“The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” Illustrates the Dangerous Power of Conspiracy Theories

A new docu-series on Netflix provides further evidence that ill-informed Internet investigators and self-appointed Web Sleuths harm more than they help

The latest trending Netflix series, “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” tells the story of the 2013 disappearance and death of Elisa Lam, a 21 year old Canadian student who went missing while travelling in Los Angeles. Lam was staying at the notorious Hotel Cecil in the insalubrious Skid Row area of L.A.

The hotel, opened in 1924, has been the site of numerous murders, suicides, drug-overdoses, rapes and serious physical assaults. It was, for a time, the “home” of infamous serial killer Richard Ramirez, more famously known at the Night Stalker, who terrorized Los Angeles through the summer of 1985. (That case was the focus of another of Netflix’s recent popular docu-series, “Night Stalker: Hunt for a Serial Killer”.)

This four-part documentary follows the mysteries around Lam’s death and the surrounding investigation. The case had gripped the imagination of many members of the public in 2013, when the LAPD released the surveillance video of Lam in the hotel elevator. The video was so strange that it garnered many views and soon went viral. Moreover, it led numerous keyboard warriors, web-sleuths, and Sherlock Holmes wanna-bes to take up the scent and embark upon their own investigations.

It was not long after the video went viral that the conspiracy theories began to pop up. From having been murdered by one or more of the homeless individuals living on Skid Row, or being targetted by one of the hotel’s staff members, to a vast conspiracy and cover-up involving a new strain of tuberculosis (Lam having been a “biological weapon” unleashed on L.A.’s homeless community), and even the suggestion of demonic possession, paranormal activity, and portals to Hell, the internet was awash with numerous theories about what had happened to Elisa Lam.

Enter the web-sleuths, those communities of amateur detectives who spend hours engaged in research in the hopes of discovering that needle in a haystack that leads to the solving of a case and the arrest of the culprit.

The hit 2019 Netflix documentary, “Don’t F**k With Cats”, showed the role these arm-chair investigators had played in the hunt for murderer Luka Magnotta. With bravado and self-assurance, and not a little whiff of an overdose on CSI Miami, web sleuths likewise honed in on the Lam case, determined to solve the mystery.

In the course of their sleuthing on the Lam case, some members of the internet community developed what, for me as an observer, reads as an unhealthy fixation with the case, a strange kind of veneration, and an adoration of Elisa Lam that borders on the religious or Celebrity Worship Syndrome (CWS). One such devotee even pays someone to visit Lam’s gravesite in Canada and film themselves laying a hand on the tombstone so that the individual can “get closure” and say goodbye.

However, one of the saddest repercussions of this vociferous web-sleuthing, was in the case of death-metal performer, Pablo Vergara, AKA Morbid. A sleuther discovered that Vergara had stayed at Hotel Cecil and, swayed by a prejudicial bias against Morbid based on his dark-wave music videos on You Tube and his Marilyn Manson-esque persona, the internet launched into a vitriolic attack and bullying campaign against him.

This ill-informed vendetta against Morbid (who, despite internet stories that placed him at the Hotel Cecil at the same time as Lam, had actually stayed for three days in 2012 — a year prior to the young woman’s death) resulted in his You Tube channel being shut down and, more troubling, led him to a mental breakdown during which he was in “a very bad place”, and attempted suicide.

“There were just false accusations, death threats, every day. Every week. There was no escape. At a point, when you get so much hate and just negativity, there’s something that breaks in your mind. Something clicks…The web sleuths go on with their life like nothing happened. But, you know, they really turned my life upside down…” (Pablo Vergara, AKA, Morbid)

The anonymity and the protection afforded by the internet, where we can all spend countless hours viewing, interacting, researching, and disappearing down various rabbit-holes, can be a blessing and a boon in some ways.

But, as we have seen in the growing popularity of conspiracy theories such as QAnon, anti-vax, and “Stop the Steal”, for example, such beliefs can have a dangerous and devastating impact on the lives of real people.

Such individuals become unfortunate pawns in a game of intrigue, falsehoods and misinformation; through no fault of their own, their lives and livelihoods can be destroyed by keyboard warriors and fake news propagandists, who focus entirely on their own obsessive game.

In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I will not go into the ultimate outcome of the Elisa Lam case. However, it will not surprise you to learn that Pablo Vergara had absolutely no involvement in Lam’s death. But, despite his innocence and exoneration from the accusations of the mob, he still suffers the after-effects of the campaign against him, and has not made any new music or creative content since, saying it’s “not the same”.

Thus, “The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” is about more than just the tragic case of Elisa Lam; it is also a glimpse into the dangerous power of conspiracy theory and the devestating effect that rumour and misinformation can have on the lives of ordinary, innocent people.

“In the end there’s so many of these extreme coincidences, and it really fed into all those theories. But when you are too deep into anything, you do lose your perspective. I think that people cross that line without any facts or evidence. And that’s when you lose control. And that’s when you do things that can hurt people.”

(Stephanie Harlowe, True Crime and Mystery You Tuber, speaking in “The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.)

Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel is available now on Netflix.

Jupiter Grant is a self-published author, blogger, narrator and audiobook producer.

Inquiries and comments are always welcome. You can also find me on Twitter @GrantJupiter

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