The Gorge

The Dateline NBC episode 'The Gorge' chronicles the mysterious disappearance of Alice Koo, a 37-year-old private tutor from Sunnyvale, California, who vanished in November 2019 after her family discovered she had secretly married Harold Hurchin, a wealthy, enigmatic Silicon Valley engineer with a troubling past. What began as a family search for a missing sister quickly unraveled into a complex international true crime investigation, spanning the U.S. and Taiwan. Alice’s siblings, led by Grace and Josephine Koo, launched their own inquiry after police declined to act, uncovering that Alice had moved out without telling anyone and had been married to Harold for two years. Their investigation revealed inconsistencies in Harold’s story: he claimed Alice had traveled to Taiwan to visit her parents, but surveillance footage and cell phone data from Taroko National Park showed the couple never went to the train station. Instead, their rental car returned directly to their hotel. A fabricated email allegedly from Alice, which Harold claimed proved she was safe, was later proven to have been sent from the hotel by Harold himself. Further evidence—including Harold’s broken wrist, which occurred on the same day Alice disappeared, and his suspicious behavior after returning to the U.S.—led investigators to conclude Alice was murdered. Though Harold was never charged in the U.S. due to his Canadian citizenship, Alice’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit, resulting in a $23.6 million verdict. In a stunning twist, Harold was arrested in 2025 for perjury, facing potential extradition to Taiwan, where he remains a suspect in Alice’s murder. The family continues to fight for justice, using the case to advocate for missing persons and support others in similar situations.