Considering how many highly skilled developers have died suddenly, no obituary, only person who seems to know anything about it is another developer, I sometimes hope that they're alive but the space aliens saw them as too valuable to leave on Earth and took them elsewhere.
This is an interesting tale, because Drunkenbatman ducked out of public view after he gave a speech at the C4 conference which we would now call “woke”. He called everyone in the room racists because there weren’t many bl*ck Apple customers or developers, and in 2007, you were allowed to disagree with such ideas.
Well, until the original maintainer was hit by a train and killed. It lost most of its momentum after that.
I was an avid user and community member at the time. It still brings a tear to my eye thinking about it.
https://www.wired.com/2004/07/pearpc-coauthor/