FBI, State Dept, local authorities helping in search for Connecticut woman missing in Japan, husband says

A Connecticut woman who was final seen practically two weeks in the past mountain climbing the Kumano Kodo path in Japan has the U.S. State Division and the FBI serving to within the seek for her, her husband mentioned. 

Patricia “Pattie” Wu-Murad, 60, was reported missing by Japanese authorities on April 10 when she didn’t arrive on the Taiyo-no-yu guesthouse hostel in Osaka as anticipated after her hike and the U.S. embassy notified her household on April 14 following a 72-hour search by a Japanese rescue staff. 

It’s “unbearably troublesome,” her husband Kirk Murad advised the New York Publish on Friday. 

Murad, who flew to Japan to assist with the search, added that his household has additionally employed a non-public investigation staff who advised them that Japanese authorities nonetheless have greater than two dozen individuals on the path searching for her. 

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Japanese authorities started trying to find Pattie Wu-Murad after she went lacking throughout a hike on the Kumano Kodo path on April 10.  (GoFundMe)

“Police have 30 individuals on the path, helicopters, canine … we all know they’ve a number of groups on the market for the following a number of days,” he mentioned. “We’ve one objective: We need to get Pattie house alive.” 

Wu-Murad is described as an skilled hiker who has finished treks everywhere in the world. 

“We’re beginning to get some extra individuals to assist. With a number of groups on the market, we’re hopeful that one thing will come up within the subsequent few days,” he mentioned.

He added that their daughter Murphy is “operating a serious search-and-rescue operation” and has helped elevate practically $130,000 by Friday by means of crowdfunding to proceed the search

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Murphy mentioned in an replace on the household’s GoFundMe that Japanese searchers had stopped looking on April 13 initially as a result of that they had no new leads however reopened it on Tuesday after “everybody’s efforts to push them to restart.”

“The police have advised us their process is three days … after that, their expectation is households that lose family members … pay for it themselves. That’s why we employed [private company] Mountain Works as quickly as we may,” Murad told the Post. “With assist from the US Embassy and [Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal] and my daughter’s approach of claiming ‘Hey, that is my mother’ … they’re again on the market.”

Blumenthal advised FOX 62 this week he had spoken together with her household and mentioned he’s “decided to hunt each potential supply of search and rescue to help her.”

“I’ve contacted the State Division and the White Home to help and can proceed serving to the Murad household by means of each avenue accessible,” he advised the station. “I’m deeply involved and am praying for Pattie’s secure return to her household.”

He added that he’s additionally talking to Apple in an try and retrieve knowledge from her telephone, which members of the family imagine has a lifeless battery by now. 

In her GoFundMe replace, Murphy mentioned that her mother had been utilizing her dad’s Google Maps on her hike, and so they gave permission to the CIA to entry that knowledge. 

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“My spouse is a really skilled hiker and there is nothing on this specific hike that’s excessive. It is very wooded. It is fairly steep,” Kirk advised WVIT-TV this week. “There’s possibly two or three spots the place she would cease to take an image as a result of she likes to cease and see the surroundings. And in these spots, there have been a few large drop-offs, however we have had these locations searched and there is not any signal of her,” mentioned Kirk Murad.

Wu-Murad’s husband mentioned there’s nothing “excessive” concerning the Kumano Kodo path.  (Picture by Yuriko Nakao/Getty Photographs)

He added to the Publish, “What our Mountain Works people say is that is extra an incident than an accident … that means one thing unusual occurred. That means she went approach off the path, or she bought caught up in a stream, or one thing.”

He mentioned he even requested the Japanese authorities to open a felony investigation on the concern that she may have been a sufferer of a criminal offense. 

Not that we now have any suspects, however we simply need to open all avenues as a result of actually, proper now, she disappeared off the face of the earth. We do not know the way,” he added.