diff --git a/app/api/admin/users/[id]/route.ts b/app/api/admin/users/[id]/route.ts
index ece7dc5..5f3637c 100644
--- a/app/api/admin/users/[id]/route.ts
+++ b/app/api/admin/users/[id]/route.ts
@@ -100,16 +100,21 @@ export async function DELETE(
 
   const admin = getSupabaseAdmin();
 
+  // Confirm the user exists up front. GoTrue replies with an empty body when
+  // deleting a non-existent user, which supabase-js surfaces as an opaque
+  // JSON-parse error (no status / "not found" text); a positive existence
+  // check lets us return a clean 404 instead of a misleading 500.
+  const { data: existing, error: lookupErr } =
+    await admin.auth.admin.getUserById(id);
+  if (lookupErr || !existing.user) {
+    return jsonNoStore({ error: 'user not found' }, { status: 404 });
+  }
+
   // Delete the AUTH USER first. Only if that succeeds do we remove the tunnel
   // row, so a mid-failure never leaves an orphaned auth user with a dangling
   // tunnel (or half-deletes the tunnel of an already-gone user).
   const { error: delErr } = await admin.auth.admin.deleteUser(id);
   if (delErr) {
-    const httpStatus = (delErr as { status?: number }).status;
-    const message = (delErr.message ?? '').toLowerCase();
-    if (httpStatus === 404 || message.includes('not found')) {
-      return jsonNoStore({ error: 'user not found' }, { status: 404 });
-    }
     console.error('admin user.delete: deleteUser failed', delErr);
     return jsonNoStore({ error: 'internal error' }, { status: 500 });
   }