Investigators are still working to determine the cause of a fatal crash that killed a missing Univesity of San Francisco student.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, Chris Liang was found dead inside a rented Tesla in Fresno County on Saturday, a week after he had been reported missing. The University of San Francisco senior had rented the car for what his brother described in an Instagram post as an “erratic” trip to visit friends in Irvine, California; plans that Liang later canceled, the brother wrote.

SFGate reports that the 2020 Tesla was found in a ravine just outside of Los Banos. According to that report, Liang’s brother Jerry said Chris told a friend that his Tesla had “malfunctioned” for about 20 minutes. It is unclear when or exactly how the vehicle malfunctioned. According to SFIst, Jerry Liang also said the car went “offline:’ when some data features become unavailable, but the car is still driveable. The report states that the car may have gone offline just before it crashed, but it is unclear where that information was sourced.

As previously reported, authorities have not pinpointed exactly when the crash took place, and believe it was sometime between February 28, the day Liang was reported missing, and March 5. Jerry Liang said in an Instagram post that his brother had only recently gotten his driver’s license, and had never book a hotel before. His family was deeply concerned about being unable to reach Chris because of a history of mental health issues, his brother said, and told KCBS that Chris had vanished while he was interviewing for jobs, a process that had been successful up to that point.

“Those opportunities are important to him. Why would he [now] make himself inaccessible? He had plans,” Jerry Liang told the news station.

Authorities have said very little about the investigation, and Jerry Liang has posted a message on social media asking for privacy in the wake of his brother’s death.

CrimeOnline will provide further updates when more information is available.

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