As people around the world were glued to the tragic story of Gabby Petito, there has been increased interest in other missing persons, including Lauren Cho.
Cho, a 30-year-old New Jersey woman, was last seen at 3 p.m.
June 28 by Cody Orell, a friend who she used to date and moved to California with over the winter, according to the Hi-Desert Star. She was wearing a yellow T-shirt and Jeans when she walked away from a tour bus they had crossed the country in. According to her friends, Cho didn’t have a phone, food or water with her.
“There was a 10-minute window there and she evaporated,” Orell said. He called police for help at 5:13 p.m. when he couldn’t find her.
Orell also called friends to help search for Cho.
Another friend, Jeff Frost, said Cho “expressed some wishes to self-harm before she left,” and was upset when she set off into the hills between the Yucca Valley and Morongo Valley from the area near Hoopa Road and Ben Mar Trail.
“That’s why we have the urgency trying to locate her,” Frost said in early July.
As of this week, Cho is still missing.
Before heading to the West Coast with Orell, Cho taught music to high schoolers in Irvington Township, N.J. She had a degree in music education from Westminster Choir College and was a talented soprano, her friends told the Hi-Desert Star. Back home, she was the section leader for a church choir.
However, Cho was dissatisfied with her job, said the outlet.
After meeting Orell on Memorial Day last year, she soon decided to quit her job and travel with him. They settled in the tiny artist town of Bombay Beach in December.
“Lauren wanted a different life. She wanted to move from the East Coast and taste freedom,” Orell said. “She quit her job and moved into the bus with me.”
Even though Frost said Cho expressed a desire to self-harm, her friend RJ Okay – another Bombay Beach community member – told the Hi-Desert Star that she had a dream for the future and could not see her walking away from her life.
“She was in the middle of working on her bus,” he said of her plans to make a food truck. “The day she went missing she texted me earlier asking for some help on it.”
Orell and Cho would work on her dream by hosting dinner parties and cooking for guests. Her friends, who often called her "El", raved about her vegan basil ice cream, Okay said. He also said she loved her Pork Chop, her pet parakeet and Orell said she had gotten work as a private chef for a nearby Airbnb.
In their search for Cho, her friends said they canvassed the hills for 24 hours and even headed to Thousand Palms, around an hour drive from Bombay Beach.
“I searched all in the hills and no tracks, anywhere,” Orell said. Law enforcement also couldn’t find tracks from Cho, he added.
Sgt. Scott Stafford with the Morongo Basin sheriff’s station said the sheriff’s helicopter and members of the search and rescue unit actively searched for Cho. Sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller told New Jersey media that there is no sign of foul play and Cho is considered voluntarily missing.
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Orell thinks she may have gotten into a vehicle with someone. He told the Hi-Desert Star that she had gone out with someone the day before she went missing, though he didn’t know who. Okay said he had recently had dinner with Cho and that she was dating.
Sheriff’s calls show others claimed to see her with a man at a restaurant in Yucca Valley.
As of Saturday, the Morongo Valley Sheriff was still looking for Cho.
The department announced on Tuesday that they are now working with investigators from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department's Specialized Investigations Division to find her.
Anyone who sees Cho, who is described as 5’3 Asian woman with black hair and brown eyes, is asked to immediately contact the sheriff's dispatch at (760) 956-5001 or Detective S. Ables at (760) 366-4175 and reference DR 092101115.
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