The Mariposa, Calif., home of John Gerrish and Ellen Chung was quiet on Aug. 16 when their 1-year-old daughter’s nanny arrived. The family – including the dog, Oski – was nowhere to be found. Their truck was missing, too. As the hours wore on without a word from Gerrish or Chung, who had set out for a hike the day before, a sense of panic began to set in.
The couple’s house sat near the head of Hites Cove Trail, and hours after the family was reported missing at about 11 p.m., the trailhead is where police started looking. A sheriff’s deputy found the couple’s truck parked near the trail’s entrance around 2 a.m., the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Nine hours later and 1.5 miles from the family’s truck, in an area known as Devil’s Gulch, a search-and-rescue team found Gerrish, Chung, their daughter, Miju, and the dog.
They were all dead.
Gerrish was in a seated position with the baby and dog beside him, according to the Chronicle. Chung was a little farther up the hill.
Authorities still don’t know how it happened. An autopsy recently completed on the bodies yielded no conclusive results about the cause of the deaths, CNN reported. A toxicology report, which could take several weeks, is pending.
A necropsy is being performed on Oski, the dog, but the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office said no other animals were found dead in the immediate area.
Leave a Reply