The remains of a missing hiker from Storrs were recently found in Japan more than two years after she went missing on a hike. On Friday, her family received confirmation that she was dead, her husband, Kirk Murad, said.
On April 27, a member of the original American search and rescue team who had searched for Pattie Wu-Murad in 2023, returned to the area where a backpack and a shoe and other items belonging to Wu-Murad had been found last September and found a femur, which was determined to be human, Kirk said.
The DNA in the femur was tested and it reportedly matched the DNA of their daughter Murphy, according to Murad.
“After all this time, we kind of thought that was the outcome, but it still hit us like a ton of bricks,” Murad said from New Mexico, where he lives now. “It’s final, you know. We had that glimmer of hope.”
Kirk Murad and his daughter Murphy sit in the living room of their home with a photo of Kirk and his wife, Patricia Wu-Murad, on their wedding day 33 years ago, Storrs, Conn., August 25, 2023. Wu-Murad went missing in April while on a pilgrimage hiking through the mountains of Japan. A search and rescue person found evidence in late April that led the family to state that Wu-Murad is deceased. (Photo by Cloe Poisson/Special to the Court
Wu-Murad, 60, of Storrs went missing on April 10, 2023, after setting out for an 11.2-mile hike on the Kumano Kodo Trail in a mountainous area of Japan. The owner of the hostel where she had stayed the night before pointed her to the trailhead, and that was the last time anyone reported seeing her. She was an experienced hiker who had hiked and traveled all over the world.
A massive search and rescue operation was initiated by Wu-Murad’s family. Her husband and two of their children went to Japan to search for her, but nothing was found.
The search and rescue person who found the remains had happened to be in Japan and reached out and asked Murad if he could keep looking in the place where the backpack had been found last fall. Murray said yes.
According to Murad, he found the femur and several personal items of Wu-Murad’s, including a stuff sack and a waistband to the backpack she was wearing. He delivered the remains to the Japanese police, who tested the bone and determined it was human.
A Facebook post in the group “Help Find Pattie” stated that “many questions remain unanswered, including the exact circumstances and cause of Pattie’s death. We now begin the process of working through international protocols to bring her home.”
Kirk Murad and his wife Pattie Wu-Murad hiking in Peru. Pattie went missing on April 10, 2023 after setting out for a hike in Japan.
The remains and personal items were found on a trail where the search and rescue people hadn’t looked initially because Wu-Murad wasn’t supposed to be on that particular trail.
“He knew the area because he had been there in 2023, but he hadn’t searched that trail where they found the backpack,” Murad said. “It’s all conjecture. We’re guessing she got on that other trail for whatever reason.
“(Their son) Bryce went that way (when they were there searching for her). We said, ‘Well, she said she’s going on the other trail.’ He walked it for like three miles and said, ‘No, this is too dangerous.’ We didn’t think she went that way. Even after they found the backpack and the shoe, the police aren’t search and rescue people so they searched the area, but they didn’t find anything.”
On March 4, 2023, Murad, a long-time educator and coach who lived in Storrs, dropped Wu-Murad, his wife of 33 years, off at Newark Airport. That was the last time he saw her. Wu-Murad, 60, was retired from her job at United Technologies and was an experienced hiker who had hiked and traveled all over the world. The couple has three children.
Murad had spoken to his wife the week before she disappeared. She told him she might not be able to contact him because she was in a remote area, so he thought nothing of it when he didn’t hear from her for a few days. He got a call from the U.S. Embassy on April 14, 2023, telling him she was missing, and the local police had been looking for her. He immediately rushed to Japan with two of his children, Murphy and Bryce.
Multiple search and rescue teams, police, volunteers and the family, spent thousands of hours scouring the area on foot and with helicopters and drones, but no trace of her had been found until last September when a fisherman found her backpack and other items.
Murad still has questions about what happened to his wife. Murphy, who lives in Singapore, got on a plane to Japan as soon as the family found out about the remains.
“She was able to meet the search and rescue guy and the police and walked the area,” Murad said. “She said based on what she was told, that region, with all the movement of water coming down the mountain, movement of gravel, erosion, she may not have died right there, it might have been up higher.
“I try not to think too much about it. It’s all guesswork, we don’t know,” Murad said. “Probably the combination of erosion, water, animals, decay. … It’s enough to identify her. It’s not enough to identify how she died. We have no idea.”
Murad said there will be a memorial service for Pattie, but he wasn’t sure when.
“It gives us a little bit of closure,” he said. “I would just say, ‘Remember the good stuff. Tomorrow’s not promised. Live your best life.’”
AloJapan.com