By Pepper Fisher

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK – The Mercury News in California’s Bay Area is reporting that Hunter Fraser, the hiker who has been missing in Olympic National Park since Wednesday, was set to appear Friday morning in Santa Clara County Superior Court on a felony domestic violence charge.

Fraser is a biology professor at Stanford and the principal investigator at the Fraser Laboratory, according to a university profile. He is also a member of Bio-X, Stanford’s interdisciplinary biosciences institute; the Maternal & Child Health Research Institute; the Stanford Cancer Institute; and the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

The criminal case against Fraser stems from a July 4, 2022 incident involving his girlfriend of 5½ years. The couple, who had gotten into an argument the previous day, were playing a game with Fraser’s young daughter at their Stanford apartment when Fraser allegedly slammed a door into his girlfriend, striking her in the chest with the handle, according to a Stanford University Department of Public Safety incident report.

The girlfriend told police Fraser also threw her to the ground prior to hitting her with the door, the report stated.

Fraser was arrested and booked into county jail. He was initially charged with a misdemeanor, but prosecutors later re-filed the case as a felony, according to court records.

Tessa Stephenson, the deputy district attorney assigned to the case, said the preliminary hearing was rescheduled to June 28.

“I sincerely hope he will return home safely,” Stephenson said.

Anyone with information about Fraser’s whereabouts can call the sheriff’s office at 360-417-2459 and select option one.