Found Deceased CA - Erin Valenti, 33, from Utah, en-route from Palo Alto to San Jose, 7 Oct 2019

[LaborDayRN]

So, a couple more thoughts from my trip down there.

The Almaden Lake and perimeter trail itself is fenced in and closes at sunset. I doubt she or her car will be found in that lake area.

I'm still really disappointed that I saw no fliers whatsoever. I felt like I was trying to bail out a ship with a thimble by putting up just a few of my measly fliers. I wish a full search team could be organized, but I haven't seen anything about that and I've been trying to stay abreast.

I noticed exactly 1 Nissan vehicle (navy Rogue I think) while I was out this afternoon. They are not a popular brand around here. Which may be irrelevant, but just something of note.

The whole Almaden Expressway entrance/exit around the 85 junction is incredibly confusing. I'd forgotten just how, and I actually almost made a wrong turn going north instead of south. Had to swerve into the righthand lane at the last minute when I realized I was going the wrong direction. All to say that I would completely understand her getting turned around in this area.

I did take a bunch of photos, but as I'm looking through them, they are mostly things you could see using Google street view. I also can't figure out how to upload the pics- it says the file is too large for the server to process (I'm very UN-tech-savvy!)

MOO

@MJPeony Bless you for searching and putting up flyers! I wish I was closer and could help you!

 

[LaborDayRN]

Apparently her body has been found:

Maria Medina KPIX5 on Twitter

Oh no! Voluntary missing my @ss!

 

[MissMalowe]

Apparently her body has been found:

Maria Medina KPIX5 on Twitter

Oh no! What in the world happened?!

 

[whitelilac]

omg what awful news !
What on earth?

 

[crhedBngr]

omg what awful news !
What on earth?

Just what we hoped and prayed would NOT happen . . .

Maybe this is why LE wasn't releasing any information.

"Crime scene" tape???

 

[10ofRods]

I find it very odd that with their actual knowledge of that call (one of their own officers made the call) they are still not calling this what it is, a missing persons investigation, not voluntary. MOO IMO ETC;

I get what you're saying, but until an adult is declared mentally incompetent by someone other than their spouse (or a police officer, after a brief call), they really are allowed to be on their own. It's obvious to me that Erin was suffering a psychotic break, her husband says "manic," and he is a mental health provider, so I'm not taking his word lightly. What we don't know is if this was her first flagrant break or not. I'm guessing not.

Bipolar people cannot be denied their rights to move about and travel on their own, not without a court order. She's not in a nursing home or under direct care that mandated she observe certain rules. There's no evidence (yet) of abduction or foul play. So it's voluntary. And while I think she's voluntary endangered, I don't even know if that category makes a difference in the jurisdiction where she went missing.

I say all this because many years ago, one of my family members (very close family member) went missing during what was eventually diagnosed (after a couple of years) as a bipolar break. He was eventually turned in to the police for "menacing" behavior in one of the big regional parks near San José (I do not know exactly what he was doing) and taken to an ER for psychiatric and drug evaluation (never used drugs, no drugs were found in his system). Fortunately, I had already contacted local police and ER's and they called me pretty quickly (he was found within 12 hours from when he went missing, I was called to the ER after he was there a couple of hours).

So my mind goes to, "What does Erin do at midnight or 1 am, with no gas and her phone goes dead?" If still in the Almaden expressway area, and in any possession of her regular faculties, she'd go to a fast food place, with her phone charger and her carry-on luggage. She'd use her credit card to buy something and then charge up.

What does a bipolar person do?

But, if Erin got worse (more manic) after the phone call (probable, since she lost the grounding that came with talking to friends), she's out there on the streets, possibly hanging out in places like malls or possibly up on trails, probably hiding from people who might help her.

Erin needs to be found, and the people who are likely to find her are people who are in the San José area. big time. I think she might seek water during the last 5 days (worrisome in and of itself), but I'd also think she'd have some moments of relative lucidity where she'd approach people for help (but may come across as a crazy street person, again, the publicity needs to be strong here).

 

[PommyMommy]

KSL Newsradio on Twitter
The body of Erin Valenti, Founder and CEO of a Salt Lake City tech company, Tinker Ventures, has been found in San Jose. She'd been missing since Monday. She was being honored at the Women Tech Awards, but never arrived.
9:18 PM - 12 Oct 2019

Newsman82 on Twitter
KSL: The body of Erin Valenti, CEO of Salt Lake City tech company, Tinker, has been found in San Jose. She'd been missing since Monday.
9:25 PM - 12 Oct 2019

Rest in peace, Erin.
May justice be swift and harsh.

 

[rosesfromangels]

Oh no....
Waiting for details.
Prayers for this family

 

[whitelilac]

Looks like a residential street.....

Her poor family...

 

[10ofRods]

From the East Bay Times article: Tech exec who told family “We’re in the Matrix” still missing – East Bay Times



EV seems very driven; I wonder if she gets only 4 -5 hours of sleep per night. Exhaustion might be adding to the supposed mania onset.

Being able to go forward with 4 hours or less of sleep is a symptom of bipolar. That occurs with or without full blown mania.

 

[Seattle1]

Where is this neighborhood? Who lives there? This crime taped scene is no dark, remote area!

 

[crhedBngr]

Being able to go forward with 4 hours or less of sleep is a symptom of bipolar. That occurs with or without full blown mania.

Thanks for letting me know.

So sad.

RIP, Erin. My condolences to your Family and Friends.

 

[CSIDreamer]

I want to know if she was on the cameras there....




She could mean "we" as in her whole family, not that someone was with her.




You call and tell them your wife is driving around not making any sense. They call to determine if she's DUI.




Over the phone is the only option if they can't find the person to see them.




IF she was talking about the MOVIE the Matrix.... what might she do? Where might she go?




I'm not skeptical. HYPOTHETICALLY: Husband calls and asks them to check on his wife. Cop talks to wife.

Cop calls husband back and says "I talked to her, she's not making any sense but she doesn't sound DUI and she won't pull over or give me a location so there isn't anything I can do."

This would have been BEFORE there was an ongoing investigation. It was just a welfare check basically.

I was reading about the movie The Matrix. Maybe somewhere light controlled? The casino would make sense. There are 2 colors in the movie. Green light is the matrix, blue is the real world.

Theres also computer programming lingo, matrix. I'm not a programmer.

 

[Seattle1]

UTAH Reporting...

KSL Newsradio‏Verified account @kslnewsradio
The body of Erin Valenti, Founder and CEO of a Salt Lake City tech company, Tinker Ventures, has been found in San Jose. She'd been missing since Monday. She was being honored at the Women Tech Awards, but never arrived.

6:18 PM - 12 Oct 2019 pst

 

[chi123]

I wonder if they were finally able to track the GPS on rental and that’s how they found her, Massguy posted a few pages back that in CA you have to wait until the car is 5 days late, which is a bizarre law.

Tragic case. It was pretty clear she wasn’t voluntarily missing from the start, I feel for her family and friends.

 

[MJPeony]

@MJPeony Bless you for searching and putting up flyers! I wish I was closer and could help you!

Oh it was the least I could do- I did it on behalf of all of us WS'ers! I'm just so sad to hear the latest news.

 

[PommyMommy]

Where is this neighborhood? Who lives there? This crime taped scene is no dark, remote area!

Is this the rental vehicle (green circled)?



Image source: Maria Medina KPIX5 on Twitter

 

[10ofRods]

Update #1

Background

• EV is the founder and CEO of Tinker Ventures. The company designs, develops and scales technology products for iOS, Android and the web, according to its website.
• During her trip the week of Oct. 1, EV and her husband spoke each night and everything was fine. She stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Beach for an executive leadership workshop and on Thursday flew to San Jose and rented the Nissan.
• She drove to Monterey late in the week to attend an Alpha Conference then was visiting friends and colleagues around SF (Stanford?) and Palo Alto over the weekend.
• EV was set to fly home (SLC UT) from San Jose on Monday, October 7, but she missed her flight and did not return her rental car, described as a gray Nissan Murano with license plate No. 8LUD641.

Mon Oct 7

• 2:00 p.m. - EV had a late checkout (2 p.m.) at the Nest Hotel in Palo Alto.
• 3:15-3:30 p.m. – Last seen in the 2500 block of Sand Hill Rd, Palo Alto CA by a former colleague.
• 3:30 p.m. - EV called her parents and said she couldn’t find her rental car. Once she found the car, she stayed on the phone with her parents, her conversation became bizarre.
• 6:40 p.m. – Flight (missed) back to Utah
• Time(s) Unknown - She was speaking on the phone with her husband, her mother and a friend throughout the evening, sounding very manic. “We talked to her for hours on and off” on Monday night, her mother said. “Her thoughts were disconnected. She talked a mile a minute. She’d say I’m coming home for Thanksgiving, then in the next she was saying she’s in the Matrix."
• Time Unknown – A welfare check was started and a San Jose police officer contacted EV by phone Monday night. “The officer said she wasn’t making any sense. They drove around looking for her on Monday night and never found her,” HW said.
• Time Unknown – The last time she spoke with her husband she was trying to figure out where she was, still saying she was going to the airport, and he said she sounded confused, disjointed and was not acting like herself. Her car was low on gas. There are no gas station charges.
• Close to Midnight - Her mom was the last one to speak to her on the phone. “She told me she was driving around because the GPS wasn’t working,” Erin’s mother said, and she was driving through residential neighborhoods of the Almaden Valley in South San Jose, off-course from the route to the airport.
• About Midnight – EV’s phone pinged in South San Jose until about midnight. Last location was near Almaden Expressway and Camden Avenue in San Jose. Her phone was off after this time.

Tue Oct 8

• A Missing Person Report was filed and EV categorized as Voluntary Missing

Wed Oct 9

• Evening - EV missed the Women Tech Awards where she was to receive an award for Entrepreneurial Excellence. She had guests waiting at her table and she won the award.

Google Maps

• The Nest Hotel, Palo Alto, 3901 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94306
• 2500 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park, CA 94025
• Camden Ave & Almaden Expy, San Jose, CA 95120
• Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport

The irony of her GPS/google maps not working in Silicon Valley is not lost on some of us.

 

[MsMiniSleuth]

Where is this neighborhood? Who lives there? This crime taped scene is no dark, remote area!

Was this the area where her phone last pinged?

Shocked. Was just 15 mins ago looking at the post on her FB missing page where it had been posted her last calls had been "confusing and disjointed."

 

[PommyMommy]

I don't have a MSM link yet, but there is police activity where her phone last pinged. Link was on Paloaltoonline.com but it is no longer working. Can see the actual link at San Jose Police Facebook site. "Missing woman found dead off of East Bay freeway".

I don't see anything on SJPD's Facebook, can you link the post please? MOO