Utah tech CEO goes missing on way to San Jose airport
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KTVU) - Desperate family members are hoping for answers in the disappearance of a Utah tech executive.
Erin Valenti went missing Monday as she traveled from Palo Alto toward the San Jose Airport.
Valenti, CEO of Tinker Ventures, was supposed to be honored with an award for "Entrepreneurship Excellence" this week, but she never made it.
She also never made it to the airport to catch her flight home.
Her panicked family flew into San Jose trying to revisit her last known locations.
Her mother Agnes Valenti said, "I want to be closer to my daughter. I need her to come home."
Valenti had been in Palo Alto on a business trip and was apparently heading to the airport when something went wrong.
Her family says her phone was last pinged in a residential area near Camden and the Almaden Expressway.
They passed out flyers in the area and filed a report with San Jose police, who is treating the case as a voluntary missing persons case.
"I get that people have the right to disappear, but that's not this," her husband Harrison Weinstein says. "Everything she said she was planning on coming home. She was trying to get to the airport. She's not thinking clearly.
Valenti's husband and parents say they all spoke to her by phone Monday and something wasn't right. They say she seemed manic, but has no history of mental illness.
"She seemed confused. We said, 'Did you drink anything? Did anybody give you anything?' and she said, 'No,'" her mother said, "But my daughter is so smart and she is such a strong independent lady and this has never happened before."
They say there has been no phone contact or credit card use since Monday. Valenti's rental car, a gray Nissan Murano with California plate 8LUD641, hasn't been returned.
The tech executive's family says they'll be out searching every day until they find out what happened.
Valenti was last seen wearing a white T-shirt and torn jeans. Anyone who locates her or the missing vehicle is asked to contact San Jose police.