Angela Chow, CEO of Foremost Group, was drunk last month when she accidentally drove Tesla X SUV in reverse over a wall in a pond at the Texas ranch she owned with her husband, billionaire venture capitalist Jim Breyer, according to a police report released Wednesday.
Zhao drowned after his friends and rescue workers tried unsuccessfully to pull the 50-year-old shipping manager out of the submerged car.
This desperate effort was detailed in the new report, which concluded that she died as a result of an “unfortunate accident.”
A toxicology report later showed Chow's blood alcohol concentration was 0.233, the Blanco County Sheriff's Office said in its report.
This level is nearly three times the legal limit for driving on public roads in Texas, a level that can lead to impaired behavior and other side effects.
Surveillance video from outside the farm's guest house shows her walking “unsteadily to her car” that night, according to the report.
Chao was the sister-in-law of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is married to her sister Elaine Chao, the former head of the US Departments of Labor and Transportation in separate GOP administrations.
Angela Chow was hosting seven close friends at the guest house on JW's 4,500-acre ranch in Johnson City on Feb. 10, the day after the group attended a concert by rapper Pitbull in nearby Austin, the police report said.
Most, if not all, of the women were from New York and had attended Harvard Business School with Chow. Briar was reportedly in Dubai, while the couple's young child was staying at the main house on the farm.
The women had dinner and drinks at the guest house before Chow left at about 11:30 p.m. to make the roughly one-mile drive to the main house.
Investigators later determined that Chow's Tesla had struck a retaining wall near the pond, separating two large limestone blocks at least three feet high and weighing up to 500 pounds. The SUV became “flying through the air after hitting the wall and then landed and rolled into the pond.” “. “The report said.
The video shows the car first heading toward a wooden barrier, then “reversing and heading left without stopping and over the top of the limestone wall.”
Minutes after she left, Chow called one of her friends, Amber Landau-Keenan, and calmly told her she “was in the pond,” the report said.
Keenan went outside and saw the Tesla in the pond, about 30 feet from the guest house.
Chow, who is still on the phone with Keenan, tells Keenan in a… [calm] “The sound of her feet underwater,” the report said. “Keenan asked Zhao to get out of the car. In a calm voice, Zhao informed Keenan that she was unable to get out of the car.
“Zhao told Keenan that the water was rising and that she was going to die, and she said to Keenan: ‘I love you’ before the car went under the water.”
Keenan told police the call lasted about eight minutes, and that she got into a kayak and paddled toward the Tesla while another friend, Victoria Garcia, ran to the pond and swam in the pond to where the Tesla was submerged in water. . “Victoria then climbed onto the top of the Tesla and attempted to locate Ms. Chow.”
A third friend, Hella Yang Tsuzuki, called 911, the report said.
Rescue workers quickly responded to the scene.
One sheriff's deputy wrote that when he arrived with another deputy he saw the ranch manager “standing over the completely submerged vehicle,” about 25 yards from shore, while Keenan paddled toward shore.
The farm manager told deputies that the Tesla's rear passenger door was open, the report said.
Both deputies entered the pool and repeatedly tried to locate Chow through the back door, “but were unable to do so,” the report stated.
“During our time, there were many females yelling at us [frantically] “On the bank. They told them they knew it was in the water because Chow called them and told them the car was full of water,” the deputy wrote.
The deputy then obtained a bar from Blanco County firefighters and swam back to attempt to break the windshield, but was unable to do so.
Two paramedics swam to help him break the side window of the SUV, “I swam to the bottom and felt my hand,” the deputy wrote.
Chow was then pulled from the car, and paramedics swam with her to shore and “began performing CPR.”
She was pronounced dead at 1:40 a.m. on February 11.
Days after the incident, on February 15, Texas Rangers and FBI agents met with the Blanco County Sheriff's Office, which was the lead investigating agency in the case.
After reviewing photos and videos from the scene, as well as reports, the Texas Rangers and the FBI felt “this incident was nothing more than an unfortunate accident.”
Angela Chow became CEO of Foremost Group in 2018. The company was founded by her father, James Chow, in 1964.
A spokesman for James Chow and his family said on Wednesday: “Angela's death was a terrible tragedy, and words cannot describe the family's deep grief.”
“The family is grateful to the first responders and friends who tried so hard to save her,” the spokesman said.
Angela Chow has held positions on the boards of directors of the American Office of the Shipping Board, the Harvard Business School Board of Deans' Advisors, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Her first husband, investment banker Bruce Wasserstein, died months after their marriage in 2009.
Breyer is part owner of the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics and has previously served on the boards of Facebook, Walmart, Marvel Entertainment, News Corp, and Dell.
