SAN FRANCISCO (AP) A woman found dead in a locked stairwell 17 days after going missing from her room at San Francisco General Hospital probably died of a chemical imbalance due to complications from chronic alcohol abuse, the city medical examiner's office said Friday.
San Francisco Assistant Medical Examiner Ellen Moffat said in a new report that 57-year-old Lynne Spalding had been dead for days before she was found on Oct. 8.
The medical examiner's office says Spalding was confused and delirious on Sept. 21, the day she disappeared.
Moffat notes Spalding didn't know the day or time or even why she was in the hospital.
Several employees with the city sheriff's department, which provides hospital security, were reassigned after Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi acknowledged that a thorough search was never conducted for Spalding.