After a four-day search, a Palo Alto couple who stayed in Inverness last week remains missing. Carol Kiparsky and Ian Irwin, retirees who enjoyed hiking in the area, were last seen on Friday afternoon near their Seahaven vacation rental. They did not check out on Saturday morning.
Their disappearance prompted a response of over 100 volunteers, who spent the better part of the long weekend walking trails and climbing through brush.
“We feel that if they were able to respond for help, even stuck in the brush, we would’ve had an excellent chance of finding them,” Michael St. John, the commander of Marin’s search and rescue unit, said on Monday evening. “They were not known to travel long distances, and have some minor physical limitations.”
Ms. Kiparsky and Mr. Irwin had rented the Via de la Vista home in the past, said Sgt. Brenton Schneider, the public information officer for the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. When a housecleaner showed up on Saturday afternoon, their personal belongings and car were still there. The homeowner notified deputies, and, after family members said the disappearance was out of character, the sheriff’s office declared the couple missing on Sunday.
An army of searchers was deployed, and the Inverness fire station was its base. Volunteers from five counties, ranging in age from 14 to 70, canvassed Inverness and scoured the surrounding parkland. Dogs, horses and a mule assisted on the ground, jet skis and boats looked along the bay, and drones, helicopters and a plane patrolled the air. Teams worked late into the night, with volunteers from the Inverness Volunteer Fire Department acting as guides along lesser-known trails.
“We are trying every avenue we can think of to hopefully find them,” Sgt. Schneider said.
The search grew to its largest on Monday. Overseen by the sheriff’s office and supported by the California Office of Emergency Services, 136 people worked until the sun went down. Each searcher was given a GPS tracker, and their paths were automatically tracked on a map in the command room at the fire station. By the end of the day, the map was blanketed in track lines, especially around the house.
On Tuesday, the response was scaled down to about 40 people with a focus on the K-9 units. They looked in any areas that the GPS map showed were inadequately covered, but still, no luck. The search wound down in the afternoon, when an older man went missing while hiking in Lucas Valley. Unassigned crews were diverted there—a search dog later found him off trail—and television crews packed up their gear. By Wednesday, ground searching had all but ceased as the effort focused on the shoreline of Tomales Bay.
Detectives with the sheriff’s office continue to investigate. A neighbor last saw the couple walking two blocks from their Airbnb at around 4 p.m. on Friday. The neighbor described their appearance to detectives: Ms. Kiparsky, 77, is 5’2” and weighs 115 pounds; Mr. Irwin, 72, is 6’1” and weighs 175 pounds. Both are white with gray hair.
In her career, Ms. Kiparsky was a linguist who authored several books and papers about syntax and semantics. Mr. Irwin was a leading scientist in Parkinson’s research and drug development. As the head of the Drug Assay Lab at Stanford University, he was on the team that identified the chemical in heroin that was responsible for the outbreak of Parkinsonism in heroin addicts, in 1982. His research was key in advancing treatment of the disease, according to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
Ms. Kiparsky and Mr. Irwin met through their sons, Michael and Jonas, who were childhood friends. Both have been in Inverness this week to assist investigators.
“They wouldn’t leave all their stuff, leave their car and just vanish,” Jonas Irwin told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s very strange.” He said that his dad is resourceful, and that as more time goes by, he can’t help but consider worst-case scenarios.
The Seahaven neighborhood where they stayed consists of about 100 homes set apart from the rest of Inverness. The houses are tucked between natural vegetation, and a trail leading to Shell Beach is nearby.
Nothing was out of place in the house, and no clues indicated that they were out and about in public before their disappearance, Mr. Schneider said. Their fanny packs, water bottles and hiking poles were left at the rental, as were their cell phones, their wallets and their only car, a white Honda. Detectives with the sheriff’s office will look into phone and financial records to try to create a timeline leading to their disappearance.