while i would never wish ill thoughts onto him, the fact is people get hit by a bus everyday.
people get heart attacks every day, people travel to other countries and catch a bad flu and pass away in short notice, people get poisoned by jealous husbands for screwing their wives, and so on and so forth.
perhaps he is being held hostage for non-bitcoin-related reasons, perhaps he is in a federal PMITA prison serving life sentence for some non-bitcoin-related charges.
that means we will never get to know him.
It really doesn't matter. People die all the time, and the current devs have proved themselves competent enough to continue his vision.