{"id":411164,"date":"2026-07-24T20:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T20:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411164\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T20:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T20:06:07","slug":"police-say-alcohol-withdrawal-caused-womans-death-in-california-backcountry-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411164\/","title":{"rendered":"Police say alcohol withdrawal caused woman\u2019s death in California backcountry | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

A young woman whose body was found in the backcountry of California<\/a>\u2019s Big Sur with suspicious marks on her face and neck died of alcohol withdrawal, the Monterey county sheriff\u2019s office said<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The discovery of Joanna Ruth Shields\u2019 body back in April had driven widespread suspicion that she had been the victim of a violent attack. A group of hikers found Shields, 37, naked in a pool of water in the Sykes hot springs area of the Ventana wilderness with marks on her neck and a cut across her forehead.<\/p>\n

The group of hikers also came across a man<\/a> who reportedly told the group he had been hiking with Shields, and said she had gone to the bathroom without returning. He went looking for her and saw her facedown in a pool of water. The man cooperated with the investigation, the Monterey county sheriff\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

The Monterey county sheriff\u2019s office investigated<\/a> the case as a \u201csuspicious death\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the findings of Tina Nieto, the sheriff-coroner of Monterey county, ruled the cause of death as \u201cprobable alcohol withdrawal seizures due to chronic alcohol use disorder\u201d. The marks on Shields\u2019 neck were the result of insect bites, and the gash on her forehead was \u201csuperficial\u201d and did not contribute to her death, according to the Monterey county sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur thoughts and prayers remain with Joanna\u2019s family and loved ones,\u201d Nieto wrote in a statement. \u201cWe hope these findings provide them with some measure of peace and closure after several difficult months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investigators found no evidence during the forensic examination or throughout the investigation to indicate that Shields was the victim of a crime.<\/p>\n

Shields was a passionate skater who worked as a brand ambassador for Evolve Skateboards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young woman whose body was found in the backcountry of California\u2019s Big Sur with suspicious marks on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-411164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}