South Korean family mysteriously disappears on drive from Grand Canyon to Las Vegas
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A South Korean family that was traveling across the Southwest and expected to depart from a California airport this week is missing, authorities say.
Jiyeon Lee, 33, Taehee Kim, 59, and Junghee Kim, 54, disappeared while driving from the Grand Canyon toward Las Vegas on March 13. GPS information on the rented 2024 BMW they were driving showed the vehicle was last on westbound Interstate 40 in Williams, Ariz., shortly before 3:30 p.m., said Jon Paxton, a spokesperson for the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona.
Paxton said their car was about a mile away from a deadly chain reaction crash on the snow- and ice-covered highway that involved 22 vehicles. Two people were killed,16 were injured and traffic was snarled along the highway, authorities said.
Authorities are still working to identify all the cars involved in that crash.
“The fire from that accident burned so hot for so long that a lot of those cars are unidentifiable,” Paxton said.
Investigators checked area hospitals for the family, but did not find them. Deputies also searched both sides of the highway by foot, air and car looking for signs of the group or the BMW in case they had been rerouted off the highway. But there was no trace of them, Paxton said.
The family was traveling in the area during a winter storm that brought heavy snow and whiteout conditions to northern Arizona.
“Weather conditions were pretty bad at that time,” Paxton said. “And if you get rerouted most of the time, you get rerouted off the interstate here in northern Arizona, and you end up on a dirt road. We checked all the roads, nothing. And we haven’t had a ping on their phones or from the car since the 13th.”
Authorities in Arizona were contacted by the South Korean consulate after the family missed their flight out of San Francisco on Monday.
The BMW they were driving has a California license plate 9KHN768. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office at (928) 774-4523.
