Found Deceased CA - Yohanes Kidane, 22, Netflix software engineer, entered Uber in San Jose, pers items found near Golden Gate Bridge, 15 Aug 2023

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wyome said:
I am so glad you brought this up. I've been puzzled by the "strange Uber encounter", and it has crossed my mind that he may have been paranoid or misunderstood the driver as well. I'm sure we've all had drivers reroute before due to traffic, road closures, whatever. Makes me wonder how he was acting at work around that time. Starting a new job and living in a new city -- huge stressors.

I had not heard of Antoine Whittley, but wow, yes, some similarities for sure.

One thing I find interesting is the sister's comment about seeing his location:
"He said he last spoke to Kidane, who "was super excited to start working at Netflix," on August 13, when they spoke for an hour. The following day, the two brothers' sister, Sara, saw his phone location was "at the Golden Gate Bridge, which wasn't anything out of the ordinary." However, she became concerned when this hadn't moved on Tuesday, August 15, and tried calling Kidane unsuccessfully."

www.newsweek.com

Family describe events before Netflix employee disappeared in California

Yohanes Kidane's brother said he was "super excited to start working at Netflix" before his disappearance.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com

Is that something young people do, check a friend or family member's location? It's not reported that she called and texted and checked his location after being unresponsive....just that she saw his location.
Click to expand...
The location thing is definitely normal. I have locations for most of my immediate family. When I know my young adult nieces are going out for the night, I check on their location a few times a night to make sure they make it home.
 
If I'm thinking about a cause for his disappearance that is not suicide, I have two thoughts:
1) Two murderous Uber drivers is not realistic;
2) A young man in a new city with a fancy new job might be inclined to go out to meet people and spend some of his new salary. There may be people, men or women, who aim to do harm to said young man, especially in the wasteland that is San Francisco these days. It might not be the most likely scenario, but its reasonable. Unfortunately, I don't know what that tells us. I suppose the best bet would be the computers/phone where he may have communicated or planned a meetup/date.

IMO
 
<modsnip - not an approved source>

Does anyone know if Yohanes had to report to work everyday, or was he remote most days?
The reason I ask is I find it strange that he would go to the bridge so late on a work night. He'd get to the bridge at the earliest 8pm. Taking a possible suicide out of the equation, he'd be either sightseeing or meeting someone for dinner/drinks. Either way, he's looking at another 45 min-1hr drive back to his apartment, getting him back home close to 11:00 p.m. (assuming a meet up or evening stroll was approx. 2 hrs.) That seems odd to me for a young person that has to go to work the next day and is so new on the job.

I know my own son was a night owl in college and had to seriously adjust once he got salaried position starting at 8am. It took his body awhile to adjust, and was not hanging out in the evenings in the first month of work.
 
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wyome said:
<modsnip - not an approved source>

Does anyone know if Yohanes had to report to work everyday, or was he remote most days?
The reason I ask is I find it strange that he would go to the bridge so late on a work night. He'd get to the bridge at the earliest 8pm. Taking a possible suicide out of the equation, he'd be either sightseeing or meeting someone for dinner/drinks. Either way, he's looking at another 45 min-1hr drive back to his apartment, getting him back home close to 11:00 p.m. (assuming a meet up or evening stroll was approx. 2 hrs.) That seems odd to me for a young person that has to go to work the next day and is so new on the job.

I know my own son was a night owl in college and had to seriously adjust once he got salaried position starting at 8am. It took his body awhile to adjust, and was not hanging out in the evenings in the first month of work.
Click to expand...
I wanted to expand on your theories and add some additional information that may offer context or change ones thinking.

In regard to the Uber ride just days prior to YK's disappearance, that trip was actually a return trip from SF to his apartment in San Jose. It hasn't been reported or shared by LE where the pick-up location was. Could YK have been scouting out the bridge? Could it have been a "dry run" and/or an "aborted attempt" if indeed self-harm was the intention.

If YK was planning to meet someone (he told work colleagues he may meet a friend) in SF, as a local, I find it odd that he would pick the Golden Gate Welcome Center as a meeting spot. This location has been confirmed by LE as YK's intended destination and he arrived safely and without incident. There's the Equator Round House Cafe a short walk from the center where you can get coffee, tea, sandwiches, etc. but it closes at 6pm daily - so it would have been closed by the time he arrived. Maybe he was meeting someone to just sightsee, but seems odd to me on a Monday night when he was scheduled to work the next day.
 
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We've mentioned two cases on this thread, YK's and SW's. Both young people who, for whatever reason, left backpacks near the bridge, but were not actually seen on camera leaving the bridge nor jumping.

I do wonder if either left an undisclosed note in the backpack.

And with the huge number of missing young people, how often this might happen, but without clues left behind, so no one even knows where to search.

Some people are against barriers on all bridges, but maybe at least making some harder to access unseen at night, and better camera systems, would be a possibility.
Maybe with new technology people can come up with new ideas, because this problem isn't going away...
 
Where's the social media for this kid?

There's a tiktok for a person with his same name and it looks a lot like Yohanes on 8/14, but the clothes don't match the black hoodie the media is reporting as wearing that Monday night.
 
Sadly, his family will suffer though he no longer does. This is from the link upthread:

An unresponsive person was found Aug. 29 floating in the San Francisco Bay northeast of the Golden Gate Bridge, according to the Marin County Sheriff's Office. The coroner later confirmed the person was Kidane.

"The cause of death was determined to be from blunt impact injuries with drowning as a significant contributing condition. The mode of death was determined to be suicide," the Marin County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.
 
If I was an Uber driver and someone asked me to drop them off at the Golden Gate Bridge, at night, I'd probably have very uncomfortable feelings. Would they have a good explanation, like they were meeting a friend? If not, it would be awkward and difficult.
 
Though I was already fearful this was going to be the outcome, I was praying for some sort of miracle.

Yohanes and his loving family have been on my mind a lot in recent days. I know from experience nothing will ever take this pain away but I hope that in this extremely difficult time they can find joy in all of the wonderful memories that they shared together and the amazing person that he was.

Rest in peace, Yohanes.
 
The body of a recent Cornell University graduate who vanished in mid August has been identified weeks after he began a new job as a software engineer at Netflix, according to a statement from the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. “The decedent has been positively identified as Yohanes Stefanos Kidane, a 22-year-old male from San Jose,” the Sheriff’s Office said of a body that was found on August 29th “within the San Francisco Bay waters northeast of the Golden Gate Bridge by a passing boat.”

“The mode of death was determined to be suicide,” based on a forensic examination conducted on September 1st, authorities said after reporting that “the cause of death was determined to be from blunt impact injuries with drowning as a significant contributing condition.”
www.14850.com

Body of missing Cornell grad has been identified after he was found in San Francisco Bay, authorities say

The body of a recent Cornell University graduate who vanished in mid August has been identified weeks after he began a new job as a software engineer at Netflix, according to a statement from the Marin County Sheriff's Office. "The decedent has been positively identified as Yohanes Stefanos...
www.14850.com www.14850.com
 
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