Editor Missing Since Oct. 9 Found Dead in Car Below Cliff
A body found in a car that plunged 200 feet off a highway has been identified as that of magazine editor William Harvey Ryan.
Ryan, 58, of Oakland, had most recently been an editor-at-large for California magazine.
He was a co-founder in 1958 of the magazine Contact, which, although headquartered in Sausalito, was subtitled The San Francisco Journal of New Writing, Art and Ideas. It ceased publication about seven years later but had gained a nationwide list of subscribers.
Ryan was reported missing Oct. 9 by relatives who gave Oakland police a handwritten note they had found indicating he was despondent over ill health. He suffered from severe emphysema, chronic bronchitis and asthma.
Marin County sheriff’s deputies said hikers found a wrecked car with a body inside Saturday at the bottom of a 200-foot cliff just south of Stinson Beach. The body was identified as Ryan on Monday.
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