Elizabeth Holmes’ beloved ‘wolf’ dog Balto killed by cougar, and she’s confirmed pregnant: Revelations from court filing

Elizabeth Holmes’ dog Balto, a husky she reportedly described as a wolf, was killed by a cougar, according to a letter from her partner Billy Evans to the judge who is set to sentence her next week for felony fraud.

The letter to Judge Edward Davila, dated Sept. 22, also confirmed that Theranos founder Holmes, who has a 16-month-old son with Evans, is pregnant again. Holmes was convicted in January of four counts of felony fraud, after defrauding investors in her Palo Alto blood-testing startup out of more than $144 million. Davila is to sentence her Nov. 18 in U.S. District Court in San Jose.

Evans wrote that after meeting Holmes at a Fleet Week charity event in 2017, the two would go for long walks with Balto. “He was her constant companion and she treated him with so much love,” Evans wrote in the letter, filed late Thursday. It was part of many letters of support submitted with Holmes’ legal argument for a sentence of community service with no imprisonment, or 18 months’ prison time at the maximum.

But Balto was “carried away by a mountain lion” from the couple’s porch, Evans wrote, without identifying the date or the location of their home. A July letter from a friend, also submitted with the filing, said the couple lived in the forested town of Woodside. A recent court filing indicated they were staying on a large estate.

“Liz had faith that (Balto) could still be alive,” Evans wrote. “She searched for 16 hours in brambles and poison oak to find him. It was only once she saw his lifeless body that she could come to realize that he was gone. It crushed her.”

The letter from the friend, a Woodside restaurant owner who said he had known Holmes for four years, also referred to the death of Balto.

“Liz and Billy loved that dog as though it were their first child, and his passing was a major blow during an already challenging time,” wrote Tyler MacNiven, owner of Buck’s Restaurant. “Liz said Balto taught her what it meant to be free.”

After Balto’s death, Holmes and Evans “searched for the deeper spiritual meaning of it all,” MacNiven wrote.”Ultimately, while there is still sadness surrounding their loss, Liz made a point to learn from the love she shared with Balto and, in her words, ‘give hugs all the time.’ ”

San Mateo County did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Bay Area News Group about whether any county agency received a report of a cougar attack on a dog, such as Evans described.

Evans, a hotel heir and MIT economics graduate, started his letter by telling Davila, “My name is Billy Evans, and you hold the life of my partner in your hands.”

It was two years after the first of a series of Wall Street Journal exposés of Theranos, and a little less than two years before her indictment, when he was introduced to Holmes while fighter jets flew overhead. She was wearing a sunhat and large sunglasses, and he didn’t realize she was the charismatic young founder who had made the cover of Fortune magazine the year before.

“The two of us immediately connected. We walked away from the others, and it was as if the rest of the world ceased to exist,” Evans wrote to Davila. “I was captivated by her childish wonder and authenticity. She listened more intently than anyone I had ever met. She made me feel like I was reconnecting with an old friend. We spoke for hours, I lost track of time, and even if I didn’t know it … I fell in love.”

When Holmes gave him her business card, with her cell number scribbled on the back, Evans realized who she was, he wrote.

Six months of friendship, including the walks with Balto in the Bay Area hills and meals cooked at her house — amid “relentless media attacks” against Holmes — led to “something more,” Evans wrote.

He described Holmes as so dedicated to her vision of Theranos that in early 2018, when her company was “in its death throes,” Holmes “seemed sure that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, that the business would make it.”

Evans described his life with Holmes, amid “widespread public scorn.” When the couple is out, Holmes wears a baseball cap and large sunglasses, and keeps her head down, Evans wrote. He alleged that when they lived in San Francisco, a reporter got into their apartment building “falsified documents to join the building’s community forum and impersonated a tenant to try and interview other residents as she went door to door.”

Holmes and Evans moved out after the reporter “leaked” their address and they began receiving “significant threatening mail” that made them feel unsafe, Evans claimed. “Our next apartment in the city was discovered not long after,” he wrote.” So, we moved out of the city and onto the road. We spent 6 months traveling the national forests and parks of this country in a truck camping beneath the stars. Walmart parking lots and rundown campgrounds gave us a much-needed solace.”