Family, friends worry about spontaneous but dependable NC student missing at Berkeley
Sydney West is spontaneous and loves adventure — a young woman who had been excited for a fresh start at the University of California at Berkeley, friends and family said.
She’s also dependable and close with her family, making her recent lack of contact with loved ones puzzling, they said.
West, 19, moved to Berkeley in August from her southern Chapel Hill home. She was last seen Sept. 30 near the Golden Gate Bridge, by Crissy Field, the San Francisco Police Department said. It’s a popular park for cyclists, joggers and visitors on the San Francisco coast. A family member reported her missing, police said.
On Sunday, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina put out a call seeking the public’s help.
Monday, Jay and Kimberly West, her parents, added their own plea for help finding their daughter, known to family and friends as Syd. Her uncle Robert West, who lives in California, said the family may hold a search or vigil this week for the young woman.
“We are asking anyone who has any information about our daughter Sydney to please contact the investigators,” her parents said in a statement issued by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. “We are anxious to have our daughter found safe and brought home.”
West is “considered at-risk due to depression,” San Francisco police said in an update Monday.
She is 5’10” and weighs 130 pounds. She was last seen wearing a sweatshirt, white athletic shorts and blue “Vans” shoes, San Francisco police said. She has blue eyes and may be wearing her light brown hair in a ponytail.
She has been entered into the missing persons database, sheriff’s officials said, and San Francisco police have transferred her case to the Missing Persons Section of the Special Victim’s Unit.
Her parents did not return a call seeking additional comment Monday, but Robert West said the family is staying in close contact with the San Francisco Police Department and trying to get more publicity about West’s disappearance.
Robert West was on the phone with airport security Monday afternoon when reached by The News & Observer.
“I love her dearly and we want her home safe,” he said. “That’s the main thing at this point — we just want her back and want to know if she’s OK. She’s very loved by a lot of people.”
Close-knit family
Robert West last saw his niece in August, when he helped his brother, Jay West, move her into a dorm at Berkeley. They are a large and close-knit family who visit each other often, Robert West said. He dropped by a day or so later to check on Sydney and bring some food, he said.
“She was having a hard time,” he said. “That’s a tough adjustment, and she never had been away from home. I think it was a pretty scary move and quite a bit of anxiety for her.”
Attending school at Berkeley was a return to California for Sydney. She grew up in the Bay Area, attending Foothill High School in Pleasanton, Calif., where she played softball and volleyball.
In 2017, her family moved to Chapel Hill, and she spent her junior and senior years at Carrboro High School. She was co-captain of the varsity volleyball team.
She wasn’t admitted into her first choice for college, so she took a gap year in 2019 after graduating to travel and spend time with her parents and her 10-year-old sister, friends and family said.
This summer, she worked as a research and development intern and lab technician with her father’s Durham-based genomics company, BioSkryb.
A new start
Sydney West had been trying to focus more on herself in the last year, said Katie Donovan, who last spoke with her before she left for college. She was excited about getting a new start at Berkeley, Donovan said.
They were best friends in high school, Donovan said. She recalled hanging out during school lunch breaks at the West home, where Sydney would make them pasta.
Friends called her “Zen Syd,” she said, because of self-compassion tips she shared from a class she took last year. Sydney West addressed the pressure she put on herself in a December 2019 interview with self-compassion teacher Laura Prochnow Phillips.
The class, West said, taught her to “live life in a way that’s more full of enjoyment.”
“People have always told me that my biggest weakness ... was that I was so hard on myself,” West said. “While I do think that is helpful, and I do think that is part of who I am, (taking) a step back in certain situations (is) not necessarily accepting failure, but it’s accepting how you feel in that moment and recognizing that didn’t feel good, and that’s OK.”
Donovan said she’s concerned that Sydney hasn’t been in touch with anyone since last week.
“She would always call me late at night, and she had all these plans that she wanted to go do and stuff,” Donovan said. “But she was also the kind of friend that you could have a deep conversation with for hours.”
Kelley Gosk, another high school friend, said Sydney always has been consistent, which is why her disappearance doesn’t make sense.
“We’re just hoping she’s all right. It’s just scary,” Gosk said.
How to help
Anyone with tips in the San Francisco area can call lead investigator Sgt. Michael Horan at 415-553 1028. Anyone in North Carolina with information can contact investigator Ashley Woodlief at 919-245-2909.
This story was originally published October 5, 2020 at 9:03 PM.
