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

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Having done it in the past--it's generally very easy to hike with a baby. You put them in a sling or a backpack and carry them, stopping to feed or change them as necessary.

My guess is they had hiked that trail before, in better weather, and didn't realize it was going to be so hot. Assuming innocent motivations.
 
But how do they all die together without leaving a sign of what happened???? Even the dog!!!! What are the chances????

HOW BIZARRE!!

ETA: How were the bodies positioned???? Were they all laying down together???? Or spread around the area???? Or did they appear to have each collapsed in different places in the same general area???? Just so unreal...

ETA2: Did they bring water for their hike???? Was it tainted, or the bottle they were drinking from tainted???? Even the dog???? TOO MUCH UNKNOWN to make any sense.
 
carbuff said:
I think not necessarily?

Also, they might have vomited and then hiked on far enough that it wasn't immediately noticed.

But I assume the no smoking gun comment does mean there weren't obvious signs of vomiting, diarrhea, gunshots, knife wounds, etc.
Click to expand...

And one article mentioned there was no suicide note, although if there was I'm thinking it would've been left in the car or their residence anyways. Yes, they were fairly new to the area so they may've not been aware of the heat issue or toxic algae problem, although there were signs apparently. This is such a mystifying case, and has caught alot of attention as did the Kreycik one. As for the baby, I would not recommend carrying one in a backsack on a 100 degrees F hike (would feel even more hot 'wrapped' in the baby knapsack); plus the fact there was no cell reception in that remote spot.
 
An observation that may or may not matter: from Ellen’s IG, it appears they didn’t leash their dog on most hikes (e.g., March 11, 2018 in the Redwood forest; March 12, 2017, Tennessee Valley Trailhead; July 2016, Yuba River; 2015, Mount Rose Summit). So the dog may have had an opportunity to “bug out” but did not, either because he didn’t sense danger, sensed danger but wanted to stay with his people, or was already incapacitated.
 
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The bodies of the family — identified as John Gerrish, Ellen Chung, 1-year-old daughter Miju and the family dog — was found near the Devil’s Gulch area in the South Fork of the Merced River drainage. The isolated location is about 15 southwest of the El Portal entrance to Yosemite National Park on Highway 140.

The Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office search-and-rescue operation had located the family’s vehicle near the Sierra National Forest gate leading to Hite Cove in the Jerseydale area.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article253560324.html

Is there more than one way to access the trail where they were found other than the link @Lilibet provided (off Hwy 140)? Google Maps
 
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Here is a recent Guardian article on lethal algae blooms and their increasing prevalence due to climate change. It seems a farfetched cause of death but it also seems there are many new dangers out in the wild as our planet heats up. I've surfed in algae blooms in the ocean which were just unpleasant, but I'd guess fresh and salt water algae are very different, and according to this article, there are many many different kinds of algae.

Lethal algae blooms – an ecosystem out of balance
 
realanastasia said:
Wildflower viewing area in the spring, though, not in the height of the summer heat, I think.

Here’s a description of the hiking area in general. There are a few sites that sound like they might be where they were eventually found, one description of Devil’s Gulch says it is a fairly easy hike, but the other listing for a different part of DG says it is challenging :https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5344038.pdf
Click to expand...

From the link, the description of the "fairly easy" trail: "DEVIL GULCH Road (3S02) to the South Fork of the Merced
River. This section of the trail is 2.5 miles long and
fairly easy to hike. Dispersed campsites are at Devil
Gulch, the river and Devil Gulch Creek both need to
be forded in order to continue on the trail."
(BBM)

If this is a trail they hiked on this trip, and if they chose to ford the river and creek, I'm looking at toxic environmental conditions in the water. JMO.
 
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Andreee said:
And one article mentioned there was no suicide note, although if there was I'm thinking it would've been left in the car or their residence anyways. Yes, they were fairly new to the area so they may've not been aware of the heat issue or toxic algae problem, although there were signs apparently. This is such a mystifying case, and has caught alot of attention as did the Kreycik one. As for the baby, I would not recommend carrying one in a backsack on a 100 degrees F hike (would feel even more hot 'wrapped' in the baby knapsack); plus the fact there was no cell reception in that remote spot.
Click to expand...

The husband had bought a house in Mariposa back in 2016, and then the couple bought one together last year so I'm sure he's probably familiar with the area. Cell reception is a problem all over the Sierra, hit and miss but I wouldn't expect it where they were.

It's been a hot summer in the Motherlode, and I thought last year was bad. I think I counted around 25 days of 100 plus this year. I'm surprised they went hiking on such a hot day and not sure if smoke from the fires was blowing south that day.

Do you think they were on the return trip back to the car?
 
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TenaciousTBacon said:
Very weird. Bad water?
Click to expand...
Why would you be drinking bad water just 2 miles from the car, though? Either you're starting out, in which case your water bottles are full, or you're returning, in which case you'd wait 'til you got to the car.

What might the effect of fording the river be? It would have to be something fast acting if they weren't found far from the river.

Apologies if this has already been discussed. I have to catch up on posts.
 
It would be interesting to know if their bodies were found in positions of distress or panic, or if they just dropped down dead where they were?

Would toxic gases or poison cause vomiting?
I wonder if there was any evidence of that?
 
citizen_sleuth said:
My guess is carbon monoxide poisoning. The area they were found was near abandoned mines, which can cause the leaching of toxic gases (such as CO) trapped in “pockets” of the crevices of the rock into the air. Although CO poisoning is most common in inclosed spaces (i.e., inside a house), it can and has occurred in the outdoors. Hopefully the toxicology report will be able to shed more light on their most proximal cause of death.
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But it would usually take a while to ingest enough CO, and CO would disperse quickly in the air. This wasn't an enclosed space like a car, tent, or home.
 
It sounds like they were on a trail that wasn't the popular trail in the area.

Snipped
That remote trailhead down a dirt road is accessed from the side closest to Highway 49. It’s different from another popular trailhead to the Hites Cove area along Highway 140 in the river canyon closer to Yosemite.

https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article253577919.html

The photos in that article confirm that it's a very remote location. Crazy isolated.

My priority question: Why would someone choose that trail? Did they go that way by mistake? Did they deliberately choose that trail because it was very remote? What attracted them?

You wouldn't normally take a baby on a super-remote trail IMO, even if it's easy to carry a one-year old in a baby pack. Too many things can go wrong. Even a bee sting or something minor in an adult could be major for a baby. And sun exposure (at altitude no less) could be very extreme, very fast.

Speaking of bee stings..... I wonder if they got swarmed by insects? If it were maybe a mountain lion, IMO LE would have indicated that the bodies had the appearance of being mauled.
 
realanastasia said:
Wildflower viewing area in the spring, though, not in the height of the summer heat, I think.

Here’s a description of the hiking area in general. There are a few sites that sound like they might be where they were eventually found, one description of Devil’s Gulch says it is a fairly easy hike, but the other listing for a different part of DG says it is challenging :https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5344038.pdf
Click to expand...
At that elevation, wildflowers potentially wouldn't come until August. IME that's true in the Cascades. The problem is that snow doesn't clear until after "spring" in the lowlands.
 
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