Overview
- Two campers launched a canoe from a Tomales Bay campsite around midnight to view bioluminescence and were later found unresponsive in the bay.
- Marin County officials identified 36-year-old San Francisco resident Casey Flynn Melia as one of the two people who died while the companion’s name has not been released.
- First responders discovered the companion unresponsive in the water and the U.S. Coast Guard transported that person to Bodega Bay where they were declared dead.
- Search teams later found Melia unresponsive near Hog Island and the National Park Service brought him to Sacramento Landing where he was declared dead.
- The Marin County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Park Service are leading a coordinated probe and have scheduled forensic postmortem and toxicology testing before determining cause and manner of death; Tomales Bay often draws night visitors during bioluminescence season and spans multiple jurisdictions.