CA - Jonathan Gerrish, Ellen Chung, daughter, 1 & dog, suspicious death hiking area, Aug 2021 #3

[wary]

Interesting point. It's almost as if their deaths happened very quickly, and took them by surprise, because, as you say, if they knew in advance they were in a situation they weren't going to survive you think they'd try to leave some kind of message or markings or signs for others to receive or discover afterwards.

It's a long while since I've been as bamboozled by a case as I have with this one.

MOO

Thinking about phone usage, or non-usage.

Several plausible possibilities, in my opinion. Some of these overlap.

1: severe mental confusion from what ailed them, (probably heat stroke,)

2: Intense focus on survival that doesn’t leave room for trivial things like documenting what’s happening.

2a: Having realized that there’s no chance of reception, they just dismiss the phone from their thoughts. Leaving a message telling what happened would be admitting to themselves that they aren’t going to survive. Or, they simply think of a phone as a means of communication, not as a notebook.

3: The temperature was probably well above the recommended temperature for cell phones—maybe the phone just didn’t work. (In my limited experience, electronic equipment DOES work well beyond the stated limits, so I think this is a long shot.)

4: What if the phone’s battery ran down earlier on the hike? Such things happen. Unless the phone was turned off, it might have been using more battery power trying to find a cell tower.

5: Perhaps there IS relevant info on the phone, but LE is withholding it until they can do a final wrap up. Or, it’s relevant but not conclusive.

All this MSO My speculation only.

 

[Auntie Cipation]

Was their swimming pool water tested?
I can easily see the dog dying very quickly from anatoxin a poisoning, the humans, not so much BUT it's quite possible that a combination of anatoxin a with other elements may have brought about a fatal result.
Next problem is to figure out how they contracted it, if not by ingestion, inhalation or intradermal?
Was the baby exposed to the same toxins, if that is the cause of death, as the adults or did the baby pass away from heat exposure alone?

I suspect that, if we are even able to learn the details of what happened to them, there won't be just one cause but rather a cascading failure of events.

Let's say they somehow initially skirted the issue of the heat being extreme, by hiking downhill in the mid-morning hours when it was hot but not yet extreme.

They make it to the river and cool off. Briefly? For hours? We don't know yet.

Do they realize the aggressiveness (steepness, even after the gentling effects of the switchbacks) of the S-L trail? We don't know. If they did, they could have gone back the way they came down, but that would have added the mileage of the river stretch they would have had to re-cover.

So they start back up, in the now-extreme heat. (no matter what time of day they left the river, unless it was in the 4-5am range, it would be very very hot and the exertion would make it very much hotter.

OK, so they are moving along as best they can in these extreme circumstances, and now the dog becomes ill or lethargic or even collapses. Maybe from the toxin, maybe from the heat/exertion, maybe a combination. We don't know.

The family of course does not abandon their ailing dog, but carrying him along with the baby and whatever other gear they had pushes the effort required beyond the doable zone -- maybe Jon is carrying both dog and baby, maybe not, we don't know. Maybe EC takes the baby in her arms for a while, or even tries the carrier if it fits her. Every time they make any change like this they slow or stop for a few minutes, adding to their heat exposure.

Ultimately comes a sequence of events we don't know the specifics of.

We don't know if EC was 100 feet ahead because she was trying to race to the truck while Jon tried to rest or was already making no sense, whether she was "wandering" in her throes of heat stroke, whether she was putting distance due to risk of lightning etc. She didn't take the baby with her, suggesting to me either that the baby was already obviously dead (but how would they know for sure? I think that is unlikely) or that Jon was still somewhat ok, so she was leaving the baby with him while she tried to go as fast as she could (I think this more likely).

We don't know why she only made it 100 feet farther. Was she then overcome with dizziness? Had she made it farther but then came back for some reason? I suspect we will never know that answer unless evidence is found of her farther ahead, or in notes left, etc.

If the adults stopped moving as they were overcome with heat stroke, the dog and the baby would have died soon afterwards even if they were ok at the time. (Which they probably were not given their susceptibility to heat was higher than the adults. But we just don't know.)

The cooling effect of the shade from the thunderstorm cell may not have helped them much. It may have made them feel a bit of relief, as 110* degrees dropped to perhaps 100* and maybe there was even a breeze as the cell moved overhead. But the thermal mass of the ground would not have cooled much from a brief few hours of localized shade. Air has hardly any mass, so the cooling effect of air would be minimal when the mass of the ground was still so hot.

I think it's completely possible heat alone could have caused the deaths, but anything else they encountered would only have exacerbated the risk from the heat.

MOO

Interesting point. It's almost as if their deaths happened very quickly, and took them by surprise, because, as you say, if they knew in advance they were in a situation they weren't going to survive you think they'd try to leave some kind of message or markings or signs for others to receive or discover afterwards.

We don't know that they didn't, via phone at least (ie attempted text messages or notes in a note app etc). LE has not released that kind of information yet.

But I do suspect that they thought they would make it up until the moment the heat took the ability to think clearly (as has been described earlier in the thread) at which point they couldn't really make those kinds of decisions.

MOO

 

[lotus777]

I don't think it's helpful to underestimate the couple's hiking ability
while over-rating the difficulty of this particular switchback trail they were on.
Heat might've definitely slowed them down from time to time but there's no sign of any struggles or illness from the autopsy report.
LE may haven't completely ruled out overheat as the possibility yet but now I see an updated article about lightning as a possibility of COD.
I still think it's a little too far-fetched story to blame lightning without any proof.
There are simply no other cases like this that can be compared to and anything out there that could give us a clear answer to rest this case for good once and for all.
I'm still sticking with the theory of breathing related death like getting choked, put to sleep you see in mma fighting matches.

Heat stroke is a finding of exclusion on autopsy, meaning the autopsy findings may indicate heat stroke but can also indicate other causes of death. They have to rule out everything else first. That's why if the autopsy indicated it may have been heat stroke, LE wouldn't have said so.

 

[Rocky Mountain Hi]

From what I see, their home sits in the middle of a forest and their backyard has a built in swimming pool. They were 21 minutes away from the trail.

Didn't someone say, though, that they bought a second home near the H. Cove trail, after moving permanently to the Mariposa area? Sorry, I'm just trying to clarify their situation. I thought I remembered a discussion about them buying a 2nd home somewhere "near" the trailhead, whatever that means.

 

[wary]

I've read lots of comments in this forum - and in news articles - about how the route the family were on was one of the toughest hikes in the area...

Can anyone local to the area advise what it is specifically that makes it so tough? Is it the exposure and temperatures in that part of the country? Is it threat from snakes or mountain lions (I live in a small country village in Northern England so forgive my ignorance when it comes to snakey-liony things!)?

When I hear about a hike being tough, my mind automatically thinks 'steep' - perhaps this is a wrong assumption.

I did Google image 'Devil's Gulch' and a couple of other areas adjacent to it and I couldn't really see any images at all of steep, rocky climbs which is how I'd visualised it in my head when I first heard the news story, but maybe I just got unlucky with the selection of images that the search results provided.

Any info on this would be interesting so we could see what potential challenges they'd face with the topography of the route itself even before other factors were thrown in such as heat exhaustion, possible poisoning from toxic algae, lightning strikes etc.

Also, in relation to the switchbacks (here in the UK we just tend to call them winding roads or paths with 'hairpin' bends), is it possible that the family didn't realise a section of the trail was switchbacks? Maybe they thought they could get from eg; section A to B of the trail in a straight line as the crow flies, but it's only once they were on the trail itself they realised it was really steep and therefore contained many switchbacks which considerably lengthened the distance they were having to walk uphill all whilst exposed to the searing temperatures?

MOO

The difficulty might be that you have to start this hike with a steep downhill grade, which, of course, means that you’re facing a steep uphill grade when you’re already tired from the hike.

Heat issues would apply to many, if not all hikes in the same area and at the same elevation. (I’d expect a substantially higher elevation to be cooler.)

As for the snakey-liony issues: Rattlesnakes are to be expected in any rural area here, including people’s driveways and back yards. But if you stay on a trail and there’s good visibility, they aren’t going to be much of a danger. Also, they regulate their temperature by changing their environment, so in the sort of weather that was described, they wouldn’t be apt to be out on the open trail. That’s the reason, I think, that there’s been almost no discussion of a snake bite contributing to this tragedy.

I don’t see any way that mountain lion danger would have affected the danger rating of this trail. They’re present, just about anywhere that there’s deer, but, well, mountain lion attacks on people are a lot rarer than lightning strikes on people.

All this MOO, but based on 6 decades in the rural foothills of Calif.

 

[SophieRose]

Didn't someone say, though, that they bought a second home near the H. Cove trail, after moving permanently to the Mariposa area? Sorry, I'm just trying to clarify their situation. I thought I remembered a discussion about them buying a 2nd home somewhere "near" the trailhead, whatever that means.

The house the poster is talking about is in Darrah and they bought it last year. Recently they purchased a beautiful home in Jerseydale right near the trail. Not sure if they were living in it yet though.

Like I've said before it's the most likely reason they were hiking that trail, and makes it even sadder to me.

 

[Newsjunkiejen]

MOO

The difficulty might be that you have to start this hike with a steep downhill grade, which, of course, means that you’re facing a steep uphill grade when you’re already tired from the hike.

Heat issues would apply to many, if not all hikes in the same area and at the same elevation. (I’d expect a substantially higher elevation to be cooler.)

As for the snakey-liony issues: Rattlesnakes are to be expected in any rural area here, including people’s driveways and back yards. But if you stay on a trail and there’s good visibility, they aren’t going to be much of a danger. Also, they regulate their temperature by changing their environment, so in the sort of weather that was described, they wouldn’t be apt to be out on the open trail. That’s the reason, I think, that there’s been almost no discussion of a snake bite contributing to this tragedy.

I don’t see any way that mountain lion danger would have affected the danger rating of this trail. They’re present, just about anywhere that there’s deer, but, well, mountain lion attacks on people are a lot rarer than lightning strikes on people.

All this MOO, but based on 6 decades in the rural foothills of Calif.

Thank you, my first instinct was that it would be the gradient that made the hike a difficult one, but I just couldn't seem to find any images that backed that up.

I appreciate the info and thanks for humouring my snakey-liony query

 

[ilovewings]

I suspect that, if we are even able to learn the details of what happened to them, there won't be just one cause but rather a cascading failure of events.

Let's say they somehow initially skirted the issue of the heat being extreme, by hiking downhill in the mid-morning hours when it was hot but not yet extreme.

They make it to the river and cool off. Briefly? For hours? We don't know yet.

Do they realize the aggressiveness (steepness, even after the gentling effects of the switchbacks) of the S-L trail? We don't know. If they did, they could have gone back the way they came down, but that would have added the mileage of the river stretch they would have had to re-cover.

So they start back up, in the now-extreme heat. (no matter what time of day they left the river, unless it was in the 4-5am range, it would be very very hot and the exertion would make it very much hotter.

OK, so they are moving along as best they can in these extreme circumstances, and now the dog becomes ill or lethargic or even collapses. Maybe from the toxin, maybe from the heat/exertion, maybe a combination. We don't know.

The family of course does not abandon their ailing dog, but carrying him along with the baby and whatever other gear they had pushes the effort required beyond the doable zone -- maybe Jon is carrying both dog and baby, maybe not, we don't know. Maybe EC takes the baby in her arms for a while, or even tries the carrier if it fits her. Every time they make any change like this they slow or stop for a few minutes, adding to their heat exposure.

Ultimately comes a sequence of events we don't know the specifics of.

We don't know if EC was 100 feet ahead because she was trying to race to the truck while Jon tried to rest or was already making no sense, whether she was "wandering" in her throes of heat stroke, whether she was putting distance due to risk of lightning etc. She didn't take the baby with her, suggesting to me either that the baby was already obviously dead (but how would they know for sure? I think that is unlikely) or that Jon was still somewhat ok, so she was leaving the baby with him while she tried to go as fast as she could (I think this more likely).

We don't know why she only made it 100 feet farther. Was she then overcome with dizziness? Had she made it farther but then came back for some reason? I suspect we will never know that answer unless evidence is found of her farther ahead, or in notes left, etc.

If the adults stopped moving as they were overcome with heat stroke, the dog and the baby would have died soon afterwards even if they were ok at the time. (Which they probably were not given their susceptibility to heat was higher than the adults. But we just don't know.)

The cooling effect of the shade from the thunderstorm cell may not have helped them much. It may have made them feel a bit of relief, as 110* degrees dropped to perhaps 100* and maybe there was even a breeze as the cell moved overhead. But the thermal mass of the ground would not have cooled much from a brief few hours of localized shade. Air has hardly any mass, so the cooling effect of air would be minimal when the mass of the ground was still so hot.

I think it's completely possible heat alone could have caused the deaths, but anything else they encountered would only have exacerbated the risk from the heat.

MOO



We don't know that they didn't, via phone at least (ie attempted text messages or notes in a note app etc). LE has not released that kind of information yet.

But I do suspect that they thought they would make it up until the moment the heat took the ability to think clearly (as has been described earlier in the thread) at which point they couldn't really make those kinds of decisions.

MOO

I like your thought process especially your feeling that what happened to these poor people was a "cascading failure of events"----- that makes so much sense.

 

[Newsjunkiejen]

I suspect that, if we are even able to learn the details of what happened to them, there won't be just one cause but rather a cascading failure of events.

Let's say they somehow initially skirted the issue of the heat being extreme, by hiking downhill in the mid-morning hours when it was hot but not yet extreme.

They make it to the river and cool off. Briefly? For hours? We don't know yet.

Do they realize the aggressiveness (steepness, even after the gentling effects of the switchbacks) of the S-L trail? We don't know. If they did, they could have gone back the way they came down, but that would have added the mileage of the river stretch they would have had to re-cover.

So they start back up, in the now-extreme heat. (no matter what time of day they left the river, unless it was in the 4-5am range, it would be very very hot and the exertion would make it very much hotter.

OK, so they are moving along as best they can in these extreme circumstances, and now the dog becomes ill or lethargic or even collapses. Maybe from the toxin, maybe from the heat/exertion, maybe a combination. We don't know.

The family of course does not abandon their ailing dog, but carrying him along with the baby and whatever other gear they had pushes the effort required beyond the doable zone -- maybe Jon is carrying both dog and baby, maybe not, we don't know. Maybe EC takes the baby in her arms for a while, or even tries the carrier if it fits her. Every time they make any change like this they slow or stop for a few minutes, adding to their heat exposure.

Ultimately comes a sequence of events we don't know the specifics of.

We don't know if EC was 100 feet ahead because she was trying to race to the truck while Jon tried to rest or was already making no sense, whether she was "wandering" in her throes of heat stroke, whether she was putting distance due to risk of lightning etc. She didn't take the baby with her, suggesting to me either that the baby was already obviously dead (but how would they know for sure? I think that is unlikely) or that Jon was still somewhat ok, so she was leaving the baby with him while she tried to go as fast as she could (I think this more likely).

We don't know why she only made it 100 feet farther. Was she then overcome with dizziness? Had she made it farther but then came back for some reason? I suspect we will never know that answer unless evidence is found of her farther ahead, or in notes left, etc.

If the adults stopped moving as they were overcome with heat stroke, the dog and the baby would have died soon afterwards even if they were ok at the time. (Which they probably were not given their susceptibility to heat was higher than the adults. But we just don't know.)

The cooling effect of the shade from the thunderstorm cell may not have helped them much. It may have made them feel a bit of relief, as 110* degrees dropped to perhaps 100* and maybe there was even a breeze as the cell moved overhead. But the thermal mass of the ground would not have cooled much from a brief few hours of localized shade. Air has hardly any mass, so the cooling effect of air would be minimal when the mass of the ground was still so hot.

I think it's completely possible heat alone could have caused the deaths, but anything else they encountered would only have exacerbated the risk from the heat.

MOO



We don't know that they didn't, via phone at least (ie attempted text messages or notes in a note app etc). LE has not released that kind of information yet.

But I do suspect that they thought they would make it up until the moment the heat took the ability to think clearly (as has been described earlier in the thread) at which point they couldn't really make those kinds of decisions.

MOO

Really insightful points. The whole thing is such a mindbending mystery, and so so tragic. It must be awful for their relatives waiting for more conclusive answers (if LE will even be able to conclude anything at all with this unusual case), but I really, really hope that whatever was the cause, their suffering wasn't prolonged. They looked such a lovely family and clearly doted on their baby and little dog.

Does heatstroke cause pain? I know there's the confusion and the delirium, but does someone suffering from heatstroke pass out and then die after falling unconscious, I wonder?

 

[LifeIsAMystery]

Thank you, my first instinct was that it would be the gradient that made the hike a difficult one, but I just couldn't seem to find any images that backed that up.

I appreciate the info and thanks for humouring my snakey-liony query

There was a Google Earth Link on an earlier thread that really gave a sense, might come up in a search?

 

[ilovewings]

Really insightful points. The whole thing is such a mindbending mystery, and so so tragic. It must be awful for their relatives waiting for more conclusive answers (if LE will even be able to conclude anything at all with this unusual case), but I really, really hope that whatever was the cause, their suffering wasn't prolonged. They looked such a lovely family and clearly doted on their baby and little dog.

Does heatstroke cause pain? I know there's the confusion and the delirium, but does someone suffering from heatstroke pass out and then die after falling unconscious, I wonder?

I too keep thinking about if they suffered-- suchva sweet and lovely family with their little baby and the dog they clearly loved--- it is just so tragic-

 

[gitana1]

I was mistaken about EC being found off the trail, so it's a moot point anyway. But it
sounds like each area has its own regulations depending on local and regional conditions.

I'm fascinated by how different those conditions are in the CA mountains versus New England. If I were to visit and go for a hike, I could see how I might totally misjudge the trail, the amount of water needed, how hot it was going to be, whether I could pee somewhere, etc.

Just to be clear, I don’t pee on the trail itself! I do go right off it. But not far off. Ticks, rattlesnakes and poison oak would make that dangerous.

 

[Parsnip]

So absent new information, I perused our posts on the three threads. It appears we have about 6 theories. I am listing them by name/searchable terms, jic someone wants to go back and read what others have posted about them in earlier posts and threads. I believe these terms will yield search results for most posts related to the theories. Please feel free to correct me/clarify:

1. “Toxic gas” from “fissure”(s) and/or “cave” exploration.
2. “Lightning”.
3. “Heat stroke”.
4. “Cascade”/“Combination” (heat plus one or more of the other factors, such as anatoxin-A exposure).
5. “Oxygen” deprivation, cause unknown.
6. “Toxic algae”.

 

[gitana1]

<modsnip - quoted post was removed>
MOO

This was a hike in their neighborhood, in temperatures consistent with what they’d been living with for at least a month. They were regular hikers. I think someone reading every post in these threads could still reasonably conclude that this was “just a little extra heat” for them.

And now we have images showing they were in the shade of a storm cloud from at least 1:30 until close to 3pm. They would have been experiencing the gust front and downdrafts bringing cold air down to the surface from aloft.
THUNDERSTORMS
MOO

I am a regular hiker. Except for people who are casual park users who don’t hike but unwittingly decide to try a trail, the trails around me are usually empty of regular hikers during the peak heat times of day. By around 11:00 am there are usually no hikers going up hills unless there’s shade.

These people started their hike at around 8:00 am. If they did the whole loop wouldn’t they have been done before any storm cells hit them? Unless they spent several hours at the river, which, as someone pointed out, is not typical of what the husband recorded on Alltrails?

I disagree that this was a hike in their neighborhood. They had to drive to it and the loop does not appear surrounded by homes. Correct me if I’m wrong. It’s described as a “remote trail”.

I suspect that, if we are even able to learn the details of what happened to them, there won't be just one cause but rather a cascading failure of events.

Let's say they somehow initially skirted the issue of the heat being extreme, by hiking downhill in the mid-morning hours when it was hot but not yet extreme.

They make it to the river and cool off. Briefly? For hours? We don't know yet.

Do they realize the aggressiveness (steepness, even after the gentling effects of the switchbacks) of the S-L trail? We don't know. If they did, they could have gone back the way they came down, but that would have added the mileage of the river stretch they would have had to re-cover.

So they start back up, in the now-extreme heat. (no matter what time of day they left the river, unless it was in the 4-5am range, it would be very very hot and the exertion would make it very much hotter.

OK, so they are moving along as best they can in these extreme circumstances, and now the dog becomes ill or lethargic or even collapses. Maybe from the toxin, maybe from the heat/exertion, maybe a combination. We don't know.

The family of course does not abandon their ailing dog, but carrying him along with the baby and whatever other gear they had pushes the effort required beyond the doable zone -- maybe Jon is carrying both dog and baby, maybe not, we don't know. Maybe EC takes the baby in her arms for a while, or even tries the carrier if it fits her. Every time they make any change like this they slow or stop for a few minutes, adding to their heat exposure.

Ultimately comes a sequence of events we don't know the specifics of.

We don't know if EC was 100 feet ahead because she was trying to race to the truck while Jon tried to rest or was already making no sense, whether she was "wandering" in her throes of heat stroke, whether she was putting distance due to risk of lightning etc. She didn't take the baby with her, suggesting to me either that the baby was already obviously dead (but how would they know for sure? I think that is unlikely) or that Jon was still somewhat ok, so she was leaving the baby with him while she tried to go as fast as she could (I think this more likely).

We don't know why she only made it 100 feet farther. Was she then overcome with dizziness? Had she made it farther but then came back for some reason? I suspect we will never know that answer unless evidence is found of her farther ahead, or in notes left, etc.

If the adults stopped moving as they were overcome with heat stroke, the dog and the baby would have died soon afterwards even if they were ok at the time. (Which they probably were not given their susceptibility to heat was higher than the adults. But we just don't know.)

The cooling effect of the shade from the thunderstorm cell may not have helped them much. It may have made them feel a bit of relief, as 110* degrees dropped to perhaps 100* and maybe there was even a breeze as the cell moved overhead. But the thermal mass of the ground would not have cooled much from a brief few hours of localized shade. Air has hardly any mass, so the cooling effect of air would be minimal when the mass of the ground was still so hot.

I think it's completely possible heat alone could have caused the deaths, but anything else they encountered would only have exacerbated the risk from the heat.

MOO



We don't know that they didn't, via phone at least (ie attempted text messages or notes in a note app etc). LE has not released that kind of information yet.

But I do suspect that they thought they would make it up until the moment the heat took the ability to think clearly (as has been described earlier in the thread) at which point they couldn't really make those kinds of decisions.

MOO

If they did get hit by lightning, could the mom have been thrown by the force?

 

[gitana1]

RSBM
I don't know what you define as a switchback, but of course they are intended to make the trail easier: a near direct vertical ascent or descent is extremely hard, not just in terms of energy output, but also on the joints and muscles.

What is a ”Switchback” in hiking?

ETA steep non-switchback trails would routinely cause me severe muscle soreness, so much that I could hardly walk for days.

Its the going downhill that’s super hard for me on non-switchback trials. Terrible on the knees and easy to slip!

 

[RedHaus]

So absent new information, I perused our posts on the three threads. It appears we have about 6 theories. I am listing them by name/searchable terms, jic someone wants to go back and read what others have posted about them in earlier posts and threads. Please feel free to correct me/clarify:

1. Toxic gas from fissure(s) and/or cave exploration.
2. Lightning.
3. Heat stroke.
4. Cascade/Combination (heat plus one or more of the other factors, such as anatoxin-A exposure).
5. Oxygen deprivation, cause unknown.
6. Toxic algae.

Thanks @Parsnip. This may help us prevent cycling again around theories.

I would add:

7. Accidental exposure to lethal pesticide or other toxin somewhere off piste that sadly caught up with them.

8. Third party involvement in such a way that murder is not apparent to LE.

9. Different cause of death for each or one or more family members (e.g. dog and infant) which led to others' death.

10. And in fairness to this case as a whole there are miscellaneous theories we can not speak of per WS TOS.

I really encourage anyone joining this thread read all three threads to catch up. We have covered a lot of ground.

 

[gitana1]

So absent new information, I perused our posts on the three threads. It appears we have about 6 theories. I am listing them by name/searchable terms, jic someone wants to go back and read what others have posted about them in earlier posts and threads. I believe these terms will yield search results for most posts related to the theories. Please feel free to correct me/clarify:

1. Toxic gas from fissure(s) and/or cave exploration.
2. Lightning.
3. Heat stroke.
4. Cascade/Combination (heat plus one or more of the other factors, such as anatoxin-A exposure).
5. Oxygen deprivation, cause unknown.
6. Toxic algae.

I’m going with 2, 3, 4 and possibly a seventh option not yet listed: “Unknown”.

 

[rosesfromangels]

None of these explanations/hypotheses are (still) not adding up for me. I know that is contrarian, but none of this seems particularly probable to me.

Skeptically yours,
Roses

Amateur opinion and speculation

 

[Parsnip]

Thanks, @RedHaus , please see bolded responses below:

Thanks @Puzzles. This may help us prevent cycling again around theories.

I would add:

7. Accidental exposure to lethal pesticide or other toxin somewhere off piste that sadly caught up with them.

So searchable terms might be pesticide/marijuana/illegal?

8. Third party involvement in such a way that murder is not apparent to LE.

Searchable term might be ??

9. Different cause of death for each or one or more family members (e.g. dog and infant) which led to others' death.

I’m thinking combination or cascade might yield these?

10. And in fairness to this case as a whole there are miscellaneous theories we can not speak of per WS TOS.

I’ll bet TOS would catch most of these…do you think?

I really encourage anyone joining this thread read all three threads to catch up. We have covered a lot of ground.

 

[Parsnip]

None of these explanations/hypotheses are (still) not adding up for me. I know that is contrarian, but none of this seems particularly probable to me.

Skeptically yours,
Roses

Amateur opinion and speculation

If you have one that we haven’t discussed and therefore can’t be searched, let me know a searchable term for any future posts.