A search and rescue team found the body in a ravine, covered by trees and shrubbery about 30 or 40 yards from a trail. The Sheriff's Department is characterizing it as a suspicious death:
Veronica Ruiz was last seen Dec. 3, two days after she and her boyfriend of two years broke up. A message Sunday on a Web site maintained by her family said the coroner is using dental records to see whether the body is Ruiz's.Sadly, all signs seem to point to this being Veronica Ruiz. The Marin County coroner's office will be determining this through dental records over the next few days: ID of Mt. Tam body will take a few days. My hope now is that her loved ones will finally have some semblance of closure about her whereabouts.
Mill Valley police Detective Lindsay Haynes said there are no other reports of missing women in the area.
Pittman said it appeared that the body, which was clothed, had been there for a while. He would not comment on the condition of the body but said the age of the person could not easily be determined. Articles were found with the body, but Pittman would not comment on what they were.
While trails on that part of the mountain had been searched after Ruiz went missing, Pittman said the dense shrubs and trees where the body was found had not been checked.
She was found in Slide Gulch Ravine, just south of the Hookooekoo trail.
"The search and rescue team that found the body found her in a place that would not have been seen from the normal trails," Pittman said. "Someone would have had to have been off the beaten path."
UPDATE: The body has been identified as Veronica Ruiz.