The death of a woman whose body was found off of an Arizona trail during a hike with an off-duty Phoenix police officer has been ruled as accidental.
The primary cause of death was determined to be environmental heat exposure, according to the Office of the Medical Examiner for Maricopa County.
Angela Tramonte, 31, of Massachusetts, was found dead on July 30 near a trail on Camelback Mountain. Phoenix police said Tramonte had been hiking with one of their off-duty officers when she turned back at the halfway point of Echo Canyon Trail.
According to NBC Boston, it was 104 degrees at the time and Tramonte turned back because of the heat. Friends told the news station that she had traveled to Arizona to meet up with the officer after they connected through Instagram.
The officer, whom police did not identify, told authorities that they began their hike around 10 a.m. and neither of them had any water. The officer said Tramonte told him to continue to the top to take pictures so she could share them on social media, the police department said in a statement.
The officer told police that they had agreed to meet back at the car. He called 911 after he returned to the vehicle and she was not there.
Tramonte's body was found at about 4:40 p.m. adjacent to a home, police said. No traumatic injuries were found during the investigation or during the autopsy, the police department said. Her cellphone was with her when she was found.
NBC affiliate KPNX of Phoenix reported that investigators believe Tramonte walked to the home in a desperate search for water.
Nancy Tramonte, the woman's mother, told the news station that her daughter's death doesn't make sense.
“My daughter was an Instagram person. She posted everything, thousands of photos per day. And she was always in the picture. And there's not one picture of her going up the mountain or even in Arizona,” she said. “None of it makes sense.”