Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/03/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Missing Mill Valley girl found dead in ocean Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, March 22, 2010 (03-21) 20:37 PDT MUIR BEACH -- Alicia Lee, a high school senior with a knack for photography, celebrated the final night of winter at a Marin County beach with friends. The excursion would be her last. The 17-year-old from Mill Valley was found Sunday morning, floating in the chilly waters just north of Muir Beach nearly 24 hours after friends reported her missing, officials said. The cause of death is under investigation, but authorities do not suspect foul play, National Park Service ranger George Durgerian said. Lee apparently fell into the ocean early Saturday near Tennessee Beach in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, where she and eight friends were camping for the night. The beach is a short hike from Mill Valley through Tennessee Valley, just north of the Marin Headlands. Lee was last seen around 1 a.m. Friends noticed she was missing by 9 a.m. Saturday morning, and, after searching for her themselves, they notified a ranger about 12:30 p.m. By 2 p.m., a formal search operation was under way. Search and rescue teams from Marin, Sonoma, San Francisco, Solano and Alameda counties, as well as the National Park Service, combed the rugged coastline around Tennessee Beach for signs of the 5-foot-8, 120-pound girl. In all, the search included 46 rescue personnel, six dogs, six horses, helicopters, boats, all-terrain vehicles and trucks, Durgerian said. A Park Service ranger and lifeguard, scanning the coast in a Jet Ski-type watercraft, spotted Lee's body at 10:40 a.m. Sunday, in a cove 2 miles north of where she was last seen. The pair had studied Saturday's currents and tides and deduced that the girl would have drifted north, Durgerian said. "It's extraordinary they found her," he said. "The phrase 'needle in a haystack' would be an understatement." The cliffs are so rugged in the area that authorities used a helicopter to recover Lee's body. At the same time, the Park Service brought a grief counselor to Tennessee Beach. The waters off the Marin coast are notoriously treacherous. Rip tides, currents, large waves, cold water, rocks and crumbling cliffs make the shore extremely hazardous, and the Park Service allows swimming only at Stinson Beach. Dan Coelho of Concord was fishing for Dungeness crabs at Muir Beach Sunday when officials located Lee's body. "Every year there are fatalities out here," Coelho said. "On a scale of 10 on the danger scale, it's a 10. The ocean here is very powerful." Lee was a senior at Tamiscal High School, an alternative school in the Tamalpais Union High School District. On a photography Web site, she posted dozens of vivid, light-filled photos of New York City, from neoclassical building details to 9/11 tributes. Lee was the subject of a published photograph herself recently, when a Chronicle photographer captured her examining a puddle at Crissy Field after a rainstorm in January. The photo, which she adopted as her Facebook profile picture, shows her traipsing ankle-deep through the water, studying the ripples, camera around her neck. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/22/BAB41CJAEO.DTL This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle C 2010 Hearst Communications Inc.