Analysis of the video released soon after Elisa Lam disappeared from the Cecil hotel in Los Angeles suggests the Canadian tourist may have been under the influence of ecstasy when she vanished.
Lam's body was found floating in the hotel's water tank on 19 February, and it is thought the corpse could have been there for up to 19 days.
CCTV footage of Lam in the elevator, released by the Los Angeles Police Department, has now been analysed by club-drug expert Trinka Porrata.
When asked about the possibility of drug use, Porrata told LA Weekly that it is "hard to say." However she said Lam's behavior does show signs of the influence of Ecstasy.
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She's "petting" something and then dancing a bit. Could be an Ecstasy pill that contains MDMA plus some other hallucinogen," Porrata said.
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Getting into the corner of the elevator and looking out repeatedly could seem like paranoia or just part of her hallucination. Hard to say from just that little bit. Even harder of course to guess whether it was something she took voluntarily or was slipped to her.
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Ecstasy IS considered a rape drug but so many pills called Ecstasy [are often] a mixture or something else completely that they don't get the desired effects for a sexual assault," Porrata added.
The analyst also said that people under the influence of MDMA can have hallucinations and there is a possibility of them wandering away to strange places. However, she asserted that Lam's decision to head up to the hotel water tank is not the typical behaviour of a person on Ecstasy.
According to Porrata, the water tank was "
a weird place to end up," unless Lam reached the tank involuntarily. However "
people under the influence of [the hallucinogen] PCP may like going near water. It does have a "tendency to 'attract' people to water."
After an initial autopsy proved inconclusive, a toxicology result is likely to confirm whetherLam was actually under the influence of any drug. This may take another four to six weeks.
Trinka D. Porrata, after 25 years working with the LAPD, currently works nationwide and internationally as a private drug consultant, providing instruction, legislative support, and expert testimony regarding various drug issues, especially GHB, ketamine, flunitrazepam, LSD and MDMA, and drug facilitated sexual assaults.