The Gorge

I've always been a glass half-full kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that we too.

“Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges, their stories, their funny, and my candy.”

So I hope you'll join me each week and who knows. You might just come away with your own glass half-full. Search Glass Half-full with Craig Melvin from today on YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News Anchor, and host of The Drink. This month, Demi Lavato is my guest. The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now. But getting there, it wasn't simple. Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood young, and why she now thinks she may have started too soon.

She talks about recovery, her new marriage, and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook. The drink is always about the journey to the top, and this was an honest conversation about what that takes. Hope you'll listen and follow the drink wherever you get your podcasts. Tonight on Dave Live. Alice was the youngest.

We are for the tight family. I just got this text message. Do you know where Alice is? She's missing. Yes, I feel I couldn't breathe. The higher investigator, they were putting up rewards they're doing, everything they could do.

She cannot just disappear, something what's going on. She's carrying a secret around. A very big one. She got married. She had a husband. She just blew our mind. Use a very successful Silicon Valley player. He said Alice is fine. She's in Taiwan.

They found out she entered Taiwan, and she never left.

Why the perfect place to disappear, right? You potentially had a crime scene, somewhere in this national park, and it is massive. You were smack in the middle of a true crime mystery. I know. That you never asked to be a part of.

No. There was a creepiness to him. I came away thinking to remind me of the animal left of you.

“How could such a person do such a horrible thing to my sister?”

A life full of secrets, and a phantic search, an ocean away. What had happened to Alice? I'm Lester Hold. This is date line. Here's Andrea Canning with The Gorge. Towering mountains disappear into fog.

Rivers snake through the jagged stone. It's a place of staggering beauty, but also danger. To Roko National Park in Taiwan, famous for its marble cliffs and narrow gorgeous, became the backdrop of an international mystery. Alice, I'm home with me. Little did you know you'd be traveling thousands of miles away to try to find your sister.

Nobody saw that coming. Just wish there would be this miracle that we actually will find her. Everything just went silent. This person is just gone. Vanished from the face of the earth.

Yes. She didn't tell anyone, and she didn't even tell me. Alice, who was a woman of mystery. And at the center of it all, a man with a complicated past and a reputation for brilliance. He also has a reverse might as touch, if you will.

Everything he touches dies. It all started about a week after Thanksgiving in 2019. Grace Coo was out with her daughter when her phone buzzed. I just got this text message. Do you know where Alice is?

Am I like who's this? Because I thought maybe it was a scam. Alice Coo is Grace's youngest sister. Alice was 37 and lived in Sunnyvale just south of San Francisco working as a private tutor for students from elementary to high school. The person wrote, "I am so and so is mother."

And Alice is my son's tutor. And she missed two tutoring class. And which is not like her. I'm like that's very weird.

“Did you know that Alice would never blow off a tutoring session?”

That's her business.

Yeah, I know she would never do that.

If she had to go somewhere or sick, she would definitely hear students know. Grace sent a message to her large family.

It seems like no one knew where she was.

“So do you start a chain on what you have so many siblings?”

Yeah. Calling each other, texting and saying, "Hey, do you know where Alice is? Have you heard from her?"

For Josephine, this was now the second red flag.

Joseph's birthday had come in gone just days earlier. I texted her, "Happy birthday." And there was no reply. And I find it strange, which she ever not replied to you. The longest probably just a few days, but not like this.

This is all just not normal. That was alarming. Something was going on. Their sister Monica, who lived nearby, offered to check on Alice at her apartment. But when she got there, the apartment was dark. It was dark, so no one was home.

The siblings realized it had been nearly two weeks since anybody had heard from Alice. We knew that we had to get authorities involved. This is getting serious now.

Very serious. Like, what is going on?

Their brother George contacted the Sunnyvale Police to help locate Alice.

“And what did the police say? Can they help find her?”

They could not. They said she was an adult. She has the right to disappear. She has the right to not contact anyone. That's not what you want to hear. Exactly. And it's just odd.

Officers conducted a welfare check at Alice's apartment. That's when they discovered something concerning. She moved out half a year ago. Didn't tell anybody. No, and she didn't even tell me. That was a very mysterious and something must have happened.

George filed a missing person's report. Without her address, Alice's family didn't even know where to start searching. So we're like, okay, this is becoming really scary. Didn't show up to her classes and was not in their apartment. We're like, what is going on?

Are we like in a different reality now? This was like the beginning of a mystery that your family is following. Yeah. And we were really confused. We were also very frightened.

The family would launch its own investigation and clues were about to pop up that would bring them closer to the truth. Alice's red Honda Civic was in the parking lot. And then the sign of the door said, welcome home, Alice. I love you. Obviously, there's someone else involved now

because you don't write a sign like that to yourself. Every corner we turn, there's another door and we open that there's another door. You were smack in the middle of a true crime mystery. I know.

That you've never asked to be a part of.

No. No. No. The co-family was in disbelief. Their little sister Alice wasn't returning their calls or text and it cleared out of her apartment.

She just disappeared. With nowhere to turn, the family sprang into action. We put posters of her picture and contact information all around where she worked. You're right. You're right.

“Is that just a surreal experience when you're putting posters of your own sister?”

Yes, because that's something you see of other people but now for your sister. Behind those missing person's flyers was a personal story about the youngest sister growing up in a tight-knit household. You have a family close to my heart. With your siblings, I have five girls in a boy.

Just like your family has five girls in a boy. What was that like with all of you growing up and where did Alice fit in? Well, five girls. As you can imagine, it's the big hell of a kid. She was the youngest.

Of course, being the youngest, you want all the tension. Josephine, being the oldest, took that to heart. Were you kind of like her little mommy? Yes, no mom? No, it was right.

She was just a baby to me. I'll do her hair. She just cleansed me. I used to pat her head. I think she liked it. Alice under siblings were all born in Taiwan in the city of Tauyuwen,

an hour outside of Taipei. In 1989, a mid-rising political tension with China, the co-family moved to Fiji. Grace remembers those islanders as a magical time with her siblings. I roll my bike every day to the beach and just jump into the water.

One time, we were all walking on the beach together,

Like everybody was quiet.

Just had this moment of peace. It was so beautiful.

“A few years later, the family crossed the Pacific again.”

This time, for San Jose, in northern California. So we came here and it was a cultural shock. Because in our mind, we thought like California is like Coca-Cola commercial. Well, it could be overwhelming. Grace says Alice, a shy nine-year-old, adapted quickly

with the study presence of her older siblings. I went to Academy of Art Universities, so I would come home on the weekends, and Alice and I will be making some bunniana, not bread together. Bonniana bread?

Yeah. She loves squeezing the bunniana. She's like, "Ooh, it feels so... I'm not sure if I can say it." She's like, "It feels like poop." So we have good laugh about it.

In the cool household, education came first,

but Josephine remembers high school was a real challenge for Alice. Alice had to rely on tutors in high school. In high school, yes, she struggled with math, so she knew how difficult that could be.

“That inspired Alice herself to want to help other kids, right?”

Yes. After studying political science and English in college, Alice launched her own tutoring business. She knew how important it is to have a mentor, help children,

going through the difficulty of school. Which is very interesting because in my my time freezes, like I feel she's still 12. I was like, "Well, when did she have the patience?" Yeah, to help others.

Grace's Alice was supporting herself and with some help from her parents, she moved into her own apartment in Sunnyvale. Were you proud of your sister for doing it, for trying to make it on her own?

Yes, definitely, very proud. Even though the family stayed in touch with Alice through texts and regular lunches, they had no idea where she was. And you're checking in with the police

and they've got no updates for you, nothing. That's when we knew that we have to hire a private detective to help us. They landed on Andrew Waters, a civil attorney with experience and investigations.

That's going to be a shock to the system when this is your loved one, and she's no longer living, where she's supposed to be living. Yes, very concerning for the family, it was a complete shock to them because it was so unlike her.

So she just up and moved without telling anyone. Yes. The same day he was hired, the investigator launched a creative legal strategy. Ask the court to appoint a conservator

for Alice's affairs until she could be located. With this conservatorship, you're able to just really dive into everything that was Alice cool. Yes, it really helps us get additional leverage

to obtain documents that the police might not be able to obtain rapidly. Meanwhile, Alice's brother George did a little detective work of his own and took an out of the box approach

to track down his sister's new address. The family reached out to PG&E, the utility company,

“and said do you have any accounts under this social security number?”

PG&E responded that the address had the numbers 1725. 1725? That was it. That gave us the house number, that's it. And I opened up Google,

and I looked at the map for Sunnyvale, and I started typing in 1725.

And the first thing comes up is 1725 right Avenue.

The address was an apartment complex, located about a 15-minute drive from Alice's old apartment. When Andrew Waters arrived, he noticed something right away. Alice's red Honda Civic was in the parking lot.

You knew to be on the lookout for a red Honda Civic? George, it gave me her car information. Okay, so right away, this is jumping out at you. This is immediately getting some results, and I noticed it was caged with a big layer of dust

with tutoring books in the back seat. Next, he tracked down Alice's apartment unit. No one was home, but there was a sign on the door. It said welcome home, Alice, I love you.

The paper was weathered and was a little bit ragged. And obviously, there's someone else involved now, because you don't write a sign like that to yourself. But Alice's siblings had no idea who that could be. They thought she was single.

So she's carrying a secret around. A big one, a very big one. He was a young Marine. She didn't care about convention. They made a life together.

Then one night, the Marine died. And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected, and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Maykowitz, and this is trace of suspicion on all new podcasts from daylight.

Listen to all episodes of trace of suspicion now,

Alice's siblings and their investigator Andrew Waters had followed a trail right to Alice's new apartment where they found that sign on her door. But they had no idea who was professing their love to her.

“So this is a gentleman that you're now looking for? Are you thinking?”

Someone that she's in a romantic relationship with? Yes, and it was a flurry of news all at once. The investigator and Alice's brother George went door to door asking neighbors if anyone had seen Alice recently, or if she was living with anyone. They were able to talk to the neighbor next door.

And the neighbor was saying, "Oh yes, Alice, have a husband." Where like, "What? What?" It was the first time we heard like, "She got married?" She had a husband. It just blew our mind.

And where's the husband? And who's the husband? Yeah, nobody knew. We were all in shock. Josephine was the closest to Alice among the siblings.

But like many families, life got busy as they got older.

And Josephine says the sisters didn't always share everything about their personal lives.

Still, this was different. I thought she trusted me, but apparently was not enough for her to tell me. Then I thought back, she has so many chances to tell me, because we got together so often over lunch over coffee. Josephine remembered a lunch date she had with Alice in California two years before she went missing. Something sparkly caught her eye.

I stole her ring. Her diamond ring. Over lunch once. An engagement ring. Yes.

Did you say to her, "Are you married?"

“No, I did not. I just asked. Is it real or real still?”

And she said, "No." So, she turned to stone in word. And then I never saw that ring again. Now the family had to figure out who was Alice's secret husband. Her neighbors gave them a name.

We got the name. First name and last name.

Hera Terchin. The neighbor said Dr. Harold Hurchin was older than Alice, and the couple had gone on a trip out of the country two weeks earlier. The neighbors said, "Oh, she went to Taiwan with her husband." So you had no idea I'm assuming that she was ever in Taiwan. No. We had no idea. She didn't tell anyone.

This is a lot. For this family, not only did they not know where their sister is, but now they're finding out that she secretly got married. Yes, it's a really a lot to process it once and lots of different directions to be pulled in. Do you do just a classic Google search of Dr. Hurchin? I did.

And what did it tell you? He was a prominent engineer at his company, Luminology. When you say Dr. He's not a medical doctor, he's a PhD. He's a PhD engineering from Stanford. Oh, very impressive.

And he's been working at various material science companies for the last 30 years. And a number of patents. 60 patents or something like that. Involving the latest involved solar energy and material science.

He's basically a Thanos level or Tony Stark level super genius.

Andrew Waters discovered Harold owned a few rental properties in the Bay area. So he started knocking on doors, hoping one of Harold's tenants might know how to reach him. Which brought him to this house in Palo Alto. Wearing a hidden camera to document the search, we're looking at the data along with Alice's brother and sister Monica approached the door.

December 2019, you get a knock at the door. Yeah. I was snuggle up on the couch, drinking my morning coffee, knock at the door. I asked my husband to go check it out. Hello, hi.

This is Harold. No, I don't know. Do you know what Harold heard you? Yeah. Okay.

To see what he heard. No, he's the landlord. Okay, you're the tenant. Bridget Buckley and her husband Paul had been renting the house from Harold for the past two years.

My husband was like, listen, I'm not Harold. You came to my house. Who are you? And that's when I thought, well, this is interesting. What's going on?

Let me go jump up. Walk to the front door. Can we ask what this isn't? This is an unusual visit. Yeah.

They said, well, it's a case of a missing woman. We're investigating the missing first this case. Sure. He's wife's to both. He's wife's to both.

I thought this is so surreal. I was like, oh, my gosh. Wait, what? So they, they shared a flyer with her. And they showed me a picture of Alice.

“So do you have any further questions or information?”

You'll figure it out. Okay, sure. Bridget's husband gave them Harold's email address. George wrote to him, but got no response. A few days later, the investigator returned to Alice's apartment complex

A salt over man who is along the larger side.

I walked up to him and I said, excuse me. He talked to her. He said, yes. Bingo, what do you ask him? I said, I'm going to turn he hired to investigate

your wife's disappearance. Does he know where she is? I asked him that. And he said that she was in Taiwan. He said where they had stayed in Taiwan.

And she was due back on her about December 7th. But it was now December 18th. Why wasn't she home? Harold said Alice wanted to travel on her own for a bit. There was nothing to worry about.

Does he have any idea where she is? And if she's okay? He says that she's been emailing him. And so he presumed that she's okay? She's just not coming home.

Is the problem? He also said that he saw activity on her credit card. And therefore, he knows she's okay. Anything else in this conversation? It's about five minutes of conversation.

Yeah. Pretty brief. And I asked him where I could reach him if I need to ask him more questions. He said he would answer more questions.

“Alice's secret husband would give more details in the days to come.”

Including where she might have gone. An email reported from Alice to Harold. That said, hello handsome Harold. I got here okay. Please change my flight to a week later.

Which would suggest that maybe she's okay. Investigator Andrew Waters had been working Alice's case for nine days when he had that brief encounter with Harold outside the apartment complex. It's very lucky and unexpected, but also really peaked her curiosity. He emailed Harold a list of questions.

And Harold provided a written account of his trip with Alice. Narrative explained that they had gone on trips to Taiwan multiple times over the last couple of years that this was one such trip that Alice had gone on with Harold. Talked about the plan for Alice and Harold to stay together in different parts of Taiwan. The investigator was particularly interested in an excursion Harold mentioned to Paulian City.

He talked about their sightseeing trip after he was done with work assignments. What was the sightseeing trip? They went to Tyrocco, George National Park and Taiwan. Harold said the couple hired a driver. They arrived around noon and toured the park together.

Then six hours later, Harold said the driver dropped Alice off at a nearby train station. Harold's last contact with Alice was at the train station in Hualian, Taiwan. According to Harold, Alice wanted to make the three-hour trip to visit her parents, who had moved back to Tyrocco 12 years earlier. That could make a lot of sense.

She's staying some extra days to go see her parents. The only problem is did she arrive at her parents? That was the issue. The parents told us that she had not contacted them.

Alice never made it to her parents house.

Even though Harold hadn't heard from her in a few weeks, he did provide something that gave the family hope that Alice was still travelling around Tyrocco. An email reported from Alice to Harold that said, "Hello, handsome Harold. I got here, okay. Please change my flight to a week later." Yeah, which would suggest that maybe she's...

Okay. The email did suggest that she was okay.

“Did you think to yourself maybe she willingly disappeared that she does not want to be found?”

Yeah, I'm like, well, that could be the best case scenario in this terrible situation. That she's alive, she just doesn't want us to see her. Yeah. In Taiwan, Josephine filed a missing person's report with a local authorities. Alice's family scrutinized every line of Harold's email, but something didn't seem right.

So they brought in civil attorney Todd Davis to add more firepower to the team. What are you thinking when this family comes to you? And it's very early stages. Right. And I wasn't really sure they needed me.

I usually come in after everything's blown up. And there's a real problem and we're going to court. Did you think that was smart of the family to come to you that soon? I think they were just desperate. And one more information from Harold and Harold's conduct was suspicious,

but we didn't disbelieve what he had told us. The new attorney got up to speed and took a closer look at Harold. He learned Dr. Hirchen was born in Germany and raised in Canada. He went to the Canadian military academy and then he got a master's degree in Canada. This is a guy with a brilliant mind.

Sure. He's been very successful in what he did. The attorney discovered something that peaked his interest.

Alice wasn't Harold's first wife.

“You find out that Alice's Harold's third wife, correct?”

First wife, he divorced, second wife died. She died of sleep apnea in June 2017. To the attorney, that was an unusual cause of death and he made a note to look into it further. The widower, who had two children with his late wife, quickly moved on with Alice.

Sounds very romantic. After just four months together, the two quietly married at the county clerk's office. Harold was 23 years older than Alice. They both worked. They traveled a lot. He'd trouble out for work and she would go with him. The attorney discovered they'd been married for two years and were trying to launch a tutoring app together.

This was the first grace was hearing about any of this.

He mentioned that Alice created an app for a tutoring and he helped finance her hiring the engineer to build this app for her. He's looking like the support of husband. He's helping her fulfill her dream of helping other kids. That's what it sounded like.

“Why do you think Alice didn't want to tell your family that she had married Harold?”

That's a really good question. If you marry someone who's successful, can provide for you and you can continue with your passion project tutoring. Why not tell your family? Going back to Alice's childhood being the baby and maybe needing attention and this big family. Did you think maybe Harold was the person who gave her that attention? I felt that's a possibility. Someone just gave you their full attention.

So I feel that's most likely the case because of the age difference. Do you think maybe she thought that you wouldn't approve or your family wouldn't approve? Yeah. Since Alice was raised in a conservative Catholic household, Josephine thought that maybe Alice feared her family wouldn't accept that Harold had been divorced.

Your Catholic and please don't get divorced. Yeah, no divorce, right?

But Alice always had her guard-up says Grace. Ever since she was a little girl,

Alice kept many parts of her life private. She's kind of person, no matter how hard you push. If she didn't want to share something, you could not push it out of her. She was a vault. Yes.

The co-family plan to open that vault.

“Returning to the last place Alice visited, so she has to be in Taiwan.”

She had to be in Taiwan. When the co-family learned Alice, it traveled to Taiwan and never returned. The search for their sister now spanned two continents. They moved quickly to come up with a plan. My brother, in Taiwan, even put a reward of $1 million for people to come forward.

And she had to get out of the vault. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store.

She's not allowed to go to the store.

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She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store.

She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store.

She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store.

She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store.

She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store. She's not allowed to go to the store.

She's not allowed to go to the store. We try not to talk about it without parents to upsetting. We were afraid. The last hope that we're holding them. That would just break.

Taiwanese police checked immigration records and had an update. They found out she entered Taiwan around Thanksgiving. And she never left. So she has to be in Taiwan. She had to be in Taiwan.

“Did you feel like the Taiwanese police took you very seriously when you came in?”

Yes, they took you very seriously. Somehow this case moved up from the police to criminal investigation bureau. CIB. Yeah. Taiwan's equivalent to the FBI.

The case was gathering traction. Taiwanese news agencies picked up the story. Even the TV reported the case. So you're seeing it on the news. Yeah.

It is very scary. Investigators didn't share much with the family. So Josephine started looking for answers herself. She took a three-hour train ride to the city of Wallian, where Harold said he last saw Alice.

Never give up on her. Our team traveled to Taiwan and joined Josephine on that same train. On that particular journey, what were you hoping to accomplish? We actually hope that we could find her just anywhere on the road or anything.

Hooked clothing or her bag or anything.

Armed with a stack of missing persons flyers, Josephine walked through the city, going business to business. Asking if anyone had seen her sister. We put out flyers in Wallian City. Just whatever business we think they would stop by.

Because there are a lot of tourists here.

“Is that just a feeling of helplessness or desperation when you're hitting the streets?”

Yes. There was no other ways we could do. Because we knew her last spot was here in the city in Wallian. Didn't you call you? No.

Josephine returned home. A month later she came back to Wallian with her sister Diana. This time widening their search in and around the city.

The second time my sister Diana now were here.

We stayed at the simple town where they were staying in Wallian. We also asked for hotel people. They didn't remember much. And they could only say vaguely. Oh yeah, vaguely.

I remember them. And I asked to see the room they were staying at. Did they show it to you? Yes, they did. They'll close.

No, not at all. Not at all. Another dead end. So the sister set out to the place where Harold said he and Alice went sightseeing on November 29. To Roko National Park, one of the most visited destinations in Taiwan.

It's a stunning landscape of winding mountain roads and hiking trails.

What is this park famous for?

“I think people are here for the scenery.”

People from Taiwan and people from overseas. All over the world. Yeah, that's right. The sisters had a friend drive them deep into the park. How many times did you stop?

A lot in arbitrary spots where the driver that was our local friend, where he thought it was a, it was a good spot to stop. And just trying to see if anything might catch your attention. Yes, could be some distinctive color or some piece of her clothing or her bag or anything. It's like finding a needle in a haystack.

Yes. We knew it was not possible, but we. We tried. We had to try. It had to come.

Yes. Was there that hope that maybe she still alive? Maybe she still alive? Maybe Alice is here in Taiwan? Yes.

I have those wild imaginations.

“I was hoping like someone actually saw her and picked her up.”

And maybe she lost her memory and maybe she couldn't find her way home. You just wanted to believe that she could be alive. That's right. That's right. As the coup siblings clung to the hope that Alice was off the grid,

Taiwanese investigators were following their own trail. One that would soon raise more questions about Harold's story. You potentially had a crime scene somewhere in this national park and it is massive. Yeah. Josephine traveled across Taiwan searching everywhere she thought Alice could be.

But she couldn't find any trace of her. He feels so helpless. It was. And he was so extremely sad. It extremely.

And I cried my eyes out. Now she put her faith in the Taiwanese CIB investigators. Commander Raymond Sue, then a squadron chief at the CIB took the lead on the case. He started by retracing the couple steps the day Alice went missing. Investigators knew she had been at the hotel that morning around 11 a.m.

Because of the timestamp from this selfie taken on her phone. Harold had said they rented a car and hired a local driver to take them on a sightseeing excursion. Teroko National Park. Torogopox, yep. The family search came up empty.

But when Commander Sue went to the park he was able to track the couple's movements. We're coming upon the entrance to the park. Yeah. So the entrance to have a lot of CCTV here. His team looked for surveillance camera footage from the day Harold said he and Alice visited the park.

They'd already identified the making model of the car he'd rented, a white Volkswagen. This camera at the entrance of Torogopo National Park captured the couple's white Volkswagen rental on video going into the park. They spotted the car driving into the park around noon, just as Harold said. Then they tracked cellphone data to see where the couple went once inside. Both of their phones pinged for hours high in the mountains near this remote coffee shop.

Investigators spoke to the owners and shared Alice's photo. Did anyone see anything?

Investigators could tell from surveillance video that several hours later around 6 p.m.

The couple's rental car exited. Could you see from the video inside the car? Could you see if it was two people going in? One person coming out or two people coming out? Could you tell?

No, because the window is too dark. So our camera cannot make sure how many people in the car. Their next step was to track down the car after it left the park. Harold said the driver drove them to the train station because Alice planned to visit her parents and tell you in.

“What did you find when you visited the train station?”

As far as the investigation was there any evidence there? We have checked the train schedule. And at that time, there's no train go back to Tao Yuan.

Was there any surveillance video you could check at the train station?

Yeah, train station also have many camera here. But we checked the older camera. Cannot find the car. So commander Sue checked license plate readers around the train station hoping to find the white Volkswagen. Again, no luck.

He widened the search area and looked at more license plate readers. Then, a hit on the rental at this fork in the road. Yeah, he's close to Rosie's importance. One way goes toward the train station, the other toward the couple's hotel. The readers showed that Harold's rental car didn't go to the station.

It had it in the direction of the hotel.

“No, this is really big in this investigation because he has said that's why she's not here because she went to the train station.”

But you don't think she went there at all. Yeah, right. And the couple's phone records confirm that hunch. We also checked the cell phone records and cell phone signal. They didn't touch the telecom power in the train station.

Near the train station. So there was no ping near the train station. So we think he goes straight to hotel. In fact, investigators found that the couple's cell phones pinged at the hotel that evening. They also tracked down their white Volkswagen rental and did a forensic sweep.

There's no plots in rental car. Oh, you got the rental car? Yeah, we got the rental car. No evidence of a body, a dead body being in the rental car. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

For Commander Sue, the picture was becoming clear. Even though Alice's phone pinged at the hotel, investigators didn't think she ever made it there. They believed Harold kept her phone. To them, the most likely scenario was that something happened to her at the park. Alice may have fallen or been pushed.

You potentially had a crime scene somewhere in this national park. And it is massive. Yeah, right. The National Park area is very big. So some cases happen in the mountains.

You can see how rugged the terrain is here. The cliffs are steep. The rivers are fast moving and the weather can change in an instant. Making any search and rescue operation here extremely difficult. The search and rescue team thinks it's maybe somewhere near the coffee shop.

That she was pushed over. Yeah, because they long time here. They stayed a long time at the coffee shop. Yeah. So investigators deployed search and rescue teams to scour the park, focusing in on that area near the coffee shop.

But they found no signs of her. For Josephine, reality was setting in.

People actually, they followed down to the gorge and never found this happened.

There's not the news stories of this whole happened every year.

“Did you think that maybe something happened and she fell or worse?”

She was pushed. Something must have happened there, because Mr. Hergen lied apparently. He lied about they came out of a terrible gorge. And he dropped her off at the train station. What else was Harold lying about?

And back in California, questions were surfacing about his past wife. She, I didn't that home, we were living in. It gives me goosebumps to think about it right now. By April of 2020, Alice had been missing for five months. Her family search and Taiwan left them with more questions than answers.

But they weren't giving up. We still believe maybe she was hiding somewhere. Her sister Grace had grown increasingly suspicious of Harold. She says from the beginning, he didn't seem to care that Alice was missing. He barely spoke to the family and only exchanged a few emails.

He just say, "Oh, Alice's doing Taiwan and I haven't seen her. Blah, blah, blah."

And then my brother say, "What can we just collaborate and look for her together?" Put our resources together, right? And he just say, "Oh, I already put a lot of money and try to get her back." But there was no evidence of it. And something else troubled the family.

It happened early in the investigation. Right after Andrew Waters had that chance encounter with Harold in the parking lot. Within that day, between voluntary answer more questions. Within that day, you hired a criminal defense attorney. That seems quick and maybe a little odd?

Pretty suspicious. Pretty suspicious.

Yeah, I mean, lawyering up is never a good thing with these types of things, so that was a big sign.

In fact, it was Harold's lawyer who wrote that email and which Harold provided details about Alice's last known whereabouts. The contrast between wanting to cooperate and then referring all questions to the attorney is a big one. Months ticked by and still no sign of Alice. Meanwhile, Harold had apparently moved on with his life. For months, at that point, he had been dating someone new, Kim No.

And she moved in with him and he vacates the apartment and puts Alice's stuff in storage. And Alice supposedly looked for his wife. That sounds very callous. That is very callous.

“How does he explain putting her stuff in a storage unit?”

He didn't explain anything. Because Alice's family had been granted the conservatorship of her estate. Harold was forced to turn over the keys. Grace, along with other family members, opened the unit. That was really hard, actually.

Because to look at all her stuff. One thing that really stood out was her hair brush. With her hair in there, I feel I couldn't breathe. Because I just feel like this person just through all my sister's stuff in this room. Like it was nobody's thing.

Anything jumped out at you in the storage locker. A few things. The biggest one was that there was a receipt from Nordstrom. It's Stanford Shopping Center on December 1, 2019 for Lady Sweater. That was the day Harold returned from his trip without Alice.

That means that the first thing Harold did when he returned from Taiwan was by Sweater for the near girlfriend.

You believe? Yes. Harold's lawyer says he bought it for Alice.

“But Andrew Waters wasn't ready to move on.”

Because there was something else. The death of Harold's wife of more than 20 years. Melissa, you. She was just 56 years old. The official cause?

Complications of sleep apnea. But the investigator wondered was that the whole story. And this is natural causes. With the second wife. Yes, we requested the autopsy report.

And we read that and had an expert analyze it. And it was determined to be sleep apnea related. That is not something you hear every day, a woman of that age. Dying of sleep apnea. Very unusual.

What also struck the investigator was the timing of her death. It was just before he met Alice. Very suspicious and convenient that he meets Alice in the same month that his prior wife dies. A lot of people have questioned the timing.

“One person was Harold's tenant, Bridget Buckley.”

After Alice's family had knocked on her door looking for their sister. Can we ask what this is in that? Bridget's wheel started turning. As soon as the investigator in the family left, I immediately was like, he's got this new wife that is missing.

I was like, this is unreal. Unreal. She says because she knew his second wife died. And she died in that home. That we were living in.

It gives me goosebumps to think about it right now. Bridget had grown suspicious of Harold. And she wasn't alone. Several of Melissa's friends told us they couldn't shake the eerie coincidence. Harold's second wife, Melissa, dead suddenly,

and now his third wife missing. I was nervous around him quite a bit. You were smack in the middle of a true crime mystery. I know. The autopsy noted Melissa had signs of coronary artery disease

and a coroner's report closed the investigation. But Andrew Waters still had questions, especially after learning about a financial transaction he found curious. The day before Melissa died, she and Harold refinanced their property, pulling out a million dollars.

A million dollars in cash? A million dollar refinance. They pulled out cash. And she died the next morning. Makes you wonder when he's under suspicion for killing Alice,

the second wife died as well. I think it's suspicious. I have no evidence to support that he was involved in her death.

And he was never charged for his second wife's murder.

Right. Alice's family still had so much to learn about Harold. And they wanted to hear it from him. But how?

Because they had filed that conservatorship,

they were able to depose him.

“And so getting a deposition from Harold would tie into that conservatorship?”

Issue? Exactly. That allows you to use the power of subpoena and take depositions. They wanted somebody to take a thorough deposition of Harold Hurchen.

So almost a year after Alice went missing. Todd was ready to put Harold in the hot seat. You know, you have this guy's name? No. I came away thinking he reminded me of Hannibal Lecter.

Really? From silence of the lamp. See, there was a deepiness to him. That was unavoidable. He was a young Marine.

She didn't care about convention. They made a life together. Then one night, the Marine died.

“And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected,”

and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Maykowitz, and this is trace of suspicion on all new podcasts from daylight. Listen to all episodes of trace of suspicion now, wherever you get your podcasts.

By October 2020, 11 months after Alice vanished.

Her family had come to accept they might never find her.

It's so sad when you think you have all this hope and you're searching, and then you finally get to that point. Yeah. I mean, it's been so long. And all the evidence points to the fact that she's no longer here.

Todd Davis was also thinking the worst. There was no evidence of any kind of financial transaction either the US or Taiwan. She hadn't appeared on any of the Taiwan facial recognition software. That's a really bad sign.

All of those things. Really bad. Team Alice wanted answers, and they believed her husband Harold was the key. The family's attorney finally got the chance to question him on the record.

So my name is Harold Searchin.

And where were you born? In South Rickon and Germany. It was the height of the pandemic. But Harold agreed to be interviewed in person. Andrew Waters, the family investigator, was also in the room.

What exactly is your goal with this deposition? To commit Harold to a story and get him to provide all his information that he has supporting the story. And then you can kind of compare that to anything he said before or after. And they weren't the only ones with questions for Harold.

Investigators in Taiwan had a list. And they were hanging on his every word. They were seeing real-time reports on what he was saying. And they were asking us to follow up at certain areas. Harold answered questions about his years in the Canadian military,

about his PhD from Stanford. He even joked about it. Shall we call him doctor Hurtchen? We can do that over beer.

“You don't have to come, doctor. That's what I'm under the last.”

The lawyer asked Harold about his relationship with Alice. And did you meet Alice, kiddoine? So June 2017. He confirmed it was the same month as wife Melissa died. Then he described how he met Alice.

That romantic encounter at the sculpture garden. It met her Stanford house and he was ran into each other. She was like artistly things. She does as well. Just looking at the art.

He also talks about how they got married and how quickly it happened. Yes, they married just a three months or four months after they met. According to Harold. And she would accompany him on business trips. Did you go to Taiwan ever without Alice?

So after we're married on an October, I definitely did not travel without her. This seemed to be sort of a adventurous marriage to people on the same page. He did paint a bit of a rosy picture about their relationship. But he also admitted they did have some bumps.

Like when they were building that tutoring app together. We were writing out the software specification for the app. And that caused friction if you're looking a bit of word. Yes. Because my approach to that is different than what she wanted.

But we started that out. So it kind of made a little bit of that less than. You know it. Emma's situation. That app business represented a certain level of hope for.

Oh yeah, she was very proud of her idea.

Like he's opening up to you.

That's right. He seemed completely calm. Even though Harold had already given a detailed description of his trip with Alice in Taiwan. The attorney asked about it again.

“At some point, you two decided to go to Taiwan together in November 2019, correct?”

He zeroed in on the day Alice disappeared. And their trip to Toroko National Park. What did you two do during that day? We had a show for dad and did such in there. There's waterfalls and gorges and roti places.

She didn't like driving in windy road. Okay. So did you get car sick a little bit? No, it's so good. Okay.

Anything else that struck you about how she was feeling or how she was reporting she was feeling?

I think she was mowing over in her mind what her viewing and what her parents looked up.

Okay. So at that point on the 29th, she had decided she was going to go see them. That was becoming a serious. Oh. So far, Harold's story had stayed consistent.

Then the lawyer asked for more details about the driver. The couple supposedly hired that day. Any of this guy's name is? No. Okay.

Can you describe him for us? Yes. Probably 35. And good looking guy. Taiwanese.

Definitely Taiwanese. Alice goes to the train station. Is it you Alice and the driver? That's good.

“The driver was going to take the train to.”

Okay. So the driver leaves you with the car. That's good. Okay. And where does he go?

With Alice? Okay. There's nothing suspicious about him going to the train station with Alice. No. No.

Okay. Not at the time anyways. No. This is a little embarrassing for anybody else. Okay.

And embarrassing how. Well, you know, all of his is young guy going to the office member. That was a new detail. He thinks something might be up between Alice and the driver. That's what he says.

He says it didn't occur to him at the time. But he later decided that because the driver was younger. And attractive that he believed that Alice was attracted to him and had run off with him.

“Was there something about their interactions that led you to believe that there might be something romantic between them?”

I'm not a good judge of that. But I would say by the conversation and the amount you smiled, yes. It seemed to you. She was flirting with him in some way. I don't speak Mandarin to my private.

You could infer that now. Now they're running off into the sunset together. That's right. Is anyone buying us? No.

So you go back to the hotel, right? Let's go. And Alice goes to the train station and you have not seen her since, correct? That's correct. After she went to the train station, did you communicate with her by email?

Yes. Okay. And is that that one email that she sent you saying she wants to extend the trip? Let's put it. When you got this email, anything about it along you? No.

The deposition lasted four hours.

Harold never appeared flustered, but the lawyer had a bad feeling.

There was nothing that he said that I could pinpoint wasn't true or accurate at the time. It was overall demeanor. The way thinking he reminded me of Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. There was a creepiness to him that was unavoidable. How are you feeling when this deposition is over?

It is a complete and total liar. We all came away thinking that Alice was dead and Harold had killed her. But we didn't think we could prove it. But Alice's team was about to get their biggest break yet. The email could not have come from the other side of Taiwan.

That's your smoking gun, if you will. The email was the smoking gun. About a month after Harold's deposition, family investigator Andrew Waters finally caught a major break in the case. Through a subpoena, he got access to Alice's email records.

And hidden in the metadata was a critical clue. It had to do with the IP address linked to that message she supposedly sent Harold asking to change her flight. The email that he claimed was from Alice. It was actually from the hotel we were staying by himself.

When he says she's already gone off to her parents on the train.

That's your smoking gun, if you will.

That was the big break in the case. That proved that it was more likely than not that he had committed this homicide.

“How do you break this news to Alice's family about the email?”

I started off by explaining the technical reasons why it was proof. I told them that it is 100% certain that Harold sent this email from Alice's account to himself. Did you just feel defeated when you learned that? No, it's a confirmation that I knew Alice was not alive any more. Family attorney, Todd Davis, says they sent the new evidence to several law enforcement agencies.

Post-mounted police, Sunnyvale Police, and the FBI were notified. And Andrew Center complete work up of everything we had. And why he believed that Alice was dead and Harold had killed her. But there wasn't a federal crime that could be pursued by the FBI. And is this because Harold is not an American?

Is that why? Because he's Canadian? He's right. He's not a US citizen. There is a statute of federal statute that allows the US attorneys to charge a US citizen with killing another US citizen abroad.

And he didn't qualify for that because he's a Canadian citizen. But he could be prosecuted in Taiwan. The Taiwanese police had also determined that Harold sent the email to himself. They issued a warrant for his arrest. They are investigating the case as a homicide.

But the warrant for him is as a suspect he hasn't formally been charged. But getting Harold in handcuffs seemed unlikely. We don't have the extradition with Taiwan, so we couldn't arrange for him to face criminal statutes in Taiwan. Harold, herchen might have committed the perfect murder. I think he thought he got away with it.

But you weren't done with him. No. The family figured out how to get Harold in a courtroom. A civil courtroom. They filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

First, Davis had to get the court to declare Alice legally dead.

But Harold pushed back. There was a trial and probate court. He opposed that. And that was a three day court trial. So he's trying to say no, she's alive.

And only because there was a legal benefit to the wrongful death case. The court determined that she was dead. The ruling allowed Alice's family to move forward with their lawsuit. By then, they long accepted that she was gone. About a year and a half after Alice went missing, they held a memorial service for her in California.

The pastor actually said, "Why don't we just do it as a mess for hope?" And that day, we agreed to dress more culturally instead of a being sad. Yeah. We went for lunch, bringing this photo with us. So he was a family family getting together.

This is the first time that I've ever done an interview where the person we're talking about is sitting right there.

Yeah, it's about her. In preparation for trial, the family attorney questioned Harold again on the record. You bring Harold in for a second. Deposition. Right.

And the stakes are a lot higher this time. It's a very different deposition. We were accusing him openly of killing Alice. The judge put a limit on how long he could be questioned. So now the clock's ticking on you.

Right. We had two hours to get as much as we could from him. He asked Harold about the email. The one he was now convinced Harold sent to himself.

“Do you know where Alice was when she sent this email?”

I do not know. Okay. Where do you believe Alice was when she sent this email? What's your plan? He just denied sending it to himself and didn't have any other explanation.

Even though you had proof, right, that she didn't send it. Right. The lawyer moved on to something Andrew Waters had learned from a coworker of Harold's. Who said when Harold returned from Taiwan, his arm was in a brace. I assumed it was a broken rest.

How did you endure your rest? I don't recall. But the lawyer knew that wasn't true. The coworker said Harold told him he broke it at a wedding. So Davis confronted him.

Did you tell anybody that you injured your wrist while you're at your sister's wedding, rough housing with your brothers in a bar? Yes. Harold then admitted he made up that story, claiming he was embarrassed about how we actually heard himself.

“The rough housing with your brothers and cobblestone Lucas was your cover story, correct?”

Yes. How did you really fracture your wrist?

What did you hit? A bookshelf. Okay. Did you do that on purpose? I was mad.

You have no memory as to why you got mad and punched a bookshelf. I do get mad sometimes without my word. That's just why. He's telling one person he went to Mexico to the wedding and heard his hand. And then he's telling you that he punched a bookshelf.

A bookshelf. That is apartment before you went to Taiwan in November 2019.

“What was important about that line of questioning is we learned who his doctor was.”

And we were able to subpoena his medical records.

Once those records came in, the lawyer finally had the truth.

Harold had fractured his hand in Taiwan on November 29th. The day Alice went missing. And drove straight from the airport on his return flight to the emergency room. Now it looked up. And you believe it has something to do with Alice's last day in that park.

There's no question. I cannot imagine it's a coincidence that he broke his hand at the same day that Alice died. They have to be connected. After the two hours were up, Harold was free to go. Bridget Buckley, who was now his former tenant.

So she met up with Harold because he owed her money and he got real chatty. We had a conversation. And it was pretty wild. Harold is almost choking up. And he's going through something unimaginable.

And if he told me about it, I would have to be interviewed. She assumed he meant interview by the police. Oh, my goodness. What do you do with that? I played them.

“But what's your gut telling you that you're not saying to him?”

Oh, my gut is like, he's going to be in bed travel. They're going to catch on. He's about to be caught. Not exactly caught. But Harold's civil trial was coming. And the family's lawyer said he was ready to reveal Harold's lies.

He said that he had temporary amnesia from amnesia. Amnesia. I mean, that's like out of a soap opera or something. Over the years, when Alice's family went to Tyrocco National Park, they were sure. Somewhere deep in the gorge, she was there.

On the fourth anniversary of her disappearance, it was the same. You yelled something out into the valley. Yes, we did. What was that? It was Alice, come home with us.

It was like this. Alice, come home with us. And you also did it in Mandarin as well? Yes. Yafang, go on my way down.

Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. It's hard being back here.

You were never going to stop searching for Alice.

No, we were not. We also will keep fighting for her for her justice. I don't want her to become a legend. She was real. She was a real person. She was, she was my sister.

About six and a half thousand miles away from Tyrocco. And more than five years after Alice went missing, in July 2025, her family faced Harold Hurtchen in a San Jose courtroom determined to make him answer for her death. This is now your family.

Yeah. Going after, yes. Harold, Hurtchen, guns blazing. Yes. You're going to bring him down.

Yes. If a jury found Harold liable for killing Alice and awarded damages, the family hoped criminal charges would eventually follow. This wasn't about money. No, it wasn't.

It wasn't. It was not at all.

“This was the only way that we knew how to get him.”

It really puts his name in the public, which is a different kind of justice that now everyone knows what he's been accused of doing. Mm-hmm. Yes. Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom.

The family's attorney, Todd Davis, delivered his opening statement. You really wanted to just set the tone right off the bat for the jurors. I tried that case like I was a criminal prosecutor.

The main pillars of his case, Harold never really searched for his wife when she went missing.

He callously deceived Alice's siblings with that fake email, pretending Alice had sent it. And he covered up the killing with lie after lie. I was just wondering, how could such a person do such a horrible thing to my sister?

I can only imagine the heartbreak of your father being in that courtroom and having to hear all these things. Yeah.

“My father was crying a lot while he was on the stand.”

You testified? I testified. What message were you to get across? How her missing had impact on me. Just how hard it was on all of you and all your family.

Yes.

The family's attorney argued Harold never searched for Alice when she went missing.

Harold did fly back to Taiwan about a week after their trip. He claimed it was to pick Alice up. It was just part of this cover story. So he went there on December 8, just for that day, spent the night and came back the next day without her. And he testified that he went there for the purpose of flying back with her.

If she's not where she's supposed to be coming off of flight, then you would think you would... It's sort of some energy to find her. You wouldn't know effort to find her. None. In an extraordinary move, Taiwanese investigator Commander Sue dialed into the trial from Taiwan to testify about that evidence he'd uncovered.

“The surveillance camera that captured the rental car entering and leaving the park.”

And those license plate readers that tracked the car from the park to the hotel, matching the path of the two cell phones. This data cannot change. So he's a Saudi-Davidin. This is technology.

I've got the technology. Everything.

Harold Hurchin had consistently maintained that he drove directly from Turokan National Park on November 29 to the train station and dropped Alice in the driver.

Off at the train station. Taiwan C.I.B. was able to prove that he didn't do that. That is huge. Sure. Tell me the case.

What's more? The attorney questioned if the driver even existed. Were you able to find a driver? No, no, no, we can't find a driver. Under civil trial rules, Harold was forced to take the stand.

He could have pleaded the fifth. But instead, he answered question after question. Todd Davis seized the opportunity to confront him,

playing snippets of the two depositions to expose his inconsistent statements, including about what happened to his hand.

How did you injure your wrist? I don't recall. Did you tell anybody that you injured your wrist while you're at your sister's wedding, rough housing with your brothers in a bar? Yes.

How did you really fracture your wrist? I hit something. What did you hit? A bookshelf. Now, here on the stand.

And once again, under oath, Harold has yet another story about how he injured his hand. He came up with a brand new story at trial when he testified that he injured his hand, blowing up a car tire with a bicycle pump when he got a flat tire in Taiwan. Could you believe it? No, it's not a believable story.

Harold even had an explanation for his inconsistencies. He said that he had temporary amnesia from-- Amnesia. Amnesia. I mean, that's like out of a soap opera or something.

He had amnesia. It was bizarre. So that's a lot of lies about one injury. It is.

“And why would you need to lie about an injury?”

Well, because you don't want people to know how you really injured your hand. As Todd Davis assembled all the pieces of his case, he left the jury with little doubt about his theory of the killing. Alice and Harold were in Troco, National Park. They got into an argument. He hit her. He broke his hand in the process.

And either right then and there, she went over a cliff into the gorge, or he threw her. After five days of testimony, the attorney was sure he had made a good case. But he wasn't sure. The jury would agree. I didn't know. I mean, I was convinced that he'd killed Alice,

but I didn't know if the evidence we had was enough to convince a jury. By the evidence we standard required. He may have had good reason to be concerned, because Harold's attorney was about to argue there was much more to Alice's past than anyone realized. Alice, who was a woman of mystery.

So much of her life was hidden from her own family. Alice's family felt confident their attorney had made a compelling case to a civil jury that Harold Hurchin had murdered their sister. This is the man you believe took your sister from you. Yes.

Before the trial began, Harold's attorney Chuck Smith signaled he was planning to delve aggressively into Alice's past, and he made an explosive allegation. She had worked as a sex worker in addition to her tutoring business. She wanted to hide that obviously from her family. The family vehemently denies that she was a sex worker.

They're saying that he was being vindictive. He was trying to embarrass the family embarrassed. Alice, even maybe trying to extort them in the sense of drop this civil trial. If you don't want me to expose Alice's past. I don't think that was ever the motivation.

In his second deposition, Harold said the sculpture garden meet cute was just a cover story.

He claimed he really met Alice on the internet. He would be on Craigslist or back page, I don't know. So Harold says that he was engaging with sex workers and came upon Alice. Correct. That's how they met. Did you engage in sexual activity twice?

Harold said the trists happened around 2013 while he was married to his second wife Melissa. His attorney claimed by the time Harold married Alice in 2017, she was desperate to leave behind her secret past. That in our view is the most logical explanation of why she disappeared. It's not that Harold killed her, but that her past life in some fashion caught up with her. Sex work is extraordinarily dangerous.

Women are victimized and sometimes killed by their handlers. It is a really big allegation to call someone a sex worker and to say that they were possibly murdered at the hands of a sex trafficker.

“Correct. I believe that's true. He's got no reason to make that up.”

Is there any evidence that Alice was engaging in this in Taiwan? No. But yet you think that it's possible that someone, a human trafficker, a sex trafficker, killed her in Taiwan over this. Correct.

The family's going to say that's a leap, you know, that you're looking to deflect from Harold. Okay. I believe my client, when he tells me about how they met. But the family's attorney was having none of it. He filed a motion saying Harold's claim was baseless and prejudicial. The defense eventually backed down and the judge ruled it out.

“I mean, that's just so outrageous that I'm like, how did you make up those lies?”

At trial, Harold's defense attorney pivoted to another line of attack. He told the jury Alice's family had it all wrong because they had no idea who she really was. Alice, who was a woman of mystery. So much of her life was hidden from her own family. He argued Alice wasn't as close to her family as they claimed. She wasn't seeing them every Sunday for dinner, but she was speaking to them.

The evidence absolutely disputes that characterization of her relationship.

I mean, she traveled with Harold six times to Taiwan. She never once tried to contact her parents

on any of those six visits to Taiwan. The attorney also revived the story about the driver Harold and Alice supposedly hired. It appeared that she was interested in the tour driver and it appeared that the tour driver was interested in her. Yeah, we believe that instead of weaving on the train to go see her parents, she ran off with him.

“If she died at the hands of a sex trafficker, then how does that fit in with her flirting and possibly taking off with the driver?”

Sure. I mean, these are alternative theories. We don't know which one may have occurred, but they're not connected. He said Harold tried to track down the driver after Alice went missing. Our investigator went there and tried to find out the identity of the tour driver, but was unsuccessful.

And the attorney just spewed at the family's claim that Harold never searched for his wife when he flew back to Taiwan.

The allegation is that Harold was trying to look like he was going to get Alice, but in reality he knew already that she was dead. My argument was that no, this wasn't part of an elaborate cover up. This was a legitimately concerned husband wondering why hasn't she come home, why happened I heard from her? He told Alice's brother George that he spent considerable amounts of money to try to find Alice. What exactly has he done?

He had reached out to contacts at his company, people that he knew in Taiwan to try to see if they could find any sign of her, but it was just nothing but dead ends.

The attorney argued investigators failed to show who actually sent the email and from where? Law enforcement did nothing to try to determine if that email may have been sent from some cafe or within a X amount of distance from the hotel. You're saying that they just they can't pinpoint it exactly to the hotel. Yes, our argument is that she did send the email. Then the attorney addressed Harold's inconsistencies about his hand. There are different stories from Harold about that injury.

He punched a bookshelf. He broke it while using an air pump in Taiwan. Clear this up for us. Harold testified at trial that he was frustrated over a business situation and that he punched a bookshelf. Why so many versions? Well, Harold disputes that he gave different versions.

At trial, Harold testified he actually injured his hand two separate times, the second time using the air pump.

In the end, the attorney argued Harold had no motive to kill Alice. She shared with him an interest in archaeology and history and they traveled the world together. It was a relationship with two adults who thrived together.

“So I think the evidence was very clear that he loved her.”

You see, Alice and Harold as the perfect match. And they really were. If Harold had wanted to get rid of Alice, he simply could have divorced her, said the attorney. Look, it was a short term marriage to divorce her and to settle it by pain, whatever small amount of money would have been required was insignificant for him and certainly not something to kill somebody over. In closing, the attorney argued the couples last day together didn't fit with murder.

It just seems incongruous with the day that they were having. I mean, they're having an enjoyable day at a magnificently beautiful park. It doesn't make any sense. And with that, after nine days, the case went to the jury. There would soon be a verdict, but the story was far from over. There was a big twist coming in all of this.

Correct. Did you know that was coming? Was that a surprise to you, to Harold? Yes, it was a surprise. [music playing]

“As the coup family waited for a verdict, they reflected on their years of missing Alice.”

Sure that Harold Herchant had killed her. I suppose an in this is person who loved her very much. But they in their attorney worried the jury might believe Harold and focus on the flaws of the case. That was my concern, was that. We know that he did this.

And even if they know that he did this, did we meet the Bruno proof.

Alice has never been found, still missing.

There's no autopsy, there's no cause of death. We don't even really know how he killed her. Those are really big holes in a wrongful death case. Whether it's a civil criminal, you know, nobody is always a challenge. It's a tough case.

So I didn't know whether or not they could get passed that missing evidence. To the attorney, a speedy verdict didn't seem likely. We went back to my office and three hours later we got a call from the clerk. The jury comes back very quickly. I was kind of shocked.

Is that signaling a positive in your mind? I didn't know what it meant.

You never know what a jury's going to do.

But I didn't think it was a good sign. I was nervous. Then the verdict, the jury found Harold Hurchen liable for the wrongful death of Alice Koo. And in the same sweeping decision awarded massive damages. The damages were 23.6 million dollars. That's big.

It's a good verdict for this case. I know you've said it all long. It's not about money, but 23.6 million dollars. Were you kind of taken a back by that number? Yes, it's an unthinkable number. But what the Koo family had wanted all along was for Harold to be arrested.

And then nearly two months after the trial. There was a big twist coming in all of this for Harold. That was going to put his entire future in jeopardy. It's not over. Correct.

The DA comes after him for perjury.

“Did you know that was coming? Was that a surprise to you to Harold?”

Yes, it was a surprise. We did not know it was coming. We knew the trial was being attended by FBI agents. But I did not know and Harold certainly did not know that the Santa Cruz DA's office

In September 2025, Harold Hurchen was arrested for perjury. Accused of lying about his hand injury, the email he set Alice sent. And about dropping Alice off at the train station. When it's like alcohol getting charged for tax evasion for murder, you know. He spent the next four months in jail.

And in January, 2026 made bail released with an ankle monitor. He pleaded not guilty to the perjury charges and is awaiting trial. And more legal troubles may lie ahead. The authorities in Taiwan are also keeping a close watch. Is there anything you would say to Harold?

I long to say to Harold. Please tell us the truth. There's an arrest warrant waiting for Harold in Taiwan. Yes, they believe he murdered Alice. Yes, all the evidence points to that.

“When he's actually died there, and I'm hopeful that he will be at I think they'll charge him.”

If all goes well, he'll be deported from the United States. Costa Rica is the most likely country he would be deported to from California. And Ash died it to Taiwan. Does it scare Harold at all? Knowing that that Taiwan is interested in him for this alleged crime and that they have the death penalty there.

It absolutely does scare him. We are very concerned about the immigration consequences of what might happen to him. And that is absolutely a great concern for him.

As for the sudden death of Harold's second wife, Melissa Yu.

The Apollo Alto Police Department told Dateline there are no plans to open an investigation. That evidence was too speculative and too prejudicial, so that was not allowed at the trial. Did Harold have anything to do with the death of his second wife, Melissa? Absolutely not. After all the years of pain, guided by her Christian faith.

“Josephine refuses to be brought down by Harold Hurtchen.”

It's very odd, you know what? I don't hate him. I don't hate him. I actually pray for him. He's a bad guy. He did bad things to my sister. I cannot say the same for my other siblings or my parents. He felt he could get away with it.

Erigan? Definitely arrogant? Smarter than everybody else. Yes. Alice's siblings say they will continue to fight for justice.

And they hope to use any money from the civil trial to help other families who don't have the resources they do. What I learn is that there are many stories like this just in different ways. In different settings, there are so many girls gone missing. Grace used her artistic talent to remember Alice and wrote a novel based on her sister's disappearance.

“Do you feel like this book could help other families who might be going through something similar?”

I believe so. Yes. It's pretty much to say, you know, you don't want to give up. When there's no answer, you want to keep looking.

The cool family says they will never stop looking for Alice, who sometimes feels closer than ever.

I would like to share something with you. It's a dream. I was in the room and she was planning on the door. And I asked her, "Are you in pain?" She said, "No."

She said, "No." And that was a relief to me. And then she put her head on my lap and I put it on her head again. And I told her, "You can't do this at me as often as you want." And she said, "She will.

I think that was a real thing. It's not a dream." That's all for this edition of Date Line. And don't forget to check out our Talking Date Line podcast in which we'll go behind the scenes of tonight's episode. Available Wednesday in the Date Line feed wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll see you again next Friday at 9/8 central. I'm Lesterholt, for all of us at NBC News. Good night. I'm Craig Melv, Cheers. Cheers.

I've always been a glass half-volt kind of guy.

And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. It's really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their trials, challenges, their stories, their funny and my candy. So I hope you'll join me each week and who knows. You might just come away with your own glass half-volt.

Search Glass Half-volt with Craig Melv in from today. On YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.