I also lost my daughter at the age of 27..I am so sorry for your loss.

My God how can you possibly believe this was a suicide."A body in the trunk of a car in a parking lot 100 miles away".If this person was a white girl with a masters in engineering from MIT with 2 patents.The media wouldnt even entertain suicide.It safe to say a white male is the beneficiary of these keystone cops...they wouldnt dare wrap this up if the suspect was of color..

Randy, while what you write seems to be "out there," it isn't without merit. Interesting.

Regardless, I express my sympathy to the family.

Actually, the facts seem pretty consistent with a suicide. She withdrew from the people around her and then drove far enough away and hid in her trunk so that she wouldn't be found before she died. That sort of thing's not that uncommon.

The two patents? Why would anyone kill her for them when they could license them?

Depression is a terrible thing. Successful and gifted people kill themselves. May Zhou's suicide was similar to Sylvia Plath's first suicide attempt. Swallowing pills and crawling into a dark space is not untypical, particularly for women. As for ethnicity, suicide and depression rates are relatively high for young Asian-American women.

Of course, her father doesn't want to believe it. It's got to be hell on earth for her family.

Doesn't mean the facts don't fit a suicide scenario. Unless there's a smoking gun, they do.

Randy - Please, give me a break. This isn't some racist conspiracy [portion removed by Palo Alto Online.] All the evidence does support the official statement from the police.

May Zhou's murder:
Santa Rosa police incompetence or conspiracy? Did her research threaten someone? What kind of people did she threaten? Think about it. How sophisticated can these people be? They hired a hick from Santa Rosa to do this dirty work. How dumb are the Santa Rosa police? They can't even solve a crime committed by an amateur.