Mengyao May Zhou 04 was found dead in the trunk of her car last Thursday, Jan. 25, from an apparent suicide. The City of Santa Rosa Police Department is waiting on toxicology and other test results before declaring an official cause of death.
Zhou, an electrical engineering graduate student at Stanford University, was reported missing to the Stanford Police on Jan. 21. She was last seen on the evening of Jan. 20 leaving her residence to run errands. At approximately 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 25, an officer from the Santa Rosa Junior College Police Department located her 2006 Toyota in one of the student lots, according to a Santa Rosa Police press release. A deceased woman, later identified as Zhou, was found in the trunk.
There are no early indications of foul play and items in the trunk indicate the subject may have committed suicide, according to the Santa Rosa Police press release.