transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] This episode is brought to you by Progressive, where drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average. Quote now at progressive.com to see if you could save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, national average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. He wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums, he'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com/bank. Capital One, NA, member FDIC.

Speaker 2:
[00:59] Tonight on Dateline.

Speaker 3:
[01:00] Alice was the youngest. We are a really tight family. I just got this text message. Do you know where Alice is?

Speaker 4:
[01:09] She's missing.

Speaker 3:
[01:10] Yes, I feel I couldn't breathe.

Speaker 5:
[01:13] They hire an investigator. They were putting up rewards. They're doing everything they could do.

Speaker 6:
[01:17] She cannot just disappear. Something was going on.

Speaker 4:
[01:20] She's carrying a secret around.

Speaker 3:
[01:22] A very big one. She got married. She had a husband. It just blew our mind.

Speaker 5:
[01:27] He was a very successful Silicon Valley player. He said Alice is fine. She's in Taiwan.

Speaker 6:
[01:33] They found out she entered Taiwan, and she never left.

Speaker 3:
[01:39] What a perfect place to disappear, right?

Speaker 7:
[01:42] You potentially had a crime scene somewhere in this national park, and it is massive.

Speaker 4:
[01:48] You were smack in the middle of a true crime mystery.

Speaker 8:
[01:52] I know.

Speaker 4:
[01:52] That you never asked to be a part of.

Speaker 8:
[01:54] No.

Speaker 5:
[01:55] There was a creepiness to him. I came away thinking he reminded me of Hannibal Lecter.

Speaker 6:
[02:01] How could such a person do such a horrible thing to my sister?

Speaker 2:
[02:06] A life full of secrets and a frantic search an ocean away. What had happened to Alice? I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with The Gorge.

Speaker 4:
[02:38] Towering mountains disappear into fog. Rivers snake through the jagged stone. It's a place of staggering beauty, but also danger. Taroko National Park in Taiwan, famous for its marble cliffs and narrow gorges, became the backdrop of an international mystery.

Speaker 6:
[03:06] Alice, come home with me.

Speaker 4:
[03:10] Little did you know, you'd be traveling thousands of miles away to try to find your sister.

Speaker 3:
[03:15] Nobody saw that coming.

Speaker 6:
[03:17] Just wish there would be this miracle that we actually will find her.

Speaker 3:
[03:22] Everything just went silent. This person is just gone.

Speaker 4:
[03:26] Vanished from the face of the earth.

Speaker 3:
[03:28] Yes.

Speaker 6:
[03:30] She didn't tell anyone and she didn't even tell me.

Speaker 9:
[03:33] Alice Koo was a woman of mystery.

Speaker 4:
[03:38] And at the center of it all, a man with a complicated past and a reputation for brilliance.

Speaker 10:
[03:44] He also has the reverse Midas touch, if you will. Everything he touches dies.

Speaker 4:
[03:54] It all started about a week after Thanksgiving in 2019. Grace Koo was out with her daughter when her phone buzzed.

Speaker 3:
[04:03] 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.

Speaker 4:
[04:12] Alice Koo 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.

Speaker 3:
[04:23] The person wrote, I am so-and-so's 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.

Speaker 4:
[04:37] Did you know that Alice would never blow off a tutoring session?

Speaker 7:
[04:41] That's her business.

Speaker 3:
[04:42] Yeah, I know she would never do that. If she had to go somewhere or sick, she would definitely let her students know.

Speaker 4:
[04:52] Grace sent a message to her large family. The oldest of the six siblings, Josephine, who also lived in Northern California, happened to be in Taiwan visiting their parents.

Speaker 6:
[05:02] It seems like no one knew where she was.

Speaker 4:
[05:05] So do you start a chain on what, like you have so many siblings, is everyone calling each other or texting and saying, hey, do you know where Alice is? Have you heard from her? For Josephine, this was now the second red flag. Alice's birthday had come and gone just days earlier.

Speaker 6:
[05:22] I texted her happy birthday and there was no reply. And I find it strange.

Speaker 4:
[05:29] Would she ever not reply to you?

Speaker 6:
[05:31] The longest probably just a few days, but not like this.

Speaker 4:
[05:34] This is all just not normal.

Speaker 11:
[05:37] That was alarming.

Speaker 6:
[05:38] Something was going on.

Speaker 4:
[05:40] Their sister Monica, who lived nearby, offered to check on Alice at her apartment.

Speaker 11:
[05:44] But when she got there, The apartment was dark.

Speaker 6:
[05:48] It was dark, so no one was home.

Speaker 4:
[05:51] The siblings realized it had been nearly two weeks since anybody had heard from Alice.

Speaker 3:
[05:57] We knew that we had to get authorities involved.

Speaker 4:
[06:00] This is getting serious now.

Speaker 3:
[06:01] Very serious. Like, what is going on?

Speaker 4:
[06:04] Their brother George contacted the Sunnyvale Police to help locate Alice. And what did the police say? Can they help find her?

Speaker 6:
[06:12] They could not. They said she was an adult. She has the right to disappear. She has the right to not contact anyone.

Speaker 4:
[06:23] That's not what you want to hear.

Speaker 6:
[06:24] Exactly. And it's just odd.

Speaker 4:
[06:28] Officers conducted a welfare check at Alice's apartment. That's when they discovered something concerning.

Speaker 6:
[06:34] She moved out half a year ago.

Speaker 4:
[06:35] And didn't tell anybody.

Speaker 6:
[06:37] No, and she didn't even tell me. That was very mysterious and something must have happened.

Speaker 4:
[06:42] George filed a missing persons report. Without her address, Alice's family didn't even know where to start searching.

Speaker 3:
[06:50] So we were 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?

Speaker 4:
[07:02] This is like the beginning of a mystery that your family is following.

Speaker 3:
[07:06] Yeah. And we were really confused. We were also very frightened.

Speaker 4:
[07:12] The family would launch its own investigation and clues were about to pop up that would bring them closer to the truth.

Speaker 10:
[07:20] Alice's red Honda Civic was in the parking lot. And then the sign on the door said, welcome home, Alice, I love you.

Speaker 4:
[07:27] Obviously, there's someone else involved now because you don't write a sign like that to yourself.

Speaker 3:
[07:33] Every corner we turn, there's another door, and we open that there's another door.

Speaker 4:
[07:38] You were smack in the middle of a true crime mystery.

Speaker 8:
[07:41] I know.

Speaker 4:
[07:42] That you never asked to be a part of.

Speaker 8:
[07:44] No. No.

Speaker 4:
[07:59] The Koo family was in disbelief. Their little sister Alice wasn't returning their calls or texts, and it cleared out of her apartment. She just disappeared. With nowhere to turn, the family sprang into action.

Speaker 3:
[08:13] We put posters of her picture and contact information all around where she worked. You're taping them? Around Sunnyvale, yes.

Speaker 4:
[08:23] Is that just a surreal experience when you're putting posters of your own sister?

Speaker 3:
[08:28] Yes, because that's something you see of other people, but not for your sister.

Speaker 4:
[08:33] Behind those missing persons 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 and a boy. Just like your family has five girls and a boy. What was that like with all of you growing up and where did Alice fit in?

Speaker 3:
[08:53] Well, five girls. Yeah. As you can imagine, it's a bit chaotic. Yes. She was the youngest. Of course, being the youngest, you want all the attention.

Speaker 4:
[09:08] Josephine, being the oldest, took that to heart. Were you kind of like her little mommy?

Speaker 6:
[09:14] Yes, that was right. She was just a baby to me. I would do her hair. She just cleansed me. I used to pat her head. I think she liked it.

Speaker 4:
[09:29] Alice and her siblings were all born in Taiwan, in the city of Taoyuan, an hour outside of Taipei. In 1989, amid rising political tension with China, the Koo family moved to Fiji. Grace remembers those island years as a magical time with her siblings.

Speaker 3:
[09:48] I rode my bike every day to the beach and just jump into the water. One time, we were all walking on the beach together, and then we looked up, we saw the Milky Way. Like everybody was quiet, just had this moment of peace. It was so beautiful.

Speaker 4:
[10:09] A few years later, the family crossed the Pacific again, this time for San Jose in Northern California.

Speaker 3:
[10:16] So we came here and it was a cultural shock. Because in our mind, we thought like California is like Coca-Cola commercial. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[10:27] While it could be overwhelming, Grace says Alice, a shy nine-year-old, adapted quickly with the steady presence of her older siblings.

Speaker 3:
[10:35] I went to Academy of Art universities, so I would come home on the weekends and Alice and I will be making some banana nut bread together.

Speaker 4:
[10:45] Banana bread?

Speaker 3:
[10:46] She loves squishing the banana in her hands. She's like, it feels so squishy. I'm not sure if I can say it. She's like, it feels like poop. So we'll have a good laugh about it.

Speaker 4:
[10:58] In the Koo household, education came first. But Josephine remembers high school was a real challenge for Alice. Alice had to rely on tutors in high school.

Speaker 6:
[11:07] In high school, yes, she struggled with math, so she knew how difficult that could be.

Speaker 4:
[11:13] That inspired Alice herself to want to help other kids, right?

Speaker 3:
[11:17] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[11:19] After studying political science in English in college, Alice launched her own tutoring business.

Speaker 3:
[11:25] 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 mind, time freezes, like I feel she's still 12. It's like, well, when did she have the patience to help others?

Speaker 4:
[11:43] Grace says 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?

Speaker 3:
[11:54] Yes, definitely, very proud.

Speaker 4:
[11:57] 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?

Speaker 3:
[12:07] Nothing. That's when we knew that we have to hire a private detective to help us.

Speaker 4:
[12:13] They landed on Andrew Waters, a civil attorney with experience in 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.

Speaker 10:
[12:25] Yes, very concerning for the family and it was a complete shock to them because it was so unlike her.

Speaker 4:
[12:29] So she just up and moved without telling anyone.

Speaker 10:
[12:32] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[12:33] 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 Koo.

Speaker 10:
[12:50] Yes, it really helps us get additional leverage to obtain documents that the police might not be able to obtain rapidly.

Speaker 4:
[12:57] 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.

Speaker 10:
[13:06] 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.

Speaker 4:
[13:17] 1725.

Speaker 10:
[13:18] That was it. They gave us the house number, that's it. And I opened up Google and I look at the map for Sunnyvale and I start typing in 1725. And the first thing comes up is 1725 Wright Avenue.

Speaker 4:
[13:33] 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.

Speaker 10:
[13:43] Alice's red Honda Civic was in the parking lot.

Speaker 4:
[13:47] You knew to be on the lookout for a red Honda Civic?

Speaker 10:
[13:49] Georgia gave me her car information.

Speaker 4:
[13:51] Okay, so right away, this is jumping out at you.

Speaker 10:
[13:53] 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.

Speaker 4:
[14:00] Next, he tracked down Alice's apartment unit. No one was home, but there was a sign on the door.

Speaker 10:
[14:08] It said, welcome home, Alice, I love you. The paper was weathered and was a little bit ragged.

Speaker 4:
[14:13] And obviously, there's someone else involved now, because you don't write a sign like that to yourself.

Speaker 10:
[14:18] Right.

Speaker 4:
[14:19] But Alice's siblings had no idea who that could be. They thought she was single. So she's carrying a secret around.

Speaker 10:
[14:28] A big one.

Speaker 3:
[14:29] A very big one.

Speaker 12:
[14:34] Searching for a college that fits your budget and your life? Southern New Hampshire University may have cracked the case. Here's the evidence. Exhibit A, some of the lowest online tuition rates in the US. Exhibit B, more than 200 career-focused online degree programs. Exhibit C, no set class times. The verdict's in. SNHU could be exactly what you're looking for. Visit snhu.edu/dateline to learn more.

Speaker 13:
[15:06] When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products and fast dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 14:
[15:36] Take the exit, turn right, into the dry-through.

Speaker 15:
[15:39] Nope, I'm making dinner tonight.

Speaker 13:
[15:41] You don't have time.

Speaker 14:
[15:42] Josh has practice.

Speaker 15:
[15:43] Oh, that's right. I'll just get a salad.

Speaker 14:
[15:45] And fries?

Speaker 15:
[15:46] No, just the salad.

Speaker 13:
[15:47] But salad cancels fries.

Speaker 15:
[15:48] Salad only.

Speaker 14:
[15:49] Fries.

Speaker 15:
[15:50] Salad.

Speaker 14:
[15:50] Fries.

Speaker 7:
[15:51] Food noise isn't fair, but Mochi Health is. The affordable GLP-1 source that puts you on the road to successful weight loss.

Speaker 14:
[15:58] Hey, can I get the-

Speaker 15:
[15:58] Fries.

Speaker 14:
[15:59] Salad.

Speaker 15:
[16:00] Sorry.

Speaker 7:
[16:00] Learn more at joinmochi.com.

Speaker 14:
[16:02] Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists. Results may vary.

Speaker 4:
[16:16] 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. 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?

Speaker 10:
[16:35] Yes, and it was a flurry of news all at once.

Speaker 4:
[16:38] 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.

Speaker 3:
[16:46] They were able to talk to the neighbor next door, and the neighbor was saying, oh yes, Alice have a husband. We're like, what? It was the first time we heard she got married, she had a husband. It just blew our minds.

Speaker 4:
[17:06] Where's the husband? Who's the husband?

Speaker 3:
[17:08] Yeah, nobody knew. We were all in shock.

Speaker 4:
[17:12] 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.

Speaker 6:
[17:26] I thought she trusted me, but apparently it 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.

Speaker 4:
[17:41] Josephine remembered a lunch date she had with Alice in California two years before she went missing. Something sparkly caught her eye.

Speaker 6:
[17:49] I saw her ring, her diamond ring, over lunch once.

Speaker 4:
[17:54] An engagement ring.

Speaker 6:
[17:55] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[17:56] Did you say to her, are you married?

Speaker 6:
[17:58] I said to her, no, I did not. I just asked, is it real, a real stone? And she said, no. So she turned the stone inwards, and then I never saw that ring again.

Speaker 4:
[18:10] Now the family had to figure out who was Alice's secret husband. Her neighbors gave them a name.

Speaker 3:
[18:16] We got the name, first name and last name, Harold Herchen.

Speaker 4:
[18:22] The neighbor said Dr. Harold Herchen was older than Alice, and the couple had gone on a trip out of the country two weeks earlier.

Speaker 6:
[18:30] The neighbor said, oh, she went to Taiwan with her husband.

Speaker 4:
[18:33] So you had no idea, I'm assuming, that she was ever in Taiwan.

Speaker 3:
[18:37] No, we had no idea. She didn't tell anyone.

Speaker 4:
[18:40] This is a lot for this family. Not only do they not know where their sister is, but now they're finding out that she secretly got married.

Speaker 10:
[18:48] Yes, it's really a lot to process at once and lots of different directions to be pulled in.

Speaker 4:
[18:53] Do you do like just a classic Google search of Dr. Herchen? I did. What did it tell you?

Speaker 10:
[19:00] He was a prominent engineer at his company, Loom Energy.

Speaker 4:
[19:04] When you say doctor, he's not a medical doctor. He's a PhD.

Speaker 10:
[19:07] PhD in engineering from Stanford.

Speaker 1:
[19:10] Very impressive.

Speaker 10:
[19:11] He's been working at various material science companies for the last 30 years.

Speaker 4:
[19:16] A number of patents.

Speaker 10:
[19:17] 60 patents or something like that.

Speaker 4:
[19:19] Involving?

Speaker 10:
[19:20] The latest involve solar energy and material science. He's basically a Thanos level or Tony Stark level super genius.

Speaker 4:
[19:27] 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, the investigator along with Alice's brother and sister Monica approached the door. December 2019, you get a knock at the door.

Speaker 8:
[19:49] Yeah. I was snuggled up on the couch drinking my morning coffee, knock at the door. I, you know, asked my husband to go check it out. Hello.

Speaker 4:
[19:57] Hi.

Speaker 2:
[19:58] This is Harold.

Speaker 8:
[19:59] No.

Speaker 2:
[20:00] Do you know Harold Furchin?

Speaker 4:
[20:02] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[20:02] Okay.

Speaker 10:
[20:04] Does he live here?

Speaker 4:
[20:05] No.

Speaker 10:
[20:05] He's the landlord. Oh, okay. You're the tenant.

Speaker 4:
[20:07] Yeah. I'm the tenant. Bridget Buckley and her husband Paul had been renting the house from Harold for the past two years.

Speaker 8:
[20:13] 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. Walked to the front door. Can we ask what this is in them?

Speaker 4:
[20:26] This is an unusual visit.

Speaker 8:
[20:28] Yeah. They said, well, it's a case of a missing woman.

Speaker 16:
[20:31] We're investigating the missing person's case.

Speaker 14:
[20:34] Sure.

Speaker 3:
[20:34] Where his wife's siblings.

Speaker 14:
[20:36] His wife's siblings. Yeah.

Speaker 17:
[20:37] His wife unfortunately.

Speaker 8:
[20:39] Right. I thought this is so surreal. I was like, oh my gosh, wait, what? So they shared a flyer with her and they showed me a picture of Alice.

Speaker 10:
[20:49] So if you have any further questions or information, feel free to contact me.

Speaker 4:
[20:53] 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 where he spotted a man loading something into his car.

Speaker 10:
[21:05] I saw an older man who was a little on the larger side. I walked up to him and I said, excuse me, are you Dr. Herchen? He said, yes. Bingo.

Speaker 4:
[21:11] What do you ask him?

Speaker 10:
[21:12] I said, I'm an attorney hired to investigate your wife's disappearance.

Speaker 4:
[21:15] Does he know where she is?

Speaker 10:
[21:17] 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 about December 7th.

Speaker 4:
[21:26] 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?

Speaker 10:
[21:38] He says that she's been emailing him, and so he presumed that she's okay.

Speaker 4:
[21:42] She's just not coming home is the problem.

Speaker 10:
[21:45] He also said that he saw activity on her credit card, and therefore, he knows she's okay.

Speaker 4:
[21:49] Anything else in this conversation?

Speaker 10:
[21:51] There's about five minutes of conversation, so 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.

Speaker 4:
[21:59] Alice's secret husband would give more details in the days to come, including where she might have gone.

Speaker 10:
[22:06] An email reportedly from Alice to Harold that said, hello, handsome Harold, I got here okay. Please change my flight to a week later.

Speaker 4:
[22:15] 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.

Speaker 10:
[22:40] It's very lucky and unexpected, but also really piqued our curiosity.

Speaker 4:
[22:44] He emailed Harold a list of questions, and Harold provided a written account of his trip with Alice.

Speaker 10:
[22:52] 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 stayed together in different parts of Taiwan.

Speaker 4:
[23:04] The investigator was particularly interested in an excursion Harold mentioned to Hualien City.

Speaker 10:
[23:09] He talked about their sightseeing trip after he was done with work assignments.

Speaker 4:
[23:13] What was the sightseeing trip?

Speaker 10:
[23:15] They went to Taroko Gorge National Park in Taiwan.

Speaker 4:
[23:18] 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.

Speaker 10:
[23:29] Harold's last contact with Alice was at the train station in Hualien, Taiwan.

Speaker 4:
[23:36] According to Harold, Alice wanted to make the three-hour trip to visit her parents who had moved back to Taiwan 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?

Speaker 10:
[23:51] That was the issue. The parents told us that she had not contacted them.

Speaker 4:
[23:55] 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 traveling around Taiwan.

Speaker 10:
[24:07] An email reportedly from Alice to Harold that said, hello, handsome Harold, I got here okay. Please change my flight to a week later.

Speaker 4:
[24:15] Yeah, which would suggest that maybe she's okay.

Speaker 10:
[24:19] The email did suggest that she was okay.

Speaker 4:
[24:21] Did you think to yourself, maybe she willingly disappeared, that she does not want to be found?

Speaker 3:
[24:26] Yeah, I'm like, well, that could be the best case scenario in this terrible situation.

Speaker 13:
[24:31] That she's alive, she just doesn't want us to see her.

Speaker 3:
[24:33] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[24:35] In Taiwan, Josephine filed a missing persons report with the 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?

Speaker 5:
[24:57] Right. 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.

Speaker 4:
[25:04] Did you think that was smart of the family to come to you that soon?

Speaker 5:
[25:08] I think they were just desperate. They wanted more information from Harold, and Harold's conduct was suspicious, but we didn't disbelieve what he had told us.

Speaker 4:
[25:17] The new attorney got up to speed and took a closer look at Harold. He learned Dr. Herchen was born in Germany and raised in Canada.

Speaker 5:
[25:25] He went to the Canadian Military Academy, and then he got a master's degree in Canada.

Speaker 4:
[25:31] This is a guy with a brilliant mind.

Speaker 5:
[25:33] Sure, he's been very successful in what he did.

Speaker 4:
[25:36] The attorney discovered something that peaked his interest. Alice wasn't Harold's first wife. You find out that Alice is Harold's third wife.

Speaker 5:
[25:46] Correct.

Speaker 4:
[25:46] First wife he divorced, second wife died.

Speaker 5:
[25:49] She died of sleep apnea in June 2017.

Speaker 4:
[25:54] 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.

Speaker 5:
[26:06] He met Alice in June 2017 at the Rodin exhibit at Stanford University.

Speaker 4:
[26:12] Okay, sounds very romantic.

Speaker 5:
[26:13] Right?

Speaker 4:
[26:15] After just four months together, the two quietly married at the county clerk's office. Harold was 23 years older than Alice.

Speaker 5:
[26:23] They both worked. They traveled a lot. He traveled a lot for work, and she would go with him.

Speaker 4:
[26:30] 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.

Speaker 3:
[26:38] He mentioned that Alice created an app for tutoring, and he helped finance her hiring the engineer to build this app for her.

Speaker 4:
[26:50] He's looking like the supportive husband. He's helping her fulfill her dream of helping other kids.

Speaker 3:
[26:57] That's what it sounded like.

Speaker 4:
[26:59] Why do you think Alice didn't want to tell your family that she had married Harold?

Speaker 3:
[27:04] 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?

Speaker 4:
[27:14] 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?

Speaker 3:
[27:25] I felt that's a possibility. Someone just gave you their full attention. I feel that's most likely the case because of the age difference.

Speaker 4:
[27:38] Do you think maybe she thought that you wouldn't approve or your family wouldn't approve?

Speaker 6:
[27:43] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[27:44] 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. You're Catholic and please don't get divorced.

Speaker 6:
[27:56] Yeah, no divorce, right?

Speaker 4:
[27:59] But Alice always had her guard up, says Grace. Ever since she was a little girl, Alice kept many parts of her life private.

Speaker 3:
[28:07] 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.

Speaker 4:
[28:14] She was a vault.

Speaker 3:
[28:15] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[28:17] The Koo family planned to open that vault, returning to the last place Alice visited. So she has to be in Taiwan.

Speaker 6:
[28:25] She had to be in Taiwan.

Speaker 4:
[28:41] When the Koo family learned Alice had traveled to Taiwan and never returned, the search for their sister now spanned two continents. They moved quickly to come up with a plan.

Speaker 3:
[28:51] My brother in Taiwan even put a reward of one million Taiwan dollars for people to come forward. And here they put a Facebook page just to encourage anyone who has any information about Alice can come forward.

Speaker 4:
[29:06] But no one did. Grace says the siblings continued texting on the family thread they shared with Alice, hoping that she was simply hiding out.

Speaker 3:
[29:17] We also wrote like she was still reading this thread, saying, hey, Alice, don't worry. Doesn't matter what happened. We are here for you. Just come. You are safe.

Speaker 4:
[29:26] You're just hoping and praying that she sees one of those text messages and it gets her to come forward and say, like, I'm ready for help.

Speaker 3:
[29:35] Yes, exactly.

Speaker 4:
[29:37] Alice's parents were also on that text thread.

Speaker 6:
[29:41] I don't know how my parents were handling it. We tried not to talk about it with our parents.

Speaker 4:
[29:46] Too upsetting.

Speaker 6:
[29:47] We were afraid. The last hope that we're holding them, that would just break.

Speaker 4:
[29:54] Taiwanese police checked immigration records and had an update.

Speaker 6:
[29:58] They found out she entered Taiwan around Thanksgiving and she never left.

Speaker 4:
[30:04] So she has to be in Taiwan.

Speaker 6:
[30:06] She had to be in Taiwan.

Speaker 4:
[30:07] Did you feel like the Taiwanese police took you very seriously when you came in?

Speaker 6:
[30:12] Yes, they took it very seriously. And somehow this case moved up from local police to criminal investigation bureau.

Speaker 4:
[30:19] CIB.

Speaker 6:
[30:20] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[30:21] Taiwan's equivalent to the FBI. The case was gathering traction. Taiwanese news agencies picked up the story.

Speaker 6:
[30:31] Even the TV reported the case.

Speaker 4:
[30:32] So you're seeing it on the news?

Speaker 6:
[30:34] Yeah. It is very scary.

Speaker 4:
[30:37] 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 Hualien, 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?

Speaker 6:
[30:59] We actually hoped that we could find her just anywhere on the road or anything. We actually really hoped that we could spot something, her clothing or her bag or anything.

Speaker 4:
[31:12] Armed with a stack of missing persons flyers, Josephine walked through the city going business to business, asking if anyone had seen her sister.

Speaker 6:
[31:21] We put out flyers in Hualien city. Just whatever business we think, they would stop by because there are a lot of tourists here.

Speaker 4:
[31:32] Is that just a feeling of helplessness or desperation when you're hitting the streets?

Speaker 6:
[31:36] Yes. There was no other ways we could do because we knew her last spot was here in the city in Hualien.

Speaker 4:
[31:45] Did anyone call you?

Speaker 6:
[31:47] No.

Speaker 4:
[31:48] Josephine returned home. A month later, she came back to Hualien with her sister Diana, this time widening their search in and around the city.

Speaker 6:
[31:58] The second time, my sister Diana and I were here, we stayed at the same hotel where they were staying in Hualien. We also asked the 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.

Speaker 4:
[32:19] Did they show it to you?

Speaker 6:
[32:20] Yes, they did.

Speaker 4:
[32:21] No clues in there?

Speaker 6:
[32:22] No, not at all, not at all.

Speaker 4:
[32:25] Another dead end. So the sisters set out to the place where Harold said he and Alice went sightseeing on November 29th. Taroko 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?

Speaker 6:
[32:44] I think people are here for the scenery. People from Taiwan and people from overseas.

Speaker 4:
[32:50] All over the world.

Speaker 6:
[32:51] Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 4:
[32:53] The sisters had a friend drive them deep into the park. How many times did you stop?

Speaker 6:
[32:58] A lot in arbitrary spots where the driver, that was our local friend, where he thought it was a good spot to stop.

Speaker 4:
[33:05] And just trying to see if anything might catch your attention?

Speaker 6:
[33:10] Yes. Could be some distinctive color or some piece of her clothing or her bag or anything.

Speaker 4:
[33:17] It's like finding a needle in a haystack.

Speaker 6:
[33:19] Yes. We knew it was not possible, but we tried. You had to come. You had to come. Yes.

Speaker 4:
[33:25] Was there that hope that maybe she's still alive? Maybe Alice is here in Taiwan?

Speaker 6:
[33:31] 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.

Speaker 4:
[33:45] You just wanted to believe that she could be alive.

Speaker 6:
[33:48] That's right.

Speaker 16:
[33:49] That's right.

Speaker 4:
[33:51] 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.

Speaker 16:
[34:11] Yeah.

Speaker 18:
[34:17] A Mochi Moment from Mark, who writes, I just want to thank you for making GLP-1s affordable. What would have been over $1,000 a month is just $99 a month with Mochi. Money shouldn't be a barrier to healthy weight. Three months in, and I have smaller jeans and a bigger wallet. You're the best. Thanks, Mark. I'm Myra Ahmed, founder of Mochi Health. To find your Mochi Moment, visit joinmochi.com.

Speaker 14:
[34:43] Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists and are compensated for their stories. Results may vary.

Speaker 17:
[34:49] Close your eyes. Focus. Listen to work getting done with monday.com. Relax as AI does the manual work, while your teams are aligned on a single source of truth. Feel the sensation of an AI work platform. So flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Notice you're limitless. Now open your eyes. Go to monday.com. Start for free and finally, breathe.

Speaker 14:
[35:19] Let's check in on the Serda Counting Sheep.

Speaker 18:
[35:21] Why aren't we counting anymore?

Speaker 15:
[35:23] Well, the all-new Serda Perfect Sleeper has the Q4 support system that helps relieve aches and back pain.

Speaker 13:
[35:28] We'll never get counted again.

Speaker 15:
[35:30] Uh, nope.

Speaker 17:
[35:31] Serda, we make the world's best mattress.

Speaker 4:
[35:43] Josephine traveled across Taiwan, searching everywhere she thought Alice could be, but she couldn't find any trace of her. You feel so helpless.

Speaker 6:
[35:52] It was, and it was so extremely sad, extremely, and I cried my eyes out.

Speaker 4:
[36:01] Now she put her faith in the Taiwanese CIB investigators. Commander Raymond Su, then a squadron chief at the CIB, took the lead on the case. He started by retracing the couple's steps the day Alice went missing. Investigators knew she had been at the hotel that morning around 11 a.m. because of the time stamp 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. Taroko National Park.

Speaker 16:
[36:30] Taroko Park, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[36:31] The family's search came up empty, but when Commander Su went to the park, he was able to track the couple's movements. We're coming upon the entrance to the park.

Speaker 16:
[36:40] Yeah, so entrance have a lot of CCTV here.

Speaker 4:
[36:44] His team looked for surveillance camera footage from the day Harold said he and Alice visited the park. They'd already identified the make and model of the car he'd rented, a white Volkswagen. This camera at the entrance of Taroko 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 cell phone 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?

Speaker 16:
[37:24] He didn't see anything.

Speaker 4:
[37:26] 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?

Speaker 16:
[37:42] No, because the window is too dark, so our camera cannot make sure how many people in the car.

Speaker 4:
[37:51] 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 in Taoyuan. What did you find when you visited the train station? As far as the investigation, was there any evidence there?

Speaker 16:
[38:06] We have checked the train schedule, and at that time, there is no train. Go back to Taoyuan.

Speaker 4:
[38:13] Was there any surveillance video you could check at the train station?

Speaker 16:
[38:16] Yeah, train station also have many camera here, but we checked all the camera, cannot find the car.

Speaker 4:
[38:25] So Commander Hsu 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.

Speaker 16:
[38:42] Right here?

Speaker 4:
[38:44] 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 headed in the direction of the hotel. 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.

Speaker 16:
[39:03] Yeah, right.

Speaker 4:
[39:04] And the couple's phone records confirmed that hunch.

Speaker 16:
[39:07] We also checked the cell phone records and cell phone signal. They didn't touch the telecom tower in the train station.

Speaker 4:
[39:17] Near the train station, so there was no ping near the train station.

Speaker 16:
[39:20] Yeah, so we think he goes straight to hotel.

Speaker 4:
[39:24] 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.

Speaker 16:
[39:33] There's no blood in rental car.

Speaker 4:
[39:36] Oh, you got the rental car?

Speaker 16:
[39:38] Yeah, we got the rental car.

Speaker 4:
[39:39] No evidence of a body, a dead body, being in the rental car.

Speaker 16:
[39:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

Speaker 4:
[39:44] For Commander Su, the picture was becoming clear. Even though Alice's phone pinged at the hotel, investigators didn't think she ever made it there. They believe 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.

Speaker 16:
[40:09] Yeah, right. The national park area is very big, so some cases happen in the mountains. It's not easily be find.

Speaker 4:
[40:21] 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.

Speaker 16:
[40:41] Yeah, because they stayed a long time here.

Speaker 4:
[40:44] They stayed a long time at the coffee shop.

Speaker 16:
[40:46] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[40:48] 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.

Speaker 6:
[41:01] People actually, they fall down to the gorge and never found.

Speaker 4:
[41:07] This happens there.

Speaker 6:
[41:08] You see news stories of people. Yes, this happened every year.

Speaker 4:
[41:11] Did you think that maybe something happened and she fell or worse?

Speaker 11:
[41:16] She was pushed?

Speaker 6:
[41:17] Something must have happened there, because Mr. Hergen lied, apparently. He lied about they came out of the Taroko Gorge and he dropped her off at the train station.

Speaker 4:
[41:30] What else was Harold lying about? And back in California, questions were surfacing about his past wife.

Speaker 8:
[41:37] She died in that home we were living in. It gives me goosebumps to think about it right now.

Speaker 4:
[41:56] By April of 2020, Alice had been missing for five months. Her family's search in Taiwan left them with more questions than answers. But they weren't giving up.

Speaker 3:
[42:06] We still believe maybe she was hiding somewhere.

Speaker 4:
[42:10] 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.

Speaker 3:
[42:22] He just said, oh, Alice still in Taiwan, and I haven't seen her, blah, blah, blah. I don't know where she is now. That's all, he said. And then my brother said, well, can we just collaborate and look for her together, put our resources together, right? And he just said, oh, I already put a lot of money and tried to get her back. But there was no evidence of it.

Speaker 4:
[42:45] 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.

Speaker 10:
[42:53] Within that day, between volunteering to answer more questions, within that day, he hired a criminal defense attorney.

Speaker 4:
[43:00] That seems quick and maybe a little odd.

Speaker 10:
[43:05] Pretty suspicious. Pretty suspicious. Yeah. So, I mean, lawyering up is never a good thing with these types of things. So that was a big sign.

Speaker 4:
[43:15] In fact, it was Harold's lawyer who wrote that email in which Harold provided details about Alice's last known whereabouts.

Speaker 10:
[43:22] The contrast between wanting to cooperate and then referring all questions to the attorney is a big one.

Speaker 4:
[43:27] Months ticked by and still no sign of Alice. Meanwhile, Harold had apparently moved on with his life.

Speaker 10:
[43:34] For months, at that point, he had been dating someone new, Kim Noh. She moves in with him and he vacates the apartment and puts Alice's stuff in storage all while supposedly looking for his wife.

Speaker 4:
[43:43] That sounds very callous.

Speaker 10:
[43:45] That is very callous.

Speaker 4:
[43:46] How does he explain putting her stuff in a storage unit?

Speaker 3:
[43:49] He didn't explain anything.

Speaker 4:
[43:51] 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.

Speaker 3:
[44:01] That was really hard, actually, because to look at all her stuff. One thing that really stood out was her hairbrush. Still with her hair in there, I feel I couldn't breathe because I just feel like this person just threw all my sister's stuff in this room. Like it was nobody's thing.

Speaker 4:
[44:23] Anything jump out at you in the storage locker?

Speaker 10:
[44:27] A few things. The biggest one was that there was a receipt from Nordstrom, at Stanford Shopping Center, on December 1st, 2019, for a lady's sweater.

Speaker 4:
[44:36] That was the day Harold returned from his trip without Alice.

Speaker 10:
[44:41] That means that the first thing Harold did when he returned from Taiwan, was buy a sweater for the new girlfriend.

Speaker 4:
[44:46] You believe?

Speaker 10:
[44:47] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[44:48] 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 Yu. She was just 56 years old. The official cause? Complications of sleep apnea. But the investigator wondered, was that the whole story? This is natural causes with his second wife.

Speaker 10:
[45:14] 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.

Speaker 4:
[45:21] That is not something you hear every day, a woman of that age dying of sleep apnea.

Speaker 10:
[45:26] Very unusual.

Speaker 4:
[45:28] What also struck the investigator was the timing of her death. Harold said it was just before he met Alice.

Speaker 10:
[45:34] 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.

Speaker 4:
[45:41] One person was Harold's tenant, Bridget Buckley, after Alice's family had knocked on her door looking for their sister.

Speaker 8:
[45:48] Can we ask what this is about?

Speaker 4:
[45:50] Bridget's wheels started turning.

Speaker 8:
[45:53] 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.

Speaker 4:
[46:05] Unreal, she says because she knew his second wife died.

Speaker 8:
[46:09] And she died in that home that we were living in. It gives me goosebumps to think about it right now.

Speaker 4:
[46:17] 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.

Speaker 8:
[46:30] I was nervous around him quite a bit.

Speaker 4:
[46:33] You were smack in the middle of a true crime mystery.

Speaker 8:
[46:37] I know.

Speaker 4:
[46:39] 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.

Speaker 10:
[46:53] The day before Melissa died, she and Harold refinanced their property, pulling out a million dollars.

Speaker 4:
[47:00] A million dollars in cash?

Speaker 10:
[47:01] A million dollar refinance. They pulled out cash, and she died the next morning.

Speaker 4:
[47:05] Makes you wonder when he's under suspicion for killing Alice, that the second wife died as well.

Speaker 5:
[47:13] I think it's suspicious. I have no evidence to support that he was involved in her death.

Speaker 4:
[47:18] And he was never charged for his second wife's murder?

Speaker 5:
[47:21] Right.

Speaker 4:
[47:22] Alice's family still had so much to learn about Harold, and they wanted to hear it from him. But how? Their lawyer thought he might have found a way. Because they had filed that conservatorship, they were able to depose him. And so getting a deposition from Harold would tie in to that conservatorship issue?

Speaker 5:
[47:41] Exactly. That allows you to use the power of subpoena and take depositions. They wanted somebody to take a thorough deposition of Harold Herchin.

Speaker 4:
[47:51] So almost a year after Alice went missing, Todd was ready to put Harold in the hot seat.

Speaker 5:
[47:56] Any idea what this guy's name is? No. I came away thinking he reminded me of Hannibal Lecter.

Speaker 4:
[48:02] Really?

Speaker 5:
[48:02] From Silence of the Lambs. There was a creepiness to him that was unavoidable.

Speaker 12:
[48:35] We will be right back. I get the-

Speaker 15:
[48:36] Fries.

Speaker 7:
[48:37] Salad.

Speaker 15:
[48:38] Sorry.

Speaker 7:
[48:38] Learn more at joinmochi.com. Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists. Results may vary. This is a monday.com ad. The same monday.com designed for every team. The same monday.com with built-in AI, scaling your work from day one. The same monday.com with an easy and intuitive setup. Go to monday.com and try it for free.

Speaker 14:
[48:58] Let's check in on the Serta Counting Sheep.

Speaker 18:
[49:01] Why aren't we counting anymore?

Speaker 15:
[49:03] Well, the all new Serta Perfect Sleeper is the Q4 support system that helps relieve aches and back pain. Uh, nope.

Speaker 17:
[49:11] Cerda, we make the world's best mattress.

Speaker 4:
[49:23] 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.

Speaker 3:
[49:39] I mean, it's been so long, and all the evidence points to the fact that she's no longer here.

Speaker 4:
[49:49] Todd Davis was also thinking the worst.

Speaker 5:
[49:52] There was no evidence of any kind of financial transaction, either in the US or Taiwan. She hadn't appeared on any of the Taiwan facial recognition software.

Speaker 4:
[50:03] That's a really bad sign, all of those things.

Speaker 5:
[50:06] Really bad.

Speaker 4:
[50:07] 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.

Speaker 19:
[50:16] So, my name is Harold Richen.

Speaker 5:
[50:18] And where were you born?

Speaker 19:
[50:20] In Zarbarken, Germany.

Speaker 4:
[50:24] 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?

Speaker 10:
[50:35] To commit Harold to a story, and get him to provide all his information that he has supporting the story.

Speaker 4:
[50:41] And then you can compare that to anything he said before or after.

Speaker 10:
[50:45] Exactly.

Speaker 4:
[50:46] 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.

Speaker 10:
[50:54] They were seeing real-time reports on what he was saying, and they were asking us to follow up in certain areas.

Speaker 4:
[51:00] Harold answered questions about his years in the Canadian military, about his Ph.D. from Stanford. He even joked about it.

Speaker 5:
[51:07] Should I be calling you Dr. Herchin?

Speaker 19:
[51:10] We can do that over a beer. No, you don't have to call me doctor, that's fine. I'm very relaxed.

Speaker 4:
[51:16] The lawyer asked Harold about his relationship with Alice.

Speaker 5:
[51:19] When did you meet Alice Koo?

Speaker 19:
[51:21] June 2017.

Speaker 4:
[51:24] He confirmed it was the same month his wife Melissa died. Then he described how he met Alice, that romantic encounter at the sculpture garden.

Speaker 5:
[51:32] You met her at Stanford House and you just ran into each other?

Speaker 19:
[51:35] Yeah. I like artistic things. She does as well. We just ran into each other at the garden and sculptures.

Speaker 5:
[51:45] Oh, just looking at the art.

Speaker 19:
[51:48] That's right.

Speaker 4:
[51:49] He also talks about how they got married and how quickly it happened.

Speaker 10:
[51:54] Yes. They married just three months or four months after they met, according to Harold, and she would accompany him on business trips.

Speaker 5:
[52:02] Did you go to Taiwan ever without Alice?

Speaker 19:
[52:05] So, after we're married in October, I definitely did not travel without her.

Speaker 4:
[52:15] This seemed to be sort of an adventurous marriage, two people on the same page.

Speaker 10:
[52:21] He did paint a bit of a rosy picture about their relationship.

Speaker 4:
[52:25] But he also admitted they did have some bumps, like when they were building that tutoring app together.

Speaker 19:
[52:30] We were writing out the software specification for the app, and that caused friction, if you forgot a better word. Because my approach to that is different than what she wanted. But we sorted that out. So, it made a little bit of a less than amorous situation.

Speaker 5:
[52:53] That app business represented a certain level of hope for her.

Speaker 19:
[52:56] Well, yeah, she was very proud of her idea.

Speaker 4:
[52:59] Harold seems comfortable, like he's opening up to you.

Speaker 10:
[53:02] That's right. He seemed completely calm.

Speaker 4:
[53:05] Even though Harold had already given a detailed description of his trip with Alice in Taiwan, the attorney asked about it again.

Speaker 5:
[53:13] At some point, you two decided to go to Taiwan together in November 2019, correct?

Speaker 4:
[53:20] He zeroed in on the day Alice disappeared and their trip to Taroko National Park.

Speaker 5:
[53:25] What did you two do during that day?

Speaker 19:
[53:28] We had a show for Ditsite, seeing that there's waterfalls and gorges and rocky places. She didn't like driving in windy roads.

Speaker 5:
[53:45] Okay. Did she get car sick a little bit?

Speaker 19:
[53:48] No, I would say so, yes. Okay.

Speaker 5:
[53:50] Anything else that struck you about how she was feeling or how she was reporting she was feeling?

Speaker 19:
[53:55] I think she was mulling over in her mind what her reunion with her parents would look like.

Speaker 5:
[54:00] Okay. At that point on the 29th, she had decided she was going to go see them?

Speaker 19:
[54:06] It was becoming a serious option.

Speaker 4:
[54:09] So far, Harold's story had stayed consistent. Then the lawyer asked for more details about the driver the couple supposedly hired that day.

Speaker 5:
[54:18] Any idea what this guy's name is?

Speaker 19:
[54:20] No.

Speaker 5:
[54:20] Okay. Can you describe him for us?

Speaker 19:
[54:24] Yeah, he's probably 35 and a good-looking guy.

Speaker 5:
[54:32] Taiwanese?

Speaker 19:
[54:33] Definitely Taiwanese.

Speaker 5:
[54:34] Alice goes to the train station. Is it you, Alice and the driver? That's correct. The driver is going to take the train too? Okay. So the driver leaves you with the car?

Speaker 19:
[54:46] That's correct.

Speaker 5:
[54:47] Okay. Where does he go? With Alice?

Speaker 19:
[54:50] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[54:50] Okay. So there's nothing suspicious about him going to the train station with Alice? No. Okay. Not at the time anyways?

Speaker 19:
[54:57] No. It's a little embarrassing for me, but yes.

Speaker 5:
[55:00] Okay. Embarrassing how?

Speaker 19:
[55:01] Well, here's this young guy running off with her.

Speaker 4:
[55:05] That was a new detail. He thinks something might be up between Alice and this driver?

Speaker 5:
[55:11] 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?

Speaker 19:
[55:36] I'm not a good judge of that, but I would say by their conversation and the amount she smiled, yes.

Speaker 5:
[55:42] It seemed to you she was flirting with him in some way?

Speaker 19:
[55:47] I don't speak Mandarin, but you could infer that, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[55:52] Now they're running off into the sunset together.

Speaker 19:
[55:53] That's right.

Speaker 4:
[55:55] Is anyone buying this?

Speaker 5:
[55:56] No. You go back to the hotel, right?

Speaker 19:
[56:00] That's correct.

Speaker 5:
[56:01] Alice goes to the train station, and you have not seen her since, correct?

Speaker 19:
[56:08] That's correct.

Speaker 5:
[56:09] After she went to the train station, did you communicate with her by email?

Speaker 19:
[56:13] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[56:14] Okay. Is that that one email that she sent you, saying she wants to extend the trip?

Speaker 19:
[56:18] That's correct.

Speaker 5:
[56:19] When you got this email, anything about it alarm you?

Speaker 19:
[56:24] No.

Speaker 4:
[56:25] The deposition lasted four hours. Harold never appeared flustered, but the lawyer had a bad feeling.

Speaker 5:
[56:32] There was nothing that he said that I could pinpoint wasn't true or accurate at the time. It was overall demeanor. I came away thinking he reminded me of Hannibal Lector.

Speaker 4:
[56:44] Really?

Speaker 5:
[56:44] From Silence of the Lambs. See, there was a creepiness to him that was unavoidable.

Speaker 4:
[56:51] How are you feeling when this deposition is over?

Speaker 10:
[56:54] He's a complete and total liar.

Speaker 5:
[56:57] We all came away thinking that Alice was dead and Harold had killed her, but we didn't think we could prove it.

Speaker 4:
[57:04] But Alice's team was about to get their biggest break yet.

Speaker 10:
[57:08] The email could not have come from the other side of Taiwan.

Speaker 4:
[57:11] That's your smoking gun, if you will.

Speaker 10:
[57:14] The email was the smoking gun.

Speaker 4:
[57:29] 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.

Speaker 10:
[57:50] The email that he claimed was from Alice was actually from the hotel where he was staying by himself.

Speaker 4:
[57:55] When he says she's already gone off to her parents on the train.

Speaker 10:
[57:59] Yes, the email could not have come from the other side of Taiwan.

Speaker 4:
[58:02] That's your smoking gun, if you will?

Speaker 10:
[58:05] That was the big break in the case that proved that it was more likely than not that he had committed this homicide.

Speaker 4:
[58:10] How do you break this news to Alice's family about the email?

Speaker 10:
[58:16] 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.

Speaker 4:
[58:27] Did you just feel defeated when you learned that?

Speaker 6:
[58:32] No, it's a confirmation that I knew Alice was not alive anymore.

Speaker 4:
[58:40] Family attorney Todd Davis says they sent the new evidence to several law enforcement agencies.

Speaker 5:
[58:45] Both Mountain View Police, Sunnyvale Police, and the FBI were notified, and Andrew sent a complete workup 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.

Speaker 4:
[59:02] And is this because Harold is not an American? Is that why? Because he's Canadian?

Speaker 5:
[59:09] He's right. He's not a US citizen. There is a statute, a 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.

Speaker 4:
[59:26] 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.

Speaker 5:
[59:35] They are investigating the case as a homicide, but the warrant for him is as a suspect. He hasn't formally been charged.

Speaker 4:
[59:44] But getting Harold in handcuffs seemed unlikely.

Speaker 5:
[59:48] We don't have extradition with Taiwan, so we couldn't arrange for him to face criminal statutes in Taiwan.

Speaker 4:
[59:53] Harold's herchen might have committed the perfect murder.

Speaker 5:
[59:57] I think he thought he got away with it.

Speaker 4:
[59:58] But you weren't done with him?

Speaker 5:
[60:00] No.

Speaker 4:
[60:01] 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.

Speaker 5:
[60:14] There was a trial in probate court. He opposed that. That was a three-day court trial.

Speaker 4:
[60:19] So he's trying to say, no, she's alive.

Speaker 5:
[60:20] Right. Only because there was a legal benefit to the wrongful death case. The court determined that she was dead.

Speaker 4:
[60:29] The ruling allowed Alice's family to move forward with their lawsuit. By then, they'd 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.

Speaker 6:
[60:41] The pastor actually said, why don't we just do it as a mask for hope? And that day, we agreed to dress more colorfully instead of being sad. Yeah. We went for lunch, bringing this photo with us. So it was a family, family getting together.

Speaker 4:
[61:03] This is the first time that I've ever done an interview where the person we're talking about is sitting right there.

Speaker 6:
[61:12] Yeah. It's about her. Everybody's ready?

Speaker 4:
[61:14] In preparation for trial, the family attorney questioned Harold again on the record. You bring Harold in for a second deposition.

Speaker 5:
[61:23] Right.

Speaker 4:
[61:23] And the stakes are a lot higher this time.

Speaker 5:
[61:26] It's a very different deposition. We were accusing him openly of killing Alice.

Speaker 4:
[61:33] The judge put a limit on how long he could be questioned. So now the clock's ticking on you.

Speaker 5:
[61:38] Right. We had two hours to get as much as we could from him.

Speaker 4:
[61:42] He asked Harold about the email, the one he was now convinced Harold sent to himself.

Speaker 5:
[61:48] Do you know where Alice was when she sent this email?

Speaker 4:
[61:53] I do not know.

Speaker 5:
[61:54] Okay. Where do you believe Alice was when she sent this email?

Speaker 4:
[61:59] With her parents.

Speaker 5:
[62:00] He just denied sending it to himself and didn't have any other explanation.

Speaker 4:
[62:04] Even though you had proof that she didn't send it.

Speaker 5:
[62:07] Right.

Speaker 4:
[62:08] 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.

Speaker 5:
[62:16] I assumed it was a broken wrist. How did you injure your wrist?

Speaker 19:
[62:24] I don't recall.

Speaker 4:
[62:26] But the lawyer knew that wasn't true. The coworker said Harold told him he broke it at a wedding. So Davis confronted him.

Speaker 5:
[62:33] Did you tell anybody that you injured your wrist while you were at your sister's wedding, roughhousing with your brothers in a bar?

Speaker 19:
[62:42] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[62:44] Harold then admitted he made up that story, claiming he was embarrassed about how he actually hurt himself.

Speaker 5:
[62:50] The roughhousing with your brothers in Cabo San Lucas was your cover story, correct?

Speaker 19:
[62:55] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[62:55] Okay. How did you really fracture your wrist?

Speaker 19:
[63:01] I hit something.

Speaker 5:
[63:02] What did you hit?

Speaker 19:
[63:05] A bookshelf.

Speaker 5:
[63:06] Okay. Did you do that on purpose?

Speaker 19:
[63:10] I was mad.

Speaker 5:
[63:11] Okay. You have no memory as to why you got mad and punched a bookshelf?

Speaker 19:
[63:20] I do get mad sometimes, but I don't remember. I just, why?

Speaker 4:
[63:24] He's telling one person he went to Mexico to the wedding and hurt his hand.

Speaker 5:
[63:28] Right.

Speaker 4:
[63:28] And then he's telling you that he punched a bookshelf. A bookshelf.

Speaker 5:
[63:32] At his apartment before he 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.

Speaker 4:
[63:45] 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.

Speaker 5:
[63:56] And drove straight from the airport on his return flight to the emergency room to have it looked at.

Speaker 4:
[64:02] And you believe it has something to do with Alice's last day in that park?

Speaker 5:
[64:07] There's no question. I cannot imagine it's a coincidence that he broke his hand on the same day that Alice died. They have to be connected.

Speaker 4:
[64:20] 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.

Speaker 8:
[64:30] We had a conversation, and it was pretty wild. Harold is almost choking up, and he's saying that he's going through something unimaginable. And if he told me about it, I would have to be interviewed.

Speaker 4:
[64:51] She assumed he meant interviewed by the police. Oh, my goodness. What do you do with that?

Speaker 8:
[64:59] I play dumb.

Speaker 4:
[65:00] But what's your gut telling you that you're not saying to him?

Speaker 8:
[65:03] Oh, my gut is like, he's going to be in big trouble. Like, they're going to catch on. He's about to be caught.

Speaker 4:
[65:12] Not exactly caught, but Harold's civil trial was coming, and the family's lawyer said he was ready to reveal Harold's lies.

Speaker 5:
[65:21] He said that he had temporary amnesia from...

Speaker 4:
[65:25] Amnesia.

Speaker 5:
[65:26] Amnesia.

Speaker 4:
[65:27] I mean, that's like out of a soap opera or something.

Speaker 18:
[65:33] Emoji moment from Mark, who writes, I just want to thank you for making GOP1s affordable. What would have been over $1,000 a month is just $99 a month with Mochi. Money shouldn't be a barrier to healthy weight. Three months in, and I have smaller jeans and a bigger wallet. You're the best. Thanks, Mark. I'm Myra Ahmed, founder of Mochi Health. To find your Mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com.

Speaker 14:
[65:58] Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists and are compensated for their stories. Results may vary.

Speaker 7:
[66:04] This is a monday.com ad. The same monday.com designed for every team. The same monday.com with built-in AI, scaling your work from day one. The same monday.com with an easy and intuitive setup. Go to monday.com and try it for free.

Speaker 14:
[66:19] And now, the next chapter of the Serta Counting Sheep.

Speaker 6:
[66:23] Hey, Uncle Number One, why aren't we counting anymore?

Speaker 15:
[66:25] Let me tell you a story. Long ago, Serta invented the Perfect Sleeper mattress.

Speaker 6:
[66:30] Oh, no.

Speaker 15:
[66:31] Oh, yes. It says the all-new Serta Perfect Sleeper with the Q4 support system has four in one perfectly interlinked coils that help relieve aches and back pain for perfect sleep night after night.

Speaker 18:
[66:43] We'll never get counted again.

Speaker 15:
[66:45] Uh, nope.

Speaker 17:
[66:47] Serta, we make the world's best mattress.

Speaker 4:
[67:01] Over the years when Alice's family went to Taroko 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.

Speaker 6:
[67:16] Yes, we did.

Speaker 4:
[67:18] What was that?

Speaker 6:
[67:19] It was Alice, come home with us. It was like this. Alice, come home with us.

Speaker 4:
[67:26] And you also did it in Mandarin as well?

Speaker 6:
[67:28] Yes. Yafang, come home with us. Sorry.

Speaker 8:
[67:33] Oh, I'm sorry.

Speaker 6:
[67:34] Sorry. Yeah.

Speaker 8:
[67:37] It's hard being back here.

Speaker 6:
[67:38] Right.

Speaker 4:
[67:39] You were never going to stop searching for Alice.

Speaker 6:
[67:42] 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 my sister.

Speaker 4:
[67:54] About 6,500 miles away from Taiwan, and more than 5 years after Alice went missing, in July 2025, her family faced Harold Herchin in a San Jose courtroom, determined to make him answer for her death. This is now your family going after Harold Herchin, guns blazing. You're going to bring him down.

Speaker 6:
[68:15] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[68:17] 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.

Speaker 6:
[68:25] No, it wasn't. It wasn't. Not at all.

Speaker 3:
[68:28] This was the only way that we knew how to get him.

Speaker 4:
[68:31] 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.

Speaker 6:
[68:42] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[68:43] 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.

Speaker 5:
[68:54] I tried that case like I was a criminal prosecutor.

Speaker 4:
[68:58] 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.

Speaker 6:
[69:12] I was just wondering, how could such a person do such a horrible thing to my sister?

Speaker 4:
[69:21] Alice's father flew in from Taiwan to be at the trial. I can only imagine the heartbreak of your father being in that courtroom and having to hear all these things.

Speaker 3:
[69:31] Yeah. My father was crying a lot while he was on the stand.

Speaker 4:
[69:35] You testified?

Speaker 6:
[69:36] I testified.

Speaker 4:
[69:37] What message were you to get across?

Speaker 6:
[69:39] How her missing had impact on me.

Speaker 4:
[69:42] Just how hard it was on all of you, you and all your family.

Speaker 6:
[69:46] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[69:47] 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.

Speaker 5:
[69:58] It was just part of this cover story. He went there on December 8, just for that day, spent the night, and came back the next day without her. He testified that he went there for the purpose of flying back with her.

Speaker 4:
[70:11] If she's not where she's supposed to be coming off a flight, then you would think you would exert some energy to find her.

Speaker 5:
[70:17] He put in no effort to find her. None.

Speaker 4:
[70:21] In an extraordinary move, Taiwanese investigator Commander Su 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 track the car from the park to the hotel, matching the path of the two cell phones.

Speaker 16:
[70:40] This data cannot change, so it's a solid evidence.

Speaker 4:
[70:45] This is technology.

Speaker 16:
[70:47] Yeah, it's technology evidence.

Speaker 5:
[70:48] Harold Herchin had consistently maintained that he drove directly from Taroko National Park on November 29 to the train station and dropped Allison, the driver, off at the train station. Taiwan CIB was able to prove that he didn't do that.

Speaker 4:
[71:05] That is huge.

Speaker 5:
[71:05] Sure. Yeah, that made the case.

Speaker 4:
[71:07] What's more, the attorney questioned if the driver even existed. Were you able to find a driver?

Speaker 16:
[71:14] No, no, no, we can't find a driver.

Speaker 4:
[71:17] 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.

Speaker 5:
[71:35] How did you injure your wrist?

Speaker 19:
[71:37] I don't recall.

Speaker 5:
[71:38] Did you tell anybody that you injured your wrist while you were at your sister's wedding, roughhousing with your brothers in a bar?

Speaker 19:
[71:47] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[71:48] How did you really fracture your wrist?

Speaker 19:
[71:53] I hit something.

Speaker 5:
[71:53] What did you hit?

Speaker 19:
[71:56] A bookshelf.

Speaker 4:
[71:58] Now, here on The Stand and once again under oath, Harold has yet another story about how he injured his hand.

Speaker 5:
[72:08] Right. 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.

Speaker 4:
[72:20] Could you believe it?

Speaker 5:
[72:21] No, it's not a believable story.

Speaker 4:
[72:23] Harold even had an explanation for his inconsistencies.

Speaker 5:
[72:27] He said that he had temporary amnesia from-

Speaker 4:
[72:32] Amnesia?

Speaker 5:
[72:32] Amnesia.

Speaker 4:
[72:34] I mean, that's like out of a soap opera or something. I had amnesia.

Speaker 5:
[72:37] It was bizarre.

Speaker 4:
[72:38] So that's a lot of lies about one injury.

Speaker 5:
[72:41] It is.

Speaker 4:
[72:42] Why would you need to lie about an injury?

Speaker 5:
[72:46] Well, because you don't want people to know how he really injured your hand.

Speaker 4:
[72:51] As Todd Davis assembled all the pieces of his case, he left the jury with little doubt about his theory of the killing.

Speaker 5:
[72:58] Alice and Harold were in Taroko 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.

Speaker 4:
[73:17] After five days of testimony, the attorney was sure he had made a good case, but he wasn't sure the jury would agree.

Speaker 5:
[73:24] I didn't know. I mean, I was convinced that he had killed Alice, but I didn't know if the evidence we had was enough to convince a jury by the evidentiary standard required.

Speaker 4:
[73:37] 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.

Speaker 9:
[73:46] Alice Koo was a woman of mystery. So much of her life was hidden from her own family.

Speaker 4:
[74:09] Alice's family felt confident their attorney had made a compelling case to a civil jury that Harold Herchin had murdered their sister. This is the man you believe took your sister from you.

Speaker 9:
[74:19] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[74:20] Now it was the defense's turn. 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.

Speaker 9:
[74:32] She had worked as a sex worker in addition to her tutoring business. She wanted to hide that obviously from her family.

Speaker 4:
[74:40] 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, embarrass 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.

Speaker 9:
[75:01] I don't think that was ever the motivation.

Speaker 4:
[75:05] 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.

Speaker 19:
[75:14] It will either be on Craig's list or back page, I don't know.

Speaker 4:
[75:16] So Harold says that he was engaging with sex workers and came upon Alice?

Speaker 9:
[75:24] Correct, that's how they met.

Speaker 5:
[75:25] Did you engage in sexual activity?

Speaker 19:
[75:28] Twice, yes.

Speaker 5:
[75:30] Okay, did you pay her?

Speaker 19:
[75:32] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[75:33] Harold said the trysts 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.

Speaker 9:
[75:45] That in our view is the most logical explanation of why she disappeared. 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.

Speaker 4:
[76:05] 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.

Speaker 9:
[76:14] Correct. I believe that's true. He's got no reason to make that up.

Speaker 4:
[76:19] Is there any evidence that Alice was engaging in this in Taiwan?

Speaker 9:
[76:23] No.

Speaker 4:
[76:24] But yet, you think that it's possible that someone, a human trafficker or a sex trafficker, killed her in Taiwan over this?

Speaker 9:
[76:32] Correct.

Speaker 4:
[76:32] The family is going to say that's a leap, that you're looking to deflect from Harold.

Speaker 9:
[76:38] Okay. I believe my client when he tells me about how they met.

Speaker 4:
[76:44] 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.

Speaker 3:
[76:54] I mean, that's just so outrageous that I'm like, how did you make up those lies?

Speaker 4:
[77:02] 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.

Speaker 9:
[77:12] Alice Koo was a woman of mystery. So much of her life was hidden from her own family.

Speaker 4:
[77:21] 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.

Speaker 9:
[77:29] 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.

Speaker 4:
[77:48] The attorney also revived the story about the driver Harold and Alice supposedly hired.

Speaker 9:
[77:53] It appeared that she was interested in the tour driver, and it appeared that the tour driver was interested in her.

Speaker 4:
[78:01] Flirting.

Speaker 9:
[78:02] Yeah. We believe that instead of leaving on the train to go see her parents, she ran off with him.

Speaker 4:
[78:08] 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?

Speaker 9:
[78:18] Sure. I mean, these are alternative theories. We don't know which one may have occurred, but they're not connected.

Speaker 4:
[78:27] He said Harold tried to track down the driver after Alice went missing.

Speaker 9:
[78:31] Our investigator went there and tried to find out the identity of the tour driver, but was unsuccessful.

Speaker 4:
[78:40] And the attorney disputed 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.

Speaker 9:
[78:54] 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 haven't I heard from her?

Speaker 4:
[79:05] He told Alice's brother George that he spent considerable amounts of money to try to find Alice. What exactly has he done?

Speaker 9:
[79:13] He did reach 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.

Speaker 4:
[79:24] As for that email, Harold said, Alice wrote asking him to change her flight. The attorney argued investigators failed to show who actually sent the email and from where.

Speaker 9:
[79:34] 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.

Speaker 4:
[79:48] You're saying that they just, they can't pinpoint it exactly to the hotel.

Speaker 9:
[79:52] Yes, our argument is that, you know, she did send the email.

Speaker 4:
[79:58] 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. Let's clear this up for us.

Speaker 9:
[80:13] Harold testified at trial that he was frustrated over a business situation and that he punched a bookshelf.

Speaker 4:
[80:23] Why so many versions?

Speaker 9:
[80:25] Well, Harold disputes that he gave different versions.

Speaker 4:
[80:29] At trial, Harold testified he actually injured his hand two separate times, the second time using the air pump. In the end, his attorney argued Harold had no motive to kill Alice.

Speaker 9:
[80:42] She shared with him an interest in archaeology and history, and they traveled the world together. It was a relationship of two adults who thrived together. So I think the evidence was very clear that he loved her.

Speaker 4:
[80:55] You see Alice and Harold as the perfect match.

Speaker 9:
[80:59] They really were.

Speaker 4:
[81:01] If Harold had wanted to get rid of Alice, he simply could have divorced her, said the attorney.

Speaker 9:
[81:06] Look, it was a short-term marriage. To divorce her and to settle it by paying whatever small amount of money would have been required was insignificant for him and certainly not something to kill somebody over.

Speaker 4:
[81:22] In closing, the attorney argued the couple's last day together didn't fit with murder.

Speaker 9:
[81:27] 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.

Speaker 4:
[81:39] 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.

Speaker 9:
[81:50] Correct.

Speaker 4:
[81:51] Did you know that was coming? Was that a surprise to you, to Harold?

Speaker 9:
[81:55] Yes, it was a surprise.

Speaker 4:
[82:10] As the Kuh family waited for a verdict, they reflected on their years of missing Alice, sure that Harold Herchant had killed her.

Speaker 3:
[82:18] I suppose, indeed, this is a person who loved her very much.

Speaker 4:
[82:21] But they and their attorney worried the jury might believe Harold and focus on the flaws of the case.

Speaker 5:
[82:27] 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 burden of proof? Alice has never been found, she's still missing. There's no autopsy, there's no cause of death, we don't even really know how we killed her. Those are really big holes in a wrongful death case.

Speaker 4:
[82:48] Whether it's a civil, criminal, no body is always a challenge.

Speaker 5:
[82:54] It's a tough case. I didn't know whether or not they could get past that missing evidence.

Speaker 4:
[83:01] To the attorney, a speedy verdict didn't seem likely.

Speaker 5:
[83:04] We went back to my office and three hours later, I got a call from the clerk.

Speaker 4:
[83:09] The jury comes back very quickly.

Speaker 6:
[83:11] I was kind of shocked.

Speaker 4:
[83:13] Is that signaling a positive in your mind?

Speaker 5:
[83:16] I didn't know what it meant. You never know what a jury is going to do. But I didn't think it was a good sign. I was nervous.

Speaker 4:
[83:23] Then the verdict. The jury found Harold Herchan liable for the wrongful death of Alice Koo. And in the same sweeping decision, awarded massive damages.

Speaker 5:
[83:34] The damages were $23.6 million.

Speaker 4:
[83:37] That's big.

Speaker 5:
[83:38] It's a good verdict for this case.

Speaker 4:
[83:39] I know you've said all along it's not about money, but $23.6 million.

Speaker 6:
[83:45] Right.

Speaker 4:
[83:46] Were you kind of taken aback by that number?

Speaker 6:
[83:49] Yes. It's an unthinkable number.

Speaker 4:
[83:52] 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.

Speaker 9:
[84:08] Correct.

Speaker 4:
[84:08] The DA comes after him for perjury. Did you know that was coming? Was that a surprise to you, to Harold?

Speaker 9:
[84:16] 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 Clara DA's office was looking into this as well.

Speaker 4:
[84:33] In September 2025, Harold Herchen was arrested for perjury, accused of lying about his hand injury, the email he said Alice sent, and about dropping Alice off at the train station.

Speaker 10:
[84:45] It's like Al Capone getting charged for tax evasion for murder, you know.

Speaker 4:
[84:49] 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?

Speaker 16:
[85:08] I want to say to Harold, please tell us the truth.

Speaker 4:
[85:13] There's an arrest warrant waiting for Harold in Taiwan.

Speaker 3:
[85:18] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[85:18] They believe he murdered Alice.

Speaker 3:
[85:21] Yes, all the evidence points to that.

Speaker 5:
[85:23] When he's extradited there, and I'm hopeful that he will be, 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 extradited to Taiwan.

Speaker 4:
[85:37] Does it scare Harold at all, knowing that Taiwan is interested in him for this alleged crime and that they have the death penalty there?

Speaker 9:
[85:46] It absolutely does scare him. We are very concerned about the immigration consequences of what might happen to him. And that is absolutely of great concern for him.

Speaker 4:
[85:59] As for the sudden death of Harold's second wife, Melissa Yu, the Palo Alto Police Department told Dateline there are no plans to open an investigation.

Speaker 9:
[86:08] That evidence was too speculative and too prejudicial, so that was not allowed at the trial.

Speaker 4:
[86:14] Did Harold have anything to do with the death of his second wife, Melissa?

Speaker 9:
[86:18] Absolutely not.

Speaker 4:
[86:21] After all the years of pain guided by her Christian faith, Josephine refuses to be brought down by Harold Herchen.

Speaker 6:
[86:28] 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.

Speaker 3:
[86:43] He felt he could get away with it.

Speaker 4:
[86:45] Arrogant?

Speaker 3:
[86:46] Definitely arrogant.

Speaker 4:
[86:48] Smarter than everybody else.

Speaker 3:
[86:50] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[86:51] 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.

Speaker 3:
[87:01] What I learned is that there are many stories like this just in different settings. There are so many girls gone missing.

Speaker 4:
[87:11] 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?

Speaker 3:
[87:23] 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.

Speaker 4:
[87:32] The Koo family says they will never stop looking for Alice, who sometimes feels closer than ever.

Speaker 6:
[87:38] I would like to share something with you. It's a dream. I was in the room and she was leaning on the door.

Speaker 11:
[87:44] And I asked her, are you in pain?

Speaker 6:
[87:49] She said no. She said no. And that was a relief to me. And then she put her head on my lap and I pat it on her head again. And I told her, I told her, you can come to visit me as often as you want. And she said she will. I think that was a real thing. It's not, it's not a dream.

Speaker 2:
[88:18] That's all for this edition of Dateline. And don't forget to check out our Talking Dateline podcast, in which we'll go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed, wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 Central. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.

Speaker 17:
[88:48] Close your eyes, listen to monday.com. Feel the sensation of an AI work platform. So flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Now open your eyes, go to monday.com. Start for free and finally breathe.