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Volusia officials look for missing couple

 
Published July 1, 1995|Updated Oct. 4, 2005

Scores of police officers on horseback, in helicopters and canoes combed Volusia County woods Friday for clues to the disappearance of a couple missing since June 13.

Patricia Doyle, 59, daughter of a prominent Lake County landowner, and her husband, Jack Doyle, 62, were last seen leaving the home of friends in DeLeon Springs in a red Isuzu Trooper. They were en route to her father's 5,600-acre ranch.

Investigators do not know whether the couple met with foul play.

The Doyles had been staying with Mrs. Doyle's parents, Theodore and Althea Strawn, who own the ranch. The Doyles were running the ranch because the Strawns are in ill health, family members said.

Officials don't know what to think, said Gary Davidson, a spokesman for the Volusia sheriff. "It would be strange to think they'd leave her parents unattended for two weeks."

Davidson did not know why relatives waited until Tuesday to notify police the two were missing. The Doyles own a home in La Jolla, Calif., and had been living with the Strawns for about a year.

"All of a sudden, they just disappeared off the face of the earth," said Bruce Crump, whose wife, Sylvia, is Patricia Doyle's cousin.