(I started this blog shortly after this happened but only got through the first paragraph before putting it aside until six months later. This is my best recollection of a few very strange sad days last summer.)
Thursday July 15th, 2010, I had started my day as I do most, wait for my wife Amy to start the water and then come downstairs and make a cup of coffee. My wife Amy had an appointment in San Francisco at 11:00 am, which is about an hour and a half away from where we live and I had selfishly talked my way out of driving her. I had my Chronicle to read and was hoping to catch the tide correctly and get in a body surfing session. And of course any gaps in my day could be filled with replays of the British Open on ESPN. I took my first look at the beach around 9:30. I was way off on the tide and bought a 2nd cup of coffee and drove home. When I got in the house there was a message on our answering machine. I worried it might be Amy as she was unsure of finding her way in San Francisco. I hit the button on the machine and was stunned by the message, “Hi this is Kim, Damien’s roommate and Damien is missing. I called his ex-wife and she contacted a psychic who said she thinks he might be in the gully behind our house, so I was wondering if you could help Kenny look behind our house. You know Kenny had a stroke so I was hoping you could help. Could you please give me a call at 222-2324″ I called Kim back and she was at work. She proceeded to give a very strange rambling story about coming home from work, speaking with Damian who said he wasn’t feeling well and was going to bed early, something about being in a small car accident earlier and then thought she heard him leave the condo out the back way in the middle of the night. In the morning her concern escalated when she noticed his bed hadn’t been slept in and his bathrobe, (the last thing she saw him wearing) was on his bed.
This is definitely not how I thought this day would go.
I quickly got dressed and drove over to Ken’s condo complex. I parked and started walking towards the back of the complex where the gully is. (Basically, a ravine lined with eucalyptus trees that works as a seasonal creek for rain run off. Untended and a jumble of eucalyptus litter.) Anyway, I immediately saw Ken walking towards me and he had obviously already been back there looking around. Ken confirmed he had stomped around behind the complex but saw no sign of anything. He said with the thick underbrush and tree droppings it would be fairly obvious if someone had stumbled through the night before. I asked for his take on the situation and he said he was working on the disadvantage of only having Kim’s story to go on. Kim is an old friend and roommate who tends to go off on jags fairly regularly. So her stories do not always maintain the sober clarity that would be useful in the actual situation we were dealing with, a friend who’s gone missing. But still it was all we had to go on so Ken and I reviewed what he knew, (or thought he knew) so far. The only additional information I hadn’t heard is that Kim had found Damien’s car keys and cell phone is his room when she went in to check on him in the morning. Kim had to get to work and that is why Ken and I were recruited to see what we could figure out. Unfortunately, nothing. It really was strange if it happened as Kim remembered and we were now left with nothing to follow up on. We didn’t know the friend he supposedly met for lunch, we didn’t know who he might have gotten a ride home from and we certainly couldn’t call him as his cell phone was in his room. Ken assured me that there was nothing I could do to help at the moment but promised to keep me in the loop. Kim evidently had already filed a missing person’s report with the Sheriff’s office but there isn’t much they do as he hadn’t been missing that long.
The next day Ken calls and says that the Sheriff’s showed up to talk to Kim first thing in the morning as they had found Damien’s car on a side road in the old Fort Ord property. The fire department had responded to a vehicle fire and found his car completely ablaze. There still had been no information on Damien but the story was definitely getting stranger by the day. The torched car was quickly matched to Damien and prompted a heightened interest from the Sheriff’s department in his disappearance. They interviewed Kim and Ken and said they would keep them informed on any updates.
Ken called me early the next day. His voice was quivering and I immediately braced for bad news. They had found Damien’s body washed up on the beach a few miles from where they had found his car. He was naked but with no obvious signs of trauma. Ken said the police may need them to drive down to identify the body and wondered if I might be able to drive him and Kim. I assured him I was available day or night for anything they needed, just call. Ken called later to say the police decided they didn’t need to drive down but would let them know what the next step in this process was.
Now I personally never had any contact with any of the law enforcement personal involved in this investigation but at this point, there seemed to be more questions than answers regarding Damien’s death and from what I was hearing from Ken, not much concern on the part of the Sheriff’s department in answering any of them.
After a few days the Sheriff’s department told Kim and Ken they were going to list Damien’s death as an accidental drowning. As bizarre a story as you will ever run across and that is what they were going with, accidental drowning. Did his car accidentally combust? Did he accidentally forget to get dressed when he left the house the night before without his phone or car keys and then decide to go for a midnight swim in the Monterey Bay? There was also some speculation that Damien may have taken his own life. It turns out his mother committed suicide but there was certainly nothing apparent in his behavior that would indicate he was that troubled. The saddest part of this whole situation, besides losing a warm, funny, intelligent friend, is that those that loved him, (and there were many as evidenced at his memorial) is that the question as to what really happened to our friend on his last day will never be known.
