I came across this puzzling story in a recent issue of The Guardian:
Police say alcohol withdrawal caused woman’s death in California backcountry
Here’s the scenario: hikers in the Big Sur region of California happen across the body of a young woman, age 37, lying face down and naked in a pool fed by hot springs. Not long after, they encounter a man who explains that he was out hiking with the woman, but lost track of her when she went off to relieve herself. When he went looking, he couldn’t find her.
We’re told there were marks on her body that initially led to suspicion that she had been the victim of some kind of attack. But the young man apparently cooperated with the investigators throughout, and was seemingly never considered a suspect.
The mystery of her death remained open until months later, when the medical authority issued her report. After examination, she concluded that the young woman died as a result of seizure activity, related to substance withdrawal stemming from chronic alcoholism, or if you prefer, a severe Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD).
Readers immediately found cause for skepticism. Her relative physical health, for instance: The young woman was an expert skateboarder who performed exhibitions for a prominent manufacturer. Also, there was no mention of an underlying health condition that might’ve contributed to an untimely death.
And those suspicious marks on her body? Supposedly the result of insect bites.
“This makes no damn sense,” claimed one observer, describing herself as a recovering alcoholic. No one that sick with alcohol withdrawal, she protested, would have been out on a recreational hike through the woods. She’d have been laid up in bed.
Based on my own experience with detoxing patients, I have to agree.
Besides, others who claimed to know the victim insisted that although she did drink, she wasn’t known as a problem drinker.
I saw no mention of medical testing that indicated alcohol-related physiological damage. Nor any history of prior treatment for alcoholism.
Maybe this was poor reporting by the ordinarily reliable Guardian? Hard to believe, though.
I keep waiting for the intrepid detective to show up and take charge, solve the mystery.
But who knows? Maybe there was no crime, no culprit, other than chronic alcoholism itself.
If so, it wouldn’t be the first time.
