Missing Woman Believed Drowned

A woman left her belongings--a paperback book, a pack of cigarettes and a camera--on the shore of Huntington City Beach on Wednesday, walked into the ocean and disappeared, witnesses told police.

The woman didn’t leave behind a wallet or identification before entering the chilly ocean waters at 4:50 p.m.

Only a few clues--the kind of items police hope that a good friend or family member may piece together to help identify her--sat on the shore near 19th Street and Pacific Coast Highway.

As of Thursday, none of the missing-person reports matched her description: 40 to 45 years old; 140 pounds; with curly, collar-length, blond hair and wearing light denim shorts and a red, sleeveless T-shirt with an emblem.

The belongings she left on the beach only add to the mystery.

She left a copy of “The Cobra Event,” a fictionalized tale of germ terrorism written by Richard Preston.

Inside the novel was a bookmark from a West Hollywood new age bookstore with a few penciled notes that read: “Changing for the Good,” “Anger vs. sadness” and “Mark vs. Karen.”

“I don’t know if that’s something in the story of the book or personal comments meaning something else,” Police Lt. Jon Arnold said.

She also left a pair of size 8 brown leather clogs, a hard pack of Marlboro Reds and a 35mm camera.

Two witnesses told officers that the woman was stumbling and looked intoxicated, Arnold said.

After she went into the water, the witnesses were distracted by their children and looked away. When they looked toward the sea, she had vanished.

Arnold said she may have climbed out of the water and walked away. But authorities are treating the case as a drowning.

Helicopters and search teams of police and lifeguards scoured the shoreline until nightfall Wednesday and resumed early Thursday.