By Peter Hegarty and Elise Ackerman
KNIGHT RIDDER

ALAMEDA - A San Jose pediatrician who had been missing for six weeks
apparently died after driving down a street and off a boat-launch ramp
where two men died in a similar accident three years ago, police said
Wednesday.

Divers sent to the area off Alameda's Grand Marina found the car upside
down in 20 feet of water Tuesday night. On Wednesday, police identified
the body inside as Dr. Zehra Attari.

The boat ramp leads directly from Grand Street into the Oakland
Estuary. The ramp has no barrier and only a small warning sign.

A police boat had previously searched the marina area but passed over
the submerged car.

"The divers said that when they got down there they could not see the
car from more than 2 feet away," Alameda police Detective Steve
Deutsche said Wednesday.

When Attari vanished the evening of Nov. 7, she was on her way from her
Oakland medical office on International Boulevard to a meeting on Bay
Farm Island near Oakland International Airport, about three miles from
where her car was found.

There was a heavy rain that night and investigators know that Attari
became lost. They suspect she accidentally drove off the boat ramp at
the foot of Grand Street.

"I think it's shameful that there is no barrier," said Attari's
daughter Ruby Ali during a Wednesday news conference.

Still, tearful family members emphasized Wednesday that they wanted to
express gratitude -- not blame -- and to recognize the hundreds of
people who stepped forward to help them during their six-week search.

"All the time I thought, 'Where should I go?'" said Tasadduq Attari,
the doctor's husband. Between deep sobs, he described going from
hospital to hospital, from police station to police station.

He didn't know that in November 2002 a car carrying two people --
Tuvara Ginger, 26, of Oakland and Carlos Delgado Ortiz, 33, of San
Leandro -- drove into the water in almost exactly the same place.

Their bodies were discovered six weeks later when a crane lifting a
sunken boat found a submerged red 2001 Mitsubishi with the men inside.

Alcohol bottles also were found in the car, which led police to suspect
the men may have been drunk at the time of the accident.

That case led to the earlier Alameda police boat search of Grand Marina
for the missing doctor Dec. 3.

An e-mail tip Sunday prompted Oakland police to call in divers from the
Alameda County Sheriff's Office to search the marina waters.

Attari family spokesman Ed Vasquez confirmed that the body found
Tuesday was that of the missing 55-year-old mother of two.

Deutsche said technicians may search Attari's car for evidence in her
disappearance.

Vasquez said her family believes that Attari crossed the Fruitvale
bridge from Oakland into Alameda, where she was heading to attend a
conference on medical insurance. Instead of making a left on Fernside
Boulevard, she likely continued straight on Tilden Way.

The mistake took Attari to Park Street and then to a Trader Joe's store
near the Bay shoreline, where she stopped to get her bearings. A store
customer, Susan Heeley, said she saw Attari there.

Heeley checked out of the Trader Joe's at 5:13 p.m. Nov. 7. She was
wheeling her cart through the rain and deepening dusk when she saw a
woman with a head scarf driving a light-colored sedan.

The woman's expression was grim, and she was so preoccupied she almost
hit Heeley. Heeley watched the woman head out of the parking lot and
forgot all about her.

A few days later, Heeley read a newspaper story about Attari's
disappearance. Sometime later, Heeley saw the doctor's photo. It looked
like the same person, but Heeley wanted to be sure.

Heeley printed out the Mapquest route that the doctor should have taken
and retraced it herself. "I had to convince myself that there was a
possibility she might have ended up in front of the Trader Joe's
store," Heeley said in an interview with Knight Ridder.

Still, Heeley waited, not wanting to mislead searchers. Weeks went by
before last weekend, when she decided she could not enjoy the holidays
if she didn't attempt to help. That was when she sent the e-mail.

Deutsche said the marina's boat ramp is one of the few places in
Alameda where a motorist could accidentally drive into the estuary
because no barrier marks the end of the street as it slopes into the
water.

The city owns the ramp, said Alameda Mayor Beverly Johnson. The city's
Public Works Department chief declined to comment on whether anyone had
suggested a barrier or gate to prevent accidents.

Attari was a highly regarded person in her medical practice. The
majority of her patients had low incomes, and she never pressed them
for insurance co-payments and gave many patients free medicine, her
family said last month.

"She was just one of those people," said Ali, her daughter. "Things she
didn't have to do, she would do. She didn't have to work in Oakland,
but she chose to."