Parkland man missing since Saturday, last seen in Seattle

A Parkland man has been missing since Saturday after visiting a family member at the University of Washington in Seattle, according to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.

Young Gwang Hills, 22, was last seen about 6 a.m. as he left his cousin’s apartment on the UW campus, driving back toward his apartment, said Nancy Hahn, a spokeswoman for Federal Way-based Radio Hankook.

He did not arrive home and has not had contact with family or friends since.

“Right now, his being missing is really hard for his friends and family,” said a tearing up Jin Kim, Hills’ brother, through a translator. “It’s been a very sad experience for all of us so far.”

Kim, 30, flew up from Los Angeles to help search for his brother.

Hills is 6 feet 2, 185 pounds, with black hair, brown eyes and a sleeve tattoo on his lower left arm. He was last seen wearing a black sweatshirt, blue jeans and a black baseball cap.

His vehicle is a silver 2015 Nissan Pathfinder SUV with Washington license plate AZD4388.

Family friend Young An, 24, often drives Hills as a designated driver when they go to Seattle, but Hills wanted to stay out late with some of his soccer friends, An said.

The pair had met up with Hills’ friends at a Seattle bar that night, and Hills stayed out until about 3 a.m. before going to a Mexican restaurant in Seattle’s University District, where he got food with his cousin, An said. That was the last time Hills’ debit card was used.

An drove back to Tacoma about midnight because he had to work early Saturday.

Hahn said Hills called his ex-girlfriend, who lives in South Korea, at 6:40 a.m. Saturday and said he was lost and had taken a wrong exit, but didn’t say where he was.

When he failed to return home, his friends used a phone location app to find his phone, and registered a hit in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle about 6 a.m.

Hills’ phone came active one more time between noon and 1 p.m. Saturday in the same neighborhood.

An said he had never been to Georgetown, and that he can’t imagine Hills having ever been there before either.

Since Hills disappeared, there has been no activity on the cellphone, debit card, bank account or social media accounts.

Hills was supposed to play soccer with his friends Saturday night and told his parents he would spend time with them if the game was rained out.

An texted Hills about 3 p.m. and didn’t get a reply, which he said was unusual. Hills’ mom called, asking if he had seen him. They both wanted to wait a day before filing a missing persons report.

“We thought he was just at a friend’s house or something because he was up in Seattle,” An said. “Once Saturday night passed and Sunday morning came, that’s when we were like, OK, this guy hasn’t been on Facebook, he hasn’t been on Instagram, anything like that, social media, and that’s when we started getting worried.”

Hills moved to the United States in 2008 from South Korea and became a U.S. citizen, Hahn said.

Members of the Puget Sound Korean community will be forming a search party Friday morning in the Georgetown neighborhood in an effort to locate Hills.

Anyone with information about Hills’ whereabouts is asked to call the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department tip line at 800-222-TIPS (8477).

This story was originally published October 20, 2016 at 2:49 PM with the headline "Parkland man missing since Saturday, last seen in Seattle."