How Did This Tech Founder End Up Dead in an Abandoned House?

Beau Mann was finally ready to become a dad.

After spending years building a successful app for people with addiction, Mann and his fiancé finally agreed to adopt a child. The decision came after a difficult journey for the 39-year-old tech founder, including a struggle with substance abuse and several stints in rehab.

Mann was in Texas to see family on Nov. 28, 2021, when he began to text fiancé Jason Abate, who was living in Michigan, about their decision to start the adoption process. It was the day before Mann was set to fly home to Los Angeles, and he began sending Abate adoption agency websites.

“He sent me two links to check out for adoption throughout November because he wanted to get started on that right away,” Abate told The Daily Beast. “He was begging me to start a family and I really wanted to start a family too so I was really excited.”

But the couple would never fulfill their dream. On Nov. 30, 2021, after a mysterious Uber ride and a text to the police, Mann disappeared without a trace.

At first, Abate wasn’t too worried that he hadn’t heard from Mann for a couple of days. They had spoken on the phone the day he got to L.A., and he had no reason to believe that would be their last conversation.

The panic only crept in on day four—when Mann’s parents finally reported him missing.

The Los Angeles Police Department said that Mann was last seen on Nov. 30, 2021, at a 7-Eleven in Studio City around 2:00 p.m. Surveillance footage reportedly showed him buying several items, including a large bag of ice, before getting into an Uber. Less than 10 minutes into the ride to Santa Monica, Mann did something that troubles Abate to this day.

“His last text was to 911,” Abate, who found the message in Mann’s phone records, said. “The message was ‘I am in a gray Uber.’”

Santa Monica Police Lt. Erika Aklufi told the Los Angeles Times it was a “gibberish text” and that Mann did not respond to law enforcement’s attempts to contact him. A spokesperson for Uber confirmed to The Daily Beast that Mann was dropped off without incident on Nov. 30, 2021, and the driver immediately picked up another rider.

Mann’s disappearance spiraled into a media frenzy after he was officially reported missing, generating national headlines and a segment on Dateline’s “Missing in America.”

But what started as a suspicious disappearance turned into a possible murder mystery last month, when the Santa Monica Police Department received information about human remains found in a “courtyard of an abandoned property” less than a mile from Mann’s last location.

A few days later, on May 6, the Los Angeles County Coroner confirmed that it was Mann through dental records. The coroner’s office is working to determine Mann’s cause of death in a case authorities say is now being investigated as a possible homicide.

“We are actively investigating his death and, with the help of the coroner, we hope to locate enough facts to find the cause,” Aklufi told The Daily Beast. “Whether it is homicide or accidental or something else is yet to be determined.”

Mann’s family did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story, but said in a May 7 Facebook statement that they have no further details “on what led to his death.”

“Beau was a beautiful soul who spent the better part of his life helping others,” the family added. “We miss his infectious smile and positive attitude every day.”

Friends say that while Mann battled addiction for years, it did not hinder the entrepreneur’s professional success.

Born in Texas and raised in Massachusetts, Mann did not go to college and instead dove straight into sales before opening a Houston art gallery. Brett Abbott, who worked as a sales rep for the gallery in 2011, told The Daily Beast that Mann was “extremely hands-on with the business” and would often go with him to events to showcase the art.

“Every time we were going somewhere, he would always need to stop and get coffee,” Abbott said. “He loved caffeine.”

With Mann’s success and desire to grow his app, Sober Grid, came constant travel around the country that sometimes left him feeling isolated, according to friends. The struggle for sober companionship at a Sundance Film Festival, Mann later told Forbes magazine, ended up being his inspiration.

“I knew other smartphone apps existed to connect other populations such as Grindr for gay men, Untappd for beer lovers, and Runkeeper for runners, so I was shocked to find that no similar app existed to connect people in recovery,” Mann said in the 2017 interview. “I immediately recognized how beneficial such an app would be for people in recovery, or people still trying to get sober, and I set out to build Sober Grid.”

Sandy Eggers, who knew Mann for over two decades and describes herself as his godmother, told The Daily Beast that she jumped to get Sober Grid off the ground in 2015, helping to line up investors and seed money for the app that Mann would launch with three co-founders, including Tavis Morello.

“I saw that Beau was launching the company and I reached out and let him know I loved the idea and that I had some experience working with startups and would be willing to help if he wanted help,” Morello, who was not actively involved in the company over the last several years, told The Daily Beast. “Beau had a tremendous energy for launching the company and trying to help people. He made working on the project fun because he cared about the mission.”

Sober Grid, which is similar to a Facebook-style social media app for people in recovery or seeking a sober style, was an almost instant hit and featured in The New York Times, Huffington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. According to Crunchbase, the app that also offers certified peer recovery coaching has been adopted in over 170 counties and used at least 20 million times.

The company’s website states that Sober Grid received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

The success tested Mann’s sobriety. Eggers said that Mann never used his own app—a decision she believes may have contributed to his relapses. “He had been in and out of rehab many times and he put too much pressure on him to perform,” Eggers said. “He put the business before himself.”

In 2016, Mann checked into Promises treatment center in Malibu for six weeks—where he met podcaster and media communications consultant, Ann Claire Pahlavi, the grand-niece of the late Shah of Iran.

“Beau was just fabulous,” Pahlavi, who was seeking treatment for depression, told The Daily Beast. “He called me his Promises wife. He was just a star of the whole place. He was so full of life and love and thoughtfulness.”

Pahlavi said that during their time together, which included an emotional afternoon crying over George Michael’s death, she was often struck by Mann’s laser focus on his career and his recovery. She said he was always on the phone with investors or providers and if he ever had to leave the facility for work, he hired a “sober companion to make sure his recovery was on track.”

Mann relapsed at least twice after his stint at Promises, Pahlavi said, but always made an immediate effort to get back into treatment or reach out for help. He was doing well in his recovery on April 9, 2017, when he matched with Abate on Tinder, friends say.

Abate had recently moved back home to Michigan but was visiting Texas for a wedding. He and Mann began chatting and Mann wasted no time asking him out for coffee. The coffee date never happened but the pair kept talking for weeks.

“I instantly knew he was the one for me,” Abate said. “We both felt so aligned and connected.”

While Abate lived in Michigan and Mann was based in Los Angeles, the couple never spent too much time apart.

“Jason is the best thing that has ever happened to Beau,” Eggers said.

The pair got engaged on June 11, 2021, at the Beverly Hills Hotel. After a month in Michigan with Abate, who was dealing with an ailing mother and a dying dog, Mann made plans to spend Thanksgiving in Texas with his family before going back to Los Angeles.

Abate said he was worried about the possible stress the family trip would have on Mann, who was already overwhelmed with work. Eggers said the last time she spoke with Mann, the day before he went to Texas, she tried to dissuade him from traveling to Europe to speak with an investor.

“I said it wasn’t a good idea,” Eggers said. “He was getting burned out with Sober Grid at this point. Not to mention his trip home. I was worried.”

Soon Eggers would learn that her fears may have been justified.

The last time Abate spoke on the phone with him, Mann was at his Los Angeles apartment and everything seemed normal—except for some car trouble.

“He asked me if it was normal that his car wouldn’t start,” Abate recalled of the Nov. 29 conversation. “I told him, ‘Well, you know, you’ve been gone for two months. Our cars are getting older now.’ I told him to be extra careful because I didn’t want him to stall out somewhere. He said I was right and then someone called him so he had to go. And that was it.”

The next day, Abate admits, will always remain a question for him.

“Jason called me three days after, saying something was wrong. He said ‘Beau hasn’t called, it’s been three days.’ He was panicking and he was at his mother’s bedside,” Eggers said.

Abate called the police, and after Mann’s family officially reported him missing, he began to do his own investigative work.

He said he learned that Mann had taken several Ubers that day, including one to Downtown Los Angeles and another to 7-Eleven on Ventura Boulevard. Sober Grid later said in a statement that the store was “not far” from the company’s Los Angeles office.

Los Angeles Police Officer Jill Calhoun previously confirmed that investigators received surveillance footage from the 7-Eleven. While Calhoun did not provide details about the footage, Abate said it showed Mann buying some ice while carrying a large backpack. (Mann’s mother, Amy, told the Telegram & Gazette her son’s backpack was filled with laptops.)

“Beau liked chewing ice,” Eggers said. “So for him, getting ice was not a big deal. He would just chew on ice like crazy. There was nothing strange about that to me.”

Mann’s last known location was Berkeley Street in Santa Monica, where the Uber dropped him off at 2:35 p.m. Abate said he does not know anyone at that spot, which Mann’s friends and family canvassed for months after he went missing.

However, it is only minutes away from where Mann’s body was found on April 25. Authorities have yet to provide details about Mann’s remains, but Abate said the location is puzzling. “Beau was a scaredy cat at heart,” Abate said. “He would have never gone back there on his own.”

While the discovery of Abate’s body answered one question about Mann’s disappearance, it has not given Abate a feeling of closure. Instead, he said, it has only fueled his belief that Mann was “lured” to the abandoned property.

He said he believes that Mann intended to go home from 7-Eleven when someone or something made him change his Uber destination to Santa Monica. While Abate said he is not sure whether Mann relapsed the day he went missing, in the past, his fiancé always reached out and promptly sought help if he fell off the wagon.

Simply put, Abate suspects foul play.

“Something happened to my Beau,” he said. “And I will spend the rest of my life figuring out what happened that day.”

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