Ernie first posted this article as a comment last night, but since I’ve been getting pinged about it all day, I decided to bring further attention to it.
According to SFGate.com:
A Marin County Sheriff’s Department search and rescue team found the body of a woman at 1:38 p.m. in Slide Gulch Ravine, sheriff’s Lt. Doug Pittman said.
The body was “concealed by trees and shrubbery” about 30 or 40 yards from a trail, Pittman said.
“We are characterizing it a suspicious death,” he said.
It’s too early to know for sure that it’s Veronica Ruiz, though that’s the most popular assumption. There’s a lot of speculation about how and why, but all I can say is: Part of me hopes that this nightmare is over now and the family can find closure, and part of me hopes they’re going to find her in Southern California somewhere, alive and well.
I was talking to a friend about this last night, who happened to be hiking in the same general area a week ago. She and a friend had assumed that the trails were so easily marked that it would be impossible to get lost. So they marched on ahead of everyone else—and started along what seemed to be a trail. Only it was a dry ravine. They got a little freaked when the “trail” got so steep that they had to skid down on their butts. Another friend, an experienced hiker, fortunately realized that they had veered off course and found them.
“I had no idea how easy it is to get lost around here,” she related. “Even one wrong turn can send you off to another part of the mountain.”
Let’s hope a good turn is coming for the Ruiz family and that this ordeal will end soon.
