A woman whose body was found in the water along the San Francisco Bay Trail in Sunnyvale, California was identified as a Google employee by the company Monday.

Chuchu Ma, 23, was found dead half naked in the water near the trail Dec. 7. KTVU reported the body was found by a bicyclist on the trail shortly after 10 a.m. on Thursday. He called 911 and reported a dead body floating face down in a drainage canal in Baylands waterway.

A few hours after the discovery, Mountain View Police received a report of a missing person, whose description sounded similar to the body found, department's spokeswoman Katie Nelson told local news outlet, the Mercury News.

Santa Clara County Sheriff's dive-team officers assisted in taking out the body from the water. Authorities said it was unclear if she was dumped into the bay in the same location her body was found in, or if it floated there from a different location.

"The medical examiner and us and our detective units are actively working the investigation to see what there were. We don't know the circumstances of why the body was in the water," said Shawn Ahearn, Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety Officer.

The department confirmed the identity of the woman as Chuchu Ma in a Twitter post and said they were waiting for the autopsy report. An investigation into the death was ongoing but the detectives did not reveal whether Ma was the victim of a crime.

NBC’s KNTV reported Ma was a software engineer at Google.

The company in its statement said: "Chuchu was an excellent software engineer in our developer product team. We are devastated to learn of her passing and our deepest condolences are with her family and friends."

The LinkedIn profile of a woman with the same name, likely belonging to Ma, indicated she was a software engineer at Google, a former intern at Yahoo and Telogis, and an alumna of the University of Texas at Austin. She had graduated with a bachelor's in computer science from the university. However, International Business Times could not independently verify if the profile belonged to Ma.

Ma’s coworker said she constantly "glowed with cheer" and "always made others smile."

The Bay Trail, a part of a 500-mile loop around San Francisco Bay, was a popular location with Sunnyvale residents, tourists and others who came to the area to appreciate the scenery, KTVU said. Detectives said Thursday's discovery did not pose a risk to the general public.

Dan Coyle, a cyclist, said about the incident: "It's very sad. This is a beautiful trail. I take it five days a week. Lots of people take it every day. And some people take it to work. It's just very sad to learn that happened, whatever it is."

"I don't feel unsafe here, and I probably am not going to start feeling unsafe here," said another cyclist, Joe Bond.

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