Chelsea Grimm, a California woman who vanished during a cross-country trip appeared disoriented at an Arizona hotel earlier this month, according to what a witness told police.
A witness described 33-yer-old Grimm as “confused” at a hotel in Seligman, after she called her parents about abandoning her cross-country trip to a Connecticut wedding and returning to California instead.
On September 27, Grimm contacted her parents and canceled the trip, telling her parents that she would be camping a few days in Arizona before returning to Ocean Beach, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
“I just don’t think I can do this by myself,” she told her parents.
Sheriff Jim Driscoll said Grimm canceled lunch plans with a friend on September 27, that she had planned to meet on September 28, CBS 8 reports. Later that day, the witness saw her at the Seligman hotel.
“We were told by one individual that she seemed confused when she was in Seligman. She was trying to exchange euros as opposed to US currency,” Driscoll told CBS8.
On September 28, an officer spoke to Grimm at a cemetery in Williams, Arizona, following a call about a woman acting suspicious. Grimm reportedly told the officer that she became emotional while working on a photo project concerning missing soldiers, adding that she planned to sleep in her vehicle, a white Ford Escape, that night.
“I just was doing a photo shoot of the lost soldiers and got a little emotional, so I was crying before I got back on the road,” Grimm told the officer, according to police body cam footage obtained by azfamily.com.
On September 30, a wood cutter reported seeing Grimm while she camped overnight in her SUV in Ashfork, Arizona. He reportedly said the she appeared to be fine.
“[He] talked to her around noon. And said she was fine and said she didn’t need any help. And she was out taking photographs,” Driscoll said.
When her parents didn’t hear from her for several days, they called the Phoenix Police Department and reported her missing on October 4. On October 5, a hunter found her abandoned vehicle on a forest service road near Ashfork in the Kaibab National Forest.
“It’s unlike her, she over communicates,” Grimm’s mother, Janet, said.
Police said they didn’t find Grimm or the bearded dragon in the SUV, and noted that her wallet, sleeping bag and some clothes were missing. He car was locked, police said, with two flat tires and her camera locked inside the vehicle.
There has been no activity on her cellphone or debit card since her disappearance, police said.
“The magnitude of this adventure, … of driving across the country was a lot for Chelsea. We gave her a bunch of options,” her father, Stephen, previously told NewsNation.
Grimm is described as a white female who stands 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs around 135 pounds. She has brown hair and green eyes. Janet added that Grimm has a vine with leaves tattoo on her left arm.
Investigators are trying to determine if she left with someone in another vehicle or hiked away.
“We focus on both the person who is potentially lost or that there’s foul play, or that they chose voluntarily to get a ride,” Driscoll said, adding that they didn’t receive a call regarding car trouble.
Anyone with information on Grimm’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office at (928) 774-4523.
Check back for updates.
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[Feature Photo: Chelsea Grimm/Coconino County Sheriff’s Office]
