Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the police left their bodies there. They would not leave bodies in an area that has bears and mountain lions.

They may have gotten botulism from eating something that was bad, maybe food that was improperly canned, or beef jerky that the dog would have also eaten. They could have fed the baby honey which can also cause botulism. If they hiked often, they might have had dehydrated food left in a backpack that had spoiled.

Another idea is a boulder hit them all. It doesn't seem likely though.

Toxic shock syndrome or post partum depression.

A hit and run from someone on a mountain bike or motorbike.

Usually when people die young, it's from an accident.

God help me, I can’t tell if you’re seriously positing these things or if you’re mocking the theories on this thread.

God help you? I was just brainstorming. Let's hear your ideas...

Are you familiar with any of the details of this story, at all? Because if one of your top guesses is “a boulder hit them all”, I’m guessing not.

Did you read that I stated I didn't think a boulder was likely? There have been stories of people getting hit by boulders on hikes. What's your top guess, Sherlock, if you're so up on all the details of the story?

You’re way past the point of getting to sarcastically call other people Sherlock, lol

Agree, though I admit there is a part of me that wishes I could be so ignorantly self-confident. There was a thread on here recently asking if posters were happy to chime in while reading absolutely no previous posts in a thread, and a depressing number of people said “yes”. This is one such person, it seems.

I'm confident because I had read this entire thread, read articles on the story, I've gone on many hikes in CA, and I'm highly analytical. I love how people shoot down other people's ideas and call them ignorant, but don't have the ability to come up with or voice their own.

No one knows the manner in which their demise came about. It's possible to suffer an injury and later die, without signs of injury or indication of what caused it. For all we know a tree branch hit the father, baby, and dog. The mom could have pulled the branch off of them and died of exhaustion, while they sat trying to recover and died later. Or possibly the dad slipped on gravel, hitting his head and the baby's head. They didn't necessarily all die of the same cause. A natural toxin is also a possibility. They seemed like good people, so one would hope it wasn't a crime.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It should be kept in mind that the police and the media withhold some evidence. They know more than we do and they may have already ruled out some of the theories that we have come up with.

Maybe the toxicology report will give more information. Maybe we'll never know. Which, as a family that hikes in California, isn't a comforting thought.

They withhold information but they don't usually give false information. Like they don't say there were no obvious injuries if someone has been crushed by a boulder.

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know what kind of dog it was? Probably makes a difference to the heat exhaustion theories. A well fed and hydrated lab is not going to die of heat exhaustion on one mornings hike and would be able to feed itself from a dead man. A Yorkie, maybe not.

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?

Anonymous wrote:Botulism paralyzes you and makes it so you can't breathe. More likely they would have eaten the spoiled food before the hike.

I doubt it was PPD.

I don't think it was an algal bloom. Seems obvious since it was in the area, but it's unlikely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, I’m trying real hard to be appropriate here because we’re talking about a family’s death, but damn the boulder theory poster is making it hard to keep a straight face.

I know, right? I mean, they could have all been crushed by a boulder, we just don't know.

Anonymous wrote:It was the dad.
In the woods.
With the canteen.

Check the cards.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, I’m trying real hard to be appropriate here because we’re talking about a family’s death, but damn the boulder theory poster is making it hard to keep a straight face.

I know, right? I mean, they could have all been crushed by a boulder, we just don't know.

Anonymous wrote:OK, I’m trying real hard to be appropriate here because we’re talking about a family’s death, but damn the boulder theory poster is making it hard to keep a straight face.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It should be kept in mind that the police and the media withhold some evidence. They know more than we do and they may have already ruled out some of the theories that we have come up with.

Maybe the toxicology report will give more information. Maybe we'll never know. Which, as a family that hikes in California, isn't a comforting thought.

One thing we can take away from this is that it’s dangerous to go hiking in extreme heat, even if that’s not what ultimately killed them. It’s an odd thing for experienced hikers to have done on a day where the forecast clearly showed extreme temperatures starting not long after sunrise. The Websleuths thread has a lot of stories from posters who experienced or witnessed heat exhaustion/heat stroke coming on very suddenly on hikes.