Oakland Man’s Body Found in Cull Canyon
Castro Valley residents walking on a remote part of Cull Canyon Road on April 10 noticed a bad smell and saw a barrel that had been dumped in the 10000 block. They called Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies, who realized quickly that the barrel contained human remains, according to department spokesperson Lt. Tya Modeste.
The Sheriff’s Office identified those remains on April 19 as belonging to 46-year-old Eric Gregory of Oakland, who had been missing since 2021. Oakland Police homicide investigators are taking over the investigation of how he died and how his body ended up in Castro Valley, Modeste said.
Calls to the Oakland Police Department were not returned in time for publication.
The Oakland Police had been actively looking into Gregory’s whereabouts and had featured him in January on a weekly YouTube video of people missing from that city. He had last been seen by a family friend on December 19, 2021, in the 4000 block of Alameda Avenue in Oakland, according to that video.
That location is home to both a Home Depot store and a number of parked RVs occupied by otherwise homeless people.
Social media accounts in his name and bearing a photograph similar to that released by the police said Gregory was a 1994 graduate of Alameda High School while listing Oakland as his hometown and current residence.
There had been no new posts to those accounts since 2021, and no family members were listed. His apparent Facebook page showed, however, that he left behind some 163 friends, a number of whom were also graduates of Alameda High School.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Oakland Police Homicide Section at (510) 238-3821 or the TIP LINE at (510) 238-7950.