Couple vanishes during getaway in Northern California woods

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — Authorities are searching for an academic couple in their seventies who vanished during a getaway in the woods of Northern California.

Carol Kiparsky and Ian Irwin were last seen Friday at a vacation cottage near Inverness, the Marin Independent Journal reported.

They never checked out Saturday as planned and failed to show up for an appointment the following day, the Marin County Sheriff’s Department said.

The newspaper said when housekeepers went to the cottage to clean up, they found the couple’s phones and wallets. Their vehicle was parked outside.

Foul play is not suspected, said sheriff’s Sgt. Brenton Schneider.

“It’s baffling,” Schneider said. “We have no leads. No clues. They left out of nowhere.”

Sheriff’s officials and a volunteer team have been combing the woods and waters around Inverness. The couple live in Palo Alto, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) to the south.

Irwin, 72, is a leading Parkinson’s disease researcher. He was a chemist on the team that originally identified an agent responsible for the outbreak of Parkinsonism among heroin addicts in 1982, according to the newspaper.

Kiparsky, 77, is a prominent linguist and author of several books on language, including 1975′s “The Gooficon: A Repair Manual for English.”