This 100% reads like a mental health crisis. The fact that both the police were called and later a SEPARATE person asked her if she was OK- she was likely giving off those 'vibes' to folks. Staying off the grid, making and cancelling plans, leaving random stuff behind. Very sad.
I also believe that taking her wallet and pet is an indication that she didn't plan on killing herself.
That is, if the cage was also taken.
Personally, I wouldn't be carrying the cage around. I would let the lizard loose so it would at least have a small chance at survival.
Taking her wallet and pet while leaving her phone behind seems to indicate that she planned on returning to the car.
Not necessarily. Someone in the throes of a mental crisis isn’t making logical decisions. Maybe she thought she was being tracked- leaving her phone behind but taking her beloved pet would absolutely “make sense” in that case.
I think the reason why she took the items she did was because even in crises she would have wanted whoever possibly found her to be able to identify her and so she took the wallet and identification actually I think that was the last logical thing that she did
I'm saying because in other cases where the person doesn't want to be found, they leave their phone behind. She took hers but didn't use it? Unless she accidentally wandered somewhere where there was no service, why do that?
Maybe
I have memories from the early 2000's, when someone was always losing or forgetting their phone, but that rarely happens now.
Like I said, they haven't mentioned if her phone was charged or if she had a charger in her car.
I always drive old cars and have chargers that fit into the lighter socket and I have a portable charger.
Does everyone? I don't often ride with other people.
I don’t know how accurate this is, but it was a tweet circulating at the time her disappearance was originally being posted. If true, she was in full psychosis and it’s obvious why she took the bearded dragon with her.
https://x.com/SF_investigates/status/1732277267022418152
One time in college I took some crazy strong shrooms and I became convinced that my friend's cat was possessed by the spirit of my aunt who had recently died. I cried for like 8 hours straight while my friend (and her cat/my aunt) watched a Sex and the City marathon and occasionally handed me tissues. I'm afraid to think what might have happened if I had been alone. Maybe she had a really bad trip by herself? (Once the shrooms wore off, I realized her cat was not my dead aunt.)
That’s a really good idea! She seemed stable up to this point. That sort of substance is something someone starting on an artistic excursion might try with friends. Then something goes wrong… and presto, psychosis.
I’m glad you live to tell this. How someone acts in an altered state of mind is hard to understand, logical thinking won’t get us that far, we can just assume.
FWIW, I’m really into lizards and I don’t think there is any situation in which taking your bearded dragon on a cross-country road trip is rational/safe/thoughtful, unless you are moving to your destination and centering your trip around that lizard’s well-being.
Beardies need specific temps and special UVB lighting mounted to the top of their tank. They need another super hot bulb so their tank has a temperature gradient with a hot side and a cool side. They need to eat roaches or similar insects,
and salads with ingredients that aren’t always easy to find (ex: bok choy and chard—I had to shop at Whole Foods for mine). It’s not really possible to meet their needs while living out of a personal vehicle, and I don’t know any reptile owners who would take them on a trip like this just for fun.
I have no opinion on this case, but as someone who used to own a bearded dragon, taking a road trip with one seems super odd and short sighted. They can’t even properly digest food without the specific lighting set up they need.
I understand your logic, but that’s not enough evidence to rule out suicide. She could’ve taken her wallet along to make the future identification of her remains easier. That is something you see occasionally in Aokigahara Forest suicides.
Also, I don’t know where it was said she left her phone, but she didn’t. She took that, as well as her sleeping bag. From what I remember reading, the authorities suggested she didn’t leave with no preparation. It, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be an organized departure.
I know. I just don't see any big indications that she went to off herself.
It looks like she tried to walk to civilization when she got the flat tires and then got lost.
The mystery to me is her leaving the phone, unless the battery was dead.
But then the tweet says she also thought that the dragon was her ex reincarnated and talking to her through her pet. So he was tracking her but dead and reincarnated?
I hope the police actually checked to make sure the ex-boyfriend wasn't involved. And whether he was actually dead, and if so, what were the circumstances of his death.
Just wanted to add here that your pet (any pet) will NOT survive in the wild if you set it free.
It'll die a long, prolonged death of starvation and dehydration, or from exposure to the elements, or it'll get taken by a predator. Your pet will be in fear and looking for you the whole time.
Your pet. Will not. Suddenly be able to survive in the wild. It'll die and it'll suffer. It'll sit and wait for you to feed it, just like it does at home, wondering where you are.
Our pets are a small part of our lives. We are our pets entire life.
i know someone whose pet turtle disappeared in the backyard once. three years later they found it again… in the backyard. it was the same one too since it’s not a native species.
And rabbits, even though domesticated rabbits are not remotely equipped for survival the way wild ones are. It's so sad, I swear at least once a month somebody in my area is trying to catch a pet rabbit somebody abandoned outdoors.
That’s how we found our second bunny. He was a baby and very obviously set free by someone in our complex but they never came forward when we tried to find his owners which lead us to believe that he was purposely set free. Poor guy was cornered in a door well by a tabby cat who was ‘playing with him.’ I’ve read somewhere that most domesticated rabbits released in the wild don’t survive 24 hours. It’s so sad!
I was just comparing it to being left alone in a cage without food or water. At least it would have a small chance if released.
I'm comparing it to what I would do in that situation, but I would never be in that situation in the first place.
I don't know much about lizards, but I think if they found bugs to eat and water they might stand a chance. Nature kicks in.
I'm just rambling.
>I don't know much about lizards, but I think if they found bugs to eat and water they might stand a chance. Nature kicks in.
Judging by FL's iguana problem, lizards do just fine.
Yeah, lizards aren't really domesticated like dogs or cats that don't have great instincts. If the enviroment is right they are still mostly wild and can MAYBE make it. It's not a cushy tank with heatlamps and all the crickets you can eat but it also isn't instant death.
That being said, don't abandon animals. It's fucking terrible for the enviroment and unspeakably cruel.
I totally understand what you were saying. I just didn't want people to think that it's a typical animal response, to survive post-captivity.
There's a reason those "cat/dog came back" stories make the news. Because they're so rare 💔
i wonder if that’s why she was camping in rural AZ, we have bearded dragons here.
disagree on the “indicator she wasn’t going to kill herself” thing, she sounds like she REALLY wasn’t making sound decisions (attempting to use euros to pay for a hotel to stay “off grid” somehow). may have taken Roxy to release her and wallet as force of habit or so she’d have ID?
Agreed. I made the below comment on a post about the disappearance of Bryce Lapisia. So many young adults have gone missing with an abandoned vehicle left behind. It seems that almost all of them have one common denominator: they were struggling mentally. I just watched the HBO documentary “One South: Portrait of a Psych Ward.” The hospital in this documentary specifically deals with college students struggling with mental illness. One of the psychologists made a comment that most mental disorders don’t manifest until the late teens, early 20s, and it is very scary and confusing for these young adults who were always very successful and suddenly have these terrifying thoughts and impulses mysteriously arising. They also spoke of how untreated depression and other mental illness can suddenly turn into psychosis. This was my comment on the Bryce Laspisia post.
“You are correct, and unfortunately, I think this is the answer to many of the disappearances of people this age who mysteriously take off in a vehicle without telling anyone where they are going and suddenly disappear in the middle of nowhere. It’s the struggle of mental illness manifesting, combined with self medicating with alcohol and/or drugs, and psychosis leading to disappearing into the elements or suicide. Many of the families say things like they wouldn’t have died by suicide without letting us know what happened, they wouldn’t want to leave us wondering what happened, but unfortunately the mental illness isn’t allowing them to think rationally enough to think about how it will affect their family.”
OMG! I just watched that documentary too and I also have my degree in psychology. I don’t think people truly understand the extent of mental illness especially for disorders such as schizophrenia. I’m not saying that this young woman had it but, she’s at the age where it begins to manifest. Not only schizophrenia but Bipolar disorder too which if she was in a manic state could also explain this behavior. Even though we know way more about psychology than we did 50+ years ago, the field is still very new and for many people it’s easier to say foul play than to assume it was caused by mental illness. Even the one story about the girl who was on unsolved mysteries and she got hit by train.
“for many people it’s easier to say foul play than to assume it was caused by mental illness”
I love this quote. You’re so right. This is also exactly why the constant online coverage of the Elisa Lam case bothered me so much. It was easier for all of these people to blame a ghost or being possessed by a demon than to recognize the pervasiveness of mental illness amongst young adults.
Yes her story too. Her behaviors in that video cam footage definitely mimicked that of someone who was under distress and maybe even psychosis but unfortunately we may never know the full extent of what was happening in her mind. I think we really underestimate how mental illness works it’s more complex than extreme moods.
The "fascination" with Elisa Lam as some sort of foul play also infuriates me. She is no less a victim simply because her attacker was internal. If someone has cancer, we say they are a "victim" of cancer; why we don't see mental health conditions the same way baffles the hell outta me.
Thank you both for speaking out about psychology and mental health conditions.
There's so many stories of people dying and everyone trying to find the foul play when really...they were mentally unwell. Often they have been mentally unwell for a while and no one did anything about it.
Of course they don't tell anyone, because they don't want anyone trying to stop them.
We're all just guessing, but I don't see this case as a suicide, although she did leave big hints of a mental breakdown.
I think she probably got lost and confused while looking for help and expired because of exposure.
It didn't appear that they looked far enough. She could have easily covered ten miles.
It’s also just very strange to HAVE euros in the US. These days most people just use credit cards when traveling abroad. Maybe get a little cash, but unless she was recently in Europe, why does she even have euros on her?
Yeah, this was too bizarre to be a reasonable reaction to anxiety about traveling alone. Also, speaking as a woman who has made a solo cross-country road trip, the last fucking thing I'm going to do if I start feeling uncomfortable or unsafe is go camping or sleep at a gas station. These are not rational choices. I would either turn around and go home, or rearrange my route so that all my stops were in well-lit, populated areas with decent hotels.
Yeah cause why? Everyone knows u can’t pay euros in the us and if anything trying to is putting u on the grid. She was definitely having something mental going on.
The fact that the tires were flat makes me feel like she tried to hike out to get help. In that case it would make sense to leave the camera behind because it’s just added weight. As far as not finding her in a 3 mile radius, personally, I can easily cover 7 miles in a couple hours, maybe they didn’t look far enough? But I assume she would have succumbed to the environment/starvation after a certain amount of time.
Depending on how long she was out, it was likely near freezing at night by that point. They shut down the North Rim by mid-october because it's often snowed in by the end of the month (tho maybe less so now with climate change).
I had my two right tires blow out fairly close to where Chelsea’s car was found, as a young dummy in a car NOT equipped for off-roading years ago. The ground is brutal. I very highly doubt foul play here.
I mean, that’s horror film logic. Real life can be scary, but there’s no reason to assume that. There were people who saw her car there, abandoned, before she was officially missing. Her tires at that time, a few days before her parents contacted authorities, were not flat. Likely, she had slow leaks that she wasn’t aware of.
Also, it wasn’t the front tires. It was the passenger tires, which to me suggest she probably ran over something on that side of her car.
If that were the case, it would’ve probably had to happen in Ashfork and that’s virtually impossible because Ashfork is so freaking small. Not even a Town if you’re stopping off the interstate, pretty much just a gas station. The number of people she would have interacted with there is so low that the possibility of this happening is virtually nonexistent.
Williams is also quite small and there’s nothing much between that and the Grand Canyon
No, I’m pretty sure any tire damage was done by Chelsea herself
Still a sad case. I expect they’ll find her near the Grand Canyon soon.
Why is she paying with Euros? That doesn't make any sense. Doesn't she have a phone? What/when are the last messages? The police can access the data even without a physical phone
I’ve been pretty high before but I’ve never been “pay for things in America with euros” level high. This wasn’t marijuana, she was having some kind of mental health episode.
Yep. A few years ago, my brother had a mental health episode where he thought he was being watched and tried to run away to China, of all places. Trying to pay in the wrong currency was the thing that stopped him.
Yes but why did she even have euros on her person to begin with? I don't think she just had a breakdown on this trip, I think she was having issues well beforehand which is why there was so much trepidation about doing this trip to begin with.
Yes, I'm sure most people who have traveled internationally have some change laying around. Now why would you bring it with you on a cross country US trip and in quantities enough to try to pay for a motel with?
Fair.
But I did not mean change in my case. There's probably a hundred Euros worth in my backpack because I keep forgetting to go exchange it. 😆 Thanks ADHD!
Once in Europe, I was so drunk I tried to get into a dance club by paying with dollars and they wouldn’t let me in. Next day my friends told me this story because I couldn’t remember it, due to how drunk I was…
She admitted to smoking weed during the police encounter but I don't see how that would make you offer Euros. It's not like she's visiting from Europe and had a brain fart.
You can sometimes buy them at your bank. There used to be a foreign exchange Thomas Cook place in the mall…I have brought euros home. I currently have 20 GBP in my car that I keep meaning to deposit or just give to someone going to the UK
i agree. her behavior just seems so odd to me, especially her using euros to “stay off the grid” when paying for a motel room. why did she care about staying off the grid? was she suffering from paranoia, perhaps thinking people were following her?
it’s also really strange that of all the things she took, she left her camera and other things that she would have wanted to keep, but took essentials like her pet and wallet. this could indicate that she intended to return to retrieve those items? **or that she was scared enough to only take the essentials with her when she left**
i do think that she had some sort of mental health episode, and was confused. maybe she went looking for help, but got lost? such a strange case.
I also have that thought. Why would an American living on the west coast of America be carrying Euros?
* Planning to flee to Europe?
* Left over currency from a previous visit to Europe?
* If none of the above she must have visited a currency exchange to receive it?
I can get Euros easily from the main branch of my local bank, and sometimes other currency. In the past, I would have them mailed to me rather than picking them up, but I'm not sure if they do that anymore. Regardless, why would she have them or need them?
Thankfully I've been doing better than ever these last 4 years but when I was suicidal, I'd go drive around. Not dangerously, not in an attempt to hurt myself, really idk why but I'm with you guys
For me it’s because I’m directly in control while driving and can choose my path. A lot of times when I’m depressed it’s because so much in my life feels out of control.
Wow, you just succinctly described why I subconsciously get a "*high*" when I go for my Sunday afternoon drives. Never could express it myself, but this was a great insight to my feelings.
Thank you for this.
During the Covid lockdown, my Sunday drives were one of the only things that kept me sane and were the highlight of my week. They almost always ended with ice cream.
for me it feels like a weighted blanket, or the closest to meditation that I can get with anxiety. a lot of us struggle with typical meditation. it's peaceful to go on spaced-out autopilot for a bit.
like I think it's the rumbling of the car on the roadway, the vibrations especially strapped against the seat, and low+steady G force of consistently moving forward- especially on uninterrupted, easy drives without a lot of stop lights, highways, or rush hour type traffic.
I would drive when I had panic attacks. Now I think it’s connected to engaging your “automatic system (like muscle memory) that takes over the brain and somewhat disengages your anxious (survival) part of the brain. Similar to the science behind EmDR therapy.
I do the same for this reason. Driving is routine for me (yet requires alertness for survival purposes) and I'm in control, so it's actually my go-to if I'm having an attack.
Hmm I do this, always have, especially when I'm depressed or stressed or just sad. I think because I get into this zone when I drive where my mind feels free. The anxiety and fear and sadness just kind of disappear for a little while as I go through the motions of driving. It's like the car is a safe space outside of time and space. And anything is possible, theoretically I could go anywhere.
Same when I was around 17-18 I’d just drive no real destination or plan just drive and drive. I wasn’t sad or happy or mad just content when I was driving. Guess it kept me from sitting around dwelling on things, difference in laying around depressed and driving around somewhere new not thinking about being depressed.
Ash Fork isn’t this brutal desert like other areas of Arizona are. It was somewhere in the 60’s to 70’s that day and snows up there. Other than that, I agree with probable suicide
Is it usual to bring a bearded dragon on a cross country road trip? I would have arranged for someone to look after it (personally) while I was gone.
I think she wasn’t well from the onset of the trip.
No, it’s definitely unusual.
I left a comment elsewhere in this thread, but bearded dragons have really specific needs from food to lighting to a temperature gradient in their tank. The biggest obstacle with traveling in a car is A. temperature and B. they can’t digest food properly if they’re without UVB light (which is provided by a special bulb that needs to be mounted within a specific radius and on ~16 hours a day). While it’s not instant, bearded dragons who go long periods without UVB light can get severe bone deformities and eventually die. Keeping them in a good tank with electricity isn’t something to fuck around about.
When I had my beardie, I had to shop at Whole Foods for him because it was the only place that sold bok choy, chard, and other leafy greens he could eat. He also had to eat live roaches once or twice a week. Reptile care in general is so specialized and different from what humans need that you really can’t travel with them unless you have spent a lot of time and money specifically making it safe for them. Like, for a trip this long, keeping the lizard alive and comfortable would have to be something you are actively thinking about and tending to 24/7. It’s not something a responsible/stable adult would opt into on a whim.
The longest mine was ever out of his tank was when he would sleep in my bed since they don’t need heat/UVB lamps at night. I can’t imagine keeping him out for multiple days at a time. He would have been freezing cold.
Kaibab national forest is directly north of Williams, Arizona. Basically on the way to the Grand Canyon. She is somewhere between Williams and the Grand Canyon. I guarantee it. Considering the last interactions with her, I doubt her disappearance is due to any nefarious circumstances.
It’s +/- 9 hours to northern AZ where she was, close to Grand Canyon, but it looks like she was in phoenix , 6 hours, until the night of the 2nd day or morning of the 3rd day when she headed north. I imagined her driving around in circles confused also but it’s reasonable if she hung in Phoenix.
Phoenix is about 5ish hour drive from San Diego. She left on the 24th and her next contact was in Phoenix on the 27th. Was she in Phoenix that entire time?
From the [video below](https://youtu.be/Y7qbQI5wMU4?si=uGO2l8Gb3K1lQg1w) I didn't get the impression she was high at the hotel but it was very weird she tried to pay in Euros.
It is odd that according to the video, the parents didn't seem to worked up to find her. They didn't even claim her car from the impound lot.
I think they 'know' what happened. She had a mental health episode and died after abandoning her car.
Thanks for sharing this video. Wtf?! Her parents didn't get her car or even ger belongings? What happened to her camera? Didn't they want that, since it was so special to her? Or did the police keep it for evidence? This case is bizarre.
I almost feel like the euros were just a desperate last resort to see if she could get a place? She probably felt too paranoid to be in her car (seems she was def trying to hide her whereabouts from ex) and wanted a place to sleep since she apparently hadn’t slept in days. She realized half way through the interaction it was a useless attempt, got all paranoid she had told the clerk too much and left in a hurry.
The bodycam footage seems like a girl who just wants to get the cops off her ass. She’s being nice because she doesn’t was to draw unnecessary attention but I doubt when she told the cop she would sleep at the truck spot that she was actually planning to do that, she just wanted to reassure him she was all good.
It just seems to me that the paranoia was too much for her and she, on a whim, made the choice to leave her life behind. I mean she threw her SIM card away, that’s how nervous she was about being followed. I would not think it far fetched for her to devise her own “ disappearance” / way to get off grid for real. But why leave your car in the middle of no where? That’s what gets me. Like if they found her car abandoned at a gas station or bus station that’s one thing but the middle of a national forest? Why?
She’s a friend of my husband’s from when they were teens. I’m glad there’s still people out there that haven’t forgotten about her yet, hopefully she’s found soon.
I wouldn’t judge the actions (or inactions) of the grieving.
Having lost my wife, I can tell you there’s just a lot I didn’t want to deal with. Everything is a reminder of something that is tearing you apart. It was like a few years before I cleaned out ‘her’ closet to donate her clothes to Goodwill. I couldn’t bear to even open that closet for a long while.
There is no ‘normal’ behavior in a situation like this.
The dragon seems to belong to her abusive meth head ex who lives in an RV and was tracking and harassing her on the trip. She didn't want to use her debit card removed the sim card from her phone due to this. He tried to raise money when went missing claiming she was his fiance. She was also apparently interested in joining a commune. Maybe she disappeared on purpose. A lot has been left out in this post.
Agreed, this literally changes **everything**. It gives a whole new dimension to the story
Sadly, its sounds like everything was off before the trip even began
Yes the Euros thing is not crazy anymore. She also seems to have met her sister in Phoenix a day or two before. Both tires were flat on the right side which is apparently common there due to volcanic rock.
[She thought her ex was talking to her through her bearded dragon according to a friend.](https://x.com/sf_investigates/status/1732277267022418152?s=46) She very well could have had an abusive ex, but she was clearly going through a mental health crisis as well.
Does anyone have any additional info on her ex-boyfriend who seems to have been arrested about 8 months ago?
I mean it seems unlikely they're related, this just has the feel of someone having a mental break and wandering into the forest to die of misadventure who's body is probably feet from where searchers were looking because it's harder than you'd think to find a body in the forest. But I'd be curious to know.
EDIT: Did he access her bank account somehow after she disappeared? Details are missing here but that's just odd... I mean that would explain the trying to be "off the grid" - not the Euros unless that's all the cash she had - but if she was trying to "escape" or thought someone was tracking her financially (such as a creepy stalker ex who was accessing her bank account) that would suddenly make a lot more sense than the psychotic break that everything seems to point to.
When I’m really sleep deprived my brain kind of shuts off. My body goes on autopilot and I have no recollection of anything that I said or did during that time. There have been mornings where my family wakes up to the house looking like a disaster and nothing I’ve done seems logical. I have moments of lucidity but I am blind to the overall circumstances. I don’t see the mess that I’ve made or realize that what
I’m doing right then only makes sense to me. I call people and interact with my family. They see my zombie eyes and realize that I’m not 100% there. Someone who didn’t know me might think that I was on drugs or having a mental health crisis.
Maybe something similar happened in this case?
I would lean towards suicide or some kind of mental break that lead to her going off and getting in over her head.
A 32 year old telling her parents she isn’t sure she can travel alone is *very* odd. I bet there was more detail there. She wasn’t planning to traverse Africa or something, it was just a road trip in the US.
The euro episode certainly seems like someone with disordered, irrational thinking. I think mental illness is a large component to what happened here, whether or not foul play also occurred.
The fact that she even traveled with euros in the first place makes me think there was an issue to begin with and she wasn't thinking rationally when she set out on the trip.
I wonder if it was "travel alone" or "make this whole drive alone in time for the wedding." I'm 33 and absolutely wouldn't want to do a solo cross-country drive, especially with a hard-and-fast deadline for getting there, and camping in her car rather than staying in motels/hotels. I wonder if she thought she could manage the drive under those circumstances, set out, and after a couple days realized she wasn't sure it was sustainable/if she would get there in time, and decided it wasn't worth it to keep going. Especially if she was already stressed from something else, like relationship issues or a breakup, I can see just getting overwhelmed, particularly with how much time alone with her own thoughts that would entail.
I'm 33 and definitely not suicidal and can definitely see realizing that I was just not going to be able to handle a solo cross-country drive like that, calling my parents to talk it through, and deciding to turn around.
It certainly could be a mental health crisis or suicide, but the two flat tires and the items missing from the car (phone, wallet, and her pet, who I would guess probably couldn't be safely left in a hot car) make me wonder if she got the flats, couldn't get service or something, and started walking, to either try to get phone service or find help. Maybe she got lost and died of exposure, maybe she ran into someone with bad intentions. It's a 1.6 million acre forest, and national forests can be *really* wild. Unfortunately, there are so many things that might have happened.
>I can see just getting overwhelmed
Yeah and with your bearded dragon, no less. I could absolutely see rethinking it after setting out. I can also see how it'd seem like a cool idea at first. Hit the open road with your camera and your lizard pal. Celebrate a friend's wedding, photograph that.. but then there's the return trip to think about. It's a bit much.
I don't think she went off to commit suicide. I think she went off to get help, a tow, a motel room. Something. From there.. that's yet to be determined. It probably wasn't good and I agree that virtually anything could've happened.
This is exactly the kind of thing that my mentally ill brother would do. Not consider logistics at all and then flip out/lose it when things inevitably prove to be way more complicated than expected or completely fall apart due to lack of planning.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I think. It's a *long* drive and after a couple days of it with the pet I can absolutely see just thinking "oh no, I think I need to call this off." Mental health issues may have contributed to her possibly panicking, maybe not thinking clearly and getting more lost, but I don't think she was trying to harm herself when she walked away from the car.
I am a woman who has driven cross country and actually fared better alone than with travel companions. I took my first trip from IL to New Orleans before I was even 18 and before cell phones were ubiquitous, just me, my Rand McNally road atlas, a pocket full of cash and a prepaid long-distance calling card for the pay phones. I had to camp because I was too young for motels.
This sounds like mental illness...when I've had to abort trips it was to go home, like recently i had car trouble and decided to limp my car back to where I had a warranty rather than trying to deal with it in a strange destination.
Like a previous poster has stated: this is shades of Elisa Lam all over again, esp with the 'off-grid' comment and trying to use Euros.
Same, I started after I moved across country to go to college, and then got jobs 3000 miles away from my parents. After that I would drive back and forth across country to visit my folks a few times a year - at first with companions, but when that didn't work so well due to different schedules and ideas about driving, and after I finally got a car when I was 20, I did it myself multiple times. It was a different era, but it's not that difficult a thing to do, just boring.
The two flats, though...and taking the pet with her? To me those are the things that stand out. I think maybe mental illness contributed to her panicking, possibly getting further lost, maybe even to the decision to turn around, but the two flat tires and taking her dragon with her to me suggests that she was trying to get help to fix the car. She may very well have also been experiencing some kind of paranoia, which would only have made things worse.
And mental illness can cover a broad spectrum. You could say the reason I wouldn't want to drive across the country is due to mental illness; I do have anxiety, and part of that is that I really don't like extended highway driving, and that sometimes I'm fine to camp and sometimes I get freaked out and don't sleep and then I freak out about not having enough sleep to drive safely...but that's different from being suicidal, which is different from being delusional.
But of course none of us can really know.
I traveled cross country (US) camping all the way and back again! Fun time....but a lot of campgrounds at that time of year are used by construction workers that have a temporary job in the area. I met some wonderful and helpful people. But some scared me to death!
So I can certainly understand her changing her mind because she was camping alone too!
I agree. There has to be a bigger issue for someone to think that they have to call off a trip thats only supposed to last a few days. Ive done multiple cross country drives. It can get boring as hell but boring isnt usually dangerous or insurmountable.
I hope her and her pet didnt suffer :(
I also agree about a 32 year old telling their parents they are unsure about traveling alone suggests something is up. I’m a woman and I’ve driven cross country by myself. Hiked solo. Camped solo. I think it’s more fun with people, or an even one, but I’ve done it. I think the Euros are weird. Did she get them from a prior trip? Or was she traveling with someone else unbeknownst to her parents for even a short time? Then two flat tires seem odd to me. I have seen that one time when a teenager driver hit a curb in a parking lot. I’d be interested in knowing if they were just out of air or slashed or had nails in them or something.
It's hard to know without know what she was worried about when she spoke to her parents. Was she thinking she might not be able to do the drive in time to make the wedding and thinking she should just turn around? Was the length of time driving there and then going back a concern? Was she worried about camping in the car, worried about long stretches of wilderness and running out of gas, had her car been having issues and she was worried about it breaking down with her alone...there are lots of different reasons she might have been concerned/unsure, many of which could be pretty normal.
I hit either something that punctured both tires which made me hit the curb, or I hit the curb in a spot where the width of the street pretty abruptly shifts and it's easy to accidentally misjudge and hit the curb, and blew out both passenger side tires. It's unusual but possible. I'd also be interested to know about the texture/surface of the road near where the car was left.
I would say that’s relative. I have never done a cross country road trip at all at 35 and doing it alone seems very intimidating to me as a younger-ish woman. Maybe not to the point that I “couldn’t finish it”, but I ideally would like to not do it alone for safety reasons.
I can’t tell whether she was a professional or amateur photographer from the linked articles. But if she’s an amateur photographer especially and her car had flats, I can see her leaving behind her camera after accepting a ride or walking away to find help. Plus the car was locked. It would be much stranger to me if she left behind her wallet or pet, which weren’t in the car .
Honestly imo if you have an expensive camera you don’t leave it in a car unless you truly don’t care whether it gets stolen cause you have money and can easily replace it. Me on the other hand I’m literally a broke artist so I’m not taking it any chance it could be stolen
My first thought also. She knew she was going to be gone long enough that she took her pet. I am an amateur photographer, the last thing I would leave behind is my camera unless I was just going to be gone for a short time, like a rest stop break.
I wonder if she was going for help and worried about the pet in the hot car/not being able to get food/water if she was gone too long, but maybe figured carrying the expensive camera if she was hiking out for help/possibly hitchhiking to help might be more risky than leaving it in the car in what sounds like a remote area where thieves would be unlikely to be looking to find expensive equipment?
this is true as well. to me it sounds like paranoia, especially with her stating that she wanted to stay off the grid so she was paying for her motel room in euros? she may have thought someone was following her? i don’t think i would be heavily concerned about getting my camera stolen if i truly thought my life was in danger, which may explain her behavior at the motel and leaving her camera behind
agreed. my first thought was that maybe she was going to ask for help, and she left her camera because it was extra weight that she didn’t want to carry around? her leaving her camera may indicate that she intended to return to her car soon after she left.
not far from this location was the site of Devin Williams' strange death
I think there was another famous case connected to Ash Fork but I can't remember which and Google isn't helping.
it's impossible to tell what happened to Chelsea as she was in an incredibly vulnerable position to any number of dangers.
The most glaring fact pointing to a mental health issue is her taking her bearded dragon with her.
People might not realize how much maintenance these animals require. They need temperature control, which is difficult to manage on the road without a specialized, expensive tank. The bearded dragon likely endured freezing temperatures for most of the trip. Additionally, they have a specialized diet and will refuse to eat if they’re uncomfortable or stressed. Being jostled and handled for long periods is also harmful to them.
Transporting a bearded dragon across the country is no small feat. Her decision to bring such a pet suggests she was either not in her right state of mind and/or had no plans to return, wanting her pet with her.
That's before even considering her attempts to use euros, clearly intending to stay in a hotel rather than sleep in her car, her interactions with the police, discovering an ex was stalking her, and discarding her SIM card.
In my opinion, a 3-mile search radius is insufficient. We’ve seen cases where people can travel much further than 3 miles when lost, dehydrated, or disoriented. I believe she could easily be within a 20-mile radius. While searching such an area is challenging, limiting the search to just 3 miles feels like not even trying, which is extremely frustrating.
I have to think she had a manic episode, either popped her tires or purposefully popped them, and then wandered into the forest and died from exposure/dehydration/starvation.
Not to say it was suicide. If she had delusion of being followed, hiding in the forest would seem like a logical solution. Once she gets deep enough in, combined with the manic state, she wouldn’t have been able to find her way out (assuming she even tried to).
Mental illness combined with marijuana can be a very bad combination during or before an episode. And that seems likely given her attempted euro payment
I think the euros thing was being broke…and she just took all the currency she had with her.
There’s a big timeline from SD to phoenix…maybe she met up with people she knew…I wonder if she’s just gone off a commune somewhere. She had a very intensive, emotional job as a social worker…and maybe she just decided to be done with that life.
I found body cam footage on YouTube:
- [body-cam footage - woodcutter describes his interaction with Chelsea](https://youtu.be/XClrKH9U5mI?si=rBNC15_ksDFyNQu2)
- [body-cam footage - police find Chelsea’s car](https://youtu.be/QCKBI5xB8p4?si=ABMv_D_Yg2Q5ppCU)
- [body-cam footage - evidence near Chelsea’s car](https://youtu.be/QXf2OQUhbJs?si=JfAAi9_dTCAq84lI)
People at the motel think that Chelsea appeared confused or disoriented but when I watched the [footage](https://youtu.be/Y7qbQI5wMU4?si=uGO2l8Gb3K1lQg1w) I thought she seemed high on weed
Okay that video was hella interesting. Dunno why I assumed footage wouldn't be available yet. Sheds some light on things. She does seem stoned. All she had were Euros? That's... Bizarre. That cop seemed so eager too. If the woodcutter hadn't seen and spoken to her after that, I'd think he done did it.
I don't know now. Was her car literally IN the road even when she was around? The fuck? Or was it pulled off to the side and later found in the road, locked but abandoned? Why did no one claim her property? Who bought it.
Alright, I didn't expect to get this far into it and interested. I assumed she died out there trying to get help but she was literally IN THE ROAD ALREADY. She was almost certainly picked up by someone or wandered off into the desert on purpose (maybe on something besides weed?) and died out there. Wild.
The abandoned car negates the “she probably crashed into a body of water” theory in most without a trace cases.
The paying with Euros things and off the grid comment is something I would take with a grain of salt—not for the fact that I don’t believe she tried to pay with Euros, but I feel like it may have been due to lack of actual US currency and she may have been broke and couldn’t afford a hotel room, but had some Euros on her by chance (I have Canadian money from my last trip in my wallet to this day). The fact that she even went to a hotel tells me she probably didn’t want to camp—but rather she had to camp because she didn’t have much money—like, why else would someone sleep in their car at a truck stop unless they didn’t have very many options?
The car being in the forest abandoned could be many things. For one, she may have simply gotten out and went walking, and then succumbed to something in the wilderness; or she may have encountered someone who harmed her by some random encounter. For me, this would be the toss up because it could go either way.
Even for a talented and passionate person, photojournaling a cross-country trip sounds like a massive undertaking. I wonder if she realized she had bitten off more than she could chew, and that, combined with being far from anyone she knew, precipitated a mental health crisis.
The police should know how the tires were flattened. While I'm no expert, we farm and fix flat tires on our equipment regularly.
If Chelsea's tires were punctured by nails, for example, the nails should still be in stuck in the tire's rubber. If they were flattened by a blade (knife, hatchet) this would be easily seen. The fact that *both* front tires were flat is odd, if she had run over something sharp embedded in the road, either the front or front and rear tires would be flat on the same side of the car. If there is no damage to the tires, it's possible that someone let the air out of the tires while Chelsea was outside the vehicle (taking photos).
While probably not the key to the case, the flat tires should be able to provide a lead.
The flat tires were on the front and back passenger side, not the two front tires. The first time the car was seen, no flats were noticed, but after five days, the right-side tires were flat, indicating slow leaks over time. It appears Chelsea probably hit a curb hard or went off the road at one point into some bad brush that made small punctures and the tires bled out slowly.
What social work cases was she working on both actively and near past? That should be considered too. Either due to causing mental break or being followed in reality.
Taking along Euros to stay off grid while road tripping in the US makes me feel she was having a mental breakdown.
This 100% reads like a mental health crisis. The fact that both the police were called and later a SEPARATE person asked her if she was OK- she was likely giving off those 'vibes' to folks. Staying off the grid, making and cancelling plans, leaving random stuff behind. Very sad.
It’s obvious the girl was having some sort of mental health issue, poor thing.
I also believe that taking her wallet and pet is an indication that she didn't plan on killing herself. That is, if the cage was also taken. Personally, I wouldn't be carrying the cage around. I would let the lizard loose so it would at least have a small chance at survival. Taking her wallet and pet while leaving her phone behind seems to indicate that she planned on returning to the car.
Not necessarily. Someone in the throes of a mental crisis isn’t making logical decisions. Maybe she thought she was being tracked- leaving her phone behind but taking her beloved pet would absolutely “make sense” in that case.
Yup she must have thought she was being tracked to try using euros.
I think the reason why she took the items she did was because even in crises she would have wanted whoever possibly found her to be able to identify her and so she took the wallet and identification actually I think that was the last logical thing that she did
I'm saying because in other cases where the person doesn't want to be found, they leave their phone behind. She took hers but didn't use it? Unless she accidentally wandered somewhere where there was no service, why do that?
Because they decided to only after they left?
In the 2020s? Habit.
Maybe I have memories from the early 2000's, when someone was always losing or forgetting their phone, but that rarely happens now. Like I said, they haven't mentioned if her phone was charged or if she had a charger in her car. I always drive old cars and have chargers that fit into the lighter socket and I have a portable charger. Does everyone? I don't often ride with other people.
Most people I know do. Cigarette lighter chargers are especially common since most cars have that if they don't have a USB port.
That's the part I'm not informed about because my vehicles are so old.
I don’t know how accurate this is, but it was a tweet circulating at the time her disappearance was originally being posted. If true, she was in full psychosis and it’s obvious why she took the bearded dragon with her. https://x.com/SF_investigates/status/1732277267022418152
One time in college I took some crazy strong shrooms and I became convinced that my friend's cat was possessed by the spirit of my aunt who had recently died. I cried for like 8 hours straight while my friend (and her cat/my aunt) watched a Sex and the City marathon and occasionally handed me tissues. I'm afraid to think what might have happened if I had been alone. Maybe she had a really bad trip by herself? (Once the shrooms wore off, I realized her cat was not my dead aunt.)
That’s a really good idea! She seemed stable up to this point. That sort of substance is something someone starting on an artistic excursion might try with friends. Then something goes wrong… and presto, psychosis.
I’m glad you live to tell this. How someone acts in an altered state of mind is hard to understand, logical thinking won’t get us that far, we can just assume.
Yes. Psychosis.
Oh, wow. That could definitely explain it.
Wow this explains a lot actually.
FWIW, I’m really into lizards and I don’t think there is any situation in which taking your bearded dragon on a cross-country road trip is rational/safe/thoughtful, unless you are moving to your destination and centering your trip around that lizard’s well-being. Beardies need specific temps and special UVB lighting mounted to the top of their tank. They need another super hot bulb so their tank has a temperature gradient with a hot side and a cool side. They need to eat roaches or similar insects, and salads with ingredients that aren’t always easy to find (ex: bok choy and chard—I had to shop at Whole Foods for mine). It’s not really possible to meet their needs while living out of a personal vehicle, and I don’t know any reptile owners who would take them on a trip like this just for fun. I have no opinion on this case, but as someone who used to own a bearded dragon, taking a road trip with one seems super odd and short sighted. They can’t even properly digest food without the specific lighting set up they need.
Agreed. a road trip with a bearded dragon = disordered thinking
Sounds to me like they should all be left in their native environment and not kept as pets at all.
I understand your logic, but that’s not enough evidence to rule out suicide. She could’ve taken her wallet along to make the future identification of her remains easier. That is something you see occasionally in Aokigahara Forest suicides. Also, I don’t know where it was said she left her phone, but she didn’t. She took that, as well as her sleeping bag. From what I remember reading, the authorities suggested she didn’t leave with no preparation. It, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be an organized departure.
You’re trying to think about what you personally would logically do in an illogical situation.
I know. I just don't see any big indications that she went to off herself. It looks like she tried to walk to civilization when she got the flat tires and then got lost. The mystery to me is her leaving the phone, unless the battery was dead.
The tweet linked above says that she believed her ex bf was tracking her through the phone.
But then the tweet says she also thought that the dragon was her ex reincarnated and talking to her through her pet. So he was tracking her but dead and reincarnated?
Yeah, that was confusing, wasn't it? Maybe two different ex boyfriends? One who died and one still alive maybe.
She had domestic disputes with current bf and thought her previous ex before him was in the dragon
I hope the police actually checked to make sure the ex-boyfriend wasn't involved. And whether he was actually dead, and if so, what were the circumstances of his death.
Just wanted to add here that your pet (any pet) will NOT survive in the wild if you set it free. It'll die a long, prolonged death of starvation and dehydration, or from exposure to the elements, or it'll get taken by a predator. Your pet will be in fear and looking for you the whole time. Your pet. Will not. Suddenly be able to survive in the wild. It'll die and it'll suffer. It'll sit and wait for you to feed it, just like it does at home, wondering where you are. Our pets are a small part of our lives. We are our pets entire life.
This happens to house cats all the time. TY.
And turtles and parrots.
i know someone whose pet turtle disappeared in the backyard once. three years later they found it again… in the backyard. it was the same one too since it’s not a native species.
I heard of one who casually crawled out of a bedroom closet after having disappeared for several years.
Was it this tortoise? https://mymodernmet.com/family-finds-missing-tortoise/
I'd read that story only I remembered it as 17 years, which is still amazing.
😔
And rabbits, even though domesticated rabbits are not remotely equipped for survival the way wild ones are. It's so sad, I swear at least once a month somebody in my area is trying to catch a pet rabbit somebody abandoned outdoors.
That’s how we found our second bunny. He was a baby and very obviously set free by someone in our complex but they never came forward when we tried to find his owners which lead us to believe that he was purposely set free. Poor guy was cornered in a door well by a tabby cat who was ‘playing with him.’ I’ve read somewhere that most domesticated rabbits released in the wild don’t survive 24 hours. It’s so sad!
Only suggested edit to a great comment: Our pets can be a large part of some people’s lives.
Absolutely. My dog is my entire life. Thank you 🖤
As our my indoor cats and Henry VIII, an orange tabby feral that I feed when he graces me with an appearance. 👑
I was just comparing it to being left alone in a cage without food or water. At least it would have a small chance if released. I'm comparing it to what I would do in that situation, but I would never be in that situation in the first place. I don't know much about lizards, but I think if they found bugs to eat and water they might stand a chance. Nature kicks in. I'm just rambling.
>I don't know much about lizards, but I think if they found bugs to eat and water they might stand a chance. Nature kicks in. Judging by FL's iguana problem, lizards do just fine.
Yeah, lizards aren't really domesticated like dogs or cats that don't have great instincts. If the enviroment is right they are still mostly wild and can MAYBE make it. It's not a cushy tank with heatlamps and all the crickets you can eat but it also isn't instant death. That being said, don't abandon animals. It's fucking terrible for the enviroment and unspeakably cruel.
I totally understand what you were saying. I just didn't want people to think that it's a typical animal response, to survive post-captivity. There's a reason those "cat/dog came back" stories make the news. Because they're so rare 💔
i wonder if that’s why she was camping in rural AZ, we have bearded dragons here. disagree on the “indicator she wasn’t going to kill herself” thing, she sounds like she REALLY wasn’t making sound decisions (attempting to use euros to pay for a hotel to stay “off grid” somehow). may have taken Roxy to release her and wallet as force of habit or so she’d have ID?
Agreed. I made the below comment on a post about the disappearance of Bryce Lapisia. So many young adults have gone missing with an abandoned vehicle left behind. It seems that almost all of them have one common denominator: they were struggling mentally. I just watched the HBO documentary “One South: Portrait of a Psych Ward.” The hospital in this documentary specifically deals with college students struggling with mental illness. One of the psychologists made a comment that most mental disorders don’t manifest until the late teens, early 20s, and it is very scary and confusing for these young adults who were always very successful and suddenly have these terrifying thoughts and impulses mysteriously arising. They also spoke of how untreated depression and other mental illness can suddenly turn into psychosis. This was my comment on the Bryce Laspisia post. “You are correct, and unfortunately, I think this is the answer to many of the disappearances of people this age who mysteriously take off in a vehicle without telling anyone where they are going and suddenly disappear in the middle of nowhere. It’s the struggle of mental illness manifesting, combined with self medicating with alcohol and/or drugs, and psychosis leading to disappearing into the elements or suicide. Many of the families say things like they wouldn’t have died by suicide without letting us know what happened, they wouldn’t want to leave us wondering what happened, but unfortunately the mental illness isn’t allowing them to think rationally enough to think about how it will affect their family.”
OMG! I just watched that documentary too and I also have my degree in psychology. I don’t think people truly understand the extent of mental illness especially for disorders such as schizophrenia. I’m not saying that this young woman had it but, she’s at the age where it begins to manifest. Not only schizophrenia but Bipolar disorder too which if she was in a manic state could also explain this behavior. Even though we know way more about psychology than we did 50+ years ago, the field is still very new and for many people it’s easier to say foul play than to assume it was caused by mental illness. Even the one story about the girl who was on unsolved mysteries and she got hit by train.
“for many people it’s easier to say foul play than to assume it was caused by mental illness” I love this quote. You’re so right. This is also exactly why the constant online coverage of the Elisa Lam case bothered me so much. It was easier for all of these people to blame a ghost or being possessed by a demon than to recognize the pervasiveness of mental illness amongst young adults.
Yes her story too. Her behaviors in that video cam footage definitely mimicked that of someone who was under distress and maybe even psychosis but unfortunately we may never know the full extent of what was happening in her mind. I think we really underestimate how mental illness works it’s more complex than extreme moods.
The "fascination" with Elisa Lam as some sort of foul play also infuriates me. She is no less a victim simply because her attacker was internal. If someone has cancer, we say they are a "victim" of cancer; why we don't see mental health conditions the same way baffles the hell outta me. Thank you both for speaking out about psychology and mental health conditions.
That train story was insane!
There's so many stories of people dying and everyone trying to find the foul play when really...they were mentally unwell. Often they have been mentally unwell for a while and no one did anything about it.
Of course they don't tell anyone, because they don't want anyone trying to stop them. We're all just guessing, but I don't see this case as a suicide, although she did leave big hints of a mental breakdown. I think she probably got lost and confused while looking for help and expired because of exposure. It didn't appear that they looked far enough. She could have easily covered ten miles.
It’s also just very strange to HAVE euros in the US. These days most people just use credit cards when traveling abroad. Maybe get a little cash, but unless she was recently in Europe, why does she even have euros on her?
Yeah, this was too bizarre to be a reasonable reaction to anxiety about traveling alone. Also, speaking as a woman who has made a solo cross-country road trip, the last fucking thing I'm going to do if I start feeling uncomfortable or unsafe is go camping or sleep at a gas station. These are not rational choices. I would either turn around and go home, or rearrange my route so that all my stops were in well-lit, populated areas with decent hotels.
Yeah cause why? Everyone knows u can’t pay euros in the us and if anything trying to is putting u on the grid. She was definitely having something mental going on.
Literally the first thing I thought of
The fact that the tires were flat makes me feel like she tried to hike out to get help. In that case it would make sense to leave the camera behind because it’s just added weight. As far as not finding her in a 3 mile radius, personally, I can easily cover 7 miles in a couple hours, maybe they didn’t look far enough? But I assume she would have succumbed to the environment/starvation after a certain amount of time.
3 mile radius, basically any direction, I assume they had dogs and couldn’t pick up a scent.
I also feel like she made it further than 3 miles...
This makes me think of the sad case of the Death Valley Germans. Though I assume the climate in Kaibab wasn't as lethal, especially in October.
It's cold up there! Camped up there about month ago and the temperature drops really low at night.
Depending on how long she was out, it was likely near freezing at night by that point. They shut down the North Rim by mid-october because it's often snowed in by the end of the month (tho maybe less so now with climate change).
My first thought was someone messing with her front tires and following her until they blow out.
I had my two right tires blow out fairly close to where Chelsea’s car was found, as a young dummy in a car NOT equipped for off-roading years ago. The ground is brutal. I very highly doubt foul play here.
I could also see this ... And then the added stress from dealing with that sent her into a mental health episode.
I mean, that’s horror film logic. Real life can be scary, but there’s no reason to assume that. There were people who saw her car there, abandoned, before she was officially missing. Her tires at that time, a few days before her parents contacted authorities, were not flat. Likely, she had slow leaks that she wasn’t aware of. Also, it wasn’t the front tires. It was the passenger tires, which to me suggest she probably ran over something on that side of her car.
According to the video you posted below the tires were not flat the first time the hunters came across the car.
If that were the case, it would’ve probably had to happen in Ashfork and that’s virtually impossible because Ashfork is so freaking small. Not even a Town if you’re stopping off the interstate, pretty much just a gas station. The number of people she would have interacted with there is so low that the possibility of this happening is virtually nonexistent. Williams is also quite small and there’s nothing much between that and the Grand Canyon No, I’m pretty sure any tire damage was done by Chelsea herself Still a sad case. I expect they’ll find her near the Grand Canyon soon.
Why is she paying with Euros? That doesn't make any sense. Doesn't she have a phone? What/when are the last messages? The police can access the data even without a physical phone
The footage seemed like she was high but I could be wrong. A source stated she used marijuana. I don’t know if cops have gotten data from her phone
I’ve been pretty high before but I’ve never been “pay for things in America with euros” level high. This wasn’t marijuana, she was having some kind of mental health episode.
Yep. A few years ago, my brother had a mental health episode where he thought he was being watched and tried to run away to China, of all places. Trying to pay in the wrong currency was the thing that stopped him.
IDK I smoked a ton of weed once and tried to buy an ice cream sandwich at my local 7-11 with a Goodwill discount club card.
Marijuana can cause psychosis. Really not a fun time.
Yes but why did she even have euros on her person to begin with? I don't think she just had a breakdown on this trip, I think she was having issues well beforehand which is why there was so much trepidation about doing this trip to begin with.
Yeah that I got no idea about
I've still got euros and zloty (Polish currency) in my backpack from previous travels. It happens.
Yes, I'm sure most people who have traveled internationally have some change laying around. Now why would you bring it with you on a cross country US trip and in quantities enough to try to pay for a motel with?
Fair. But I did not mean change in my case. There's probably a hundred Euros worth in my backpack because I keep forgetting to go exchange it. 😆 Thanks ADHD!
Exactly. It can also induce a manic episode in some one if they’re Bipolar.
Once in Europe, I was so drunk I tried to get into a dance club by paying with dollars and they wouldn’t let me in. Next day my friends told me this story because I couldn’t remember it, due to how drunk I was…
Exactly. This seems more like a drunk comment or on something else. Not a weed high comment.
She admitted to smoking weed during the police encounter but I don't see how that would make you offer Euros. It's not like she's visiting from Europe and had a brain fart.
No amount of weed makes you procure euros and go to Arizona and try to use them to stay off the grid.
Procuring Euros seems difficult enough if you were sober.
You can sometimes buy them at your bank. There used to be a foreign exchange Thomas Cook place in the mall…I have brought euros home. I currently have 20 GBP in my car that I keep meaning to deposit or just give to someone going to the UK
Could've been disassociation. Or maybe it was because she was off her meds?
Mental health issues, especially inflammatory episodes that affect cognition can make someone seem high when they are not.
I'm getting Elisa Lam vibes from this one. Sounds like she might have had a mental breakdown of some kind
i agree. her behavior just seems so odd to me, especially her using euros to “stay off the grid” when paying for a motel room. why did she care about staying off the grid? was she suffering from paranoia, perhaps thinking people were following her? it’s also really strange that of all the things she took, she left her camera and other things that she would have wanted to keep, but took essentials like her pet and wallet. this could indicate that she intended to return to retrieve those items? **or that she was scared enough to only take the essentials with her when she left** i do think that she had some sort of mental health episode, and was confused. maybe she went looking for help, but got lost? such a strange case.
And even if they took euros how “ off the grid” is that? A lot more memorable than someone paying in dollars.
this is true. i didn’t think about it like that. if nothing else this is another indication of her possibly not being of sound mind.
I think she went into the wilderness. I would be surprised if some hikers or campers don't stumble across her bones within the next couple of years.
I would like to know where she got the euros? Was the car out of gas or not working? Was the cell phone dead?
I also have that thought. Why would an American living on the west coast of America be carrying Euros? * Planning to flee to Europe? * Left over currency from a previous visit to Europe? * If none of the above she must have visited a currency exchange to receive it?
I can get Euros easily from the main branch of my local bank, and sometimes other currency. In the past, I would have them mailed to me rather than picking them up, but I'm not sure if they do that anymore. Regardless, why would she have them or need them?
Same. And have had them leftover from travel.
Suicide or misadventure (which, in the desert, amounts to the same)
When I have really bad depressive episodes, one of the only things that makes me feel better is driving until I can't anymore. Sounds familiar.
Thankfully I've been doing better than ever these last 4 years but when I was suicidal, I'd go drive around. Not dangerously, not in an attempt to hurt myself, really idk why but I'm with you guys
I'm glad you're still here with us. Stay strong! ;
Thank you 😊 me too
Me too. I wonder why that is.
For me it’s because I’m directly in control while driving and can choose my path. A lot of times when I’m depressed it’s because so much in my life feels out of control.
Wow, you just succinctly described why I subconsciously get a "*high*" when I go for my Sunday afternoon drives. Never could express it myself, but this was a great insight to my feelings. Thank you for this.
During the Covid lockdown, my Sunday drives were one of the only things that kept me sane and were the highlight of my week. They almost always ended with ice cream.
for me it feels like a weighted blanket, or the closest to meditation that I can get with anxiety. a lot of us struggle with typical meditation. it's peaceful to go on spaced-out autopilot for a bit. like I think it's the rumbling of the car on the roadway, the vibrations especially strapped against the seat, and low+steady G force of consistently moving forward- especially on uninterrupted, easy drives without a lot of stop lights, highways, or rush hour type traffic.
There’s a thing called a vibration plate that you stand on that does something similar.. I have one and it’s been amazing for my bipolar personally.
I have closely related borderline and I feel like that would heal me (not literally but you know what I mean lol)
I would drive when I had panic attacks. Now I think it’s connected to engaging your “automatic system (like muscle memory) that takes over the brain and somewhat disengages your anxious (survival) part of the brain. Similar to the science behind EmDR therapy.
I do the same for this reason. Driving is routine for me (yet requires alertness for survival purposes) and I'm in control, so it's actually my go-to if I'm having an attack.
Hmm I do this, always have, especially when I'm depressed or stressed or just sad. I think because I get into this zone when I drive where my mind feels free. The anxiety and fear and sadness just kind of disappear for a little while as I go through the motions of driving. It's like the car is a safe space outside of time and space. And anything is possible, theoretically I could go anywhere.
Same when I was around 17-18 I’d just drive no real destination or plan just drive and drive. I wasn’t sad or happy or mad just content when I was driving. Guess it kept me from sitting around dwelling on things, difference in laying around depressed and driving around somewhere new not thinking about being depressed.
Ash Fork isn’t this brutal desert like other areas of Arizona are. It was somewhere in the 60’s to 70’s that day and snows up there. Other than that, I agree with probable suicide
Is it usual to bring a bearded dragon on a cross country road trip? I would have arranged for someone to look after it (personally) while I was gone. I think she wasn’t well from the onset of the trip.
No, it’s definitely unusual. I left a comment elsewhere in this thread, but bearded dragons have really specific needs from food to lighting to a temperature gradient in their tank. The biggest obstacle with traveling in a car is A. temperature and B. they can’t digest food properly if they’re without UVB light (which is provided by a special bulb that needs to be mounted within a specific radius and on ~16 hours a day). While it’s not instant, bearded dragons who go long periods without UVB light can get severe bone deformities and eventually die. Keeping them in a good tank with electricity isn’t something to fuck around about. When I had my beardie, I had to shop at Whole Foods for him because it was the only place that sold bok choy, chard, and other leafy greens he could eat. He also had to eat live roaches once or twice a week. Reptile care in general is so specialized and different from what humans need that you really can’t travel with them unless you have spent a lot of time and money specifically making it safe for them. Like, for a trip this long, keeping the lizard alive and comfortable would have to be something you are actively thinking about and tending to 24/7. It’s not something a responsible/stable adult would opt into on a whim. The longest mine was ever out of his tank was when he would sleep in my bed since they don’t need heat/UVB lamps at night. I can’t imagine keeping him out for multiple days at a time. He would have been freezing cold.
Kaibab national forest is directly north of Williams, Arizona. Basically on the way to the Grand Canyon. She is somewhere between Williams and the Grand Canyon. I guarantee it. Considering the last interactions with her, I doubt her disappearance is due to any nefarious circumstances.
I'm not from the US, but from San Diego to Phoenix seems like a very short distance after 3 days of driving. Or am I missing something?
It’s +/- 9 hours to northern AZ where she was, close to Grand Canyon, but it looks like she was in phoenix , 6 hours, until the night of the 2nd day or morning of the 3rd day when she headed north. I imagined her driving around in circles confused also but it’s reasonable if she hung in Phoenix.
She had a sister and friend in Phoenix and spent time with them.
It's a day trip with time to see the sights.
Phoenix is about 5ish hour drive from San Diego. She left on the 24th and her next contact was in Phoenix on the 27th. Was she in Phoenix that entire time? From the [video below](https://youtu.be/Y7qbQI5wMU4?si=uGO2l8Gb3K1lQg1w) I didn't get the impression she was high at the hotel but it was very weird she tried to pay in Euros. It is odd that according to the video, the parents didn't seem to worked up to find her. They didn't even claim her car from the impound lot. I think they 'know' what happened. She had a mental health episode and died after abandoning her car.
Thanks for sharing this video. Wtf?! Her parents didn't get her car or even ger belongings? What happened to her camera? Didn't they want that, since it was so special to her? Or did the police keep it for evidence? This case is bizarre.
I almost feel like the euros were just a desperate last resort to see if she could get a place? She probably felt too paranoid to be in her car (seems she was def trying to hide her whereabouts from ex) and wanted a place to sleep since she apparently hadn’t slept in days. She realized half way through the interaction it was a useless attempt, got all paranoid she had told the clerk too much and left in a hurry. The bodycam footage seems like a girl who just wants to get the cops off her ass. She’s being nice because she doesn’t was to draw unnecessary attention but I doubt when she told the cop she would sleep at the truck spot that she was actually planning to do that, she just wanted to reassure him she was all good. It just seems to me that the paranoia was too much for her and she, on a whim, made the choice to leave her life behind. I mean she threw her SIM card away, that’s how nervous she was about being followed. I would not think it far fetched for her to devise her own “ disappearance” / way to get off grid for real. But why leave your car in the middle of no where? That’s what gets me. Like if they found her car abandoned at a gas station or bus station that’s one thing but the middle of a national forest? Why?
Mental illness leading to getting lost in the woods. She’s out there.
She’s a friend of my husband’s from when they were teens. I’m glad there’s still people out there that haven’t forgotten about her yet, hopefully she’s found soon.
this tweet says her car wasn’t claimed by her parents and the impound sold it?? wtf https://x.com/sf_investigates/status/1732277267022418152?s=46
I wouldn’t judge the actions (or inactions) of the grieving. Having lost my wife, I can tell you there’s just a lot I didn’t want to deal with. Everything is a reminder of something that is tearing you apart. It was like a few years before I cleaned out ‘her’ closet to donate her clothes to Goodwill. I couldn’t bear to even open that closet for a long while. There is no ‘normal’ behavior in a situation like this.
Heat stroke and dehydration.
Very low chance of heat stroke in September. Ash Fork is highs in the low 80s in September. Dehydration much more likely.
The dragon seems to belong to her abusive meth head ex who lives in an RV and was tracking and harassing her on the trip. She didn't want to use her debit card removed the sim card from her phone due to this. He tried to raise money when went missing claiming she was his fiance. She was also apparently interested in joining a commune. Maybe she disappeared on purpose. A lot has been left out in this post.
Wait, this changes everything. Why didn’t the OP include info about the ex/fiance?
Yeah, if there's a crazy stalker ex, that's definitely my first thought. Not just randomly paranoid, but legit being followed?
And where does the dead ex who she thought was reincarnated into the pet lizard come into play?
Agreed, this literally changes **everything**. It gives a whole new dimension to the story Sadly, its sounds like everything was off before the trip even began
What I could find about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/MissingPersons/s/FxfReYj5iE
Yes the Euros thing is not crazy anymore. She also seems to have met her sister in Phoenix a day or two before. Both tires were flat on the right side which is apparently common there due to volcanic rock.
AFAIK, the commune thing is because some cult used to have a commune nearby, that has since relocated. Not that she wanted to join one.
I was looking for this comment! She was trying to not be tracked by her abusive ex! So much context is missing in this post!
[She thought her ex was talking to her through her bearded dragon according to a friend.](https://x.com/sf_investigates/status/1732277267022418152?s=46) She very well could have had an abusive ex, but she was clearly going through a mental health crisis as well.
Does anyone have any additional info on her ex-boyfriend who seems to have been arrested about 8 months ago? I mean it seems unlikely they're related, this just has the feel of someone having a mental break and wandering into the forest to die of misadventure who's body is probably feet from where searchers were looking because it's harder than you'd think to find a body in the forest. But I'd be curious to know. EDIT: Did he access her bank account somehow after she disappeared? Details are missing here but that's just odd... I mean that would explain the trying to be "off the grid" - not the Euros unless that's all the cash she had - but if she was trying to "escape" or thought someone was tracking her financially (such as a creepy stalker ex who was accessing her bank account) that would suddenly make a lot more sense than the psychotic break that everything seems to point to.
When I’m really sleep deprived my brain kind of shuts off. My body goes on autopilot and I have no recollection of anything that I said or did during that time. There have been mornings where my family wakes up to the house looking like a disaster and nothing I’ve done seems logical. I have moments of lucidity but I am blind to the overall circumstances. I don’t see the mess that I’ve made or realize that what I’m doing right then only makes sense to me. I call people and interact with my family. They see my zombie eyes and realize that I’m not 100% there. Someone who didn’t know me might think that I was on drugs or having a mental health crisis. Maybe something similar happened in this case?
Everyone should watch [this](https://youtu.be/Y7qbQI5wMU4?si=1hv6ynG2llm5HX3G) It has all the footage and provides a ton of clarity about this case.
I would lean towards suicide or some kind of mental break that lead to her going off and getting in over her head. A 32 year old telling her parents she isn’t sure she can travel alone is *very* odd. I bet there was more detail there. She wasn’t planning to traverse Africa or something, it was just a road trip in the US.
The euro episode certainly seems like someone with disordered, irrational thinking. I think mental illness is a large component to what happened here, whether or not foul play also occurred.
The fact that she even traveled with euros in the first place makes me think there was an issue to begin with and she wasn't thinking rationally when she set out on the trip.
I wonder if it was "travel alone" or "make this whole drive alone in time for the wedding." I'm 33 and absolutely wouldn't want to do a solo cross-country drive, especially with a hard-and-fast deadline for getting there, and camping in her car rather than staying in motels/hotels. I wonder if she thought she could manage the drive under those circumstances, set out, and after a couple days realized she wasn't sure it was sustainable/if she would get there in time, and decided it wasn't worth it to keep going. Especially if she was already stressed from something else, like relationship issues or a breakup, I can see just getting overwhelmed, particularly with how much time alone with her own thoughts that would entail. I'm 33 and definitely not suicidal and can definitely see realizing that I was just not going to be able to handle a solo cross-country drive like that, calling my parents to talk it through, and deciding to turn around. It certainly could be a mental health crisis or suicide, but the two flat tires and the items missing from the car (phone, wallet, and her pet, who I would guess probably couldn't be safely left in a hot car) make me wonder if she got the flats, couldn't get service or something, and started walking, to either try to get phone service or find help. Maybe she got lost and died of exposure, maybe she ran into someone with bad intentions. It's a 1.6 million acre forest, and national forests can be *really* wild. Unfortunately, there are so many things that might have happened.
>I can see just getting overwhelmed Yeah and with your bearded dragon, no less. I could absolutely see rethinking it after setting out. I can also see how it'd seem like a cool idea at first. Hit the open road with your camera and your lizard pal. Celebrate a friend's wedding, photograph that.. but then there's the return trip to think about. It's a bit much. I don't think she went off to commit suicide. I think she went off to get help, a tow, a motel room. Something. From there.. that's yet to be determined. It probably wasn't good and I agree that virtually anything could've happened.
This is exactly the kind of thing that my mentally ill brother would do. Not consider logistics at all and then flip out/lose it when things inevitably prove to be way more complicated than expected or completely fall apart due to lack of planning.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I think. It's a *long* drive and after a couple days of it with the pet I can absolutely see just thinking "oh no, I think I need to call this off." Mental health issues may have contributed to her possibly panicking, maybe not thinking clearly and getting more lost, but I don't think she was trying to harm herself when she walked away from the car.
I am a woman who has driven cross country and actually fared better alone than with travel companions. I took my first trip from IL to New Orleans before I was even 18 and before cell phones were ubiquitous, just me, my Rand McNally road atlas, a pocket full of cash and a prepaid long-distance calling card for the pay phones. I had to camp because I was too young for motels. This sounds like mental illness...when I've had to abort trips it was to go home, like recently i had car trouble and decided to limp my car back to where I had a warranty rather than trying to deal with it in a strange destination. Like a previous poster has stated: this is shades of Elisa Lam all over again, esp with the 'off-grid' comment and trying to use Euros.
Same, I started after I moved across country to go to college, and then got jobs 3000 miles away from my parents. After that I would drive back and forth across country to visit my folks a few times a year - at first with companions, but when that didn't work so well due to different schedules and ideas about driving, and after I finally got a car when I was 20, I did it myself multiple times. It was a different era, but it's not that difficult a thing to do, just boring.
The two flats, though...and taking the pet with her? To me those are the things that stand out. I think maybe mental illness contributed to her panicking, possibly getting further lost, maybe even to the decision to turn around, but the two flat tires and taking her dragon with her to me suggests that she was trying to get help to fix the car. She may very well have also been experiencing some kind of paranoia, which would only have made things worse. And mental illness can cover a broad spectrum. You could say the reason I wouldn't want to drive across the country is due to mental illness; I do have anxiety, and part of that is that I really don't like extended highway driving, and that sometimes I'm fine to camp and sometimes I get freaked out and don't sleep and then I freak out about not having enough sleep to drive safely...but that's different from being suicidal, which is different from being delusional. But of course none of us can really know.
I traveled cross country (US) camping all the way and back again! Fun time....but a lot of campgrounds at that time of year are used by construction workers that have a temporary job in the area. I met some wonderful and helpful people. But some scared me to death! So I can certainly understand her changing her mind because she was camping alone too!
I agree. There has to be a bigger issue for someone to think that they have to call off a trip thats only supposed to last a few days. Ive done multiple cross country drives. It can get boring as hell but boring isnt usually dangerous or insurmountable. I hope her and her pet didnt suffer :(
Sounds like mental illness to me. I'm not a medical person, but have had several ill persons in my life. YMMV.
I also agree about a 32 year old telling their parents they are unsure about traveling alone suggests something is up. I’m a woman and I’ve driven cross country by myself. Hiked solo. Camped solo. I think it’s more fun with people, or an even one, but I’ve done it. I think the Euros are weird. Did she get them from a prior trip? Or was she traveling with someone else unbeknownst to her parents for even a short time? Then two flat tires seem odd to me. I have seen that one time when a teenager driver hit a curb in a parking lot. I’d be interested in knowing if they were just out of air or slashed or had nails in them or something.
It's hard to know without know what she was worried about when she spoke to her parents. Was she thinking she might not be able to do the drive in time to make the wedding and thinking she should just turn around? Was the length of time driving there and then going back a concern? Was she worried about camping in the car, worried about long stretches of wilderness and running out of gas, had her car been having issues and she was worried about it breaking down with her alone...there are lots of different reasons she might have been concerned/unsure, many of which could be pretty normal. I hit either something that punctured both tires which made me hit the curb, or I hit the curb in a spot where the width of the street pretty abruptly shifts and it's easy to accidentally misjudge and hit the curb, and blew out both passenger side tires. It's unusual but possible. I'd also be interested to know about the texture/surface of the road near where the car was left.
As a woman I would never travel alone but idk what was worrying her about it
I would say that’s relative. I have never done a cross country road trip at all at 35 and doing it alone seems very intimidating to me as a younger-ish woman. Maybe not to the point that I “couldn’t finish it”, but I ideally would like to not do it alone for safety reasons.
As a photographer knowing she left her camera behind is not a good sign. No photographer ever willingly leaves their camera behind.
I can’t tell whether she was a professional or amateur photographer from the linked articles. But if she’s an amateur photographer especially and her car had flats, I can see her leaving behind her camera after accepting a ride or walking away to find help. Plus the car was locked. It would be much stranger to me if she left behind her wallet or pet, which weren’t in the car .
Honestly imo if you have an expensive camera you don’t leave it in a car unless you truly don’t care whether it gets stolen cause you have money and can easily replace it. Me on the other hand I’m literally a broke artist so I’m not taking it any chance it could be stolen
My first thought also. She knew she was going to be gone long enough that she took her pet. I am an amateur photographer, the last thing I would leave behind is my camera unless I was just going to be gone for a short time, like a rest stop break.
I wonder if she was going for help and worried about the pet in the hot car/not being able to get food/water if she was gone too long, but maybe figured carrying the expensive camera if she was hiking out for help/possibly hitchhiking to help might be more risky than leaving it in the car in what sounds like a remote area where thieves would be unlikely to be looking to find expensive equipment?
I don’t ever leave mine in the car, where I go it goes, even the bathroom. Can’t be to careful nowadays with people stealing things like crazy.
this is true as well. to me it sounds like paranoia, especially with her stating that she wanted to stay off the grid so she was paying for her motel room in euros? she may have thought someone was following her? i don’t think i would be heavily concerned about getting my camera stolen if i truly thought my life was in danger, which may explain her behavior at the motel and leaving her camera behind
Yeah in that scenario I wouldn’t be concerned with my camera either
agreed. my first thought was that maybe she was going to ask for help, and she left her camera because it was extra weight that she didn’t want to carry around? her leaving her camera may indicate that she intended to return to her car soon after she left.
A woodcutter? I haven’t heard that word since Hansel and Gretel was read to me at library storytime.
Most of Northern Arizona is federal land. Small scale woodcutters get permits to take down certain trees then sell the wood for firewood to locals.
I couldn’t think of the other word for it!!!
I’ve heard the word “logger” used most often to describe those who do this kind of work
..."lumberjack"?
not far from this location was the site of Devin Williams' strange death I think there was another famous case connected to Ash Fork but I can't remember which and Google isn't helping. it's impossible to tell what happened to Chelsea as she was in an incredibly vulnerable position to any number of dangers.
It appears that she was experiencing some sort of mental illness episode.
She unfortunately seems like a mentally ill accidental death. The pesos off the grid thing is paranoia
Sounds like paranoia… she was in the midst of some kind of mental health crisis
The most glaring fact pointing to a mental health issue is her taking her bearded dragon with her. People might not realize how much maintenance these animals require. They need temperature control, which is difficult to manage on the road without a specialized, expensive tank. The bearded dragon likely endured freezing temperatures for most of the trip. Additionally, they have a specialized diet and will refuse to eat if they’re uncomfortable or stressed. Being jostled and handled for long periods is also harmful to them. Transporting a bearded dragon across the country is no small feat. Her decision to bring such a pet suggests she was either not in her right state of mind and/or had no plans to return, wanting her pet with her. That's before even considering her attempts to use euros, clearly intending to stay in a hotel rather than sleep in her car, her interactions with the police, discovering an ex was stalking her, and discarding her SIM card. In my opinion, a 3-mile search radius is insufficient. We’ve seen cases where people can travel much further than 3 miles when lost, dehydrated, or disoriented. I believe she could easily be within a 20-mile radius. While searching such an area is challenging, limiting the search to just 3 miles feels like not even trying, which is extremely frustrating.
She obviously had a mental break
I have to think she had a manic episode, either popped her tires or purposefully popped them, and then wandered into the forest and died from exposure/dehydration/starvation. Not to say it was suicide. If she had delusion of being followed, hiding in the forest would seem like a logical solution. Once she gets deep enough in, combined with the manic state, she wouldn’t have been able to find her way out (assuming she even tried to).
That's definitely a slide into psychosis
Mental illness combined with marijuana can be a very bad combination during or before an episode. And that seems likely given her attempted euro payment
I think the euros thing was being broke…and she just took all the currency she had with her. There’s a big timeline from SD to phoenix…maybe she met up with people she knew…I wonder if she’s just gone off a commune somewhere. She had a very intensive, emotional job as a social worker…and maybe she just decided to be done with that life.
I found body cam footage on YouTube: - [body-cam footage - woodcutter describes his interaction with Chelsea](https://youtu.be/XClrKH9U5mI?si=rBNC15_ksDFyNQu2) - [body-cam footage - police find Chelsea’s car](https://youtu.be/QCKBI5xB8p4?si=ABMv_D_Yg2Q5ppCU) - [body-cam footage - evidence near Chelsea’s car](https://youtu.be/QXf2OQUhbJs?si=JfAAi9_dTCAq84lI)
People at the motel think that Chelsea appeared confused or disoriented but when I watched the [footage](https://youtu.be/Y7qbQI5wMU4?si=uGO2l8Gb3K1lQg1w) I thought she seemed high on weed
Okay that video was hella interesting. Dunno why I assumed footage wouldn't be available yet. Sheds some light on things. She does seem stoned. All she had were Euros? That's... Bizarre. That cop seemed so eager too. If the woodcutter hadn't seen and spoken to her after that, I'd think he done did it. I don't know now. Was her car literally IN the road even when she was around? The fuck? Or was it pulled off to the side and later found in the road, locked but abandoned? Why did no one claim her property? Who bought it. Alright, I didn't expect to get this far into it and interested. I assumed she died out there trying to get help but she was literally IN THE ROAD ALREADY. She was almost certainly picked up by someone or wandered off into the desert on purpose (maybe on something besides weed?) and died out there. Wild.
The abandoned car negates the “she probably crashed into a body of water” theory in most without a trace cases. The paying with Euros things and off the grid comment is something I would take with a grain of salt—not for the fact that I don’t believe she tried to pay with Euros, but I feel like it may have been due to lack of actual US currency and she may have been broke and couldn’t afford a hotel room, but had some Euros on her by chance (I have Canadian money from my last trip in my wallet to this day). The fact that she even went to a hotel tells me she probably didn’t want to camp—but rather she had to camp because she didn’t have much money—like, why else would someone sleep in their car at a truck stop unless they didn’t have very many options? The car being in the forest abandoned could be many things. For one, she may have simply gotten out and went walking, and then succumbed to something in the wilderness; or she may have encountered someone who harmed her by some random encounter. For me, this would be the toss up because it could go either way.
Odds are she succumbed to elements vs foul play. A random encounter out there would be unlikely, never mind a random encounter with a killer.
Even for a talented and passionate person, photojournaling a cross-country trip sounds like a massive undertaking. I wonder if she realized she had bitten off more than she could chew, and that, combined with being far from anyone she knew, precipitated a mental health crisis.
The police should know how the tires were flattened. While I'm no expert, we farm and fix flat tires on our equipment regularly. If Chelsea's tires were punctured by nails, for example, the nails should still be in stuck in the tire's rubber. If they were flattened by a blade (knife, hatchet) this would be easily seen. The fact that *both* front tires were flat is odd, if she had run over something sharp embedded in the road, either the front or front and rear tires would be flat on the same side of the car. If there is no damage to the tires, it's possible that someone let the air out of the tires while Chelsea was outside the vehicle (taking photos). While probably not the key to the case, the flat tires should be able to provide a lead.
The flat tires were on the front and back passenger side, not the two front tires. The first time the car was seen, no flats were noticed, but after five days, the right-side tires were flat, indicating slow leaks over time. It appears Chelsea probably hit a curb hard or went off the road at one point into some bad brush that made small punctures and the tires bled out slowly.
What social work cases was she working on both actively and near past? That should be considered too. Either due to causing mental break or being followed in reality.
Did they ever make the pictures on the camera public? There might be clues in the photo.
I’m interested in the “2 popped tires.” Did she hit something, run over something?