you read the text, uh, you know that surround it. Um.
But he said, by his judgment, an average person could
easily make it up that ladder, especially if you don't
look down. He said, if you're carrying a body or
(42:07):
another person, you could not do it. He said, it
just would be too difficult. And you know, it's one
of those straight up vertical ladders on the side of
the building. Yeah, but if you were in a manic state,
as a lot of people believe Alsa Lamb was, um,
you could probably make it up that ladder pretty quickly.
You wouldn't even necessarily consider looking down and all of
a sudden, you'd be on the roof, and after you
(42:27):
were on the roof, it would be a fairly easy
proposition to get into one of those tanks, especially I
think she weighed about a hundred and fifteen pounds and
was about five ft four inches, so it was possible
for her to get into one of those tanks through
that hatch. But um, either she was too scared to
come out conceivably, or she couldn't get out when she
(42:51):
wanted to get out and tired of treading water because
the water would have been about eight feet deep and
drowned after a while. Yeah, I mean they did. I
think the police dogs did pick up her scent near
that window, so that seems to be what happened. And uh,
you know, this is one of those cases where the
more I read, like all I could feel was despair
(43:13):
about this poor woman having what looked to be some
sort of medication related manic episode, maybe scared, maybe thinking
someone was following her and trying to get away and
and going at great links, going to great links to
maybe hide somewhere like inside of a water tank. Um,
(43:34):
I don't know, like why her clothes were off or
why her clothes ended up in the tank. I'm not
saying any of this makes sense, but it is something
that could happen. And all I can think about is
what an awful place that she must have been for
something like this to have happened. Yeah, and I mean
to kind of back up the mental break UM theory,
(43:57):
which is what I buy. That's that's that's where I
put my stock. UM. She remember, I said she was
originally put in a room with a couple of other
girls she didn't know at the stay on Maine. They
complained about her behaving strangely, so she was moved to
her own private room. UM. Apparently she went to a
(44:17):
taping of the Conan O'Brien show and was escorted out
because she was behaving strangely. And then UM detectives also
found she was on four different medications for bipolar one
disorder and depression, and UM the l a p D
based on the the the prescription dates on the bottles,
(44:40):
and then the number of pills that were left and
the instructions on the bottles, UM the l A p
D were able to determine that she hadn't been following
UM the dosage recommendations or taking her pills or medications.
So if you put all of that together, and then
also that, um, people taking their clothes off as part
(45:00):
of a psychotic episode happens. It's been documented. Um you like,
there's no there's no pieces missing on the table, like
she could have gone out on that fire escape, gone
up the ladder, like there's nothing that is well yeah,
but then there's this really big thing that remains unexplained,
like it explains absolutely everything, and then suddenly it kind
of makes all the other stuff like government mind control
(45:24):
or ghosts or whatever seemed just kind of gross. You know,
totally agree. I believe her parents brought a lawsuit against
the hotel that was eventually dismissed. If I'm not mistaken,
and um, it just remains a very very sad situation
in a sad case. And and it is very annoying
when you get online and everyone thinks that they're spirits
(45:46):
being conjured and in all this wacky stuff. It's just
not the case, not the case. Indeed, you got anything else?
I got nothing else. Well that's it for the Cecil
Hotel and Na Lisa lamb r I p uh And
since I said our, I p that means it's time
for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this follow up
(46:08):
to Y two k. Uh. And this is something that
we actually had in our notes that we I guess
just kind of failed to bring up, right, Yeah, I
mean you had it in your notes as well. Yeah, yeah,
the problem. Um, and we got a lot of emails
about this, and and we're not gonna fully probably explain
(46:29):
to everyone's satisfaction how it works. But um, hey, guys,
just got done listening to the Y to K podcasts,
which brought back an interesting range of memories of living
through that time. In case you weren't aware, there's something
called the Unix y two K problem that still exists
but is slowly being fixed by smart people behind the scenes.
The majority of computers in the world run Unix based
(46:52):
operating systems, not Windows or mac os, and unless these
systems are patched at three fourteen on January nineteen uh,
their clocks will roll over to think it's midnight January first,
nineteen seventy. Yes. Uh. The cause is basically the same.
In the early versions of the OS only had so
(47:12):
much memory allocated to time representations, but more modern versions
now have this fixed and hence computers aren't susceptible once
they're updated or upgraded, although not all systems can be
easily updated. Uh. And that is from a bunch of people,
but specifically from PhD Allen Chalker. That's great, Thanks Alan
(47:32):
and everybody who wrote in. I was like, oh me,
and I'm meant to include that. But apparently unix um
represents time as the number of seconds from the epoch date,
which is some date in nineteen seventy and then eventually
it's going to have more seconds than it can represent
in the number of digits, so it will just roll
back over, like he was saying, which it's pretty neat
(47:53):
unix pretty cool. But also I'm glad to hear that
they're smart people working on that because we got seventeen years. Man,
you guys, take it easy, take a weekend, you know, sure,
go go send in your house and social distance from everybody.
That's right. Well, we also got a lot of emails
just from people that some people whose parents helped rewrite
(48:16):
code or we're heading up projects rewriting code, and it
was it was pretty cool. We got a lot of
a lot of emails about that. When he struck a
chord Yeah, it was a good idea, Chuck um. Well,
if you want to get in touch with us, like
Alan and everybody else did, you can send us an
email send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(48:38):
iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the
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