Sioux City Police say a car witnesses saw submerge in the Missouri River Monday afternoon likely belongs to a local family of three reported missing on Tuesday morning.
Police Captain Mark Kirkpatrick gave an update on the investigation today. “We have a fair degree of confidence that this may be, in fact, that vehicle,” Kirkpatrick said. “We can’t say with 100-percent certainty that it’s that vehicle.” Divers have not been able to reach the vehicle to inspect it because it’s located in a portion of the river with dangerous currents.
The family members, 51-year-old Salomon Medina, his 41-year-old wife Angelica Medina-Gonzales, and their 17-year-old daughter Vanessa Medina Gonzales, were last seen at a WalMart Monday about an hour or so before the accident that sent the car into the river.
Kirkpatrick said the evidence officers are checking out includes surveillance video from WalMart. “One of the more solid pieces (of evidence) was probably the cell phone pings,” Kirkpatrick said. “We did receive phone pings from their particular phones at about the time we believe the incident occurred and there have not been pings since then.”
If divers are eventually able to reach the car, Kirkpatrick said they’ll have to operate by feel because of zero visibility in the murky waters of the Missouri River.
Reporting by Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City