The daughter of Los Angeles mayoral candidate Austin Beutner died earlier this month and authorities have not yet released the cause.
Emily Beutner, 22, died at a hospital on Jan. 6, according to information posted on the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s website.
“My family has experienced the unimaginable loss of our beloved daughter. We ask for privacy and your prayers at this time,” Beutner said Wednesday in a statement to The Times.
Emily Beutner was a student at Loyola Marymount University and was the youngest, and only daughter, of Beutner’s four children.
Beutner, a former Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent, is the best known of the challengers seeking to unseat Mayor Karen Bass in the June 2 election. In recent weeks, he has sharply criticized the incumbent’s handling of last year’s Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead.
Beutner spokesperson Jeff Millman declined to say how the death would affect Beutner’s campaign.
Beutner’s last public event as a candidate was on Jan. 5, a day before his daughter died, when he held a news conference in Pacific Palisades. During that event, he called on the mayor to form a citizens commission to examine what went wrong before, during and after the disaster.
The Palisades fire destroyed the Pacific Palisades home of Beutner’s mother-in-law. The blaze also seriously damaged Beutner’s own home, forcing him to live elsewhere for the past year.
In recent days, Beutner’s campaign has continued to post on social media, weighing in on real estate developer Rick Caruso’s decision not to run for mayor or governor.
Beutner belongs to a larger field of candidates, many of them unknown, seeking to unseat Bass after a single four-year term. Among them are reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades fire, and Rae Huang, a community organizer and housing advocate.