Ariz. Professor Dies on Family Trip to Mexico

Her husband remains missing
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 29, 2022 2:20 AM CST
Arizona Professor Dies During Family Trip to Mexico
Stock photo.   (Getty Images / Natalya Bosyak)

A family kayaking trip turned unimaginably tragic last week, as confirmed Sunday when the body of an Arizona wife and mother was found. Her husband remains missing. Northern Arizona University professor Yeon-Su Kim had gone with her husband Corey Allen and their teenage daughter to Mexico for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. On Thursday, the trio went kayaking at a beach in Puerto Peñasco, a popular tourist resort area in the Gulf of California, the Washington Post reports. Then the weather turned deadly.

"Very strong winds came up," says a GoFundMe dedicated to the search effort. "Corey took his daughter to safety on-shore and went back out to help Yeon-Su. The strong winds and currents made their return to shore impossible," and neither was seen again after Allen returned to help his wife. A local fishing boat found Kim's body Sunday, CNN reports. Allen remains missing, and a search is ongoing. The couple's daughter is still in Mexico, according to the family friend running the GoFundMe. They also have a son, who is a freshman in college and was not in Mexico with them. "This is a family that is well known, much loved, and respected in Flagstaff,” the friend says. “It is a loss to the entire community." (More Arizona stories.)

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