A Scottish man may have faked his own death to avoid facing rape charges, officials said in an update on a missing person case.
Divers scoured Monastery Beach for tourist Kim Gordon after his 17-year-old called the authorities and said his father vanished in the ocean off Carmel, Calif., on the night of Feb. 25.
The beach is known locally as “Mortuary Beach” as more than 30 people have died there, prompting the city to install a short fence and warning signs in recent years.
“It’s a dangerous beach and we’ve had issues there before. Monastery drops about 100 feet off, off the beach right there, which makes it so dangerous,” Monterey County Sheriff’s Department Capt. John Thornburg told The Californian.
“Getting in is easy; the hard part is getting out. When you go out there, it drops off very quickly into a submarine canyon. The water turns and drags down, not like a normal beach. [Swimmers] can’t get out, wear themselves out and the water drags them down.”
Teams from the U.S. Coast Guard and the state Parks Department spent several days searching for Gordon, employing a drone, teams of divers, and several helicopters.
After failing to find his body, investigators probed Gordon’s past and found that he was slated to be tried on 24 counts of rape in Scotland.
“We don’t think he went swimming and got in trouble,” said Thornburg. “We think it’s more related to trying to get out of the charges.”
According to the Scottish Sun, Gordon was charged with five rapes, two sexual assaults on a young child, and indecent behavior towards a girl between the ages of 12 and 16.
A 17-year-old told police a harrowing story: His father, a tourist from Scotland, had vanished into the Pacific Ocean during an evening swim.
Now, police say the man may have faked his own death to evade justice in his home country. https://t.co/bIKT7YtwT0
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 5, 2019
Was Monastery Beach in Carmel (AKA “Mortuary Beach”) the perfect place to stage a death hoax? Monterey County investigators are suspicious of Scottish tourist’s reported disappearance/drowning. Why he may be on the run on @KPIXtv pic.twitter.com/y24g5KFV3O
— Len Ramirez (@lenKPIX) March 5, 2019
Additionally, he has been accused of four other assaults, coercing a person into being present during sexual activity, and several other charges.
Gordon’s son also struggled to give key details to authorities, sparking suspicion mere hours after the missing persons report, Thornburg said.
“The story we were given by the son can’t answer those questions, and that’s where it all started to fall apart,” Thornburg told the Los Angeles Times.
The son may end up facing a charge of filing a false police report while the U.S. Marshals Service has become involved in the search for Gordon.
Kim Gordon, a street vendor from Inverness, was last seen on Monastery Beach in California last Mondayhttps://t.co/PlxTsIkcfZ
— The Daily Record (@Daily_Record) March 2, 2019
Monterey County Sheriff’s Office: Unlikely to detain Kim Gordon if found before Monday https://t.co/vphtUP60pj pic.twitter.com/j6zXFzSM25
— KSBW Action News 8 (@ksbw) March 7, 2019
As of now authorities won’t detain him if he’s found but if he misses the trial for rape on March 11 he will become an international fugitive, reported KSBW. Scottish authorities could then ask American authorities to issue a “red notice,” or a request to provisionally arrest Gordon pending extradition.
Monterey County Undersheriff John Mineau said dozens of tips have come since the twist was reported, including possible sightings.
Gordon is said to go by a number of aliases and was listed in Edinburgh High Couty as Kim Vincent.
His son is believed to have since returned to Scotland.
