Inside the Heartbreaking Search for an American Mom 1 Month After She Vanished in Japan

Patricia Wu-Murad always wanted to hike the world.

When she retired in 2020, the Connecticut mom of three grown children started living her dream.

Patricia, 60, took joyous months-long hikes in France, Spain, Jordan and Egypt. On March 4, she traveled to Japan to explore, and by early April started to trek the Kumano Kodo, a network of ancient trails that wind through lush mountain forests in southern Kansai about 370 miles from Tokyo.

"She was just trying to make the most of her retirement and enjoy her life," her husband, Kirk Murad, tells The Messenger of his wife's "love of hiking and spirituality."

Now Patricia's dream has turned into unimaginable horror.

On April 10, Patricia — known as Pattie to friends and family — ate an early breakfast at a remote two-room inn before setting off for an 11.2-mile hike through the Japanese wilderness to her next stop along the trail.

She has not been seen or heard from since — and there's no trace of where she could be.

"She disappeared off the face of the planet," her husband of 33 years said during a phone conversation from Singapore, where he's staying with friends and coordinating the effort to find his wife.

When Pattie didn't arrive by nightfall at a guesthouse at the end of her day-long hike, she was reported missing by a fellow traveler who knew of her plans.

Local authorities began searching the next day, Kirk says, but stopped after 72 hours, in accordance with local protocol.

On April 14, U.S. officials notified Kirk that his wife was missing. He and the couple's 27-year-old daughter Murphy and son Bryce, 25, made their way to rural Japan to try and find Pattie themselves.

After weeks of searching with two of the couple's three children and a cadre of professionals and volunteers, Kirk still doesn’t know if Pattie got lost, hurt or is possibly the victim of a crime.

He doesn't even know if she made it onto the trail as planned.

"There's no evidence of anything," said Kirk, 61. "We're just living day to day trying to find her."

An online fundraiser has raised more than $190,000 to pay search-and-rescue (SAR) experts as well as travel costs for 21 volunteers who flew from California and Hawaii to help look for Pattie.

"Greatest human beings on the planet," Kirk says of the men and women who are "giving up their time, leaving their lives behind to come help us halfway way across the world. Everybody gave us hope."

While he was in the area, Kirk followed the path his wife was supposed to take, keeping an eye on the terrain and considering what Pattie might have done at points along the way.

"I hiked with her many times," he explained, "so I can say, 'Oh, she would stop here and take a picture. She would stop here and take a break.' "

Given her years of experience hiking abroad and her spry athleticism, Kirk doesn't think Pattie would've had much difficulty on the trail.

Still, danger lurked. "There were some spots that if you slipped, you could get in a world of trouble," he said. "It's a long way down. It's treacherous if you fall."

SAR teams deployed helicopters and drones to scan the area. Searchers rappelled into deep crevices where she may have tumbled. The watery areas along the trail have been explored.

But there's been no sign of Pattie.

"They searched the mountain up, down and sideways," Kirk said. "And never had they searched this long and not found somebody."

At least three runners followed the same path Pattie was supposed to take on April 10. When authorities spoke to them, none reported seeing her that morning.

The team leader for Mountain Works, the SAR pros hired by Pattie's family, recently delivered a sobering assessment: "We don't even think she's on this mountain," Kirk said he was told.

Police in Japan rejoined the effort after Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal and the State Department got involved, according to Kirk, who says local authorities are now focusing their efforts on nearby roadways.

Twenty-seven days after Pattie went missing, her loved ones made the "heartbreaking" decision to leave Japan, Murphy wrote in an update on the family's fundraising page.

Kirk and his daughter flew to Singapore, where Murphy now lives, to save money that could be used to employ Mountain Works for as long as possible, she wrote.

"I never pictured myself leaving Japan without her," Kirks tells The Messenger, "but the price tag was just increasing."

As the search extends into its second month, Kirk says not knowing anything about what happened to Pattie has been the hardest part of the ordeal.

"Frustration is the feeling that we have," he says. "And it's not because people aren't trying, it's not because we didn't do everything that we could do. It's not because we hired the wrong people."

"It's because," he continues, "we're no closer than we were."

Still, he finds some comfort in sharing memories of his wife, who raised three children and earned an engineering degree and an MBA.

"Always the smartest person in the room," he calls Pattie, adding that she finds joy in gift-giving and volunteering at soup kitchens. 

"She likes to see the happiness and the smiles on people's faces," says Kirk, whose 33rd wedding anniversary with Pattie is May 19. "We don't want people to forget about her."