Body of missing Netflix engineer found floating in San Francisco Bay weeks after starting new job
The body of a missing software engineer who recently moved to San Francisco to start a job at Netflix was found floating in the San Francisco Bay last week as his cause of death was revealed.
The badly decomposed remains of Yohanes Kidane, 22, were pulled from waters northeast of the Golden Gate Bridge Tuesday morning after a passing boat spotted his body and flagged the Coast Guard, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office said.
His death was determined to be a suicide, the sheriff said.
Kidane, of Webster, NY, disappeared on Aug. 14 when he was last seen leaving his San Jose apartment in an Uber just weeks after he moved across the country for the gig at the streaming giant.
The recent Cornell University grad’s body showed signs of “advanced decomposition, prolonged exposure to the aquatic environment and appreciable depredation,” according to the sheriff’s office.
Investigators were unable to ID the body, which carried had no form of identification.
The coroner positively identified the remains as that of Kidane on Thursday and promptly notified the young engineer’s family.
The coroner then determined his cause of death was a combination of blunt impact injuries and drowning and that the manner of death was suicide, the sheriff said.
Kidane’s wallet, cellphone and backpack had been found near the Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center after he went missing. His photo data showed that he was at the bridge for the majority of the night that he disappeared.
He was only in his second week at Netflix when he vanished.
His family and friends desperately searched for him after he reportedly told a friend he had a concerning experience in a rideshare car just two days before he was last seen stepping into a car with an Uber sticker.
He reportedly said the driver had taken him on a roundabout way to his apartment, insisting they go through Oakland leading the recent grad to be hesitant to use a rideshare alone again.
Kidane’s loved ones started a GoFundMe campaign that garnered more than $100,000 in donations as well as a search task force.
“We want to take him home. I need my son. I need my son,” Kidane’s mother Mehret Hana Beyene told KTVU last month. “He’s a good man who has a bright future, very loving to his family.”
