Missing California woman’s vehicle discovered five days before she was pulled from storm drain

Five days before a missing San Diego woman was found dying in a Poway storm drain, police had spotted her vehicle at a nearby trailhead.

Information released Thursday by the Medical Examiner’s Office sheds more light on why San Diego police were searching for 59-year-old Yafang Zhou in the remote area.

Zhou was discovered by rescuers inside an underground pipe system near Beeler Canyon trailhead, south of Scripps Poway Parkway, on Monday. She was taken to Palomar Medical Center, where she died.

Yafang Zhou (San Diego Police Department)

According to new information from the Medical Examiner’s Office, her vehicle was found by San Diego police officers parked near the trailhead five days earlier on April 2. County investigators added that her personal belongings were strewn about near the vehicle.

Investigators then reached out to Zhou’s family, and her husband filed a missing person’s report the following day. Police said she was last seen driving her vehicle away from her home on March 25.

For five days, detectives searched the area around the trailhead parking lot — until on Monday when investigators said they heard a woman’s voice inside the pipe system. They called in the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department’s Urban Search and Rescue team, Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief Erik Windsor said at the time.

A pair of rescuers went into the winding, underground pipe system, taking two different paths and bear-crawling through tight spots in hopes of finding Zhou, but they were unsuccessful, Windsor said.

As they were waiting on small robots — which could more easily navigate the drainage system while providing rescuers with visuals inside the pipes — team members on the surface began lifting up covers of nearby manholes that dot Beeler Canyon Road.

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At some point, a rescuer lifted up one of the metal covers down the road and spotted Zhou’s legs below, Windsor said. A team member was then lowered down to hoist her up.

The Medical Examiner’s Office said Zhou was in an “altered mental status” when she was found and that her condition quickly deteriorated once she got to the hospital.

Windsor said officials believe Zhou had entered the storm drain system through a nearby outflow opening a few hundred feet from where her parked vehicle was found.

Police investigators did not immediately provide answers to additional questions about Zhou’s disappearance, including how long they believe she was inside the tunnel and why she had entered the pipe system to begin with.

The investigation remains ongoing.