The search continues for a Storrs woman who is missing after going hiking in Japan. After a few weeks of searching, her family says a new team is joining them as they hold out hope they can find her.
“Every day we wake up and hope that today is the day.”
A day Kirk Murad and his daughter Murphy Murad hope to find their wife and mother, Pattie Wu-Murad.
She went missing about three weeks ago while hiking in the Nara Prefecture in central Japan. Dozens of people from both Japan and the U.S. have joined the search to bring her home.
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“There’s a lot of people cooperating keeping us informed. We have daily debriefs,” Kirk Murad said.
The search has focused on a trail where she was last known to have been and now a new team is joining in that specializes in scaling deep valleys. It’s something others haven’t been able to do.
“Their expertise is in kind of tactical rope and getting further down into areas that we’re hoping she is,” Murphy Murad said.
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So far, there has been no sign of the missing mother, opening up other possibilities as to what may have happened to her.
“Because there is a very underwhelming amount of evidence that she was in the part of the trail that we have been searching that’s why some people are naturally starting to think about foul play,” Murphy said.
She says as they search, so are police. Officers have been getting in touch with people who last saw Pattie and the community has stepped up to help as well.
The father and daughter duo were able to secure a search and rescue team, thanks to crowdfunding donations on social media. They say the support has been encouraging.
“We hope and praying for the best. We hear people praying for us and we appreciate everything that’s being done,” Kirk said.
Both are not giving up in the search for Pattie.
“I think it’s really important for my family to get some kind of closure and we’re always hoping and wishing for a best-case scenario,” Murphy said.
The family says they’re hoping to learn more information during a debrief from the local police chief on Tuesday.
