With the UC Santa Barbara academic year about to end, the family of freshman Liz Hamel has gone public with a new plea to help solve the mystery behind their daughter’s death.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the family’s attorney, Tyrone Maho of Maho & Prentice, said the last person seen with Hamel was a Palos Verdes man. The family is concerned that the chances to find out how Hamel died will shrink drastically with the school year ending soon.

Hamel, 18, was found on Valentine’s Day on the ground outside the San Rafael UCSB dorm.

She is believed to have fallen from a third-story breezeway. A person found her and called 9-1-1 at 10:27 p.m. She was taken to Cottage Health but died of unknown injuries six days later.

Her family has hired an attorney as well as a private investigator to learn what happened that night, and they believe there are people who may have more information.

The family wants to know if anyone heard or saw anything between 10 p.m. and 10:21 p.m. Feb. 14, particularly near the San Rafael dorm or Lao Wang restaurant in Isla Vista, where Hamel was with friends earlier that night.

They also want to know if anyone knows the man from Palos Verdes who was last seen with
Hamel.

Hamel left Lao Wang with the unidentified male. Her friends did not know who he was. The family’s private investigator, Michael Claytor, released a partial photo of him that was taken on an iPhone.

Claytor, Maho and Hamel’s father, Alain Hamel, held a press conference on April 30 to release the image and put out a request for the public’s help finding information.

A few days later, the UCSB Police Department said they interviewed the man but did not offer any details on what they learned. They also did not disclose what he knew or whether he was a person of interest in the case.

Friends said Hamel left her phone at the restaurant that night, but her roommates found it and took it back home.

Hamel lived in the San Miguel dorm and was found injured at San Rafael, about a six-minute walk from Lao Wang.

UCSB Police and the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office say the investigation is ongoing. The agencies have not released details about the death or the investigation.

UCSB has not installed cameras outside the dorm, so there is no footage of what happened. UCPD also did not issue a timely alert to the campus after the fall.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Claytor Investigations by phone or text at
805.335.3851 or email at claytor.investigations@gmail.com. All tips can remain
anonymous, he said.