A San Francisco couple who took a road trip with their two young daughters to spend Thanksgiving in the Pacific Northwest did not return as expected Monday and are now considered missing.
San Francisco police are asking the public's help in locating James and Kati Kim and their two daughters, Penelope, 4, and Sabine, 7 months. The family was last seen in Portland, Ore., on Saturday.
"It is really unusual for them not to call,'' said Ryan Lee, a longtime friend who had brunch with the family Saturday in Portland. "I don't want to let myself think that they are hurt. Apparently, I was the last person who knows them to see them, which is freaky.''
The Kims told Lee that they planned to stop by a clothing boutique in Portland, then drive to Gold Beach on the southern Oregon coast. They told him they had a hotel reservation there for Saturday night, Lee said.
"That was the last I heard from them,'' he said.
It is not known whether the family showed up at the hotel.
James Kim, 35, a senior editor at CNET, lives with his wife and daughters in Noe Valley. The couple own two small stores in San Francisco -- Doe, a clothing store on lower Haight Street, and the Church Street Apothecary in Noe Valley, which sells baby goods and organic skin care products.
Eva Kim, James' sister in San Francisco, said she last spoke to the family the day before Thanksgiving.
She said the family spent Thanksgiving night in Seattle with James' uncle and aunt, Clint and June Youn.
"We had a turkey dinner -- everybody was happy,'' said Clint Youn by phone Thursday night. "I'm very worried, but I'm waiting for good news. I hope nothing happened.''
Two days later, the family met with Lee for brunch in Portland.
"I hadn't seen them in about a year, so we had a lot to catch up on,'' said Lee, a customer support representative who moved to Portland from San Francisco two years ago. "We sat around and ate brunch and played with the kids. ... Everything was fine. They seemed happy, they talked about someday moving to Portland, getting a change from San Francisco.''
Back in San Francisco, Charlene Wright, an employee of the Apothecary store who was house-sitting for the Kims, had expected to hear from them Monday.
"Normally when Kati is out of town, she calls the store five or more times a day,'' said Wright. "But she didn't call'' Monday.
By Tuesday, Wright began to worry, and Wednesday morning, she filed a missing person's report.
Wright said authorities have told her that the last outgoing calls from the Kims' cell phone were Saturday around 2 p.m.
"Everyone has a theory ranging from the not positive to the overly optimistic,'' said Wright. "The prevailing theory is that they got caught in bad weather and can't phone.''
The Kims were driving a 2005 silver Saab station wagon with a personalized California license plate, "DOESF.''
San Francisco police ask that anyone with information on the family's whereabouts contact Inspector Angela Martin of the Missing Persons Unit at (415) 558-5508, or the operations center at (415) 553-1071.
