0:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to episode 19 of USA Unsolved. 0:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Today we will be staying in California for another episode, and then we will be heading out to other parts of the U.S. to discuss other unsolved cases. 0:14 [SPEAKER_00]: It's simply unfortunate that there are so many out there, and while the list is extensive, not every case has a lot of information out there. 0:23 [SPEAKER_00]: I am keeping track of these names, and I may or may not consolidate a few cases into one episode. 0:30 [SPEAKER_00]: But for today's case, we are looking into an unsolved death. 0:34 [SPEAKER_00]: I cannot say that it's murder, because there is currently nothing pointing to murder, but it is a strange case, and a very recent case. 0:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Her name is Chen Yao Huang, otherwise known as Amy Huang. 0:48 [SPEAKER_00]: She went missing in the early hours of the morning. 0:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And although her body has been recovered, the details surrounding how she lost her life still seems a little bit murky. 0:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's begin. 1:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Amy Huang immigrated to the United States with her parents when she was eight years old, around the year 2009. 1:08 [SPEAKER_00]: She lived her life as the child of an immigrant family. 1:11 [SPEAKER_00]: She picked up English in the U.S., and I'm pretty soon she became someone her family relied on. 1:17 [SPEAKER_00]: I believe this is a rather common occurrence with immigrant families. 1:21 [SPEAKER_00]: The parents work on making money, many times in an environment where their first language is spoken. 1:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Their children go to school, learn fast, and become the unofficial family translator. 1:34 [SPEAKER_00]: This can be a big responsibility for a child to burden, but in a way, everyone has their own role, and this seems to be how Amy and her parents work together. 1:45 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have much information on Amy's upbringing and personal life, but it would appear that she was very well-liked and was a kind and compassionate person. 1:54 [SPEAKER_00]: For college, she attended UC Berkeley, and graduated in the year 2022. 2:00 [SPEAKER_00]: From there, she will not obtain her master's degree at San Francisco State University, studying at the school of social work. 2:08 [SPEAKER_00]: She was passionate about helping people, studying to explore, quote, the under-utilization of mental health services among Asian Americans in San Francisco, unquote. 2:20 [SPEAKER_00]: That is very admirable, and I believe it speaks volumes on who she was as a person. 2:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Mental health issues is very real, and depending on your background, your immigration story, your family life, certain therapists and professionals can be of more help if they're familiar with certain issues that their patience face. 2:41 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just the ability to relate, but also to look deeper into it and offer solutions and advice. 2:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Amy was specifically looking into providing help to first generation Chinese immigrants because moving to a new country and adjusting can be very difficult and many do not yet have a grasp of the English language. 3:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Amy was trilingual, fluent in English, Mandarin Chinese, and Cantonese. 3:09 [SPEAKER_00]: To add to this, people of Chinese descent make up nearly a quarter of San Francisco's population, so her expertise would have definitely been needed. 3:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Right before her disappearance, Amy was actively working on accumulating enough hours to obtain her clinical social work licensure. 3:27 [SPEAKER_00]: and she was working on her way to being full-time employed. 3:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Her parents were also on their path towards retirement. 3:34 [SPEAKER_00]: And Amy was more than happy to support them financially. 3:39 [SPEAKER_00]: With some background on who Amy was as a young adult, let's look into the day she went missing. 3:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Starting with March 31, 2025, Amy was at home, working and doing laundry. 3:53 [SPEAKER_00]: She was apparently suffering from seasonal allergies, so she did not head out and instead went to bed, time unknown. 4:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Around 17am, which would be April 1st, 4:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Amy got up and left her room with her phone, heading to the restroom. 4:10 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not entirely sure how this was determined, but perhaps they had indoor cameras or someone noticed her leaving her room. 4:18 [SPEAKER_00]: At around 120 a.m., Amy left her house, got into her car, and drove away. 4:25 [SPEAKER_00]: This we know because the family home did have cameras outside their property, and it showed 4:34 [SPEAKER_00]: The following information is based off information I found online, posted by a friend of Amy's, which the police provided based off the Ashcam footage and device history. 4:45 [SPEAKER_00]: It appeared that Amy was driving as she normally would, stopping at red lights, stopping at stop signs, and going within the speed limit. 4:54 [SPEAKER_00]: She eventually arrived on the San Mateo Bridge, which is a seven-mile long bridge connecting San Mateo and Hayward. 5:02 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the longest fixed-linked bridge in California, and Amy was heading east towards Hayward. 5:09 [SPEAKER_00]: At around 150am, Amy pulled into the shoulder of the bridge and stopped for around 10 seconds. 5:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing happened during that time, and no one else was seen to be around the bridge at that time. 5:21 [SPEAKER_00]: She got back onto the road and eventually made a turn back towards San Mateo, driving back west. 5:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Around 2-12 AM, she pulled over and stopped again. 5:33 [SPEAKER_00]: And that is where the tracking stops. 5:35 [SPEAKER_00]: The dashcam and Amy's car apparently turns on and off with the car, so once Amy turned off the engine, her dashcam also turned off. 5:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Around 3 AM, a California highway patrol officer found the car sitting there with the hazard 5:51 [SPEAKER_00]: The officer called it in, and Amy's car was towed around 30 minutes later. 5:56 [SPEAKER_00]: This is definitely a strange situation. 5:59 [SPEAKER_00]: When her family realized she was missing, they checked their camera footage and found that Amy left in the middle of the night without telling anyone. 6:07 [SPEAKER_00]: They called nearby hospitals, the police, but no trace of Amy came up. 6:13 [SPEAKER_00]: According to friends and family, Amy had no mental health issues, no physical illnesses, was not taking any medication, and did not seem to be acting strange or out of character. 6:25 [SPEAKER_00]: When Amy's father went to pick up her car, he found that the car was in working order, so this rules out the idea that Amy pulled over due to car issues. 6:35 [SPEAKER_00]: When he looked inside, her wallet and phone were sitting in the car, but her house 6:43 [SPEAKER_00]: It's definitely strange for young people to go anywhere without their phones, so was there a reason for her to leave it in the car, but take her keys with her? 6:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Her family and friends began to spread the word on Amy's disappearance, and they also attempted to gain access to her phone. 7:01 [SPEAKER_00]: It could be a text from someone, or a last search that can lead them to her whereabouts. 7:07 [SPEAKER_00]: But without knowing her passcode, it was basically impossible, as she had an iPhone, and Apple has a very strict privacy policy about unlocking other people's phones. 7:18 [SPEAKER_00]: I get why this policy exists, but I feel like some flexibility can be granted. 7:23 [SPEAKER_00]: There are some ways to get around it, however, such as assigning a legacy contact or go through court orders. 7:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Either way, it's not guaranteed. 7:34 [SPEAKER_00]: They were, however, able to get into a RRI cloud, and it was synced with their phone. 7:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing out of the ordinary stood out. 7:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Texts, calls, transactions, nothing. 7:45 [SPEAKER_00]: One of her last searches on her Apple Maps, though, showed a search for a San Mateo McDonald's and McDonald's in Hayward. 7:53 [SPEAKER_00]: When it was made though, is unclear. 7:56 [SPEAKER_00]: If this was connected to her leaving, while she was looking to get McDonald's in the middle of the night, 8:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Sure, driving all the way across a 7-mile bridge may seem strange, especially when there was McDonald's in San Mateo and Foster City, which is way closer to where she lived. 8:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Either way, this really doesn't tell the authorities anything. 8:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Amy's family and friends have expressed their frustrations at the local police in the early days of our disappearance. 8:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Not only were they slow to act, they also allegedly would have held information, such as dash cam and bridge camera footage from her family, which they instead showed to news outlets. 8:36 [SPEAKER_00]: It appears that they have eventually released more information and footage to the family, but that's largely due to the family being outspoken and involving the community, and even setting up an Instagram account to help find Amy. 8:49 [SPEAKER_00]: According to the police, none of the cameras showed Amy walking towards the ledge, and certainly does not show her jumping off. 8:57 [SPEAKER_00]: If anything, there was simply hoping Amy would just show up, hours or days later. 9:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Since we're on the topic of missing persons, it's worth mentioning that San Francisco has experience of decline in, quote, adult recovery rates, dropping to approximately 80% by 2024, unquote. 9:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Other counties in the area though have maintained a recovery rate of 95%. 9:23 [SPEAKER_00]: So what is it about San Francisco? 9:26 [SPEAKER_00]: As I briefly mentioned, no footage showed Amy jumping off the bridge. 9:31 [SPEAKER_00]: While suicide is a possibility, the bridge itself is not associated with suicide, at least, not the way the Golden Gate bridges. 9:40 [SPEAKER_00]: If you recall from USA Unsolved Episode 6, we briefly touched on the link between the Golden Gate Bridge and suicide rates. 9:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Despite Amy's family and friend searching and spreading the word, there was still no sign of Amy. 9:55 [SPEAKER_00]: But on April 30th, a body was found at the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve in Union City during a research survey. 10:05 [SPEAKER_00]: This is a nature preserve managed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, located on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, which is on the other side of San Mateo Bridge, on the side of Hayward. 10:18 [SPEAKER_00]: The body was immediately taken away, but due to decomposition and degradation of the fingerprints, it would take some time until the body's identity was revealed. 10:29 [SPEAKER_00]: On May 30th, a month after, results were revealed and the body was confirmed to be that of Amy. 10:36 [SPEAKER_00]: It is bizarre to think about, and very difficult to come up with a coherent story on why Amy left her home at 1am. 10:43 [SPEAKER_00]: left her car on the bridge, left her phone in the car, and somehow ended up in a nature preserve miles away. 10:51 [SPEAKER_00]: A few theories have seen online include suicide. 10:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Even though no camera footage showed Amy leaping off a bridge, could it have just been a blind spot? 11:01 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not unlikely, but why would Amy suddenly want to end her life? 11:06 [SPEAKER_00]: It's true. 11:07 [SPEAKER_00]: We don't know what goes on behind the scenes of a person. 11:10 [SPEAKER_00]: But Amy had future plans, she had a job to look forward to, and she had friends and family. 11:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Was it a spur of the moment decision? 11:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, anything is possible, but the question still remains. 11:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Why? 11:25 [SPEAKER_00]: If she did jump into the water, it could explain how her body ended up in the reserve. 11:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Another theory I've seen come up is sleepwalking. 11:35 [SPEAKER_00]: As it was considered an out of character action, could she have been sleepwalking? 11:40 [SPEAKER_00]: This is not unheard of where people suffer from perisomnia, where they're technically asleep, but they're doing other things while completely unaware that they're doing it. 11:51 [SPEAKER_00]: This was deemed unlikely as Amy had no history of sleepwalking or sleep disorders, and was not on any type of substance or medication, but I'm unsure if this can manifest 12:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Another theory is, could someone else have been in the car with her? 12:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Sure, there was a dash cam, but it didn't record sound, and it was only front facing. 12:16 [SPEAKER_00]: If someone was in the car with her though, they definitely got out at some point. 12:22 [SPEAKER_00]: They definitely got on and out at some point. 12:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And luckily for them, they were also able to avoid any cameras. 12:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Finding Amy was absolutely devastating for her family and friends. 12:34 [SPEAKER_00]: As I mentioned, her parents were preparing to retire, and suddenly their child is taken from them. 12:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Amy's grandmother passed away only two days before Amy's identity was confirmed, which left Amy's parents not only bearing a child, but also a parent. 12:52 [SPEAKER_00]: This is a lot to handle in such a short period of time. 12:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Amy's father had taken a leave of absence from work upon Amy's appearance to help search for her, while her mother continued to work to make ends meet. 13:06 [SPEAKER_00]: The Huang family had set up a go-fun me, but it's now paused. 13:11 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm hoping they received ample assistance from the community, because this backed-back tragedy cannot be easy. 13:18 [SPEAKER_00]: If you happen to reside in the area, or if you happen to have any dashcam footage from that night around the area, or whatever information that might be helpful, please reach out to the number listed in the show notes. 13:30 [SPEAKER_00]: My heart goes out to Amy's family and friends. 13:34 [SPEAKER_00]: It's one thing to find her body, but it must be so difficult going through life, not knowing what happened. 13:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Please take care of yourselves, be kind, and stay safe. 13:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Till next time.
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