The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office says a hiker found dead in a California national forest in April died due to alcohol withdrawal seizures.
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Victim Joanna Shields, 37, was found dead near the Sykes Hot Springs inside Los Padres National Forest, 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles, on April 9. At the time, the sheriff’s office said her death was “suspicious.”
On Thursday, Monterey County Sheriff-Coroner Tina Nieto released her findings in the case, determining that Shields died naturally from “probable alcohol withdrawal seizures due to chronic alcohol use disorder.”
The sheriff’s office also mentioned previous media reports of witnesses who described seeing possible signs of strangulation on Shields as well as signs of an injury to her forehead.
Ms. Nieto found that the markings on the decedent’s body were “consistent with postmortem insect activity” and that the injury on her forehead was superficial.
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A person who was with Shields prior to her death, whom the sheriff’s office did not name, cooperated with the investigation, which has concluded.
Hiker John Heerema told Monterey Bay’s KSBW in April that the man who was with Shields looked “scared, nervous, like shocked, his face just, like, numb and dull.”
His brother Luke Heerema, who was also at the scene, told the TV station that the man told them that “she went to the bathroom. She was cleaning herself off in the river around 10:30 a.m., and he went looking for her and then just saw her face down in the water, naked.”
The sheriff’s office said it “found no evidence during the forensic examination or throughout the investigation to indicate that Ms. Shields was the victim of a crime.”
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