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Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel – Fans ‘can’t sleep’ after watching new Netflix series

Series investigates the sinister goings-on at the Los Angeles hotel

Roisin O'Connor
Friday 12 February 2021 11:07 GMT
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Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel trailer

Fans have claimed they’re having trouble sleeping after watching Netflix’s new documentary series, Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.

The show, directed by Joe Berlinger (previously of The Ted Bundy Tapes) follows the mysterious and disturbing goings-on at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles.

The notorious hotel has been the scene for dozens of deaths, including 21-year-old Canadian student Elisa Lam, who vanished while staying at the hotel.

Lam’s disappearance attracted international attention when CCTV footage of her in the hotel’s elevator went viral online several years ago.

In the clip, she appears to be acting erratically, and is shown talking and gesturing down the corridor, before walking in and out of the elevator several times. At one point, she appears to be hiding while waiting for the doors to close.

Read more: ‘I really believe this closes the book on her case’ – Cecil hotel director on Elisa Lam disappearance

Her body was recovered from a water tank on the roof of the hotel a month after she disappeared.

A number of other mysterious deaths and suicides took place at the hotel between the 1930s and the 1960s.

“I was up late last night and decided to watch the first episode of Cecil Hotel lol and the way I refused to sleep after that bc I was so hyperaware of the sounds around me at 3 in the morning,” one viewer tweeted.

Read more: The best series to watch on Netflix UK

Another said the series was “completely engrossing, often creepy and always tragic throughout. I agree with the final analysis but lots of strange coincidences, weirdness and (ultimately answered) questions throughout. Tragic.”

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Many viewers said they were most disturbed by the idea that other hotel guests would have showered in and drank the water from the tank where Lam’s body was found.

“I’m so creeped out omg,” one viewer said.

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

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