Body of missing Canadian tourist found


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LOS ANGELES ? Police say they have determined that a body found in a water tank on the roof of a downtown Los Angeles hotel is a Canadian tourist who'd been missing for nearly three weeks.

Police spokeswoman Officer Diana Figueroa said Tuesday night that investigators used body markings to identify 21-year-old Elisa Lam, a resident of Vancouver, British Columbia who traveled to California alone and was last seen at the hotel on Jan. 31.

Earlier Tuesday a hotel maintenance worker found the body while looking into complaints of poor water pressure.

Police say they will attempt to determine whether Lam's death was the result of foul play or a bizarre accident.

Lam traveled to California alone on Jan. 27, and was last seen by workers at the Cecil Hotel on Jan. 31.

After hotel guests complained about low water pressure, an inspection of the rooftop water tanks revealed the body, Officer Sara Faden said.

Officials were still struggling to remove the body from the water tank late Tuesday afternoon to send it to the coroner's office, Faden said.

"It appears that the location of the water tanks is very small and configured in a very tight way so it's a little more difficult to get the body out," Faden said.

Investigators will then determine whether there was foul play or "a very, very strange accident," Faden said.

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The body of a Canadian woman was later discovered at the bottom of one of four cisterns on the roof of the historic hotel near Skid Row.

The tanks provide water for hotel taps and would have been used by guests for washing and drinking.

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health officials were expected to release the results of tests on the water on Thursday.

When the body was discovered on Tuesday, they issued a do-not-drink order while a lab analyzes the water, said Terrance Powell, a director coordinating the department's response. The disclosure contradicts a previous police statement that the water had been deemed safe.

Powell said the water was also used for cooking in the hotel; a coffee shop in the hotel would remain closed and has been instructed to sanitize its food equipment before reopening.

LAPD Sgt. Rudy Lopez called it suspicious and said a coroner's investigation will determine Lam's cause of death.

Before she died, hotel surveillance footage showed Lam inside an elevator pushing buttons and sticking her head out the doors, looking in both directions. She was later found in the water tank.

http://news.yahoo.co...-133817325.html

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If the body was stuffing up the water pressure, there had to be contamination.

Sounds like it was a typical rape and murder.

Also it sounds like a hotel employee did it, who would have known the water tanks were on the roof -- like a maintenance man.

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