Troubled ex-Marine's disappearance weighs on family

Troubled ex-Marine's disappearance weighs on family
Francis X. Donnelly/ The Detroit News

Lake Ann, Mich.— After abruptly quitting his job as a Los Angeles police officer last year, Noah Pippin visited his parents in Michigan.

He was depressed, unsure about his future, said his parents. He didn't know where he would live or how he would earn a living. He tried to give the little money he had to his father.

His father, Mike Pippin, was so alarmed that he asked his son whether he was going to kill himself. Noah said no.

After the weeklong visit, Noah Pippin drove to Montana and hiked deep into Rocky Mountains wilderness, said police. That was 14 months ago. The 31-year-old hasn't been seen since.

"Whatever was driving him, whatever was going on, he wasn't sharing with anyone else," said Sgt. Pat Walsh, a detective with the Flathead County Sheriff's Office in Montana.

Pippin's disappearance has left his parents with a flurry of questions.

What drove the former Marine into the wilderness? What happened to him there? What was he running from? What was he running to?

Answers come grudgingly, when they come at all.

With Pippin's cell phone and credit card inactive since his disappearance, authorities presume he's dead, lying somewhere amid a million-acre nature preserve.

People who saw him on the trails said he look troubled. They also said he was ill-equipped for the remote terrain, which has no roads, structures or cell service.
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