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?
You might just come away with your own glass half full.
Search Glass Half Full with Craig Melvin from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
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.
Tonight on Dateline.
Alice was the youngest. We are a really tight family. I just got this text message. Do you know where Alice is? She's missing. Yes. I feel I couldn't breathe.
They hire an investigator. They were putting up rewards. They're doing everything they could do.
She cannot just disappear. Something was going on. She's carrying a secret around. A very big one. She got married. She had a husband. It just blew our minds.
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Chapter 2: What happened to Alice Koo during her trip to Taiwan?
Alice Koo was a woman of mystery.
And at the center of it all, a man with a complicated past and a reputation for brilliance. He also has the reverse Midas touch, if you will. Everything he touches dies. It all started about a week after Thanksgiving in 2019. Grace Koo was out with her daughter when her phone buzzed. I just got this text message. Do you know where Alice is? Am I like, who's this?
Because I thought maybe it was a scam. Alice Koo is Grace's youngest sister. Alice was 37 and lived in Sunnyvale, just south of San Francisco, working as a private tutor for students from elementary to high school.
The person wrote, I am so-and-so's mother, and Alice is my son's tutor, and she missed two tutoring classes, which is not like her.
I'm like, that's very weird. Did you know that Alice would never blow off a tutoring session? That's her business.
Yeah, I know she would never do that. If she had to go somewhere or sick, she would definitely let her students know.
Grace sent a message to her large family. The oldest of the six siblings, Josephine, who also lived in Northern California, happened to be in Taiwan visiting their parents. It seems like no one knew where she was. So you start a chain, like you have so many siblings, isn't everyone calling each other or texting and saying, hey, do you know where Alice is? Have you heard from her?
For Josephine, this was now the second red flag. Alice's birthday had come and gone just days earlier.
I texted her, happy birthday, and there was no reply. And I find it strange. Would she ever not reply to you? The longest, probably just a few days, but not like this.
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Chapter 3: How did Alice's family react to her disappearance?
You were smack in the middle of a true crime mystery. I know. That you never asked to be a part of. No. No.
No.
The Koo family was in disbelief. Their little sister Alice wasn't returning their calls or texts, and it cleared out of her apartment. She just disappeared. With nowhere to turn, the family sprang into action. We put posters of her picture and contact information all around where she worked.
You're taping them? Yes.
Is that just a surreal experience when you're putting posters of your own sister? Yes, because that's something you see of other people, but not of your sister. Behind those missing persons flyers was a personal story about the youngest sister growing up in a tight-knit household. You have a family close to my heart with your siblings. I have five girls and a boy.
Just like your family has five girls and a boy. What was that like with all of you growing up and where did Alice fit in?
Well, five girls. Yeah. As you can imagine, it's a bit chaotic, right? She was the youngest.
Of course, being the youngest, you want all the attention. Josephine, being the oldest, took that to heart. Were you kind of like her little mommy? Yes, that was right.
She was just a baby to me. I would do her hair. She just cleansed me. I used to pat her head. I think she liked it.
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Chapter 4: What clues did the family uncover about Alice's life?
The family reached out to PG&E, the utility company, and said, do you have any accounts under this social security number? PG&E responded that the address had the numbers 1725. 1725. That was it. They gave us the house number. That's it. And I open up Google, and I look at the map for Sunnyvale, and I start typing in 1725. And the first thing that comes up is 1725 Wright Avenue.
The address was an apartment complex located about a 15-minute drive from Alice's old apartment. When Andrew Waters arrived, he noticed something right away. Alice's red Honda Civic was in the parking lot. You knew to be on the lookout for a red Honda Civic? Georgia had given me her car information. Okay, so right away, this is jumping out at you. This is immediately getting some results.
And I noticed it was caked with a big layer of dust with tutoring books in the back seat. Next, he tracked down Alice's apartment unit. No one was home. But there was a sign on the door. It said, welcome home, Alice. I love you. The paper was weathered and was a little bit ragged. And obviously, there's someone else involved now because you don't write a sign like that to yourself. Right.
But Alice's siblings had no idea who that could be. They thought she was single. So she's carrying a secret around. A big one. A very big one.
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.
Alice's siblings and their investigator, Andrew Waters, had followed a trail right to Alice's new apartment where they found that sign on her door. But they had no idea who was professing their love to her. So this is a gentleman that you're now looking for, are you thinking? Someone that she's in a romantic relationship with? Yes, and it was a flurry of news all at once.
The investigator and Alice's brother George went door to door asking neighbors if anyone had seen Alice recently or if she was living with anyone. They were able to talk to the neighbor next door.
And the neighbor was saying, oh, yes, Alice have a husband. We're like, what? It was the first time we heard like she got married.
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Chapter 5: What role did Harold play in Alice's disappearance?
And he said that she was in Taiwan. He said where they had stayed in Taiwan. And she was due back on or about December 7th. But it was now December 18th. Why wasn't she home? Harold said Alice wanted to travel on her own for a bit. There was nothing to worry about. Does he have any idea where she is and if she's okay? He says that she's been emailing him, and so he presumes that she's okay.
She's just not coming home is the problem. He also said that he saw activity on her credit card, and therefore he knows she's okay. Anything else in this conversation? It was about five minutes of conversation, so pretty brief, and I asked him where I could reach him if I need to ask him more questions. He said he would answer more questions.
Alice's secret husband would give more details in the days to come, including where she might have gone. An email, reportedly from Alice to Harold, that said, Which would suggest that maybe she's okay. Investigator Andrew Waters had been working Alice's case for nine days when he had that brief encounter with Harold outside the apartment complex.
It's very lucky and unexpected, but also really piqued our curiosity. He emailed Harold a list of questions, and Harold provided a written account of his trip with Alice. Narrative explained that they had gone on trips to Taiwan multiple times over the last couple of years, that this was one such trip that Alice had gone on with Harold.
Talked about the plan for Alice and Harold to stay together in different parts of Taiwan. The investigator was particularly interested in an excursion Harold mentioned to Hualien City. They talked about their sightseeing trip after he was done with work assignments. What was the sightseeing trip? They went to Taroko Gorge National Park in Taiwan. Harold said the couple hired a driver.
They arrived around noon and toured the park together. Then six hours later, Harold said the driver dropped Alice off at a nearby train station. Harold's last contact with Alice was at the train station in Hualien, Taiwan. According to Harold, Alice wanted to make the three-hour trip to visit her parents, who had moved back to Taiwan 12 years earlier. That could make a lot of sense.
If she's staying some extra days to go see her parents, the only problem is, did she arrive at her parents? That was the issue. The parents told us that she had not contacted them. Alice never made it to her parents' house. Even though Harold hadn't heard from her in a few weeks, he did provide something that gave the family hope that Alice was still traveling around Taiwan.
An email reportedly from Alice to Harold that said, hello, handsome Harold. I got here okay. Please change my flight to a week later. Yeah, which would suggest that maybe she's okay. The email did suggest that she was okay. Did you think to yourself, maybe she willingly disappeared, that she does not want to be found?
Yeah.
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Chapter 6: What evidence was found in the investigation of Alice's case?
Since Alice was raised in a conservative Catholic household, Josephine thought that maybe Alice feared her family wouldn't accept that Harold had been divorced. You're Catholic, and please don't get divorced. Yeah, no divorce, right? Yeah. But Alice always had her guard up, says Grace. Ever since she was a little girl, Alice kept many parts of her life private.
She's the kind of person, no matter how hard you push, if she didn't want to share something, you could not push it out of her.
She was a vault. Yes. The Koo family planned to open that vault, returning to the last place Alice visited.
Chapter 7: What is the current status of the investigation into Alice's disappearance?
So she has to be in Taiwan. She had to be in Taiwan. When the Ku family learned Alice had traveled to Taiwan and never returned, the search for their sister now spanned two continents. They moved quickly to come up with a plan.
My brother in Taiwan even put a reward of one million Taiwan dollars for people to come forward. And here they put a Facebook page just to encourage anyone who has any information about Alice can come forward.
But no one did. Grace says the siblings continued texting on the family thread they shared with Alice, hoping that she was simply hiding out. We also wrote like she was still reading this thread, saying, hey, Alice, don't worry. Doesn't matter what happened. We are here for you. Just come. You are safe.
You're just hoping and praying that she sees one of those text messages and it gets her to come forward and say, like, I'm ready for help. Yes, exactly. Alice's parents were also on that text thread.
Too upsetting. Taiwanese police checked immigration records and had an update. They found out she entered Taiwan around Thanksgiving, and she never left.
So she has to be in Taiwan. She had to be in Taiwan. Did you feel like the Taiwanese police took you very seriously when you came in?
Yes, they took it very seriously. Somehow this case moved up from local police to Criminal Investigation Bureau.
CIB? Yeah. Taiwan's equivalent to the FBI. The case was gathering traction. Taiwanese news agencies picked up the story.
Even the TV reported the case.
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Chapter 8: How did the family's search efforts evolve over time?
And she died in that home that we were living in. It gives me goosebumps to think about it right now. Bridget had grown suspicious of Harold, and she wasn't alone. Several of Melissa's friends told us they couldn't shake the eerie coincidence. Harold's second wife, Melissa, dead suddenly, and now his third wife missing. I was nervous around him quite a bit.
You were smack in the middle of a true crime mystery. I know. The autopsy noted Melissa had signs of coronary artery disease, and a coroner's report closed the investigation. But Andrew Waters still had questions, especially after learning about a financial transaction he found curious. The day before Melissa died, she and Harold refinanced their property, pulling out a million dollars.
A million dollars in cash? A million dollar refinance. They pulled out cash and she died the next morning. Makes you wonder when he's under suspicion for killing Alice that the second wife died as well.
I think it's suspicious. I have no evidence to support that he was involved in her death.
And he was never charged? No. For his second wife's murder? Right. Alice's family still had so much to learn about Harold, and they wanted to hear it from him. But how? Their lawyer thought he might have found a way. Because they had filed that conservatorship, they were able to depose him. And so getting a deposition from Harold would tie into that conservatorship issue? Exactly.
That allows you to use the power of subpoena and take depositions. They wanted somebody to take a thorough deposition of Harold Herchen. So almost a year after Alice went missing, Todd was ready to put Harold in the hot seat. Any idea what this guy's name is? No. I came away thinking he reminded me of Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. There was a creepiness to him that was unavoidable.
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 Bankowitz, 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.
By October 2020, 11 months after Alice vanished, her family had come to accept they might never find her. It's so sad when you think you have all this hope and you're searching and then you finally get to that point. Yeah.
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