PORT ANGELES — The search continues for a Port Angeles woman who disappeared from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and an arrest warrant has been issued for her fiancé, Aaron Aung of Moscow, Idaho, for allegedly not returning his 2-year-old daughter to her birth mother.
Nadia Erika Cole, 21, has been missing since last week.
“The main thing is just try and find her, our daughter, and hope she’s safe,” said Kirk Cole, Nadia’s father, on Wednesday.
Cole said Nadia went missing at 3 p.m. May 29 as they and Nadia’s mother, Beata Cole, were preparing to board a flight to Italy for a three-week vacation to celebrate Nadia’s recent graduation from Washington State University.
“She left her phone, which I thought was odd, and her carry-on (a small backpack) and went to the bathroom and never returned,” Cole said.
Sea-Tac security footage showed her leaving the airport wearing a black North Face jacket, a sage or olive green hoodie sweater, black yoga pants and white Converse sneakers and carrying a tan-colored shoulder bag, he said.
Then she was last seen on security footage from Sound Transit about 4 p.m. May 29 getting off the light rail at Third Avenue and University Street in downtown Seattle and walking toward the waterfront.
Cole said her fiancé had just left for a five-day fishing trip in Montana and was supposed to return his 2-year-old daughter, Seraya, in a custody exchange on Monday, but that did not happen.
That’s when Aung’s parents reported him and the daughter as missing and the Pullman Police Department issued an arrest warrant for Aung for custodial interference, he said.
Aung and Nadia Cole became engaged last fall.
“We’ve done intensive interviews with the FBI (Tuesday),” Kirk Cole said. “Because of the baby, it’s a child custody issue. We’re assuming they are related, but we don’t know for sure. But I’m a doctor and I don’t believe in coincidences. The FBI is treating them as two separate issues. It’s just been crickets.”
Anyone with information about Cole’s whereabouts is asked to call Port of Seattle Police, which is leading the investigation, at 206-787-5401. No piece of information is insignificant.
Anyone with information about Seraya’s location should contact the Pullman Police Department at 509-334-0802 or reach out to their local law enforcement agency.
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Reporter Brian Gawley can be reached by email at brian.gawley@peninsuladailynews.com.
