Mengyao "May" Zhou

A body discovered in the trunk of the car in a Santa Rosa Junior College parking lot was identified as that of missing Stanford University student Mengyao `May'' Zhou, a Santa Rosa police spokeswoman said late this afternoon.

``We found some things in the car that were consistent with suicide,'' said Santa Rosa police Sgt. Lisa Banayat. ``We did not find anything consistent with foul play.''

``We don't know what in her life led her to this,'' Banayat added.

Responding to the police statement, Zhou's father Vitong said: ``It's hard to know. I can't think or talk now.''

Mengyao Zhou's car, a silver Toyota Corolla, was found parked on the campus of Santa Rosa Junior College, according to Santa Rosa police. The car was not damaged.

At 3:30 a.m. this morning, a Santa Rosa Junior College police officer noticed the car in a parking lot, police said. It looked like it had been there several days. Santa Rosa police said the campus officer ran the license plate numbers and saw it was that of a missing person.

The car was towed and in the process of gathering evidence, a body was found in the trunk, police said. It was Zhou, a 23-year-old student who was last seen 10:30 a.m. Saturday leaving her Stanford residence to go shopping.

A Sonoma County coroner's spokesman, Sgt. Mitch Mana, said an autopsy is scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday.

Although police identified Zhou's body, Mana said a positive identification had not yet been made and coroner's officials have not contacted Zhou's family.

Yitong Zhou, a software engineer for a Santa Ana-based company, on Wednesday posted a $25,000 reward for the information leading to his daughter's whereabouts.

``We're very worried. We don't understand,'' he said on Wednesday. ``We just want our daughter back.''

He also said his daughter was not anxious about school and enjoyed Stanford, and that she had just passed rigorous qualifying examinations.

``Stress is not an issue,'' the elder Zhou had said.

A police dog tracked May Zhou's scent to the parking lot where she normally parked her car -- but the scent ended at the street outside the lot, Stanford police deputy Ken Bates said.

Bates said investigators had little to go on in their search.

``It's like everything just stopped,'' Bates said. ``We've looked at e-mail, cell phone records, financial records -- everything you would need. The paper trail ended.

Mengyao Zhou, an accomplished student with bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is assertive, happy and confident with her studies at Stanford, said her father. The Ph.D. candidate came to Stanford in 2004. She tutored in engineering at MIT and was an active member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, whose members support each other through some of MIT's most rigorous course work.

At Stanford, Zhou in 2005 was a recipient of the prestigious Gabilan Fellowship, which funds research by top doctoral students in engineering, biomedicine, the physical sciences, and the quantitative social sciences.

Zhou was a National Merit Scholar at La Jolla High School and earned perfect SAT scores. She had a straight-A average throughout high school and earned the top score on all of her Advanced Placement tests.

Fellow grad student Yuki Konda, who was one of her partners on a computer vision project, said: ``I don't know her outside of the classroom context, but she was a hard worker. She was Type A, always trying to push us forward.''