Beyond Disturbing: California Woman Left To Die In Tow Yard

We’ve all heard stories of people being buried alive, but imagine being left critically injured in your car only to die in a tow yard. That’s what happened to a California woman after authorities failed to discover her inside her own minivan after a drunk driver hit it. Now the woman’s family is suing the city of San Diego.

Burned out cars are still being cleaned up after the last big California fire.

The crash happened in early November 2023, but 65-year-old Monica Cameroni De Adams’ body wasn’t discovered until a month later on December 6 after employees at the tow yard noticed an overwhelmingly bad smell coming from the minivan.

By that time her body was heavily decomposed. According to WLTX, tow yard employees found her partway buried under some of her personal belongings in the middle seat of her 2001 Honda Odyssey, which was presumably why nobody spotted her before.

According to a legal filing from De Adams’ family, San Diego Police failed to thoroughly check inside the minivan after it was hit by a drunk drive. The vehicle had been parked on the side of the road.

We’re wondering if officers just assumed nobody was inside the Honda because it was parked at the time of the crash. The woman was living out of the minivan at the time, so it had a lot of stuff in it, and that’s how she wasn’t easily spotted.

Instead, the San Diego County Medical Examiner says she died from injuries sustained in the crash. The family argues that means she was still alive, barely clinging to life, when the minivan was towed away and put in a yard.

Of course, these are accusations, but the truth might come out in the ensuing court proceedings, assuming the city doesn’t just settle the matter quietly. This case is disturbing for obvious reasons, but we hope it leads to law enforcement agencies training personnel to properly search vehicles before having them towed away, even if they think nobody was inside.

Image via CBS 8 San Diego/YouTube