http://www.cbsnews.com/st...2148.shtml

also:

http://www.rockymountainn...22,00.html

Karlan was living 'dream life'
Family, friends of Dele's girlfriend wait for word on her fate

By Brian D. Crecente And Owen S. Good, Rocky Mountain News
September 19, 2002

FBI agents stand in the kitchen, a television crew waits in the living room, people sleep on couches, neighbors come and go carting food.

With all the chaos in Scott Ohlgren's world, his life is wrapped up in a single obsession - finding his stepdaughter Serena Karlan and bringing her home.

"I have never been this stressed in my life," Ohlgren said Wednesday in a voice worn from overuse. "Part of it has this real surreal quality. You keep feeling that you should be weeping forever, but your nervous system, your psyche can't take it. You start to become numb."

All indications are that Karlan, a strikingly beautiful woman whose quiet confidence remained unaffected by the affection of a millionaire athlete and a friendship with rock star Prince, was the victim of tragic rivalry between two brothers.

Karlan, 30, was last seen on July 4 as she set sail from Tahiti with her boyfriend, former Denver Nuggets player Bison Dele, and Betrand Saldo, captain of a 55-foot catamaran called Hakuna Matata.

The FBI is searching for Dele's brother, Miles Dabord, who was seen in Tahiti returning the empty catamaran to a private dock after the three disappeared.

On Monday, French authorities opened a murder investigation into the disappearance. Tahitian newspapers reported Wednesday that a fisherman saw Dele's boat hit rocks on Tahiti's eastern coast on July 13.

Witnesses described a large man seeking repair for the boat, but there was no mention of a woman on board and nothing that would offer hope to the family gathered outside Boulder awaiting word on Karlan.

Serena Midnight Karlan was born in a New York apartment in a room filled with 60 chanting friends and relatives.

Her mother, Gael, and her father, Stuart Karlan, named her Serena for her serene nature. Her middle name is Midnight for the time she was born.

"She named herself, really," Stuart Karlan said. "It came out of her birth process. Her mother said her body is a hurricane, but she is the calm center."

The family moved to Berkeley in 1972. Stuart and Gael split up two years later.

Serena Karlan attended Berkeley Montessori elementary school and then Berkeley High School.

"She was very unaware of how special she was," said high school friend Stacy Steele.

Karlan graduated in 1990 and then moved to Los Angeles two years later to study to become a movie makeup artist. She landed just one job, working on the movie set of Heartwood, before getting out of the business.

Dele, who was then known as Brian Williams and playing for the L.A. Clippers, was dating her roommate. Dele and Karlan soon became good friends.

"She was so strikingly beautiful; when you walked with her everyone was turning, and she never noticed," said Ohlgren. "I think that was one of the reasons why Bison was so attracted to her; she wasn't full of herself and she wasn't impressed by him as a basketball player."

Her nonchalance toward celebrity seemed to attract the famous to Karlan.

One night while out at a club with a friend, a man tapped her on the shoulder and said that Prince, the enigmatic rock singer, wanted to talk to her.

"They became friends and they continued their friendship through the years," Ohlgren said.

Prince flew her to Minneapolis to manage concession sales and help with marketing at his tours.

About that time Dele got back in touch.

"She visited him a few times and it didn't look like it was going to go anywhere because he didn't know where he was going next," Steele said. "Then he moved to Australia and asked her to come out for a vacation."

Karlan went to stay for a few weeks and wound up staying for seven, Ohlgren said.

She came back to the U.S. to try her hand as a real estate broker with a friend in New York.

"Over the next month, (Dele) called her a lot," Ohlgren said. "He would say 'What are you doing? Come on out. This is what everyone dreams of having, someone who loves you and supports you and having a hell of a life.' "

The turning point came a few days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Everything was just diving right then, the city was full of death and gloom and dust," Ohlgren said. "And he made such a hell of an offer that she was willing to completely unplug from her life."

Karlan closed her accounts, forwarded her mail and phone to her mother's home near Boulder and packed up.

"She came to our house with a few boxes of her clothes; what money she had she put in our bank account here," Ohlgren said. "She literally took a dive off a cliff."

In February, Karlan left for Australia, Dele and a fresh future.

They spent the next six months traveling the South Seas.

"She was having the time of her life; this was the dream life," Ohlgren said.

But despite her idyllic surroundings, most of Karlan's phone calls and e-mails were about her blooming relationship with Dele.

"I think she was in awe of her relationship. This was a very serious relationship to her," said Cris Smith, another longtime friend. "She was very happy."

Steele said her friends found themselves living through Karlan.

"We all kind of have families and corporate jobs and stick close to home, and she was a very free-spirited person and took these risks and did things that were fun," Steele said.

And being with Dele seemed to make her complete, friends and family say.

"Being with Bison made her strut; she was doing things she would never do," Ohlgren said. "He was pushing her to be more adventurous in her life."

In early July, Karlan sent out an e-mail saying that she may be out of contact for a while because she was leaving for Honolulu.

"The last time I heard from her was via an e-mail, around July 4," Smith said. "She e-mailed me right before they left and said she was on her way to sail the sea and she loved me and we would be together soon."

Four days later, Karlan left a message on Ohlgren's answering machine saying things were going well.

Then nothing.

Karlan's family has turned her mother and stepfather's home into a sort of command post.

Ohlgren's desk overflows with photos, maps of Tahiti, lists of contacts and e-mails from around the world.

"I saw myself on TV the other day and I was so shocked by my appearance," he said. "I had no emotion in my face, I had become this zombie; I don't even remember the interview."

Stuart Karlan, who flew to Boulder on Monday, says the mood inside the flagstone ranch house swings from blind optimism to bleak realism.

"We go all the way from fantasizing we'll get a phone call from her - 'Hey, we're sorry we haven't been in touch; everything's OK' - to getting evidence that is more final," Stuart Karlan said.

Her friends in California still hold on to the hope that somehow Serena will be found alive.

"I'm hanging on; I'm not letting go," Smith said. "I talk to Serena every night in my mind and hope for a response, and I know one day I'll get one."

... lets keep the girl in our prayers y'all ...

Well I hope they find them. She does look pretty. Keep us posted on this story.

yeah this is sad.