CA CA - Sydney “Syd” West, 19, University of CA student, San Francisco, 30 Sept 2020

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I agree but I wonder if the photos on the private account can give us clues to where she is...
Oh definitely! Sorry for misunderstanding your post.

I just e-mailed a popular blog here in SF to see if they can publicize Sydney's disappearance - it's possible one of their readers was at Crissy Field that day and saw her. Trying to think of things we can do as non-LEOs.
 
Oh definitely! Sorry for misunderstanding your post.

I just e-mailed a popular blog here in SF to see if they can publicize Sydney's disappearance - it's possible one of their readers was at Crissy Field that day and saw her. Trying to think of things we can do as non-LEOs.
That’s a great idea! Also getting it on some podcasts.
 
I agree but I wonder if the photos on the private account can give us clues to where she is...
The one good thing is that her private account is made up of her closest friends. So I am pretty sure that they gave access to those videos to her parents and the investigators and they also would report anything they think is revealing or important. JMO
 
Ita how important it is to keep Syd’s story & search in msm! And that LE has prob searched hospitals by now. But have some different thoughts too...

#2- Laci Peterson’s body & baby’s remains took 4 months to wash to shore. Other examples- including folks that are never recovered at all exist- so not sure we can rule water out just yet.

To this point, Laci Peterson was weighed down with cement anchors. So that would have hindered her washing up on the shore. Presumably if Syd jumped into the water, she didn't do anything to weigh her body down. That said, I think it's too early to rule out suicide in the water.
 
that ride would be reallyexpensive for a College student. Anyways, did she get ride? If so, that person needs to come forward ASAP!
I have a feeling that she was not your ordinary college student income wise. Even with in state tuition, Berkeley is expensive. Likewise, she could have been living off campus as a freshman.

A lot of schools are desperate for cash and view filled dorms as needed income. Thus, they charge residency fees under various guises and names- even if you are not living on campus. So, living off campus as a freshman can be very expensive.

Other indications of a high-income background include references to international trips and Chapel Hill, NC. Chapel Hill is part of a banking, technology and bio medical research hub and could indicate a job transfer from the Bay Area.

Her poshmark has multiple photos of her in a bra. VSCO has photos just in her underwear. <modsnip: No link to substantiate> She also has three IG accounts. One is private and states that “this is for the good stuff”. Not sure what that means.
Though this could be alarming, I think it is more of boredom and a desire for social interaction (flattering comments from other women) than an indicator of truly risky behavior.

She seems to have access to enough money where escort work would not be a temptation. Likewise, she is attractive and is attending a prestige school. Thus, no need to date creeps.
the best e can hope for is she fell in love and is off escaping the anxiety that everyone elses expectations cause.

I like this possibility and also hope that it is the case. I think she may have gotten overwhelmed and had the funds to “escape “to somewhere.

I hope the parents track down any cash transfers to her to see if they can be accounted for. Maybe also run a credit check via a Private investigator to see if secret credit cards were applied for. Likewise, did she give a secret address in regards to a credit check?
 
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Thanks so much for sharing this. I took a look at the most recent video, noticed the "Insyderator" name, googled it, and found her Reddit account: insyderator (u/insyderator) - Reddit

I haven't had time to read through it all yet but there is stuff about the stresses of college admissions, not really being crazy about Cal, sexuality, drugs, and alcohol. I hope someone can take the time to read through it and offer some analysis! I appreciate all that this community does.
 
Thanks so much for sharing this. I took a look at the most recent video, noticed the "Insyderator" name, googled it, and found her Reddit account: insyderator (u/insyderator) - Reddit

I haven't had time to read through it all yet but there is stuff about the stresses of college admissions, not really being crazy about Cal, sexuality, drugs, and alcohol. I hope someone can take the time to read through it and offer some analysis! I appreciate all that this community does.

This is a great find! From a quick review, I found two things of note. I really feel strange about posting them because they deal with her sexuality, but because I believe they offer potential insight into her and her behavior, I am posting them. Let me know if this isn't appropriate/too speculative and I'll remove. I'm new here and don't know the etiquette.

First, from the attached screenshot, it seems like she may have been snapchatting with an older 'daddy'-type guy. There's only one post like this, so not sure whether it's a habit or just a bored teenager exploring her sexuality, but I would definitely want LEO to check her Snapchat history and also whether she had a burner account just for purposes like this.

Second, she mentions that she's potentially demisexual, which means that she would only experience sexual attraction to people that she has a close emotional connection with. This gives me some peace of mind in the sense that I don't think she would run off with someone she met through an online dating app.

<modsnip: Removed screenshot; not allowed as per TOS>
 
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Thanks so much for sharing this. I took a look at the most recent video, noticed the "Insyderator" name, googled it, and found her Reddit account: insyderator (u/insyderator) - Reddit

I haven't had time to read through it all yet but there is stuff about the stresses of college admissions, not really being crazy about Cal, sexuality, drugs, and alcohol. I hope someone can take the time to read through it and offer some analysis! I appreciate all that this community does.
interesting one:

6 months ago

same. i got in cal today and rejected from every ivy and my parents were excited for like ten minutes and then like moved on and my dad started acting all weird and left. hes been ignoring me all morning, and is apparently pissed at him because i up my internship at his company (that i tried to quit multiple times). i want to cry. they aren't gonna pay for it oos either and are mad at me for not liking unc more, which is right next to me.
 
interesting one:

6 months ago

same. i got in cal today and rejected from every ivy and my parents were excited for like ten minutes and then like moved on and my dad started acting all weird and left. hes been ignoring me all morning, and is apparently pissed at him because i ****** up my internship at his company (that i tried to quit multiple times). i want to cry. they aren't gonna pay for it oos either and are mad at me for not liking unc more, which is right next to me.

I saw this one, too. She was putting a lot of pressure on herself about the college she attended. Seems like she wanted Stanford or an IVY. It's a shame she puts so much pressure on herself when it appears she has so much going for her.
 
Thanks so much for sharing this. I took a look at the most recent video, noticed the "Insyderator" name, googled it, and found her Reddit account: insyderator (u/insyderator) - Reddit

I haven't had time to read through it all yet but there is stuff about the stresses of college admissions, not really being crazy about Cal, sexuality, drugs, and alcohol. I hope someone can take the time to read through it and offer some analysis! I appreciate all that this community does.
This is really an amazing insight into her - her thoughts and feelings on so many things, why she took the gap year, relationship with parents. No doubt it has to be her. Everything fits - NC vs. Cal, gap year, specific colleges she got into.

I'm really glad to have the younger folks here at Websleuths to find all the social media. I know from my own kids (3 daughters, two are teens) that so much of their life is, positive and negative, on SM. Reading all her posts is sad (if not terrifying) - so young and so many conflicting thoughts and feelings. Please, please be ok.

ETA - doesn't look like UCB was her dream school. Not a complete surprise if she dropped out. You can see all of her optimism on the GAP year in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/chanceme/comments/eswh7h/gap_year_applicant_to_stanford_ivys/
 
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This is really an amazing insight into her - her thoughts and feelings on so many things, why she took the gap year, relationship with parents. No doubt it has to be her. Everything fits - NC vs. Cal, gap year, specific colleges she got into.

I'm really glad to have the younger folks here at Websleuths to find all the social media. I know from my own kids (3 daughters, two are teens) that so much of their life is, positive and negative, on SM. Reading all her posts is sad (if not terrifying) - so young and so many conflicting thoughts and feelings. Please, please be ok.

ETA - doesn't look like UCB was her dream school. Not a complete surprise if she dropped out.

Berkeley is also fully-remote this fall. I can understand the desire to wait until "normal" college returns so that you can reap the full benefits of being on campus. Based on her Reddit post history, I am guessing that this threw her for a loop because she had already taken a gap year and was potentially feeling "behind" other people her age given how driven she is.
 
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I have a feeling that she was not your ordinary college student income wise. Even with in state tuition, Berkeley is expensive. Likewise, she could have been living off campus as a freshman.

A lot of schools are desperate for cash and view filled dorms as needed income. Thus, they charge residency fees under various guises and names- even if you are not living on campus. So, living off campus as a freshman can be very expensive.

Other indications of a high-income background include references to international trips and Chapel Hill, NC. Chapel Hill is part of a banking, technology and bio medical research hub and could indicate a job transfer from the Bay Area.


Though this could be alarming, I think it is more of boredom and a desire for social interaction (flattering comments from other women) than an indicator of truly risky behavior.

She seems to have access to enough money where escort work would not be a temptation. Likewise, she is attractive and is attending a prestige school. Thus, no need to date creeps.


I like this possibility and also hope that it is the case. I think she may have gotten overwhelmed and had the funds to “escape “to somewhere.

I hope the parents track down any cash transfers to her to see if they can be accounted for. Maybe also run a credit check via a Private investigator to see if secret credit cards were applied for. Likewise, did she give a secret address in regards to a credit check?
Credit check & address used is smart- guessing LE has done this.
"The first thing I hope we get cleared up is how she got to CF- this could be very helpful at this stage, imo"


If she was already in SF then it would be very easy to take public transit to CF. SF is very well laid out in terms of mass transit. Most people use it.

Also, she could use BART to get to the CF area.

[the Presidio stop is 2 min walk from Crissy Field]
Did you know San Francisco's Presidio is BARTable? Ride BART to Embarcadero Station and transfer to the PresidiGo Downtown Shuttle. The excursion is fun, fast (25 minutes), and most of all, the most convenient way to visit an urban national park.

Free PresidiGo Shuttle connects BART riders to Presidio | BARTable
Guessing BART has video & LE has already looked into this. I haven’t seen this info released, or if she was alone, persons of interest sharing the bus, etc. If she’d been on BART, LE should at the very least know for sure what she was wearing. So far even that detail has been iffy. Don’t know what to make of that!
 
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Thanks so much for sharing this. I took a look at the most recent video, noticed the "Insyderator" name, googled it, and found her Reddit account: insyderator (u/insyderator) - Reddit

I haven't had time to read through it all yet but there is stuff about the stresses of college admissions, not really being crazy about Cal, sexuality, drugs, and alcohol. I hope someone can take the time to read through it and offer some analysis! I appreciate all that this community does.
Thanks for sharing this. It explains a lot. Specifically, if UC Berkeley is "Plan B" then the list of schools she couldn't get into would be fairly short. The Ivies, Stanford, and UMass Amherst were apparently on that list. Getting accepted on a D1 rowing team was also a major factor, maybe more so to her than academics.

So is there a rowing facility near Crissy Field? Was she ever seen where the UCB team practices? Did she know anyone at Stanford or on the Stanford rowing team? I don't know if all rowing activities would be suspended because of covid-19, but if they were, that might contribute to her dissatisfaction with school.
 
interesting one:

Its sad to read of the inner pressure she was going through. The part about parents not willing to pay oos (out of state tuition) is concerning. I hope they finally agreed and just thinking if they did not and she went anyway, then there may have been financial issues there for her.
 
Credit check & address used is smart- guessing LE has done this.

Guessing BART has video & LE has already looked into this. I haven’t seen this info released, or if she was alone, persons of interest sharing the bus, etc. If she’d been on BART, LE should at the very least know for sure what she was wearing. So far even that detail has been iffy. Don’t know what to make of that!
I am not sure how long BART holds on to their footage though. Hard to imagine they could hold on to all of it, from all of their stops, for too long.
 
Its sad to read of the inner pressure she was going through. The part about parents not willing to pay oos (out of state tuition) is concerning. I hope they finally agreed and just thinking if they did not and she went anyway, then there may have been financial issues there for her.


In-state tuition 14,253 USD, Out-of-state tuition 44,007 USD

I can't see her being able to come up with 44k on her own. Maybe she could get a student loan?
 
This is off-topic mostly, but the R&D internship Syd did during her gap year was with her father's biotech startup. They are developing a new single cell genome sequencing technology. It's mostly being developed for disease diagnostics, but they suggest it would be useful for other situations with limited samples such as forensics and ancestry, topics of keen interest to many following other cases on WS (ie, DNASolves, etc.).
 
I have only looked at the one youtube video (4 months ago) referred to above and am having difficulty seeing them as one and same person as the above pic of Syd.

Could be just me, but IMO the girl in the video looks much younger than Syd and has brown eyes when Syd is reported to have blue eyes.

How has it been established that the youtube channel does in fact belong to the Syd West who is the subject of this thread?
 
I have only looked at the one youtube video (4 months ago) referred to above and am having difficulty seeing them as one and same person as the above pic of Syd.

Could be just me, but IMO the girl in the video looks much younger than Syd and has brown eyes when Syd is reported to have blue eyes.

How has it been established that the youtube channel does in fact belong to the Syd West who is the subject of this thread?

Depending on what video you're viewing, it looks like that could be SW's younger sister (which I've now seen mentioned in a few different videos/descriptions). It looks like they 'share' a channel, but the content does look more geared toward the 10 year old crowd.
 
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