The family of a believes she is dead after searchers found a car with a body inside in rural Weld County.
A 2016 black Volkswagen Tiguan that Kaylee Russell, 20, was driving when she disappeared Nov. 30 was found about 2 p.m. Thursday off the east side of Colorado Boulevard near its intersection with Weld County Road 80, submerged in water in a canal, according to a Colorado State Patrol news release.
Divers who went in the water saw a body in the car, but officials will not identify the remains until the car is removed from the canal, the release stated.
However, family friend Josh Schweitzer, who was at the scene of the discovery, said Russell’s loved ones believe she is the person who was seen in the car.
Russell was last seen at 6 p.m. Nov. 30 near the Loveland/Johnstown Park-N-Ride, according to the alert.
The young woman was on her route as a package delivery driver on Saturday, accompanied by her father, Berthoud resident Richard Russell. She completed her route, and her father helped her fix a broken headlight and replace a tire on her vehicle with a spare. After finishing her deliveries for the day, she returned to the Loveland Park-N-Ride, where her father was parked, dropped him off and departed for a friend’s house in Pierce, in northern Weld County.
Her father called her cellphone shortly after, around 6:10 p.m., to ensure that her headlights were in working order and spoke with her briefly, the last contact anyone had with Russell before her disappearance.
Since then, family and friends, including her mother Rebecca Russell, who traveled from Kansas to help, had been searching for Kaylee Russell’s car along Weld County Road 13, the route her father recommended to get to her friend’s house, as well as parking lots throughout the region, including at Centerra, Medical Center of the Rockies and various hotels.
“I’m numb,” said Rebecca Russell, at the Loveland Park-N-Ride as search parties were organized and sent to various unsearched areas throughout the region before the car was found near Timnath. “Numb, and sometimes I break down crying. I’m scared. So, so scared.”
“Somebody had to see something,” she continued. “I don’t understand why nobody’s come forward with anything.”
Colorado State Patrol’s Vehicular Crimes Unit will investigate the crash, according to the news release. CSP troopers, CBI agents and Evans Police officers, who were leading the investigation into Kaylee Russell’s disappearance, responded to the scene of the crash Thursday to assist Larimer County Sheriff’s deputies, who found the submerged vehicle.
Russell’s father Richard was at a loss for words earlier Thursday, pacing about anxiously as he waited for a search party to be organized so that he could get back on the road looking for his daughter.
“I just don’t know,” he said. “I have no idea.”
