The search for a 38-year-old father of two from Markham, Ont. is yielding few answers as the family grows increasingly desperate.
The family of Eugene Kim spent the weekend handing out hundreds of missing person posters and plastering them all over Algonquin Park, where witnesses saw him purchase a camp pass a few days ago.
On Sunday, hundreds joined in prayer for Kim’s safe return. His family and friends have started a volunteer search group and even rented a helicopter to scour the Algonquin area, but the search thus far has turned up dry.
Kim was last seen Monday morning after dropping off his two children -- a six-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl --at school in Thornhill, Ont.
“He does not want to be away from us,” Christine Kim, Eugene’s wife, told CTV Toronto Sunday. “(My children) miss their father so much. Please just bring him home.”
Kim, who works in corporate wireless sales, told his wife Monday he would be home late because of an important business meeting, but the family has since discovered he called in sick to work that day.
“We've asked his coworkers and his office and no one knows what this business deal was about,” Scot Lim, Kim’s brother-in-law, told CTV Toronto.
Around 9 p.m. on Monday evening, Kim texted Christine to tell her he’d be home in an hour. A couple hours later, she received another text message from her husband saying he would be home “soon,” but Kim never surfaced.
Earlier this week, police traced a signal from Kim’s cellphone to a cell tower near North Bay, roughly 335 kilometres north of where he was last heard from. Witnesses saw Kim purchase a camping permit for Algonquin Provincial Park, a place he had been known to visit in the past.
“There was an eyewitness who could confirm after seeing the broadcast earlier this week that it was indeed Eugene Kim who came into the building and signed for the permit,” Lim said. “There was a second name he put on that permit but there's no eyewitness who can confirm there was actually a second person there.”
Kim was last seen driving a black Nissan Rogue with the license plate BJJD 108. He has black hair and wears glasses. He is 5’9” tall and weighs 185 pounds.
The York Regional Police said they don’t have any solid leads on Kim’s whereabouts, but have alerted other police detachments about the situation.
Anyone with information is asked to call the York Regional Police #2 District in Richmond Hill at (905) 881-1221 ext. 7200 or Crime Stoppers at 1-(800)-222-TIPS.
With a report from CTV Toronto’s Tracy Tong.
Lit candles and moment of silence at Willowdale United Church as community joins search for #eugenekim, missing since Monday @CTVToronto pic.twitter.com/4gRCNLy5xy
— Tracy Tong (@TracyTongCTV) October 8, 2017