Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows?
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Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of The Drink. This month, Demi Lovato is my guest. The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now. But getting there, it wasn't simple. Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood young and why she now thinks she may have started too soon.
She talks about recovery, her new marriage, and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook. The Drink is always about the journey to the top, and this was an honest conversation about what that takes. Hope you'll listen and follow The Drink wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, everyone. It's Blayne Alexander. And today we are talking Dateline. I am joined by Andrea Canning to discuss her episode, The Gorge. Hey, Andrea. Hey, Blayne. Okay, if you haven't seen this episode, you can watch it on Peacock or listen to it in the Dateline podcast feed. And then, of course, come right back here.
Later, we'll have an extra clip from Andrea's interview with private investigator Andrew Waters about the rental car Harold and Alice drove that fateful day in the Taroko National Park. And then later, we will answer some of your questions from social media. All right, let's talk Dateline. Before we get into our conversation, just give us a quick recap about what this episode entails.
Yeah, so this episode is, you know, every family's worst nightmare where a text comes in saying, do you know where Alice is? To Grace, the sister, she's missed two tutoring sessions with my child. And, you know, Grace had no idea that... Alice was missing. Once they start looking for Alice, first of all, she's moved out of her apartment. Then they found a new apartment.
There's a sign on the door, welcome home, I love you. Well, who wrote this sign? Then they find out that she's secretly gotten married to an older man who's this genius. who holds all these patents in Silicon Valley. And then they find out that they had gone on a business trip to Taiwan. Her husband, Harold, had come home, but Alice had not. And that began the search for Alice. Where was she?
And of course, the more they looked, the more they realized she was probably no longer living. And the FBI was not able to formally really investigate Harold and arrest him, you know, on suspicion of murder. There's a warrant out for his arrest in Taiwan. They want to bring him in to question him more. But because this happened in Taiwan, there's no extradition with the United States.
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Chapter 2: What is the story behind Alice Ku's disappearance?
And the monastery, which is right in the middle and on this really steep hill or mountain, was untouched completely. By the earthquake.
That's a beautiful story. Wow. You know, it's so interesting. I think just as you were rattling off the places that Dateline has sent you for different stories, people always ask us in our jobs, like, oh, do you get to go to amazing places? And sometimes, no, not really. to be honest. But a lot of times you do.
I think that my first trip to Asia was actually on assignment before I joined Dateline, but covering news in Singapore, the Trump-Kim summit in 2017. And so that was my first time going to Asia and I went to cover news. And it's always such an honor and kind of a privilege when you get to see different parts of the world that you otherwise wouldn't go through this job.
Right. And, you know, going on safari, you know, to Zambia, I mean, that was a dream to see something like that. I mean, the only sad thing is the reasons that for Dateline specific, you know, the reasons we go to these places are not happy reasons. You know, it's usually a mystery. There's, you know, been a murder, which, you know, casts sort of a bit of a shadow on it.
But at the same time, you can't help but take in the beauty.
Yeah.
Absolutely. This was such a fascinating episode for so many reasons. I think we often talk about this, Andrea, in our Dateline stories. Every now and then, there's just one factor, one person, one something that kind of makes the difference in maybe a crime never being reported or something not happening, and then ultimately getting justice or something actually moving.
And in this episode, I think it was the family's determination. I was just so really, really touched by her family and how Doggedly, they pursued this question of where did she go? Where is our sister?
Yeah, and it was like one clue kept leading them to another. And, you know, the Kuh family, they're lucky, right? They have resources. They have money. They have good jobs. They were able to hire a private investigator. You know, they were doing everything that they possibly could.
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Chapter 3: What secrets did Alice's family uncover about her life?
But they didn't really know like what was going on in her life. And so I think there was probably some guilt there that, you know, they hadn't been, you know, as maybe close touch as they had wanted. Yeah.
You know, I got that sense. It's so interesting how, right, like life always moves and moves in different directions. Yeah. You think that you're, oh, gosh, I'm keeping in touch with this person. But you can look up and say, gosh, some time has gone by since I've spoken to them. So I just felt for them. Yeah, I agree with you.
And, you know, every family is different, right? And they have six siblings. That's a lot. But, you know, I think people have this idea that every family has to be in constant contact and having Sunday dinners. And, you know, it's just that's not reality for everybody, right? I mean, I recently... My cousin, who's my mom's twin's daughter, we were very close growing up.
Say that again, your cousin? So my mom's twin, her daughter, so my cousin. Okay, got it.
Chapter 4: How did the family's search for Alice evolve?
We were very close growing up. And we're still close. I love her and all of that. And all of a sudden I realized no one's heard from her. You know, and I was, you know, texting around family members. Has anyone heard from her? They hadn't heard from her. And so, you know, I work for Dateline. Like, you know, the panic machine started to set in a little bit. Your mind starts going, of course.
Why is she not responding to her cell phone, to her email, to her WhatsApp? So eventually she got in touch. But it was interesting, though, because... That's all happening as I'm doing this story. And I'm like, you know, this can happen, right, where you lose touch or you don't talk as much, even though you care about that person.
I want to talk about Alice's sisters, Josephine and Grace. I mean, they really were kind of like the heart and soul of the story.
Chapter 5: What challenges did the investigation face in Taiwan?
I loved your interviews with them. They were just so caring, so genuine.
They just were nice, sweet people and, yeah, really just really connected with them.
I could see that. I wonder if you could just kind of tell us more about your interviews with them, like any behind the scenes, just kind of what was it like sitting down across from them?
Well, one thing that really sticks out with Josephine was how, and I say it in the piece, I say it in the show, she had this big picture of Alice next to her during the interview. And I say to her at some point, you know, this is the first time anyone's actually had a photo of their loved one next to them while I'm interviewing them.
So the whole time I'm interviewing Josephine, you know, these are long interviews. Yeah.
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Chapter 6: How did the civil lawsuit against Harald Herchen unfold?
Like, you know, generally two to three hours. Yeah. I'm looking at Alice like the entire time.
She's right there.
And Josephine said something like, well, yeah, like she's what it's all about.
is Alice, right? The family's journey across Taiwan, Josephine's journey, like what they saw, what they learned, where they went. That was just fascinating to see.
We took the train with Josephine. We stayed in the same hotel with her, you know, dinners with her. We went into the city at night, exactly what she did when she was putting up flyers. And she came, obviously, to the park with us.
There was a scene where you were there and this notion of yelling out into the abyss, come home, Alice, and then saying it in Mandarin. Oh, it just – I got chills. I was almost moved to tears when she started crying, like – What a powerful moment to be able to just kind of show their pain in the midst of being this dogged pursuit.
I mean, they were doing all of this while wading through some really tough emotional waters.
Absolutely. And she initially told me about it in the interview in California, Josephine. And then when we got to the park together, she just started calling it out, calling her name out, just calling Alice. And what it does is by seeing that image, the visual, it really hits you just how helpless, right? When you look at the size of that park, how do you find the person?
Like, how do you find your loved ones? Yeah. Yeah. In a park like that. It's just impossible. It's the size of, I believe it was Maryland or something was how big it was, if I'm getting that correct.
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Chapter 7: What unexpected experiences did Andrea have while filming in Taiwan?
This has turned into wild adventures while shooting Dateline stories. When we get back, Andrea does a deep dive on a critical piece of evidence, that rental car. And she shares a clip of her interview with investigator Andrew Waters.
He was a young Marine. She didn't care about convention. They made a life together. Then one night, the Marine died. And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected, and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all-new podcast from Dateline. Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicion now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you so much.
It was because, you know, with all the digital evidence combined with that email, it just – it seemed impossible that she could have written it herself. And the defense pushed back on that, and they said that they've never really been shown, like, hard proof that she couldn't have – they're like, maybe she wrote it from a cafe, and it was near the hotel, and so it looked like –
It was in the hotel, but it was really near the hotel. So they tried to work around that. But I definitely think that email did in the defense because it is – how many times have we seen that on Dateline where – And I'm not talking about Harold right now, but a killer will write text messages, write emails, pretending to be the deceased person.
I remember doing that as a story last year. A young woman was killed. This person was ultimately convicted. But he, I mean, he logged into bank accounts, made it look like she was spending money, logged into her social media, was sending, posting, making it look like her, like doing all of these very different things.
to make it look like when people go back and look at her digital footprint, like she was still moving through the world. And her family looked and said, that's not something she would post. And, you know, thinking about that, it had to have been harder for Josephine and Grace because they hadn't been in such close contact. They didn't know how Alice related to her husband, for instance.
So like the thing that stood out to me was that, hey, handsome Harold. Oh, I was just going to say that.
That part? Yeah. I mean, I wonder, did she really talk like that? Maybe.
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