The son of the former Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki was found dead in a college dorm on Tuesday.
Marco Troper, 19, was a freshman at UC Berkeley. A drug overdose is suspected.
“He took a drug and we don't know what was in it,” said Troper's grandmother, Esther Wojcicki. told SFGATE. “One thing we know: It was a drug.” The family, she added, is waiting for a toxicology report that could help confirm the cause of death, but it could take up to a month.
“I think the most important thing is that teenagers and students need to know that today's drugs are not the same as yesterday's, they are often laced with fentanyl,” says Esther Wojcicki told The Daily post in Palo Alto.
A university spokesman wrote to Assets: “We can confirm that Marco Troper, a freshman at UC Berkeley, has died. He was an undeclared major in the College of Letters & Science. We do not know the cause of death, it will have to be determined by the coroner.”
According to University of California police, there were “no signs of crime” and an investigation is ongoing.
“Our family is devastated beyond belief,” Esther Wojcicki wrote in one Facebook post. “Marco was the kindest, most loving, intelligent, funniest and most beautiful person. He was just starting the second semester of his freshman year at UC Berkeley, where he was a math major, and he really liked it.”
The family is known in Silicon Valley. Susan Wojcicki rented her garage in Menlo Park to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998, when she was a marketing manager at Intel. She then worked for many years Googleincluding as head of YouTube, a role she stepped down from last year.
Anne Wojcicki, Susan's sister, is the one Co-founder and CEO of personal genomics company 23andMe and was previously married to Brin.
Esther Wojcicki wrote in 2019 Book justified How to Raise Successful People and as a journalism teacher cared for Lisa Brennan-Jobs, daughter of Apple Co-founder Steve Jobs.
Troper's grandfather, the late Stanley Wojcicki, was chairman of the physics department at Stanford University. He died last year.
“Marco’s life was shortened too much,” Esther Wojcicki wrote in her Facebook post. “And we are all devastated to think of all the opportunities and life experiences he will miss and that we will miss together. Marco, we all love you and miss you more than you will ever know.”