Letters to the Editor
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Kim Tragedy: A Speculation (Part 2)
Mr. Kim slowly backs down the road until they reach the intersection with the logging road. Along the way, he has to open his car door to see through the swirling snow. At the intersection it’s snowing hard, and they're both feeling a bit panicky. Now Kati Kim steps in. "This is a fine mess you've gotten us into," she says to her husband. "Look, that other road goes lower. We can at least get out of the snow, and maybe we can find our way to Gold Beach."
James Kim takes the road, figuring they can get to the coast. In fact, they barely even get through all the snowdrifts. After another 20 miles they're hopelessly lost. They're exhausted, too, so they decide to call it a night and get some sleep. They get up the next day in the rain. Kati Kim recalls seeing a snowplow on their way up Bear Camp Road. The Kims get out of the car and think they hear a plow in the distance (later, they realize it was rushing water). "If it's raining down here, it's snowing like hell up there," we imagine James Kim saying. "So we'd better wait until the plows get down here and they lead us out."
That never happens. By the time they've spent a few more days in the car, Mrs. Kim is angry at her husband for getting them into this situation, possibly including the detour to the wineries. We imagine a car full of hungry, rattled and fearful occupants. The kids are crying, the wife is yelling. So James Kim goes off in search of help, and winds up dying.
When the survivors are rescued and the police question Kati Kim about the ordeal, we speculate that she omits the Wilsonville stop and the winery detour because of how it would look. After all, they were warned against using the back roads. Being so late on account of visiting wineries might make everyone think we were a pair of irresponsible yuppies, Mrs. Kim thinks. We imagine her telling the police that they left Portland late; that they missed Hwy. 42; that they sort of blundered into all of this.
Much of that story would have been true. The Kims did blunder into it, and they were late. But, if our speculation is accurate, it wouldn’t be whole story. The Kims did nothing felonious or immoral, but they were negligent. Such things happen, but the kicker is that there were kids in the car with them and that makes it less excusable. Which might be why Kati Kim doesn't want to talk about the whole story.
Once again, we need to be clear that we are speculating. There could be other explanations as to why the Kims left Portland late. Scott Nelson Windels, their friend, wrote that it was because they didn't end brunch until 2 p.m. and then went to boutiques. A poster on an Internet website speculated that the Wilsonville sighting was of a different couple consisting of a white woman, an Asian man and two young children. The employee who identified them as the Kims did so because "all Asians look alike," the poster speculated.
To us, that's a stretch. We believe the Kims stopped in Wilsonville. They might have done so later than we think and/or stopped not at wineries but somewhere else -- perhaps to see a different friend, or to do some Christmas shopping at an outlet mall along the highway. But if it were a friend or a mall, why conceal it? That's one of the reasons we’re speculating about wineries. But in the final analysis, it's impossible to know. Kati Kim knows what happened, and we suspect some of her friends know what happened. But we’re not sure anyone else will ever know.
Why haven't the police pursued the answers to these questions? Two reasons. First, no crime was committed. Second, Mrs. Kim is an attractive young woman, recently widowed with children, the subject of a torrent of sympathetic media coverage. If the police pursued the contradictions, it might look "cruel." So, from their point of view, it might be better to let sleeping dogs lie.
What should the Kims have done? What was their biggest error?
Regardless of whether our speculation about wineries or other stops is accurate, we’d say the die was cast at 6 p.m. on Nov. 25 in Halsey, when the Kims reconfirmed their hotel reservation in Gold Beach. They should have called the hotel -- to cancel. Then they should have taken I-5 to Grant’s Pass, and U.S. 199 to Crescent City, California. They’d have been in Crescent City by midnight. They’d have been late, but with a head start on the next day’s drive to Mendocino.
Why didn’t they cancel? Two possibilities. One might be that they both really wanted to see the Oregon coast in the morning. More likely is that TuTuTun, like many luxury resorts, has a two-week cancellation policy. The bottom line may well be that, on the night of Nov. 25, 2006, James and Kati Kim were penny-wise and pound foolish, losing one life and putting three others at grave risk.
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Kim Tragedy: A Speculation
Kati Kim's explanations to police are internally contradictory, and conflict with eyewitness testimony from people interviewed by state and local police. Therefore, we offer this speculation about what might have happened. We are not presenting it as a definitive or factual account.
On Nov. 25th, the Kims get up relatively early in Portland. They have brunch with their friend at 10 a.m. or so. The Jan. 18 Sheriff’s Association report mentioned brunch at 10 a.m. in the timeline, and "morning" on page 6 of the timeline. Moreover, in our experience, kids don't sleep in. They're usually up bright and early, especially the four-year-old.
Scott Nelson Windels posted that the Kims finished brunch at 2 p.m., but we doubt small children would sit still for four hours. We figure that brunch ends at 11:30 or so, and that the Kims stop at Wilsonville between noon and 12:30. This would match the recollection of the employee who gave them the highway map and coastal brochure, and of the second employee who recognized the Kims but did not speak with them. It would also match the one employee’s recollection of a discussion of "scenic routes" with Mr. Kim; it would have been light out and therefore a discussion of scenic routes would have made sense at that time of day.
Like others of its type, the Wilsonville information center is stocked with dozens of brochures. We speculate that, as James Kim talks with the one employee, Kati and the kids wander around the racks. She picks up other flyers, including one or more advertising the wineries in the North Willamette Valley. James is on record being a wine lover, and Oregon is known for its pinot noir production in particular.
We speculate that the Kims look at the brochures either out in their car or just before they leave the tourist center, and that when Mr. Kim spots the winery brochure he wants to visit one. But Kati, having spent four years in Oregon as a student, says, "James, we really don't have the time." James Kim wins that argument, and they go off in search of wineries. Along the way, Mr. Kim uses a cellphone make a reservation at TuTuTun. The wineries of the North Willamette Valley are located between Wilsonville and Halsey, about 20 miles west of Interstate 5.
The Kims spend more time at the wineries than either of them had intended to, but especially more time than Kati had intended. It’s dusk by the time they got back on I-5 heading south, and it’s dark as they refuel in Halsey at 6 p.m. They haven’t even made it as far as Eugene; they’re a good five hours or more from Gold Beach, not including stops. Kati’s not happy when she calls the TuTuTun Lodge to tell them to leave a key by their door. "We’ll be lucky to be there by 1 a.m.," we can imagine her saying.
James replies, "Not to worry. Did you see that road from Grant's Pass? It goes straight there." They decide to take the route without studying the map; all they notice is the black line depicting the route, not lingering long enough to read the winter driving warning. We speculate that James Kim doesn’t worry about the caution from the employee against using the back roads, taking it to be an obligatory warning that doesn’t have to be taken too seriously. "I've been on the back roads from Eugene to Florence," Kati might have said. "This will be no different."
They have dinner in Roseburg, and when they get back onto I-5 at about 9:30 they ignore the turnoff to Hwy. 42. According to locals, the turnoff is well-marked and, if missed, can easily be reached by a short backtrack. Once they get to the wilderness route, Kati sees that it’s much more rugged and remote than the Eugene-Florence route she’d been imagining. "Damn it, James, we can't do this," she says, as snow falls hard along their route. "Let's just turn around and stop for the night along I-5. "
"The hell we will," James Kim replies. "We've prepaid $250 for the room. Not only that, but we've got to drive to Mendocino tomorrow and that one’s a real pain. 101 and Hwy. 1 twist and turn like crazy, and you go 15 miles an hour along a lot of it. Let’s just do this and get there."
As they pass the fourth sign located just past the logging road intersection, Mr. Kim says, "You're right, this is bad. I better turn around." At that point, having noticed how narrow the road was on the way up, Kati Kim replies, "If you turn around we could go over the edge. You’re going to have to back down."