What happened to this California family?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also a timeline from the sheriff:

Saturday, Aug. 14: Jonathan Gerrish researches Hites Cove hike via a phone app.
Sunday, Aug. 15: 7:45 a.m., witness sees the Gerrish/Chung family traveling toward the trailhead in their vehicle.
Monday, Aug. 16: 11 p.m., a family friend reports the family missing.
Tuesday, Aug. 17: 1:53 a.m., the family’s car is located down Hites Cove Road north of Jerseydale.
Tuesday, Aug. 17: 1:55 a.m., a search and rescue mission is initiated.
Tuesday, Aug. 17: 11 a.m., the family is found dead on the Savage-Lundy Trail by a search and rescue team.
Thursday, Aug. 19: Autopsies are completed on the family and dog, “all currently pending toxicology.”
Friday, Aug. 20: Search warrants issued for a phone found with the family.
Friday, Aug. 20: Search warrants issued for the family’s home and cars. “Nothing significant” is found.
Monday, Aug. 23: Additional water samples are collected from water sources “along the trail area.”
Tuesday, Aug. 24: A cell phone is delivered to the FBI for data extraction, “awaiting results.”
Wednesday, Aug. 25: Search warrants issued for “possible social media access.”

So likely simultaneous natural causes. What are the odds for that.

What is wrong with you? It was obviously murder/suicide.

I feel so bad for the mom. She tried to get away…it must’ve been awful for her.

I feel like people leaping to this silly and again, the dog is a complicating factor, but whatever.

But pp, despite you feeling for mom, if this was family annihilating by poison it is actually much more likely mom was the perpetrator statistically

I’m basing my opinion on the disclosed evidence, which clearly points to the dad being the killer. The dog would be killed because he was part of the family. I don’t understand why you don’t get that.

I don’t understand what evidence specifically implicates the father

I’m talking about the evidence that he was found seated next to the baby and the dog, while the mom was 30 ft away. It makes no sense that she would kill him, the dog, the baby and be able to set them up in that seated formation. Plus, it doesn’t make sense that she’d walk away from her family to kill her self. It seems to make more sense that she’d want them all together in that weird seated position.

So, the logical conclusion is that he fed mom the poison first, which is why she ran away. Then he poisoned the dog, the baby, and himself…and sat down next to them.

So rather than protect her baby, she ran away. Not likely. She was ruining from the crime she committed and succumbed to her own method of killing her family.

Um, cyanide hurts, and it stops your body from being able to take in oxygen. Grabbing her baby was the last thing on her mind…she was suffocating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have to wonder if prior to the hike before arriving they might have drank some kind of energy drink or natural energy drink and thought nothing of it.

Starts on the hike, they get racing heartbeat, headache, etc from a combo of the heat and some ingredient that didn’t agree with them or they didn’t realize the effects of the ingredients. They decide to sit down for a few minutes to rest. They just can’t get themselves back up and eventually pass out. They all succumb to heat stroke.

I cannot get enough of Boulder lady

[Anonymous]

The key is that the dad was in a sitting position. That is not a natural death pose. He killed the wife, she resisted and was running away. The baby and dog then were innocents at his mercy. He killed them. Then he sat down and took himself the poison that maybe, just maybe, is detectable in the toxicology report. He died sitting up, murder-suicide style.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The key is that the dad was in a sitting position. That is not a natural death pose. He killed the wife, she resisted and was running away. The baby and dog then were innocents at his mercy. He killed them. Then he sat down and took himself the poison that maybe, just maybe, is detectable in the toxicology report. He died sitting up, murder-suicide style.

👆🏽👆🏽Exactly this.

[Anonymous]

Or maybe they mutually decided on suicide, and she had second thoughts at the last minute?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe they took drugs and od’d in the heat. Baby and dog died of exposure afterwards. Drugs are a common way for healthy young people to die. Toxicology report will reveal a lot.

This is interesting. Maybe some drugs would make you more susceptible to heat stroke and also impair your decision-making.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key is that the dad was in a sitting position. That is not a natural death pose. He killed the wife, she resisted and was running away. The baby and dog then were innocents at his mercy. He killed them. Then he sat down and took himself the poison that maybe, just maybe, is detectable in the toxicology report. He died sitting up, murder-suicide style.

👆🏽👆🏽Exactly this.

The dad was in a seated position because he was wearing a hiking baby backpack which is rigid and has a stand when you sit down to support baby without the wearer’s exertion. The backpack with stand down would’ve kept him seated upright.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard that the latest hypothesis is a carbon monoxide cloud may have burped from a cave (from dormant volcano). Immediate asphyxiation

I guess we will find out but my money is on CO.

What is CO?

Carbon Monoxide (Carbon-Oxygen molecule)

Carbon monoxide leaves you very pink

Also, I think you need a confined space - it would disperse too much in open air

To me, the weirdest part is the dog is also dead. I’d expect an animal to sense something wrong, be agitated , run for help .

Instead, it seems that the woman tried to run - and without her baby. What mother does that ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key is that the dad was in a sitting position. That is not a natural death pose. He killed the wife, she resisted and was running away. The baby and dog then were innocents at his mercy. He killed them. Then he sat down and took himself the poison that maybe, just maybe, is detectable in the toxicology report. He died sitting up, murder-suicide style.

👆🏽👆🏽Exactly this.

The dad was in a seated position because he was wearing a hiking baby backpack which is rigid and has a stand when you sit down to support baby without the wearer’s exertion. The backpack with stand down would’ve kept him seated upright.

So what? He’d stay seated after being poisoned? That’s what you’re suggesting?

No, the normal reaction would be to flee like the mom did…wearing a baby backpack or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard that the latest hypothesis is a carbon monoxide cloud may have burped from a cave (from dormant volcano). Immediate asphyxiation

I guess we will find out but my money is on CO.

What is CO?

Carbon Monoxide (Carbon-Oxygen molecule)

Carbon monoxide leaves you very pink

Also, I think you need a confined space - it would disperse too much in open air

To me, the weirdest part is the dog is also dead. I’d expect an animal to sense something wrong, be agitated , run for help .

Instead, it seems that the woman tried to run - and without her baby. What mother does that ?

A mother who is suffering from drinking cyanide.

(Way to judge the victim, PP.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe they took drugs and od’d in the heat. Baby and dog died of exposure afterwards. Drugs are a common way for healthy young people to die. Toxicology report will reveal a lot.

This is interesting. Maybe some drugs would make you more susceptible to heat stroke and also impair your decision-making.

Yes. We know they were Burning Man fans. There were some weird posts about that in the early hours of the thread, but I don’t think we have talked about the possibility that recreational drugs could have impaired their decision-making before they set out. A poster on websleuths said something like radical self-reliance is a big belief among those who attend the festival. Could explain why they set out when it was too hot to safely do their normal hikes. The phone warrant/home search may be aimed at figuring out what made them decide this hike in extreme heat was a great idea as much as it’s an attempt to look for evidence of foul play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to wonder if prior to the hike before arriving they might have drank some kind of energy drink or natural energy drink and thought nothing of it.

Starts on the hike, they get racing heartbeat, headache, etc from a combo of the heat and some ingredient that didn’t agree with them or they didn’t realize the effects of the ingredients. They decide to sit down for a few minutes to rest. They just can’t get themselves back up and eventually pass out. They all succumb to heat stroke.

I cannot get enough of Boulder lady

The dog wouldn’t have drank an energy drink ….and would have definitely run to the road for help - probably would have travelled hours to find help, Lassie style .

The woman being father away - as if going for help is the clue

[Anonymous]

Maybe they took a drug for energy that depleted them snd caused heat stroke. Dog and baby are incidental deaths.

[Anonymous]

Another update from websleuths:

“Investigators believe the family hiked most of a grueling 8.5-mile loop — including 5 miles of steep southern exposure trail with little to no trees or shade in 103 to 109 degree heat — before succumbing on the return to their truck on a steep switchback.” Investigators have ruled out 2 causes of death in case of Mariposa family, but still have no answers

[Anonymous]

So I'm one who has thought all along that heat stroke is the obvious answer - not that they all succumbed to it simultaneously, but that one person (or dog) started to falter, and the husband & wife made a fatal decision to stick together - one helping the other, or both helping a sick baby/dog - until they were both overexerted. Then when they finally decided to send the wife for help, it was too late - she couldn't make it up the hill, and then it was over for the other three.

But it is making me wonder why the police or media don't seem to be discussing this as a possibility. I haven't even seen it mentioned in any of the articles. I mean, maybe the media are just more focused on the more sensational possibilities of toxic algae or burping mines ... But you'd think it would have come up somewhere. Unless there seemed to be evidence that the simplest, most obvious solution couldn't possibly be right.