On August 17, the news of the discovery of the bodies of the Snapchat engineer, Jonathan Gerris, his wife Ellen chung And your daughter Aurelia Miju, one year. All three lay dead along with their dog next to a river in the California Sierra National Forest.
According to official information, the family had gone out on a picnic a couple of days before, but he didn’t come home anymore. When they were found dead, they were covered in plants and flowers, so the authorities began to investigate the case as a possible multiple homicide, although none showed signs of violence.
Later, another line of investigation was opened by doing an analysis in the green area where they were found and its surroundings; the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) decided to close all hiking and camping trails in California’s Sierra National Forest, having found ‘unknown dangers’ in the river, which would have caused the death of the British American family.
After receiving the results of the tests carried out in the water, the BLM concluded that there was the presence of highly toxic algae, so possibly that would have been the cause of death for Gerrish, his wife, their daughter and their dog.
At the time it was reported that it was cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue green algae or harmful freshwater, which release toxins into the water and cause liver and brain damage and death in case of being ingested.
Turn in the investigation of the four deaths
After the authorities ruled out that Jonathan, Ellen, Miju and Oski were murdered, the hypotheses that they had committed suicide or even that they had been struck by lightning were also discarded, so the only option was that they drank polluted water from the river and that had intoxicated them.
However, Mariposa County Sheriff Jeremy Briese recently reported that the toxicological tests made to the Gerrish family they did not show evidence of poisoning, so it was concluded that the three people and the dog died due to hyperthermia and dehydration.
The official explained that this condition derived because in the Sierra National Forest of California sometimes it registers temperatures up to 42 centigrade (109º Fahrenheit), so when receiving so much heat there comes a time when the body can no longer regulate temperature and it rises abnormally. Consequently, dehydration ensues which, as in the case of this family, had fatal consequences.
With information from Sky News
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