There was a strange news item this week involving a well known San Francisco philanthropist couple, Judith and Wylie Sheldon, who were both found dead of unknown causes in a still-running SUV along a Northern California freeway.

Judith Wyler Sheldon, known both for being the daughter of Oscar-winning film director William Wyler (Roman Holiday, The Heiress, Ben-Hur, The Best Years of Our Lives), and for being an arts patron and board chair of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, was found dead Monday evening along the shoulder of I-5 near Redding, as the Chronicle reported via the CHP.

Wyler Sheldon, 84, was reportedly in the driver's seat of Jeep Compass SUV, and her husband, Wylie Sheldon, 86, was a passenger. CHP officers came upon the vehicle at 5:46 pm Monday, June 15, finding it still running with both husband and wife unresponsive.

The CHP's Northern Division Investigative Services Unit is reportedly investigating, and no cause of death has been shared. The Chronicle subsequently reported that the deaths were called "medically related" by CHP. The Chronicle further notes that Redding was under an extreme heat warning Monday, and temperatures reached around 109 degrees, so perhaps heat, or a strained air conditioner, played a role in the couple's demise.

Investigators say they were en route to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, which is why they were driving on I-5.

Stacey Wisnia, executive director of the SF Silent Film Festival, called Wyler Sheldon "a San Francisco treasure," telling the Chronicle she "almost every program" at the festival for at least the past 20 years. Wisnia also said Wyler Sheldon would be missed for her "warmth, curiosity, and charming stories about her travel adventures and her father, the great director William Wyler."

Wyler Sheldon had said she chose to devote her energy to the preservation of films of the silent era after seeing some of her late father's silent work for the first time at a festival in Italy.

IMDB shows some of her brief credits as an actress in the 1950s, under the name Judy Wyler, and she apparently played a character named Lolita at age 14 on two episodes of the TV series The Buccaneers in 1956.

The Sheldons were slso known as patrons of San Francisco Performances, and the Chronicle noted that Judith Sheldon served as co-chair of the organization's 43rd season gala in 2022.