The body of a Los Angeles-based tech executive who went missing a year and a half ago after a mysterious Uber ride has been found.
Beau Mann, who founded the digital health company Sober Grid to help those struggling with addiction, was last seen at a 7-Eleven near his office at around 2 p.m. on Nov. 30, 2021.
He got into an Uber to Santa Monica Boulevard and texted 911 for help while inside the vehicle, but was never seen again.
Now, the Santa Monica Police Department has confirmed that Mann’s remains were found last month just 20 minutes from where he was reportedly dropped off in his Uber in “the courtyard of an abandoned property”.
Dental records confirmed his identity, however, his cause of death remains unclear.
Sober Grid described Mann as the company’s “light” whose “bright smile and endless energy and compassion will be missed” in a heartfelt post on Facebook.
“After an experience in his early years with drugs and addiction, he turned his focus and passion towards helping others,” the firm wrote.
Mann founded Sober Grid in 2015 as “the first digital app to house a 24/7, online, worldwide community for people in recovery”. Today it is the largest mobile substance abuse app with over 300,000 members and provides mental health addiction care for people in over 170 countries around the world.
“As you know, Sober Grid, with your help, has saved thousands of lives and no doubt, will save thousands more,” the company wrote while adding that Mann’s “spirit will live on” through its mission to help people in need.
Foul play not suspected
Last year, Mann's story featured on Dateline’s "Missing in America" series where a police officer working on the case at the time revealed that Uber was “definitely being investigated”, but that foul play was not suspected.
Officer Jill Calhoun with the Los Angeles Police Department said that the LAPD received a 911 text from Mann on Nov. 30, 2021, and that “several attempts" were made to contact him but he never responded.
Despite the unusual circumstances surrounding Mann’s disappearance and subsequent death, Sergeant Erika Aklufi of the Santa Monica Department—whose team is now handling the case—told Dateline that foul play is still not suspected at this time.
Meanwhile, Mann’s “absolutely devastated” fiancé Jason Abate told Dateline that he has “so many questions and no answers.”
Abate previously revealed that he had last spoken to Mann the night before his disappearance.
He said that it was not unusual for the busy tech executive to go a day or so without replying to his texts or calls, but that he became alarmed as time passed with no response from Mann and raised the alarm.
Abate told Dateline that he was able to gain access to Mann’s Uber records from that day. He revealed that they showed Mann being dropped off at the 7-Eleven in Studio City around 2:05 p.m. It is believed that at some point during that time, Beau sent a text to 911.
The data then finally shows Mann as dropped off at Berkeley Street in Santa Monica at 2:35 p.m. But Abate said no one ever saw him there at the time. “That should make everybody nervous,” he told Dateline.
