Patrick McDermott

Patrick Kim McDermott (born Pat Kim on September 18, 1957) is an American cameraman of Korean descent, who some suspect of faking his own death in 2005. In 2010, it was alleged that McDermott had faked his own death and was living in Mexico. But his ex-wife Yvette Nipar does not believe that he is alive. He was the on-and-off boyfriend of Olivia Newton-John.

McDermott is of Korean descent. He was adopted from Korea by an American couple. McDermott had previously filed for bankruptcy and had received a court order to pay overdue child support to his former wife, aspiring actress Yvette Nipar. Nipar and McDermott were married on March 1, 1992 when Nipar was four months pregnant. They divorced 15 months later on June 30, 1993. They have a son, Chance McDermott.

He disappeared from a fishing charter boat off San Pedro, Los Angeles, on June 30, 2005. The 48-year-old McDermott was a passenger on the fishing boat Freedom which had left from the San Pedro marina for an overnight fishing trip. The 22 passengers and three crew members on board gave contradicting reports of his whereabouts both during and at the conclusion of the trip. His absence was apparently unnoticed until July 6, 2005, when he failed to attend a family event.

A United States Coast Guard investigation released in November 2008 concluded that McDermott "most likely" drowned. However, the circumstances of his disappearance had fueled speculation that he faked his own death. The case was featured on America's Most Wanted. In a 2009 feature on Dateline NBC, investigators went undercover to look for him in Mexico, where they believed he might be hiding. The investigators claimed McDermott disappeared to avoid debts, including US$8,000 owed to his ex-wife for child support. Those same investigators created the website FindPatrickMcDermott.com for the sole purpose of trapping McDermott. As the Dateline special showed, all visitors' web addresses were logged and mapped. The Dateline investigators believed in 2009 that McDermott was living in a boat off the west coast of Mexico. They continued to track hits to their website. The Dateline investigators said there were over 20 sightings of McDermott in Mexico and Central America.

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