Vanishing At Cecil Hotel: Viewers Defend Manager Amy Price For Calling Mum Before The Police

The Vanishing at Cecil Hotel has been all that anybody could talk about since it landed on Netflix.

From director Joe Berlinger, whose previous work includes the creepy yet compelling Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, the series looks at the disappearance of Canadian student Elisa Lam, who was mysteriously found dead.

After creepy footage of missing Elisa seemingly talking to herself in the hotel's lift emerged in 2013, a nationwide search for her begun. She was eventually found by hotel servicemen floating in a water tank on the roof of the LA premises.

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But there's one moment from the doc that many viewers can't quite understand.

Why did the hotel manager, Amy Price, call her mum before she called their police, when Elisa's body was discovered?

Amy makes the confession during an interview for the Netflix doc, revealing that she needed to unload the information on her mother first, after the work-men at the hotel alerted her of Elisa's whereabouts.

Speaking in a Reddit thread, one suspicious viewer wrote: "[I] find it weird that after Elisa's body was found in the tank, she would contact her mother first before the police."

However, people were quick to defend the hotel manager in the comments, suggesting that most people would do the same thing in her position.

"I saw nothing odd about it," one fellow Reddit user said. "She wanted to let her mom know there was a sh*tstorm coming and she probably knew she'd be tied up all day."

Cecil Hotel)

Another agreed: "I can easily imagine making a brief call to my mom or S.O. before contacting the police - partially for moral support and partially to let them know that this situation might put me out of communication for a while.

"After almost three weeks in that tank, three minutes more wouldn't do Elisa any harm."

Ever since the 21-year-old disappeared, people have been circulating theories over what could have happened to Elisa.

One such theory is that the odd behaviour Elisa exhibits in the CCTV footage is the result of a chilling ritual known as The Elevator Game.

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But what is it?

Well, it's a pretty creepy ritual that sees the player visit a number of different floors in an elevator, in a bid to get to a 'new dimension'. The person playing must first enter the elevator alone, before pressing the button for the fourth floor.

They must then descend to the second floor, up to the sixth, down to the second again, up to the tenth and finally down to the fifth. They must not get out on any floor.

After reaching the fifth level, the legend says a mysterious woman will enter the lift, but the person playing must not look or interact with her.

Players must then push the button to the first floor. Two things are supposedly said to happen here. If the lift goes down, the player must leave the building and not look back.

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If it goes to the tenth floor, once the player leaves the elevator, it's believed they'll be entering a new dimension. Pretty creepy, right?

After Elisa's odd behaviour in the elevator - specifically pressing a number of different buttons as she entered - some conspiracists are convinced she was playing the game.

Meanwhile, others believe Elisa's death was linked to the tuberculosis outbreak, taking place in Los Angeles at around the same time. You can read more about that here.

It's worth noting here that Elisa's death was officially ruled as accidental drowning, with her bipolar disorder was found to be a significant factor.

Topics: TV News, TV Entertainment, Netflix

Joanna Freedman

Joanna is a journalist at Tyla with a particular interest in highlighting women's issues and telling inspiring first person stories. She's also their resident foodie, and loves covering exciting new beauty launches, too. Contact her at [email protected].

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