A Vanished Voices companion post
On the afternoon of June 28th, 2021, Lauren “El” Cho walked away from a bus parked in the California desert. She didn’t take her phone. She didn’t take water. She didn’t take food. Within ten minutes, she was gone — and despite an extensive search involving K9 units, aircraft, and a division of investigators that typically handles homicides, not a single footprint was ever found leading away from where she was last seen.
Four months later, her remains were discovered ten miles out in rugged desert terrain. Her cause of death was never officially determined.
This is her story.
Who Was Lauren Cho
Lauren Cho was born on December 20th, 1990, and raised in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Friends and family called her “El.” She graduated from Hunterdon Central Regional High School in 2009 and went on to study music education at Westminster Choir College, one of the country’s most respected conservatory programs.
For a time, she taught music at a high school. She also worked at a piercing and tattoo shop in Flemington, New Jersey — a detail that would later matter more than anyone could have anticipated, when friends publicized photos of Lauren’s own tattoos (a mushroom on her ankle, a lamb on her shoulder, a piece called “No Face” on her inner arm, the Ten Commandments and a Medusa on her thigh) as identifying marks during the search for her.
Her family described her, on a Facebook page they later created to help find her, as “a talented musician, an incredible baker, a hilarious and loyal friend, a strangely intuitive gift giver, and probably the coolest sister one could hope for.”
The Road Trip and Life in California
Lauren met Cody Orell around Memorial Day of 2020. Within months, she’d quit her teaching job and joined him on a cross-country road trip from New Jersey to California. “Lauren wanted a different life,” Orell later said. “She wanted to move from the East Coast and taste freedom.”
Their destination was Bombay Beach, a small, artist-heavy community on the shore of the Salton Sea. Lauren bought an old school bus and began converting it into a food truck, hosting private dinners to test recipes on friends and neighbors.
By June 2021, that experiment had evolved: Lauren was working as a private chef for a collection of Airbnb properties called “The Whole,” spread between Yucca Valley and Morongo Valley near Joshua Tree National Park, owned by filmmaker and musician Tao Ruspoli. By this point, the nature of Lauren and Cody’s relationship is described inconsistently across reporting — sometimes as boyfriend/girlfriend, sometimes as former partners, sometimes simply as friends. What’s consistent is that they were still living together, and Cody was with her on the last day anyone saw her.
The Disappearance
On June 28th, 2021, around 3:00 p.m., Cody Orell went inside the bus he shared with Lauren. When he came back out, she was upset — and within what he described as a ten-minute window, she was gone.
“There was a 10-minute window there,” he said, “and she evaporated.”
She left behind her phone, her belongings, and her pet parakeet. She was last seen wearing a yellow T-shirt and jean shorts near Benmar Trail and Hoopa Road, off California State Route 62.
Cody and a friend, R.J. Okay, searched the surrounding hills before calling it in. At 5:13 p.m., Cody called the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Morongo Basin Station, telling them Lauren was suffering from mental distress.
Cody later revealed one more detail: in the days before she disappeared, Lauren mentioned she was going out to meet someone that Sunday, and wouldn’t say who. “I didn’t pry into it then,” he said, “but of course now I wish I did.” Who she may have been planning to meet has never been publicly identified.
The Search — and the Missing Tracks
Search and rescue teams combed the area by foot, air, and K9 unit. By July 2nd, the search was officially suspended and Lauren’s case reclassified as missing person, though searches resumed intermittently — aerial searches on July 24th, and a search warrant executed at the property on July 31st, with seven police dogs searching the last known location.
Despite all of it, not a single track belonging to Lauren was ever found. “I searched all in the hills,” Cody said, “and no tracks, anywhere.” That absence led him to theorize she’d left in a vehicle with someone — a theory the lead detective on the case, Edward Hernandez, directly denied, stating there was no indication she’d left by car.
In September 2021, the Sheriff’s Department’s Specialized Investigations Division — which includes the Homicide Detail, Crimes Against Children Detail, and Polygraph Detail — joined the case, nearly three months after Lauren went missing.
National Attention and the Petito Comparison
For nearly three months, Lauren’s disappearance received almost no national coverage. That changed in September 2021, when Gabby Petito’s case became a national phenomenon, and public criticism grew over the disparity in media attention given to missing white women versus missing women of color — a phenomenon known as “missing white woman syndrome.”
Lauren’s case was swept into that conversation. Her family responded publicly, both grateful for the renewed attention and clear that the comparison oversimplified her story: “Ultimately, these two cases are NOT the same and the differences run deeper than what meets the public eye.”
Remains Found and Identified
On October 9th, 2021, human remains were discovered in rugged desert terrain in Yucca Valley. Identification would take weeks. Lauren’s sister told CNN during the wait: “The family is just holding our collective breaths. We so badly desire answers, but already feel the heartbreak of what the answer could be.”
On October 28th, 2021 — four months to the day after Lauren disappeared — the San Bernardino County Coroner’s Division confirmed the remains were hers.
Cause of Death
The official autopsy listed both cause and manner of death as “undetermined” and “unknown.” Toxicology found only caffeine and alprazolam in her system. No indicators of trauma or violence were found on her remains.
Circumstances led some close to the investigation to describe the likely explanation as death by misadventure — exposure, dehydration, and disorientation in extreme desert heat. But that word was never the Sheriff’s Department’s official finding. Officially, the case remains undetermined.
Where Things Stand Now
There has been no arrest, no named suspect, and no further public statements from investigators or Cody Orell since the ruling came down. Unlike Gabby Petito’s case, Lauren’s has not become a documentary, docuseries, or ongoing media fixture — the national spotlight that briefly found her in September 2021 didn’t extend to how her case has been remembered since.
What remains is this: a woman who wanted a different life, who built a community for herself in the desert, and who walked away from a bus on an ordinary June afternoon — and never came home.
Vanished Voices is a true crime podcast dedicated to the cases that don’t get the attention they deserve — unsolved cases of people of color, LGBTQ+ victims, MMIW cases, and stories that still need tips to be solved. New episodes drop every Thursday. Subscribe, follow us, and listen to this episode now on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcasts!
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Resources:
Associated Press. (2021, October 12). Body found in search for missing Hunterdon Central grad. The Express-Times.
Associated Press. (2021, October 14). Body found in search for missing woman. Hunterdon County Democrat.
Associated Press. (2021, October 31). Remains found in desert ID’d as Hunterdon County woman. Sunday Democrat.
Associated Press. (2021, October 29). Remains found in desert ID’d as N.J. woman. The Times (Trenton, NJ).
Cabral, S. (2021, September 24). Gabby Petito case: The missing Americans you don’t know about. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58669582
Colbert, C. (2021, October 11). Investigators find unidentified human remains while searching for Lauren Cho, who’s been missing since June. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/11/us/lauren-cho-missing-remains/index.html
Damien, C. (2021, October 29). Lauren Cho, missing from Yucca Valley since June, found dead. The Desert Sun.
Damien, C. (2021, November 9). Lauren Cho, missing since June, found dead. Daily Press (Victorville, CA).
Fitzsimons, T. (2021, October 28). Remains found in California desert identified as Lauren Cho. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/remains-found-california-desert-identified-lauren-cho-missing-new-jersey-n1281275
Inside Edition. (2021, October 1). Where is Lauren “El” Cho who hasn’t been seen since June 28, 2021? https://www.insideedition.com/new-jersey-native-lauren-el-cho-moved-to-the-west-coast-to-start-a-new-life-and-then-she
Lisitza, A. (2021, September 23). Here is everything we know about Lauren Cho and Daniel Robinson — two missing person cases brought to light by the disappearance of Gabby Petito. BuzzFeed. https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexalisitza/everything-we-know-lauren-cho-daniel-robinson
Marks, A. (2021, September 21). The internet banded together to search for Gabby Petito. What about these missing people of color? Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/gabby-petito-missing-persons-jelani-day-lauren-cho-daniel-robinson-1229842/
Marks, A. (2021, October 12). Why it could take “several weeks” to identify remains found in search for Lauren Cho. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/lauren-cho-remains-found-missing-person-1240137/
Massie, G. (2021, September 23). Pleas for missing Lauren Cho to get Gabby Petito coverage after she vanishes. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/gabby-petito-lauren-cho-vanish-b1925305.html
Moore, S. (2021, July 1). What happened to Lauren Cho? Hi-Desert Star. https://hidesertstar.com/news/179276/what-happened-to-lauren-cho/
Palmer, T. (2021, October 7). Missing in America: NJ’s Lauren Cho “walked away” from her California Airbnb. PIX11. https://pix11.com/news/local-news/new-jersey/missing-nj-woman-lauren-cho-walked-away-from-her-california-airbnb/
Rode, E. (2021, September 21). Specialized Investigations Division joins search for Lauren Cho in Yucca Valley. The Desert Sun. https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2021/09/21/lauren-cho-specialized-investigations-division-joins-missing-person-case/5809171001/
Salcedo, A. (2021, October 29). Remains of Lauren Cho found in a California desert months after she went missing from her Airbnb. The Washington Post. Remains of Lauren Cho found in a California desert months after she went missing from her Airbnb
Shammas, B., & Bellware, K. (2021, September 22). Gabby Petito case gets more attention than missing people of color. The Washington Post. As the Petito case grips the nation, families of color say their missing loved ones matter, too
Sheldon, C. (2021, October 14). Family wait to see if body found in desert is missing N.J. woman. The Times (Trenton, NJ).
Sheldon, C. (2021, October 15). What we know about the N.J. native who went missing in Calif. The Express-Times.
Sheldon, C. (2021, October 17). Family awaits word after body found in desert. Sunday Democrat.
Stableford, D. (2021, September 24). Gabby Petito case draws renewed attention to Lauren Cho and others who have gone missing. Yahoo News. Gabby Petito case draws renewed attention to Lauren Cho and others who have gone missing
Note: The unnamed Law & Crime, LAmag, ABC7, CBS News, and Katie Couric Media articles referenced during research lacked clear bylines and are omitted here per standard formatting; their content overlapped substantially with the cited sources above. Wikipedia’s “Death of Lauren Cho” entry was used for cross-referencing dates only, not as a standalone citation, per usual practice.