Search parties combed the dry hills of Topanga Canyon on Wednesday looking for a music producer whose mysterious flight from his home three days earlier might have been connected to a common Internet scam, according to friends and relatives.
In a frantic phone call before his disappearance, Christian Julian Irwin, 48, pleaded for help, telling a friend he was being chased down a ravine by people who he believed might kill him, police said. The call, about 3:45 a.m. Sunday, was his last; no one is known to have heard from him since. Investigators have few clues besides Irwin's glasses, found halfway down the hill behind his house, where it is believed that they fell as he ran.
Irwin's friends and relatives say his pursuers may be linked to con artists who had entangled him in a so-called Nigerian Internet scam.
Record producer -- An article in Saturday's California section about the discovery of missing record producer and engineer Christian Julian Irwin said Irwin had been nominated for three Grammys and had produced recordings for Queen Latifah, De La Soul, Carly Simon, David Bowie and Vanessa Williams. Irwin, who identifies himself as Chris Julian, has not been nominated for any Grammys and has not produced recordings by those artists.
These are common e-mail swindles that often involve appeals for advance money to help transfer large sums out of Nigeria. The victim is promised a share of the supposed fortune in exchange for his or her help. Irwin reportedly told a friend months ago that he feared such scam artists might be after him.
Sheriff's Sgt. Bill Marsh, one of the detectives on the Irwin case, said that, so far, the Internet scam story was only a theory. He said police had yet to identify any suspects.
But Irwin's friends and relatives clung Wednesday to whatever information they could after what they said was a baffling turn in the life of an athletic and outgoing man.
Nearly a dozen relatives, including several siblings, have arrived from out of town to aid in the search, hoping that Irwin may still be found alive. They joined deputies searching the brushy canyon -- where Irwin is thought to have disappeared -- several miles up the road from the ocean.
One of seven children of a former New Jersey state assemblyman, now deceased, Irwin grew up in Mountainside, N.J., and attended Syracuse University in New York, said his stepmother, Louise Irwin, who was waiting on a dusty pull-off along Topanga Canyon Boulevard as searchers moved down the canyon. He moved to the Los Angeles area about eight years ago, she said.
According to Irwin's online resume, he has worked with such musicians as David Bowie, David Crosby, Art Garfunkel and Carly Simon. The resume says his production enterprises have been nominated for three Grammy Awards, but that could not be confirmed by a Grammy spokeswoman.
