Foul play not ruled out as police probe Lam’s death
By Agencies – Global Times Source:Global Times-Agencies Published: 2013-2-28 17:28:01
An investigation into the death of Chinese-Canadian student Elisa Lam is continuing under renewed attention after LA police investigators said Monday they did not rule out foul play in Lam's death.
Alex Martinez, a public information officer from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), denied to The Vancouver Sun that foul play had been ruled out in Lam's death, the Huffington Post reported Wednesday.
He said there has been no update information since an autopsy last week that could definitively reveal whether the 21-year-old woman was killed or died accidentally.
An initial autopsy on Lam was inconclusive, and coroner's officials said additional toxicology tests, which take 6-8 weeks to complete, would be needed before a cause of death could be determined, said the Los Angeles Times Wednesday.
Los Angeles County coroner's spokesman Ed Winter did not say whether investigators had determined how Lam got into the water tank or how long she may have been inside.
The case continues to draw attention in China, where her family is originally from. The video of Lam acting strangely in an elevator has gone viral on the Chinese video site Youku.com, with more than 3 million views and 40,000 comments in a 10-day span, according to the LA Times.
Lam, a former University of British Columbia student, traveled alone to Los Angeles on January 26 and was last seen by hotel staff on January 31. Lam's body was pulled from a tank at the Cecil Hotel on February 19, nearly three weeks after she was last seen there.