Family mysteriously disappear on holiday in America while on drive to Las Vegas

Police say they have exhausted all options

A South Korean family on holiday in the United States have mysteriously gone missing, with police saying they have exhausted all available leads.

Jiyeon Lee, 33, her mother Taehee Kim, 59, and aunt Junghee Kim, 54, were on a trip to visit Las Vegas when they went missing earlier this month.

Sadly, stories of people going missing on holiday are all too common, as we have seen recently with Sudiksha Konanki, whose location is still unknown after she went missing while on a Spring Break trip to the Dominican Republic earlier this month.

Authorities suggest that the trio had departed the Grand Canyon in Arizona and were en route to neighbouring state Nevada, according to the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office.

GPS information from the trio’s rented white BMW last showed the trip on Interstate 40 in Williams, Arizona on Thursday 13 March. This is also where a tragic 22-car pileup is said to have killed at least two people and injured 16 others around the same time.

The family’s last known location was near a 22-car pileup (Arizona Department of Public Safety)

Police cannot confirm for sure if the family were involved in that particular crash, but Coconino Sheriff’s spokesman Jon Paxton told ABC News Friday it was ‘possible.’

While some of the cars in the crash were burned beyond recognition, they have not yet found the BMW that the tourists were travelling in, which suggests that there is still hope they weren’t involved in the crash.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) provided this summary of the crash: “The collision caused a fire which quickly spread to the other involved vehicles and burned for more than 20 hours.

The tourists haven’t been seen in nearly a week (Coconino County Sheriff’s Office)

“Firefighters, state troopers, Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) personnel, and tow truck operators worked relentlessly during this time to reduce the fire, provide care, and/or clear the scene.

“The collision involved a total of 22 vehicles, including 13 passenger vehicles. A total of 36 drivers and occupants were involved in the incident, including two fatalities, and 16 injured persons were transported for medical care.”

The two confirmed deceased have also already been identified, which seemingly also decreases the possibility of any of the travellers from South Korea having died from that crash.

South Korean authorities contacting those in Arizona on Tuesday 18 March after the trio missed their flight home from San Francisco the day prior.

The sheriff’s office spent three days searching the area, service roads and hospitals and say they have now exhausted all leads.

Hopefully they are discovered sooner rather than later.