Torry Jim Durrell was a 53-year-old male missing from Kihei, Hawaii, on Maui, with his last known contact and sighting taking place on January 24, 2012. He was described in public missing-person records as a White/Caucasian man, about 5 feet 11 inches tall and 155 pounds, with blond or graying blond hair and blue eyes. He also had distinctive medical and surgical history noted in case records: his right nipple had been surgically removed after breast cancer, and he had multiple surgical scars on his chest, shoulders, and abdomen. On the morning he disappeared, the available case information places him in the waters off South Maui, where a quiet early-morning decision to go kayaking became the beginning of a painful and unresolved search.
The known timeline begins in the dark hours before sunrise. According to missing-person summaries, Durrell contacted a co-worker at about 2:00 a.m. and said he could not sleep, so he planned to go kayaking to revive or refresh himself. That detail gives the case an especially human quality: it appears to have started not with any public conflict or known emergency, but with a man restless in the early morning, turning toward the ocean for relief. Later that same morning, at approximately 8:15 a.m., two paddle boarders reported briefly speaking with him roughly one mile offshore between Kihei and Maalaea. They said he was sitting on his kayak near breaching whales, approximately 100 feet away from them. That encounter, peaceful and ordinary on its surface, became the last reported sighting of Torry Durrell.
Concern rose when Durrell did not show up for work and did not return as expected. His kayak was later found floating unattended off the Kihei shoreline, with public reports placing it about 200 yards off Kalepolepo Beach Park near Lipoa Street in South Maui. The discovery of the kayak without Durrell shifted the situation from worry to an urgent missing-person search. Maui Now reported that the search was launched around 12:15 p.m. on January 25, 2012, after a neighbor reported that he had failed to return from kayaking the previous day; by that night, searchers had already covered 96 square miles.
The search effort drew on air and sea resources. Maui Now reported that Ocean Safety crews searched the waters off South Maui, a Coast Guard MH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Air Station Barbers Point was involved, and the Coast Guard Cutter Kiska, based in Hilo, was expected to remain on scene overnight. Crews planned to suspend the air search overnight and resume the following morning. These details suggest a broad and urgent response across the coastline and offshore waters where Durrell had last been seen, with searchers working against the uncertainty of open ocean conditions, time, and distance from shore.
Despite those efforts, no sign of Durrell was found. The Charley Project classifies his disappearance as a lost/injured missing case and states that an extensive search produced no indication of his whereabouts, with Durrell presumed drowned. NamUs lists the case as Missing Person / NamUs #MP56235 and identifies the Maui County Police Department as the investigating agency, with the date of last contact recorded as January 24, 2012. The agency case number listed in the provided public case data is 12-004108, and the case was reported on January 25, 2012.
Torry Durrell’s disappearance is remembered as the case of a Kihei man who went kayaking before dawn after saying he could not sleep, was seen alive later that morning about a mile offshore between Kihei and Maalaea near breaching whales, and then vanished before he could return to land, work, or the people who expected him back. His unattended kayak was recovered off the South Maui shoreline, and search teams covered a wide area by air and sea, but the searches did not bring him home. In overview, this case centers on a 53-year-old male last seen on January 24, 2012, in the ocean off Kihei, Hawaii; the known evidence points to a solo kayaking trip, a final offshore sighting, the later recovery of his kayak, and a search that ended without locating him, leaving his loved ones and community with an aching absence and unanswered questions.
Last Seen: Jan 24, 2012
