Parents of Erin Valenti, a Utah tech CEO who was found dead under mysterious circumstances this weekend, believe their daughter suffered a ‘manic episode’ shortly before she disappeared, telling them during a phone call, ‘it’s all a game…we’re in the matrix’.
The 33-year-old was found dead in the back seat of her rental car on a residential street in San Jose’s quiet Almaden neighborhood on Saturday, five days after she was first reported missing.
Valenti, the chief executive of Salt Lake City-based app developer Tinker Ventures was last heard from on October 7, when she missed her flight from San Jose back home to Utah.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until 3:30pm on Monday after she met with a former colleague on Sand Hill Road, before calling her parents to say she couldn’t find her rental car.
Parents of Erin Valenti, a Utah tech CEO who was found dead under mysterious circumstances this weekend, believe their daughter suffered a ‘manic episode’ shortly before she disappeared, telling them during a phone call, ‘it’s all a game…we’re in the matrix’
The 33-year-old was found dead in the back seat of her rental car on a residential street in San Jose’s quiet Almaden neighborhood on Saturday, five days after she was first reported missing
Once she located the grey Nissan Murano, she stayed on the phone with her mother and father where Valenti’s conversation began veering from the strange to the down-right bizarre.
Her father, Joseph Valenti, says his daughter was talking ‘a mile a minute’ and wasn’t making any sense.
Though the bereaved father insists his daughter has no history of mental illness, Joseph says he wasn’t the only member of the family to receive a ‘confusing and disjointed’ call in the hours leading up to her disappearance.
Valenti also called her mother on and off for several hours across Monday afternoon and through the evening.
‘Her thoughts were disconnected…. She’d say I’m coming home for Thanksgiving, then in the next she was saying she’s in the Matrix,’ Whitey Valenti told Mercury News.
Valenti is said to have told her mother, ‘It’s all a game, it’s a thought experiment: we’re in the Matrix.’
The 33-year-old, who would be turning 34 on Wednesday, missed her flight later that evening and failed to show at a ceremony in Utah on Tuesday, where she was due to receive a ‘women in tech’ award.
Concerned for her well-being, Valenti’s husband Harrison Weinstein, a psychologist, attempted to track her location through a ‘find my phone app’ but was unsuccessful.
Once she located the grey Nissan Murano, she stayed on the phone with her mother and father where Valenti’s conversation began veering from the strange to the down-right bizarre. Her father, Joseph Valenti, says his daughter was talking ‘a mile a minute’ and wasn’t making any sense
Though the bereaved father insists his daughter has no history of mental illness, Joseph says he wasn’t the only member of the family to receive a ‘confusing and disjointed’ call in the hours leading up to her disappearance. Valenti also called her mother on and off for several hours across Monday afternoon and evening. ‘Her thoughts were disconnected…. She’d say I’m coming home for Thanksgiving, then in the next she was saying she’s in the Matrix,’ Whitey Valenti said
During her final phone calls with loved ones on Monday, Valenti mention she was low on gas, and, with a request from her family, a San Jose police officer contacted Valenti by phone the same night.
But the police office also said she ‘wasn’t making any sense’ on the phone, according to Weinstein.
The officer drove around San Jose trying to find her but found no trace of Valenti.
Frustrated with the police department’s efforts, Weinstein set up a ‘Help Find Erin Valenti’ Facebook page, inspiring more than 1,500 Bay Area locals into searching for her.
It was one of the volunteers who discovered Valenti’s body in the back-seat on the 6500 block of Bose Lane — a half-mile from her last known location – on Saturday.
‘Many of you have seen that the search for Erin has been called off. While we were praying for a different outcome, we are so appreciative for the help and support you have given,’ a post of the Help Find Erin Valenti page read on Sunday morning, announcing the heart breaking news.
‘Please remember Erin as the beautiful, smart, funny woman that she was.’
Erin’s final post: Nothing seemed amiss until 3:30pm on Monday after she met with a former colleague on Sand Hill Roadand said she couldn’t find her car
Frustrated with the police department’s efforts, Weinstein set up a ‘Help Find Erin Valenti’ Facebook page, inspiring more than 1,500 Bay Area locals into searching for her. It was one of the volunteers who discovered Valenti’s body in the back-seat on the 6500 block of Bose Lane in San Jose — a half-mile from her last known location – on Saturday
Authorities have not yet released a time of death or offered any indication as to how long she was in the car before being found. A spokesperson from the San Jose Police Department also refused to identify a cause of death when questioned, citing an ongoing investigation.
Members of Valenti’s family are questioning how the police department handled their daughter’s missing person’s case, accusing them of botching the search.
‘The beginning of it was a charade,’ Joseph Valenti told Mercury News of the police department’s efforts to find his daughter. ‘And I am totally frustrated and pissed off with how that was conducted.’
Joseph Valenti continued that despite all the information he and other family members gave to police – including the make, model and license plate of the car, descriptions of her strange behavior on the phone, and data-tracking the location of her last phone call – the department didn’t file a missing person’s report for Erin Valenti until Thursday.
Adding insult to injury, they also described her as ‘voluntarily missing’, saying that she was an adult, theorizing that she had just spontaneously taken a few days off.
Joseph believes the department didn’t make searching for his daughter a priority.
Authorities have not yet released a time of death or offered any indication as to how long she was in the car before being found. A spokesperson from the San Jose Police Department also refused to identify a cause of death when question, citing an ongoing investigation
Similarly, Weinstein took to Facebook to refute the department’s claims, writing: ‘I would like to emphasize how out of character this would be for Erin. While she is adventurous, she is not foolhardy and would never intentionally be out of contact with her family. As a psychologist, I am especially concerned about her last calls which were confusing and disjointed.’
Weinstein continued that it’s ‘completely possible to have a sudden onset of symptoms [of a manic episode] like this for a variety of mental health and physical reasons (even if there have not been previous symptoms).’
A spokesperson for the San Jose Police Department has not yet responded to a DailyMail.com request for comment.
After news of her death was made public, tributes began pouring in for Valenti, who many remembered as a ‘special woman’ and ‘amazing friend’.
‘Our hearts are broken. We have just learned that our friend, community member and fellow technology leader Erin Valenti’s body has been found,’ The Women Tech Council said in a statement.
‘We honored her this week for her entrepreneurial excellence, her incredible career and work. Our thoughts and prayers are with her husband, family and colleagues around the world.’