Doctor Missing Two Months Found Safe : Mystery: The Cedars-Sinai intern’s disappearance prompted weeks of searches in rugged mountain terrain. He refused to discuss why he dropped out of sight.

A physician who had been missing for nearly two months after completing his shift at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center turned up in downtown Los Angeles on Monday--unharmed--and unwilling to talk about why he dropped out of sight and where he had been, police said.

Dr. Steven Ray Stoltz, 25, whose disappearance had prompted weeks of searches in rugged mountain terrain, was located at a Broadway department store on 7th Street after he attempted to use his credit card, said Los Angeles Police Detective John Sack.

“The credit card company alerted us, we went to interview him, and there he was--sitting in all his glory,” said Sack, an investigator in the Missing Persons Unit.

“I asked him where he had been, and he said: ‘I’d just as soon not tell you.’ ”

When Stoltz, a first-year resident in surgery, disappeared Aug. 4, his friends and co-workers organized a desperate air and ground search in Topanga Canyon, believing he had gone there to ride his mountain bike.

Detectives spent days looking at corpses in hospitals and morgues in three counties trying to locate the tall, handsome physician who had only been in the city seven weeks before his disappearance.

Investigators narrowed the search area to Topanga Canyon, 20 miles northwest of downtown, after finding Stoltz’s journal with entries showing he had biked there on two previous weekends.

Volunteers had set up a 24-hour hot line to take any information on the doctor’s possible whereabouts, an anonymous donor offered a $10,000 reward for information, and mountain cyclists scoured Topanga Canyon’s miles of bike trails searching for the physician, who was also an experienced bicyclist and triathlete.

When detectives located him Monday, Sack said, they told him “a lot of people had been looking for him and were very concerned.”

Stoltz’s response: “Yes.”

“He exercised his right to privacy,” Sack said. “He gave no explanation whatsoever. He looked fine--clean, well-kept. Being missing is not a crime, and we have now closed our missing persons case.”

As the weeks that Stoltz was missing mounted, friends and relatives began fearing the worst, his mother, Sylvia Stoltz, said from the family’s home in Rapid City, S.D.

“We were certainly very relieved to hear that he had been found,” she said. “Today was wonderful news. We are waiting to hear from him.”

She said her son’s disappearance was totally out of character and that he gave no indication that he was under the kind of stress that might have prompted such an act.

Beverly Hartunian, who coordinated the 24-hour hot line, said she is “just thrilled that he’s alive.” The disappearance and Monday’s surfacing, she said, has left her mystified.

“Needless to say, we were quite shocked, but quite elated that he’s alive,” said Hartunian, whose daughter is also a resident at Cedars-Sinai. The hospital’s house staff is under “tremendous pressure,” she said. “If you have a child going through this, it makes you very compassionate.”

She said she is not angry that Stoltz’s disappearance was voluntary. “I have mixed emotions,” she said. “All the love and caring that went into the search . . . maybe some day he’ll realize. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Cedars-Sinai spokesman Ron Wise said the hospital staff “feels an enormous sense of relief” that Stoltz is all right. “We would like to hear from Dr. Stoltz and get a sense of what his plans are for the future,” Wise said. “If he does not contact us, we can only assume that he is no longer interested in the residency program.”

Sack said Stoltz, a graduate of Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, is considered a voluntary missing person, adding, “People have a right to pursue whatever lifestyle they want.”