Berkeley Couple, Missing Since Christmas, Found Dead

A Berkeley woman and her boyfriend, who had been missing since Christmas Eve, were found dead in Shasta County on Friday, according to county sheriff's officials.

After weeks of searching, Shasta County Sheriff's and Search and Rescue Team personnel located the bodies of Camille Rae Kober, 52 and 54-year-old Eric James Eide on a piece of property owned by PG&E in the unincorporated town of Manton, where Eide was from, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.

According to sheriff's officials, Eide's mother reported the couple missing on Dec. 24. Investigators learned that the man was last seen at the North State Recycling Center in Redding on Dec. 20 and told employees he was returning to the PG&E property in Manton, located about 40 miles southeast of Redding, to retrieve more scrap metal for recycling.

A PG&E worker reported seeing Eide and Kober the afternoon of Dec. 21 walking onto the the utility's property in Manton.

More workers reported finding Eide's maroon 1992 Toyota truck parked near the entrance to the property the following day. Sheriff's deputies removed the truck on Dec. 23. Deputies searched the PG&E property as well as Eide's home in Manton but were unable to locate the couple.

After the pair was reported missing, the sheriff's office, with assistance from PG&E and a California Highway Patrol helicopter searched the area for Kober and Eide but still did not find them. The search continued in the following weeks as family and friends reported that they had not heard from the couple.

On Friday, a PG&E helicopter crew searching for the missing pair over spotted an orange piece of cloth or plastic among some dense foliage on the utility's property. Sheriff's personnel located the object, believed to belong to Eide and Kober, and organized a ground search in the area early Friday morning.

The search team fanned out in the area where the orange object was found, and soon located other objects that appeared to be signs of and other evidence of the couple. Those signs ultimately led searchers to Eide and Kober, who had died. Sheriff's officials said that crews did not find any evidence of foul play at the scene.

Investigators believe that the pair, who went missing during a heavy rain and snowstorm, became disoriented after darkness fell and temperatures dropped. The couple's cause of death has not yet been determined.

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