BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
A tutor in Mountain View who disappeared on a trip to Taiwan with her secret husband is at the center of an upcoming trial.
Tutor Alice Ku’s family alleges she was murdered by her husband, Harald Herchen, 66, of Los Altos, while sightseeing at a gorge in Taiwan’s Taroko National Park in November 2019.
But Herchen says Ku is still alive. She likely ran off with their driver to return to her life as an escort and wants to hide her behavior from her family, he said in a court declaration.
“We were happily married and her disappearance continues to cause me great heartache,” Herchen said.
Li Tsong Su, a detective for Taiwan’s National Police Agency, said he is investigating Ku’s disappearance as a homicide, and Taiwan police have issued a warrant for Herchen’s arrest.
“Herchen is the primary suspect due to his suspicious behavior, failure to cooperate and the conflicting information he conveyed to the Ku family,” Su said in a court declaration in November 2022.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Socrates Manoukian signed an order on March 6, 2024, agreeing with Taiwanese police that Ku is dead.
Ku’s family is suing Herchen in Santa Clara County Superior Court for wrongful death, negligence and impersonating her. The civil suit is headed for a two-week trial starting on July 2.
Herchen originally testified that he met Ku a few weeks after his second wife, Melissa Yu, died from sleep apnea on June 3, 2017.
But in another deposition, Herchen said he met Ku online in 2013 or 2014 and hired her as an escort for $400.
Herchen said he lied in his first deposition to protect Ku’s reputation.
“It pained me deeply to disclose that our first relationship was based on Alice soliciting money for sex,” Herchen said. “Although I later fell in love with and married Alice, because of her background, I believe Alice was capable of returning to solicitation to support herself if necessary.”
Mountain View residents
Ku and Herchen married on Oct. 6, 2017, and lived in Mountain View in an apartment at 1725 Wright Ave., Herchen said.
Herchen worked as an inventor and engineer at Bloom Energy while Ku ran her own tutoring business and made about $140,000 a year, Herchen said.
Ku and Herchen flew from San Francisco to Taiwan for a vacation on Nov. 23, 2019, with plans to return a week later, Herchen said.
Herchen said they went sightseeing, and then he dropped Ku off at a train station so she could visit her parents outside of Taipei on Nov. 29, 2019.
‘Hello … Harald’
Herchen said Ku emailed him the next day and asked him to change her flight to Dec. 7 so she could stay for a week longer.
“Hello Handsome (sic) Harald … I got here ok,” the email said.
Ku missed tutoring sessions in early December. One of her students’ parents contacted Ku’s sister, who reported Ku missing to Sunnyvale police on Dec. 10, 2019.
Ku’s family didn’t know she was married or that she moved from Sunnyvale to Mountain View, the family’s attorney Andrew Watters said in a court declaration.
Ku’s family alleges that Herchen never dropped Ku off at the train station, and he sent the email from her account to make it look like she was alive.
Watters said the email was sent from an IP address and Wi-Fi at the hotel where Herchen was staying. Herchen “is the only person who could have sent the proof of life email,” Watters said in a court declaration.
Ku grew up with her parents and three siblings in Los Gatos. She graduated from Saratoga High School in 2001 and from Santa Clara University in 2006, her brother George Ku said.
Ku lost touch with family
Ku’s parents moved to Taiwan because her dad had prostate cancer. Ku lost touch with her family — “not triggered by any particular event and because all siblings have our individual careers and livelihoods as adults in different cities,” George Ku said in a court declaration.
Ku’s parents, Weichiao Ku and Pi Lien Kuo, said Ku never told them she was planning to visit or even that she was in Taiwan, Watters said.
Ku’s sister, Josephine Ku, was the only family member who kept in touch with Ku. She said they regularly texted about food, outfits and family, and their conversations were typical leading up to Ku’s disappearance.
“There were no reasons for her to suddenly disappear, run away or abruptly cut off communication,” Josephine Ku said in a court declaration.
Ku disappeared three days before her 37th birthday. She would be 42 now.
Herchen said Ku’s family hasn’t provided any evidence of Ku’s death, such as pictures or videos.
Reward offered
Ku’s family said they did an extensive search by posting flyers, interviewing neighbors and offering a $1 million reward in Taiwanese dollars. Her disappearance received substantial news coverage in Taiwan.
Ku hasn’t used any credit cards since she was at the San Francisco Airport. She also hasn’t gone through customs or been captured by Taiwan’s advanced facial recognition cameras since she disappeared, George Ku said.
Attorney Todd Davis is representing Ku’s family at the civil trial, and attorney Chuck Smith is leading the defense for Herchen.
Davis filed a motion to block Herchen from introducing any evidence related to Ku’s alleged job as an escort or her sexual history. Davis also wants to stop Herchen from arguing that Ku is still alive.
Davis said he is planning to show pictures of rock formations and elevation maps from Taroko National Park, and witnesses are traveling from Taiwan to testify.
Herchen’s attorneys filed a motion to stop Ku’s family from saying Herchen started living with a new girlfriend within a year of Ku’s disappearance. The attorneys also don’t want her family to reference the Taiwanese arrest warrant for Herchen because there is no extradition treaty between Taiwan and the United States.
It would be funny if, on the final day of the trial, Ku walked into the courtroom and said, “I heard you were looking for me.”