Family of 3 missing after leaving Grand Canyon and driving through winter storm
A family of three visiting the United States has been missing for over a week after leaving the Grand Canyon on a road trip and driving through a winter storm, officials in Arizona said.
The Coconino County Sheriff's Office said it is currently seeking information on the whereabouts of a family of three -- Jiyeon Lee, 33, Taehee Kim, 59, and Junghee Kim, 54. The sheriff's office initially had different ages for the family members, but issued an update Thursday night.
Lee was traveling with her mother, Taehee Kim, and aunt, according to a sheriff's office spokesperson.
The family was last known to be traveling by road in a white BMW with California license plates when they were on vacation from the Grand Canyon area to Las Vegas on March 13, the sheriff's office said. Pings on their cellphones and GPS information from the rental car show they were last traveling on westbound Interstate 40 at around 3:30 p.m. that day, the office said.
The Coconino County Sheriff's Office said it is aware of several multi-vehicle crashes along I-40 on the same day amid a large snowstorm, however, it's unknown if their vehicle was involved in any of them.
"The big concern right now is, the ping that we had on that phone .... close to that time was also, a major accident had taken place on the interstate, very close to where that ping was located," Jon Paxton, the spokesperson for the Coconino County Sheriff's Office, told ABC News on Friday.
Paxton said it's "possible" the three missing people were involved in the accident.
Two people died in the pile-up involving more than 20 vehicles, Paxton said. Some vehicles involved burned in a long-lasting fire and are hard to identify, he said.
Paxton urged anyone who may have been in the area around the time who may have information to contact the sheriff's office.
In the meantime he said the sheriff's office has searched the area and service roads as well as hospitals and have exhausted all leads.
"We spent three days searching," Paxton said. "Weโve exhausted all the leads and searched all the areas we felt they would be."
The women were supposed to fly out of San Francisco on March 17 to return to South Korea, but when their family never heard from them regarding the flight, they got concerned, Paxton said.
The sheriff's office received a missing persons report from the South Korean consulate in Los Angeles the following day, he said.
The South Korean consulate in Los Angeles, whose jurisdiction includes Arizona, said in a statement on Friday its consulate general filed the missing persons report on behalf of their family "and has provided all relevant information to the authorities."
"We have dispatched a consul to the area and are working closely with the police to locate the missing people as quickly as possible," the statement continued.
Family of 3 missing after leaving Grand Canyon and driving through winter storm originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
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