CA CA - Sydney “Syd” West, 19, Univ of CA student, San Francisco, 30 Sep 2020 #2

[genuineusa77]

On the official Facebook page (I got a comment deleted for ‘sleuthing the family’ but was referencing the official Find Sydney West page), her parents have said they do NOT believe she ran away, multiple times. Someone mentioned suicide and a family member made it clear that any mention of that was off limits. So I think they’re in a difficult position, given that police have ruled out foul play.

Police would not rule out foul play lightly, for obvious reasons - the most obvious being liability if they were wrong. If they were unsure, they would simply say the investigation is ongoing. For them to conclude so early and publicly that no foul play was involved, and to issue a statement about mental health, I suspect they have evidence that we are not privy to.

I'm sure they would have made this evidence available to the parents and it can't be suicide because why else would the parents still be looking for her and putting out posters and rewards.

 

[BuckeyeGal]

I don't think the family wants anyone to believe she harmed herself. I think that was the undercurrent of the recent video---to make to appear she was voluntarily missing. JMO

I agree, but I wonder if the family is trying to convince themselves as well.

 

[NSamuelle]

I'm sure they would have made this evidence available to the parents and it can't be suicide because why else would the parents still be looking for her and putting out posters and rewards.

In my opinion, as others have said, I think they are doing it to maintain their image and keep up appearances, despite knowing that she is gone. Otherwise, they never would have threatened to sue and investigate people who created discussion groups or asked straightforward questions about where the backpack was actually found. I’ve never seen behavior like that in a missing persons case and it is baffling. They would not be shutting down discussion and potential leads and deleting her social media if they were truly trying to track her, and they would not share embarrassing personal stories if they expected her to come home. They are running a PR campaign. I hope I’m wrong.

 

[BuckeyeGal]

I'm sure they would have made this evidence available to the parents and it can't be suicide because why else would the parents still be looking for her and putting out posters and rewards.

MOO, but I think suicide is a likely outcome in this case (as much as I would love to think that Sydney is still alive and happy).

I can think of a couple of reasons why her parents are continuing to post flyers, etc:

1. Suicide is still such a taboo subject, and even when there is no doubt that a person completed suicide, you rarely hear that as a cause of death. Often the obituaries will say something along the lines of "died suddenly" or "tragic accident." Often families feel embarassed or worry about being judged.

2. I think that her parents are holding on to hope that she may still be alive. I think I have seen her mother post on the FB page that they believe that if Sydney had jumped, then her body should have been recovered.

I feel so bad for everyone involved

 

[ElizabethAnne]

I'm sure they would have made this evidence available to the parents and it can't be suicide because why else would the parents still be looking for her and putting out posters and rewards.

You ask a very valid question. The mother posted in a Youtube comment of the "Until They Are Found" video that if her daughter jumped off the GGB, it was when the tide was coming in, and if so her body would have been found. First of all, the tide comes in and out twice a day and despite that, the rough waters carry bodies out to sea (sorry to be graphic, but that is just the way it is). The rough waters under the bridge quickly sweep who jumps out toward the ocean side.

Secondly the family took days to report Sydney missing, with each day passing the tide went in and out twice a day. From newspaper reports of people jumping, some reports say that 20 minutes after a person jumps such that it is witnessed first hand, if the Coast Guard knows they jumped, after 20 minutes the body often is recovered a full *mile* from the bridge out to sea.

Why did they not report her missing on Wednesday Sept. 30th shortly after they could not locate her phone? Their last conversation with her was the afternoon of Tuesday Sept. 29th. Why did they wait until Friday Oct. 2nd at 2:00 PM to file a missing persons report? It is almost as if they had no sense of urgency to find her. Also since she became missing Sept. 30, why did it take until October 9th to set up a Facebook page? Typically when someone is missing, it gets set up that day or at the latest, the next day.

This is a very long wait time compared to other frantic parents in the Bay Area who find their teens missing. Also, the immediate reaction was not to organize search parties which they could have done. Instead a few days later they held a vigil in Chapel Hill and then after a time period had passed, one in Pleasanton one or two weeks later.

Then instead of organizing search parties to hand out fliers, they asked that everyone light a candle on their porch, take a photo of it, and upload it to the Find Sydney West webpage. Why clutter up a web page that is supposed to be about finding someone with a lot of photos of lit candles?

Next, rather than the Find Sydney West page being a source of information about the search for Sydney West, it rather immediately became a place for whoever is posting the information, to post a lot of bizarre photos and captions, mostly about any and all topics other than the search for Sydney West.

Given the official Find Sydney West page postings make negative swipes at Sydney like bringing up her prom date stood her up at the last minute (twice they posted that), you have to really feel sad concerning how Sydney was treated day to day by the parents when she was living at home. If this is at all a representation of how they treated Sydney, it is not surprising she had depression and anxiety.

From topics concerning football team rivalries of the Giants vs New England Patriots, dogs and more dogs, a new puppy, holiday decorations, father's song recordings, most of the messages are usually captioned like they are a message to a runaway Sydney like "Come home to see the new puppy" with a series of replies showing lit candles and prayers and comments about how beautiful Sydney is. It would appear from that page, there are never updates from the P.I. mentioned nor does it really have any tangible updates on how they are actively searching for their daughter.

 

[ElizabethAnne]

I think you summed it up so well when you said, “there should be less “spin” and more plain facts and truth”. Jmo

I am concerned that there were many things not said and there are many discrepancies between what the parents report and what Sydney says on the internet. And if you look at Sydney's postings on the internet, her struggles go back several years.

The initial article in the News and Observer https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article246239320.html seems to be about the only article that seems to not have some sort of PR spin to it. In it, her uncle Rob says that a day or so after dropping Sydney off, he stopped by to bring her some food. This article probably has more relevant details of any other media report produced since that time. After this one, information flow seems to have been censored, stopped or in some other way altered....i.e. via "spin."

If you look at the missing info vs Sydney's self reported athletic profile Sydney West's Women's Volleyball Recruiting Profile , they even differ. Sydney said she was 5'11'' and 120 lbs. That would put her BMI at 16.7 which is considerably underweight (underweight is < 18.5). When I look at her photo probably taken in the May 2020 time frame in front of the kitchen cabinets, the one with the I am Berkeley bound sign, her face looks to me narrow and almost gaunt as if she weighed even less. She looks unwell to me in that photo.

Sheriff: 19-year-old UC Berkeley student from North Carolina reported missing in San Francisco shows the initial Missing Persons report. The upper photo shows a much fuller face, but the lower right photo, Sydney's face is very narrow (kitchen cabinet photo).

In earlier photos when she was in high school her face seems fuller and she looks healthier. For example there is a photo of her with some vehicles in the background where she looks to be on a porch that looks to be the upper photo in this Missing Persons report in the above link from the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Her face is much wider then. It could be that there is an issue with the resolution or the camera angle that distorts the photos; however, if that is not the case, toward the end of her gap year though, as indicated by the kitchen cabinet photo, to me she looks like a different person. The upper photo and lower right photo are strikingly different. Her narrow face in the lower right photo to me looks like she is much thinner than the top photo. It could be that Sydney had become so depressed that she was no longer eating properly. Perhaps that is why her uncle brought her some food to the dorm.

After that initial article in the newspaper, it appears that there started to be some strange PR campaign of self-produced videos, vigils, and other carefully curated internet activity that looks like a political campaign. Perhaps that is when Amy Weiss and her husband Peter Kadzik became heavily involved. You can Google them to see that they have quite a history in politics and "spin" to put it mildly. Amy Weiss is the PR person listed on findsydneywest.com. Peter Kadzik is a former assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice and lobbyist. Both have a video on the Find Sydney West Facebook page.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Often families feel embarassed or worry about being judged.

Quote RSBM.

Well yes, parents who talk openly about their child taking their own life likely will be judged. Not by everyone but by enough people who want to believe they are better and it couldn't happen to their family.
S's parents are already being judged constantly in this thread, in one way or another, it seems to me.
Parenting hindsight is 20 / 20.

If she did take her life, it's no one's fault. It's mental struggles/ illness.

 

[ElizabethAnne]

Berkeley is hardly the local “default” choice; its world-reknown, very competitive to get into and finish, and always in the top of lists of public universities. That being said, if it’s not the right school for the student, one would be miserable.

It is an excellent school, but it is not without its problems. Even before the UC Berkeley police department found Phillip Garrido wandering the campus handing out flyers with Jaycee Dugard's two daughters in tow, it has had a reputation for being a not-so-safe campus. Thankfully, the two UC Berkeley police officers were instrumental in saving Jaycee and rescuing them. If it weren't for them, Jaycee would probably still be in that back yard in Antioch with her two daughters.

In parts of the campus, there seem to be no boundaries between the university and Berkeley. Walking from the BART to the campus is sketchy. The blue light phones that are all over campus help the situation, but there seems to be a never ending set of crime reports in and around the campus.

Unfortunately, though perhaps in the past it was okay, for now in my opinion I don't feel very safe when I am there and always feel on edge even in the daytime. One survey ranks it 209 out of 243 campuses in terms of safety UC Berkeley among least safe college campuses, report says I'm not sure how accurate this report is, but since the Garrido situation, I've known several students that were accepted there, but ended up going elsewhere after they looked at the crime figures.

I don't know how it will get better, but I do hope in the future they figure out how to make the students safer there and reduce the crime.

 

[genuineusa77]

Her parents, I believe, wanted that gap year for her and I believe that was her undoing. All that dilly dally around. She should have jumped right into Berkley or wherever she wanted to go, hopefully somewhere near her hometown and friends she missed so much.

 

[ElizabethAnne]

It seems quite clear she wasn’t homesick (I agree they’re implying that she was), or she would’ve gone back to NC immediately after dropping out, rather than “couch surfing” and staying in hotels.

Yes, this one implying the homesick angle seems to be the new reason for dropping out over the recovering from a concussion theme.

It sounds like she did not have a place to go. Unfortunately with some current UC Berkeley students, they are homeless and have nowhere to go. Some current students are forced to live in vans parked on city streets such as Struggles of student homelessness amplified by UC Berkeley's inaction because rent is so expensive. I'm hoping she had places to stay after she dropped out and do not know how long she had to stay in a hotel. With the uncle nearby in Pacifica, it is unclear why that was not an option for her to temporarily stay there.

 

[NSamuelle]

I am concerned that there were many things not said and there are many discrepancies between what the parents report and what Sydney says on the internet. And if you look at Sydney's postings on the internet, her struggles go back several years.

The initial article in the News and Observer https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article246239320.html seems to be about the only article that seems to not have some sort of PR spin to it. In it, her uncle Rob says that a day or so after dropping Sydney off, he stopped by to bring her some food. This article probably has more relevant details of any other media report produced since that time. After this one, information flow seems to have been censored, stopped or in some other way altered....i.e. via "spin."

If you look at the missing info vs Sydney's self reported athletic profile Sydney West's Women's Volleyball Recruiting Profile , they even differ. Sydney said she was 5'11'' and 120 lbs. That would put her BMI at 16.7 which is considerably underweight (underweight is < 18.5). When I look at her photo probably taken in the May 2020 time frame in front of the kitchen cabinets, the one with the I am Berkeley bound sign, her face looks to me narrow and almost gaunt as if she weighed even less. She looks unwell to me in that photo.

Sheriff: 19-year-old UC Berkeley student from North Carolina reported missing in San Francisco shows the initial Missing Persons report. The upper photo shows a much fuller face, but the lower right photo, Sydney's face is very narrow (kitchen cabinet photo).

In earlier photos when she was in high school her face seems fuller and she looks healthier. For example there is a photo of her with some vehicles in the background where she looks to be on a porch that looks to be the upper photo in this Missing Persons report in the above link from the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Her face is much wider then. It could be that there is an issue with the resolution or the camera angle that distorts the photos; however, if that is not the case, toward the end of her gap year though, as indicated by the kitchen cabinet photo, to me she looks like a different person. The upper photo and lower right photo are strikingly different. Her narrow face in the lower right photo to me looks like she is much thinner than the top photo. It could be that Sydney had become so depressed that she was no longer eating properly. Perhaps that is why her uncle brought her some food to the dorm.

After that initial article in the newspaper, it appears that there started to be some strange PR campaign of self-produced videos, vigils, and other carefully curated internet activity that looks like a political campaign. Perhaps that is when Amy Weiss and her husband Peter Kadzik became heavily involved. You can Google them to see that they have quite a history in politics and "spin" to put it mildly. Amy Weiss is the PR person listed on findsydneywest.com. Peter Kadzik is a former assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice and lobbyist. Both have a video on the Find Sydney West Facebook page.

She does look unwell holding the “Berkeley Bound” sign, but remember she had been crying that day after her father criticized her, said he wouldn’t pay for Berkeley, and left the house (source: her Reddit). You can see how red her eyes are in the photo.

 

[NSamuelle]

Her parents, I believe, wanted that gap year for her and I believe that was her undoing. All that dilly dally around. She should have jumped right into Berkley or wherever she wanted to go, hopefully somewhere near her hometown and friends she missed so much.

Agreed, Sydney said her parents spent $15K on a college advisor and she just wanted to go to a community college and transfer. I wish they had allowed her to do that.

 

[genuineusa77]

Agreed, Sydney said her parents spent $15K on a college advisor and she just wanted to go to a community college and transfer. I wish they had allowed her to do that.

So less stressful!

 

[genuineusa77]

She does look unwell holding the “Berkeley Bound” sign, but remember she had been crying that day after her father criticized her, said he wouldn’t pay for Berkeley, and left the house (source: her Reddit). You can see how red her eyes are in the photo.

What happened there? Did she just say alright I'll go to appease him? Mother too.

 

[lowes123]

Quote RSBM.

Well yes, parents who talk openly about their child taking their own life likely will be judged. Not by everyone but by enough people who want to believe they are better and it couldn't happen to their family.
S's parents are already being judged constantly in this thread, in one way or another, it seems to me.
Parenting hindsight is 20 / 20.

If she did take her life, it's no one's fault. It's mental struggles/ illness.

There really seems to be a lot of judgement here. Not to mention, unless you knew Sydney, you really don't know what was going on her life. Sometimes what is written on the internet is just a way of releasing things. Sometimes girls of that age can be a little over dramatic, too. Not saying this is the case, we just don't know. I do believe that concussion really messed her up more than anything. Did she check out of her hotel? Did she leave her belongings? I think her parents are just doing the best they can do, it is not like there is a parenting course on missing children. I think they are relying on advice from friends who are in the PR field and legal field, doing what they can to help.

 

[ElizabethAnne]

What happened there? Did she just say alright I'll go to appease him? Mother too.

On reddit, Sydney said that the previous year though she was recruited for volleyball at a school called Grinnell in Iowa (1700 or so students), they ultimately did not accept her into the college. She had played volleyball all during high school and excelled as an athlete. After not getting into Grinnell, she took a gap year and re-applied to many colleges and applied also to others she never applied to in the first place. Her parents hired the admissions counselor for $15K. Sydney's top choice was Stanford in a Mechanical Engineer Dept major called "Product Design," but she did not get in. On reddit, Sydney said she had failed the AP Calculus exam twice...this may have been one of the reasons that she did not get into her top schools.

On reddit, Sydney said that she did not really see Berkeley as a fit for her. She said: "cal- I grew up in Bay Area, more familiar. never really saw myself at Berkeley tho. NO AID BRUH"
UC Berkeley offered a walk on rowing position and in the letter it said that though there was no scholarship, if her junior and senior year, she ended up on the two fastest boats, she would get a full ride scholarship. She had no rowing experience previously and the chances of her ending up on one of the two fastest boats was slim, but given her NO AID BRUH comment it sounds like she was under pressure to do well. At Berkeley rowing is such that practices start at about 5 AM and go to 7:30 AM each weekday. It is a very high time commitment sport requiring students to get up well before dawn.

She also was admitted to UMass-Amherst where who two parents went and they both knew the coaches because they were on the rowing team there. She was offered a $16 K per year Chancellor's scholarship as well as a walk-on rowing position. There were no strings attached to the $16 K scholarship.

She ended up turning down the UMass offer and decided on Berkeley instead. Berkeley is the highest prestige school she was accepted by. She was also accepted into UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Wilmington along with several other UC campuses, but with no rowing offer. Her mother wanted her to like UNC Chapel Hill, which Sydney said would be practically free to go there, but Sydney did not like UNC Chapel Hill.

Multiple times on reddit Sydney discusses the importance of getting into a D1 level school for athletics. She did get into UCSD that she seemed to like very much, but that school was D2 and is now transitioning to D1.Plus there were no other athletic offers at the other UCs. Sydney was also accepted into the honors college at UC Santa Cruz and UNC Wilmington It sounds like given the parents paid $15K for the admissions counselor, Sydney ended up going to the highest prestige university where she got accepted. She never really stated whether this was her decision or whether the decision was made for her.

It is too bad that Sydney was not able to pursue playing volleyball at a D3 school or a community college. This may have been a far better fit for her. It sounds like volleyball was the sport she truly loved. And she seemed to be very talented as a volleyball player which takes a lot of skill and coordination. Not sure she had any enthusiasm for being on a rowing team.

By mid-July though Sydney was singing "I'm dying deep down" instead of "Merrily merrily merrily" on Tik-tok to the song Row Row Row Your Boat.

 

[Kittybunny]

Someone wrote earlier in this thread that something made them "unbearably sad" which is the perfect words to describe how this whole case makes me feel. Sadly, I don't believe for a second that Sydney is somewhere off the grid living her best life. The pictures she paints in her own words tell a very clear story about Syd and what's she been through, the unbelieveable pressure that she felt - whether real, from expectations of her parents and herself, to her own struggles with depression and anxiety that created a vicious circle. I don't know if the story as to why she dropped out is real or there was something deeper, but it really doesn't matter. Disappointment at feeling unable to fulfill her dreams, not having a home, topped by a global pandemic to further isolate her from potential friends or family support, and it's really no mystery to me that she gave in to the demons she's been fighting a long time.

I can relate to Syd - the college admissions process in 1989 for Ivy League/top tier was not even close to what has been shared in this thread but even then it was a nightmare, largely even just from the pressure I put on myself. Just reading about what it is like now sends me into panic attacks. I was a super high-achiever, driven, etc. and I can't imagine what it feels like to go through it when you really didn't want to, and then not have it pan out. I just hope wherever she is, she is beyond pain, anxiety, pressure, expectations, and she just is...Sydney. Singing some songs, barefoot on a beach.

Thank you so much to @ElizabethAnne for her in-depth knowledge of all the details of the admission process and bringing over Sydney's voice.

As for her parent's PR campaign and commercial...the less said the better. I hope that it's not too late to ensure that Syd's sister is free to pursue her dreams and needs, not those of her parents. I hope there is closure, but I suspect there won't be.

 

[ElizabethAnne]

She does look unwell holding the “Berkeley Bound” sign, but remember she had been crying that day after her father criticized her, said he wouldn’t pay for Berkeley, and left the house (source: her Reddit). You can see how red her eyes are in the photo.

UC Berkeley seems to have very stressful for Sydney. That is why I have never understood why the parents posted on Find Sydney West: "I want nothing more than to attend a Cal Bear graduation for Sydney someday."

The messaging here to their missing daughter is that if you come back, you will go back to Berkeley and finish your degree. Period. What a baffling message to deliver to a missing person.

If my child or adult child was missing, I'd just want them to be found safe. I wouldn't be issuing pleas embedded with demands that they fulfill degree requirements and graduate from an institution they just dropped out of just so my own personal needs could be met to attend a graduation one day. On the flip side, if I was the one that just dropped out of college and went off the grid, I'm not sure I would have any intention of returning if my parents were calling out for me to come back, get back into that college I just dropped out of, and graduate for goodness sake so that my parents can attend my graduation.

Regarding the reaction to her being admitted to Cal, maybe they were expecting that for the $15K Sydney says they were paying for an admissions counselor, their reaction indicated they expected Sydney to get admitted to more prestigious schools than UC Berkeley for that $15K they spent. Originally on Find Sydney West, it said she deferred. But then that didn't make sense because if she had deferred, she would have been notified in July her deferment was accepted and she would have never moved into the dorms in August.

But now the mother says in the video she dropped out midway in an excerpt in the new video...does that mean midway during orientation week, midway during Berkeley's self-sequester requirement, midway during September? I don't understand why they won't answer a simple question like when did Sydney withdraw from Berkeley. Or maybe since the initial reports of her missing said she was a Berkeley student, maybe she never let them know she withdrew in the first place. Who knows? If that is the case, then wouldn't they have been able to find out from UC Berkeley what the actual withdrawal date was?

 

[genuineusa77]

UC Berkeley seems to have very stressful for Sydney. That is why I have never understood why the parents posted on Find Sydney West: "I want nothing more than to attend a Cal Bear graduation for Sydney someday."

The messaging here to their missing daughter is that if you come back, you will go back to Berkeley and finish your degree. Period. What a baffling message to deliver to a missing person.

If my child or adult child was missing, I'd just want them to be found safe. I wouldn't be issuing pleas embedded with demands that they fulfill degree requirements and graduate from an institution they just dropped out of just so my own personal needs could be met to attend a graduation one day. On the flip side, if I was the one that just dropped out of college and went off the grid, I'm not sure I would have any intention of returning if my parents were calling out for me to come back, get back into that college I just dropped out of, and graduate for goodness sake so that my parents can attend my graduation.

Regarding the reaction to her being admitted to Cal, maybe they were expecting that for the $15K Sydney says they were paying for an admissions counselor, their reaction indicated they expected Sydney to get admitted to more prestigious schools than UC Berkeley for that $15K they spent. Originally on Find Sydney West, it said she deferred. But then that didn't make sense because if she had deferred, she would have been notified in July her deferment was accepted and she would have never moved into the dorms in August.

But now the mother says in the video she dropped out midway in an excerpt in the new video...does that mean midway during orientation week, midway during Berkeley's self-sequester requirement, midway during September? I don't understand why they won't answer a simple question like when did Sydney withdraw from Berkeley. Or maybe since the initial reports of her missing said she was a Berkeley student, maybe she never let them know she withdrew in the first place. Who knows? If that is the case, then wouldn't they have been able to find out from UC Berkeley what the actual withdrawal date was?

Those are my thoughts exactly. Midway would be halfway through the semester, so I don't know what she means about midway either.

 

[ElizabethAnne]

I can relate to Syd - the college admissions process in 1989 for Ivy League/top tier was not even close to what has been shared in this thread but even then it was a nightmare, largely even just from the pressure I put on myself. Just reading about what it is like now sends me into panic attacks.

I feel horrible that Sydney at the end of the 10th grade had to move across the country. If she had been able to stay with friends her last two years in CA maybe she would not have needed to be uprooted and could have had a social support network that could have helped her. Reading that she had 8 AP classes just made me so sad. Her reddit postings said she failed 3 AP exams including Calculus twice. That must have devastated her. She seemed so overworked with having to take so many AP and Honors courses.

Last I heard, I don't think the local high schools here even allow students to take 4 AP classes a year so I don't think she would have been able to take 4 AP classes her junior year and 4 AP classes her senior year. Just looking at the UNC youtube interview about perfection and from reading Sydney's postings on reddit about the college admission and family expectation stress and the internship pressure she was under, I know that if I was 18 or 19 I would not have been able to handle it whatsoever.