DEASE LAKE, B.C. — Police in British Columbia say they are searching for a couple and their two young children after a car with Oregon licence plates was found near a highway in the community of Dease Lake.
RCMP Cpl. Madonna Saunderson says search and rescue personnel are doing ground and air searches and a police dog team is also in the area where a 2018 black Toyota Yaris is thought to have been abandoned on June 10.
Saunderson says police believe the family entered Canada at a border near Fernie a day earlier and that a sign left on the vehicle indicated the driver may have run out of gas.
However, she says in a news release that checks at nearby gas stations have produced no leads.
Saunderson says the people associated with the car are Jeffery Phan and Michelle Lesaca, both 24, along with their three-year-old daughter and two-year-old son.
She says Mounties have contacted police in Oregon and the family's relatives to learn that they checked in at the airport in Portland on May 25 with plans to travel to the Philippines but cancelled the ticket and did not board the plane.
