A South Korean family visiting the United States has been missing for over a week after leaving the Grand Canyon on a road trip .
Jiyeon Lee, aged 33, along with her mother Taehee Kim, 59, and aunt Junghee Kim, 54, disappeared while holidaying in the United States. The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office reported they went missing during their journey from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas earlier this month.
Officials stated that the last known location of their hired white BMW was tracked via GPS on Interstate 40 in Williams, Arizona. The city, situated 35 minutes west of Flagstaff, serves as an entry point to Grand Canyon National Park, ABC News reported.
The current primary issue involves a phone signal detected near the location of a major interstate accident, according to Jon Paxton, Coconino County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, who spoke to ABC News on Friday. Paxton indicated there is a possibility that the three missing individuals were involved in the incident, which took place on March 13.
Paxton requested that anyone with relevant information from the area during that period contact the sheriff’s office.
He confirmed that authorities have conducted thorough searches of the vicinity, service roads and hospitals, with no successful outcomes.
“We spent three days searching,” Paxton said. “We’ve exhausted all the leads and searched all the areas we felt they would be.”
Coconino County Sheriff’s Office posted on their Facebook account
The women were scheduled to depart from San Francisco on March 17 for South Korea. Family concerns arose when they received no communication regarding the flight, Paxton explained.
He stated that the sheriff’s office received a missing persons report from the South Korean consulate in Los Angeles the following day.
The South Korean consulate in Los Angeles, which oversees Arizona, confirmed on Friday that its consulate general submitted the missing persons report on behalf of the 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.
