HUNZIKER DEAD-OFFICIALS SAY SUICIDE
N. KOREA HELD HIM AS A SPY UNTIL LAST MONTH
BY GEORGE FOSTER P-I Reporter
Thursday, December 19, 1996
Section: News, Page: A1
The complicated life of Evan Hunziker, held recently by North Koreans as a spy, ended yesterday in the basement of a seedy Pacific Avenue hotel where his body was found next to a .357-caliber pistol.
Hunziker, 26, died about 2:30 a.m. of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office said. An employee of the Olympus Hotel, where Hunziker lived, found the body in a locked restaurant-bar area of the hotel. There was no note.
Hunziker's father, Edwin Hunziker, a retired Army staff sergeant who lives nearby in suburban Parkland, blamed the death on his son's past drug use.
``The drugs did it," he said yesterday. ``They caught up with him."
Only last month, Evan Hunziker was freed by authorities in North Korea three months after being arrested after swimming, naked and drunk, across the Yalu River from China into the communist Korean state. Although Hunziker said he had been spreading the Christian gospel, North Korean officials detained the Tacoma-area native as a spy for South Korea.
U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., who negotiated with the North Koreans for Hunziker's release, said yesterday that he was ``very saddened by this turn of events. Evan was a gentle young man who sought peace for all people. I express my heartfelt condolences to the Hunziker family."
Richardson, who last week was nominated by President Clinton to be ambassador to the United Nations, arrived in Japan with Hunziker the day before Thanksgiving.
Hunziker then flew to Sea-Tac Airport, where he told reporters that he had gone to North Korea to ``foster peace." He also said his captors treated him well.
However, his father said yesterday that he had been told by the State Department that Evan had tried to hang himself while detained by North Koreans for two weeks in a high-security jail.
``I saw the marks on his neck," Edwin Hunziker said.
For the remainder of his time in captivity, Evan Hunziker was held in a North Korean hotel under house arrest.
The young man, taller than 6 feet and weighing 250 pounds, would have faced arrest had he returned to Alaska, where an adopted brother lives and where Hunziker lived for much of his life.
Hunziker failed to complete anger-management counseling and get alcohol screening and treatment when he was sentenced in 1995 and 1996 for reckless driving, assault and violating a domestic violence court order, according to The Associated Press.
There were three warrants for his arrest.
Asked why his son would take his life, Edwin Hunziker shrugged and said, ``You don't know what's going on in people's minds." He added that he did not believe his son had been on drugs since his return from North Korea.
Seated at the kitchen table of his home, he said:``What I seen of Evan, he was a very troubled young man. Some days he acted depressed, and some days he was fine."
However, since his son's return from North Korea, Hunziker said, he had been ``a lot more cheerful."
On Monday night, he said, he received a call from Evan, and the two talked about a job prospect as an apprentice ironworker. ``It seemed like he was in pretty good spirits," the father said.
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Yep, found dead in the basement, presumably a suicide.