The vehicle carrying three missing women who went missing while traveling to the Grand Canyon from South Korea has been found at the scene of a multiple pileup on Route 1-40 in Arizona.
According to the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona, a BMW SUV believed to be the vehicle in which Lee Ji-yeon (33), her mother Kim Tae-hee (59), and her aunt Kim Jeong-hee (54) were found among the vehicles that were completely burned at the scene of the 22-car pileup on Route 1-40 that occurred on the 13th during a snowy winter storm.
The Lee family lost contact at the scene of the pileup while traveling from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas. [Page A1, March 24, This Newspaper] Local police said that the investigation team found the BMW the Lee family was riding in among the wreckage at the scene of the accident, and that their remains have not yet been identified and are currently being identified.
The Lee family was originally scheduled to return to Korea via San Francisco Airport on the 17th, but when they could not be reached, their family in Korea requested assistance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which began the investigation.
The Consulate General in LA requested investigation assistance from the local police, and the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the police agency in charge of the highway accident, began the investigation.
Local police tracked the GPS of the rental BMW the Lee family was riding in and determined that they were passing through Interstate 40 heading west from the Grand Canyon toward Las Vegas at around 3:30 p.m. on the 13th, the day they went missing.