Mysterious death of couple, their dog, and their baby near Yosemite could be due toxic algae

Jonathan Gerrish was a 45-year-old Silicon Valley software guy, originally from the UK. Like many white computer nerds, he had a thing for Asian women, and was in a relationship with a Chinese woman named Ellen Chung, 15 years his junior. Last year, they had a child together.

Now they're all dead, including the family dog, and investigators are puzzled. It doesn't appear to be a murder or murder-suicide, and there are no visible injuries on any of the bodies. The family was acting completely normal prior to their disappearance, and this appeared to simply be a routine hike, in a remote area, located southwest of Yosemite National Park.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/08...9294090964.jpg
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/08...9294235308.jpg

Gerrish and Chung were avid hikers, and they drove on Tuesday up Hites Coves Rd, which is in a remote area southwest of Yosemite National Park. News reports are confusing this with the semi-famous Hite Cove, which has some of the best wildflowers in Cailfornia in the springtime. Whlie close by the way the crow flies, it's actually a fairly long drive (close to an hour) to get between Hites Cove Rd and Hite Cove, due to impassible terrain.

Anyway, Gerrish and Chung went to the remote Hites Cove Rd, presumably to hike. They were on the semi-difficult Savage-Lundy Trail, headed for an area by the Merced River called "Devil Gulch".

About 1.5 miles into the trail, near Devil Gulch, they all died, including the dog.

Nobody was around to see it, due to the lack of popularity of the trail, as well as the hot summer weather and dead vegetation which makes the hike both uncomfortable and not nearly as scenic as in the spring.

The trail is near some old gold mines. It was first suspected that these mines could be releasing high levels of carbon monoxide, but that theory has since been mostly abandoned. No other animals were found dead in the area, and carbon monoxide poisoning doesn't happen easily in the open air.

It doesn't appear to be a result of any sort of violence. None of the bodies show any physical injury. They're just dead.

The only logical theory at this point? Algae.

Toxic algae has been known to grow in the Merced River. If they got thristy and drank the river water, or if they got in the river for a swim, it's possible the algae could have killed everyone, including the dog.

An autopsy was done, but so far it hasn't revealed any clues. Very strange. They were all just found lying there dead. Their car was at the end of Hites Cove Rd, before it turns into a trail. They were only 1.5 miles from the car, so it's not likely they were lost or stuck too far from it.

If it's not the algae, the investigators are completely stumped, and may never know the answer.

That general area had another tragedy in 1999.

Remember serial killer Cary Stayner? He was a handyman at the Yosemite Cedar Lodge, which isn't really in Yosemite, but is actually in a small community called Incline, west of Yosemite.

Yosemite Cedar Lodge is basically where you stay if you want to see Hite Cove, which as I mentioned, is famous for the wildflowers. That's the only hotel in the area, and it's right there at the road to the Hite Cove Trail.

A mother, daughter, and teenage family friend were staying at Yosemite Cedar Lodge, and Stayner used his position as the handyman to get them to let him in. At that point, he murdered the mom and the teen family friend, and then raped the 16-year-old daughter and murdered her, as well. He later attacked a 26-year-old female naturalist living in a remote area nearby, and while she fought back and somewhat injured him, he ultimately murdered her, as well. Shoddy police work allowed him to get away with it for awhile, but eventually the police pieced everything together, and arrested him. He immediately confessed to everything, and directed authorities to the remaining bodies.

Some have said that the Yosemite Cedar Lodge is "haunted" since that incident.

Stayner was coincidentally the older brother of Steven Stayner, a famous early 1970s kidnap and rape victim, who was later the subject of a TV movie, after he helped save a younger boy later kidnapped by the same criminal. Steven died in a motorcycle accident in 1989.

Anyway, these Yosemite Cedar Lodge murders took place only a little bit north of where Gerrish and his family were found dead, albeit 22 years apart.

God damn dude.


if only they had been vaccinated

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Originally Posted by dwai

God damn dude.


if only they had been vaccinated

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Joke about this all you want, but if any of them were also COVID positive, this will be ruled a COVID death in the stats.

This was posted on a website for the area, back in July:

https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incomin...4830_njpeg.jpg

Hard to imagine all 4 of them ingesting the algae but i guess anything is possible

Seems like more and more dogs in Austin have been killed by Algae each year.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dwai

God damn dude.


if only they had been vaccinated

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Joke about this all you want, but if any of them were also COVID positive, this will be ruled a COVID death in the stats.

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LOL no doubt about that it would've been


"healthy republican (non vaxxed) family, baby, dog all dropped dead of covid"

and Sloppy Joe would've posted the cnn headline

It has been updated that investigators are currently treating it as a homicide. But not details have yet been forthcoming, so not sure why.

Other theories:

- One or both committed suicide, and poisoned the rest of the family
- Ingested poison mushrooms thinking they were safe

Time for someone to put together a “Covid derangement syndrome” meme for Dwai. This shit is all he thinks about.

Scary to think about.

I always bring a fuckload of extra water whenever I go on multi-day climbs and catch shit from others for it who just filter from natural sources.

Zero chance I'm fucking around with water for this very reason, even if not AIDS algae there's so much random shit that you roll the dice with. Even in super remote areas, no thanks.

Just read the initial autopsy results show nothing conclusive for the humans and the necropsy on the dog so far is similar. This may literally turn into an unsolved mystery.

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Originally Posted by Sloppy Joe

Scary to think about.

I always bring a fuckload of extra water whenever I go on multi-day climbs and catch shit from others for it who just filter from natural sources.

Zero chance I'm fucking around with water for this very reason, even if not AIDS algae there's so much random shit that you roll the dice with. Even in super remote areas, no thanks.

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:this

I always lug way too much bottled water in my backpack "just in case", unless I know it's a very short hike.

Zero point zero chance I'm drinking anything I find in nature.

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Originally Posted by ftpjesus

Just read the initial autopsy results show nothing conclusive for the humans and the necropsy on the dog so far is similar. This may literally turn into an unsolved mystery.

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1) If it's Toxic Algae, watch the libtards pivot blame it on "Climate Change"

2) Walter must be confused, because it's a white dude with an Asian Chick instead of a Black Dude.

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Originally Posted by Cerveza Fria

1) If it's Toxic Algae, watch the libtards pivot blame it on "Climate Change"

2) Walter must be confused, because it's a white dude with an Asian Chick instead of a Black Dude.

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:shock

Good article from the SF Chronicle:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...g-16401921.php

The family was found at 11am Wednesday, but appears to have died sometime in the afternoon on Tuesday. Jonathan was found in a sitting position with his cell phone in his pocket, and holding the baby. The dog was near him. Ellen was a little further ahead, in the direction of the car. They seemed to be returning to the car when they died.

Some water was found on them, so it's unlikely they died of dehydration, especially all in the same spot, just 1.5 miles away from the car, and with water still with them. It was 107 degrees that day.

Because of the time that passed between their death and being found, it's unclear whether or not they went swimming.

What's perplexing investigatiors is that the two most likely explanations don't completely make sense. The carbon monoxide theory doesn't seem to add up given that they were all outdoors, and the toxic algae isn't known to cause death unless one ingests the water, and it seems hard to believe that all 3 humans would have drank enough tainted water to kill them, without noticing the bad color or taste.

The third possibility -- that it was a murder suicide through poisoning -- doesn't seem all that likely, since the family seemed happy, and in fact had just moved to the area to live out their dream of being close to nature. It didn't seem like anyone was depressed or in a rut. Both adults seemed happy and excited to be in their new town, and both seemed to really love the baby.

I think the guy being found in a sitting position is a clue, as was the direction they were moving. Something seems to have made everyone feel sick, and they were likely trying to get back to the car ASAP, especially given the hot weather which was probably making everything even more uncomfortable. Jonathan likely lost completely lost energy first, and sat down with the baby, telling his wife he wanted to rest. Perhaps both he and the baby died while sitting there, so she tried to leave the two of them to get to the car and save herself, and then she died a minute or so later. This could also explain why they all died so close together.

I could see that trail closing permanently if they never get an answer as to what happened.

You know, I was just thinking about this further, and I thought about Sloppy Joe's post about how he "gets shit" from other hikers for bringing a huge load of bottled water, instead of "filtering it from natural sources" like the others do.

That might be our answer right here.

Super hot day, said to be 107-109 degrees.

They were only found with a small (albeit unused) pouch of water on them. Maybe they had gotten used to filtering natural outdoor water instead of lugging bottles around, especially since they liked long hikes, and would carry the baby around with them, which minimized what one of them could carry bottle-wise.

I would love to know if any water filtering device was found on them. If there was, then it becomes much more likely that they filtered the river water for everyone (including the dog), started walking back to the car, got super sick from the algae, and died on the trail.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

You know, I was just thinking about this further, and I thought about Sloppy Joe's post about how he "gets shit" from other hikers for bringing a huge load of bottled water, instead of "filtering it from natural sources" like the others do.

That might be our answer right here.

Super hot day, said to be 107-109 degrees.

They were only found with a small (albeit unused) pouch of water on them. Maybe they had gotten used to filtering natural outdoor water instead of lugging bottles around, especially since they liked long hikes, and would carry the baby around with them, which minimized what one of them could carry bottle-wise.

I would love to know if any water filtering device was found on them. If there was, then it becomes much more likely that they filtered the river water for everyone (including the dog), started walking back to the car, got super sick from the algae, and died on the trail.

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Poison algea usually takes quite a while to make you sick. Anatoxin-a on the other hand can kill in hours and is produced by Cyanobacteria.