Prayer Request for the Kim Family Missing In Oregon

I don't know this family but I thought about them all night. Can't get this beautiful family's picture out of my head. Please pray for a miracle and their safe return. God can do all things.

OREGON
Missing S.F. couple, kids last seen at restaurant
- Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, December 4, 2006

The last known person to interact with the missing Kim family of San Francisco said Sunday night that she remembers seeing four happy travelers finishing their dinner in an Oregon highway restaurant and departing for a late-night drive in the rain.

"They were sitting in the booth, and they looked very happy,'' said Karen Smith, who on the evening of Nov. 25 dined in the Denny's restaurant in Roseburg, in southwest Oregon. "Their child was cute. They got up to leave, the dad paid the bill, and I told the mom how cute their child was.''

On Sunday night, Smith was back in the same restaurant, where she recalled meeting the family exactly eight days earlier.

James Kim, 35, a senior editor at the tech-news site Cnet; his wife, Kati, 30; and their daughters, Penelope, 4, and Sabine, 7 months, spent Thanksgiving with an uncle in Seattle before beginning their return to San Francisco.

The Kims were driving a 2005 silver Saab station wagon with a personalized California license plate, "DOE SF."

Authorities confirmed over the weekend that a credit card belonging to the Kims was used at Denny's on the evening of the last day they were seen.

Smith said the family left the restaurant about 9 p.m.

"I didn't ask them where they were going,'' Smith said. "I didn't want to pry into their business. But it was very late to start a long drive.''

According to authorities, the Kims were heading for Gold Beach, a town on the coast on the other side of the Coast Range, where they had a hotel reservation. The family was apparently setting off on a drive of 135 miles on winding two-lane roads in cold and rainy weather, over roads that might have received a dusting of snow. They had called the hotel to say they were running late, and to request that a key be left for them. They never arrived.

Smith said that she has often driven over Highway 42, the road that connects Roseburg with Coos Bay on the coast, and that it's hazardous.

"It's tricky to drive, even during daylight,'' she said. "But that night it was cold, black and rainy."

Anyone with information on the family's whereabouts should call San Francisco police Inspector Angela Martin at (415) 558-5508 or (415) 553-1071.

E-mail Steve Rubenstein at srubenstein@sfchronicle.com.