Truckee body dumping case remains a mystery

There are still no answers as to how Cynthia Erler's dead body wound up bound, stuffed in a duffel bag and dumped in a Truckee parking lot on Feb. 28.

Officers with the Truckee and Reno Police Departments are still awaiting further results from toxicology tests that may shed light on what killed Erler, a 54-year-old transient woman known to frequent the area around Fourth Street in Reno.

No arrests have yet been made in the case, and according to Lt. Dan Johnston of the Truckee Police Department, no one has come forward with any usable information about Erler's death.

Investigators did get a little more insight into Erler's health from a preliminary report by the Nevada County Coroner.

"There were multiple drugs found in her system, none of which was a lethal dose," Johnston said. "Also, she was found to be suffering from severe heart disease. But due to the circumstances of her discovery and the way she was placed in the bag, the preliminary finding of the coroner is 'unknown cause of death' at this time."

Further tests are being run to try to determine what exactly killed Erler, and according to Johnston, both Truckee detectives are still cooperating with detectives in Reno and are actively following any leads they get in an attempt to figure out how her body ended up in Truckee.