Missing Bay Area mom found dead

Elizabeth Ricks Sullivan (Facebook)
Elizabeth Ricks Sullivan (Facebook)

Elizabeth Ricks Sullivan, 31, was found dead two months ago in the San Diego Bay. She’d been missing for two years and was identified on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016, by the San Diego County medical examiner. On Oct. 4, the wife and mom was found floating in the San Diego Bay, specifically in a Point Loma canal, and her death was ruled a homicide.


Sullivan’s body was found near Liberty Station NTC and Farragut Road about 4:30 p.m. An autopsy revealed that she had been killed.


A Navy wife, Sullivan vanished without a trace in October 2014. Her family members hired a private investigator, searched for months and the case eventually went cold.

“Our goal is to solve this case, and it’s only a small part [of] our effort to figure out what happened, but being able to tell the family — at least there’s a bit of closure,” San Diego police Lt. Mike Holden tells media.


Sullivan was the wife of a U.S. Navy servicemen Matthew Sullivan and a mother of two young girls. She was last seen near her Point Loma home on the night of Oct. 13, 2014. The last contact friends or family reportedly had from her was a text message she sent that day.

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She was reported missing four days later on Oct. 17, 2014, by her husband and her car was found at her home, police said.

“Finding a body after two years, you could imagine this is a complex investigation,” Lt. Holden, of the SDPD, told NBC 7.

It was noted the couple was having marital troubles at the time. He was giving his wife her space but said she had never been gone longer than overnight. “The girls need their mom,” Matthew told People at the time.

“She’s never been gone this long. She’s been with them their whole lives, while I was at work or on deployment … she was always there,” he added.

That same month, her father, Edward Ricks, pleaded for information about his missing daughter and begged for her safe return.

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