It has now been nine long years since Elaine Park, a 20-year-old woman, vanished without a trace from the affluent community of Calabasas, California, an area famously associated with the Kardashian family. Her disappearance continues to baffle those who knew her, including a dedicated private investigator and local law enforcement, all of whom have been unable to uncover any concrete evidence regarding her whereabouts after she went missing on January 28, 2017.
A Case Shrouded in Mystery
This perplexing situation persists despite a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy discovering her car just days after she disappeared, with all her personal belongings still inside. Additionally, her boyfriend at the time, Divine Compere, who was the last person to see her alive, has reportedly cooperated fully with authorities throughout the investigation. Rosemarie Wheeler, a close friend of the Park family, was initially heavily involved in raising awareness and assisting Elaine's mother, Susan, in the search efforts.
"She was a really great girl. If there's one word I think that describes Elaine, I think it would be resilience," Wheeler remarked. "She was just bright and lit up a room. And she had dreams."
Investigative Efforts and Frustrations
Jayden Brant, the private investigator originally hired by Park's mother, worked closely with both the family and the Glendale Police Department. To this day, he periodically revisits the case, expressing ongoing frustration over the lack of resolution.
"It's frustrating because I wish we could figure out what happened to her," said Brant, acknowledging the endless speculation that has arisen in the absence of any genuine leads. Over the years, authorities have focused on three primary avenues of exploration in their attempts to locate Elaine Park.
Key Avenues of Investigation
1) The Alleged Panic Attack and Final Sighting
On the evening of January 27, 2017, Park drove to Calabasas to visit her on-and-off boyfriend, Divine Compere, who resided with his father, Shakim Compere, in a spacious 9,300-square-foot home. Shakim is a longtime business partner of Queen Latifah, having co-founded the film production company Flavor Unit Entertainment in 1995.
After arriving, Park and Compere took an Uber to see a movie, returning to the house around 1:30 a.m. on January 28. According to Compere's statements to investigators, they then went to sleep. Hours later, Compere reported that Park was awake and experiencing what he described as a panic episode, a claim Brant noted was not independently corroborated by additional evidence such as text messages.
Security camera footage from the Calabasas home captured Park walking out the front door casually at approximately 6 a.m., marking the last time she was ever seen alive. While her car was recorded leaving, some dedicated to finding her doubt she was the one driving. A close family friend manages the Help Find Elaine Park Facebook page, where tips are submitted, with many posts suggesting foul play may have occurred once she was out of the camera's view.
2) The Discovery of Park's Car
After five days with little progress, Park's 2015 dark gray Honda Accord was found on February 2, 2017, about 10 miles from the Compere home on the shoulder of the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. The car was unlocked with the key in the ignition, indicating the battery had died, and contained a modest amount of cash, her laptop, and her phone, but no sign of Park herself.
Extensive searches by Glendale police, Los Angeles County rescue teams, and citizen volunteers in areas like Corral Canyon and the coastline yielded nothing. Brant found it strange that Park's car was in Malibu, as she did not regularly frequent the area, and noted that surveillance footage from a nearby gas station did not show her driving past.
"To think that vehicle had been there for several days without being ticketed or towed, was a little bit odd," Brant observed, raising concerns that the car might have been placed there after the fact.
3) The Unlocked iPhone Dilemma
Investigators had pinned their last hopes on Park's iPhone 7, which friends and relatives described as a device she was constantly using. However, the Glendale Police Department was never able to unlock the phone, extracting only what Brant termed "insignificant metadata" from it.
Brant managed to recover photographs, text messages, and other data from her laptop, but everything was synced only up until the time of her disappearance. "The problem was everything was just up until the time when she went missing. So we were missing the data from that night and into the next morning because it wasn't synced to iCloud," he explained.
Recent Developments and Ongoing Speculation
The case gained renewed attention in May 2021 when author Neil Strauss featured it in season two of his popular true crime podcast 'To Live and Die in LA', with Brant appearing in many episodes. Despite the podcast's success, with over 60 million episode downloads across two seasons, the mystery remains unsolved.
In 2021, Shakim Compere sold his Calabasas mansion to neighbor Kevin Hart for $7 million. Brant has not given up on finding Park but acknowledges the increasing difficulty as time passes. He has ruled out scenarios like hiking trails or ocean entry due to the lack of a body, leaning towards the possibility of a random disappearance or foul play by unknown individuals.
The Glendale Police Department still considers Park's disappearance an open case, though Sergeant Mike Pobokhian confirmed there are no new updates. Daily Mail has reached out to Elaine's mother, Susan, for further comment, as the search for answers continues unabated.
