SAN DIEGO — The search for an Ocean Beach woman continues Thursday after detectives found her abandoned car in a remote area in Arizona.
Chelsea Grimm, 32, was last seen nearly two weeks ago near Flagstaff. Grimm moved from the east coast to OB in 2020. Days before she went missing, she had contact with an Arizona police officer.
CBS 8 requested the body camera video taken from a Williams Arizona police officer days before she went missing.
In the video the officer asks if she is ok.
“Yeah, doing a photoshoot of lost soldiers and got emotional so wanted to stop crying before I got on the road,” said Grimm.
The officer says he was responding to a call about suspicious activity at the Williams Cemetery where he found Grimm and her pet bearded dragon, Rozy, inside her 2019 Ford Escape SUV. She told the officer she was emotional after taking pictures of veteran’s graves.
“I appreciate your compassion,” said Grimm on the video.
A week later on October 5, Coconino County Sheriff's deputies were called to Road 6, a remote dirt road west of Flagstaff near Ashfork, Arizona. They found Grimm's abandoned SUV in the middle of a road that's often used by hunters and woodcutters.
Her car was locked, her clothes were inside and two tires were flat.
Sheriff Jim Driscoll says her disappearance is suspicious because they didn’t receive a call from anyone about car trouble and say foul play is a possibility.
“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,” said Driscoll.
Driscoll says Grimm’s family reported her missing on October 4, after she left San Diego for a wedding in Connecticut and said she was stopping to camp in Arizona.
“It’s unlike her, she over communicates,” said Janet Grimm, Chelsea’s mother.
The sheriff says they traced Grimm’s steps back to September 27 when she met with a friend in Phoenix. The following day she cancelled a lunch with that friend.
Later that day she was reported to be disoriented when she tried to book a motel in Seligman, which is near Williams.
“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,” said Driscoll.
On September 28, Grimm spoke to a Williams neighbor in their driveway. That was the same night Williams police contacted her.
Driscoll says her phone and credit card activity also stopped.
Detectives say Thursday morning they spoke with a woodcutter who told them he saw Grimm's car on that dirt road on September 30 and stopped to talk to her where she was in a nearby field.
“[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,” said Driscoll.
The sheriff says they have hundreds of search team members in the air and on the ground looking for Grimm.
Her family is pleading she is found safe.
“It’s agonizing and heart wrenching,” said Stephen Grimm, Chelsea’s father.
The body camera video is nine minutes long. In it, the officer asks Grimm if she uses marijuana. She admitted to smoking it hours before. Police say the patrol officer didn’t feel she was disoriented and safe to drive. Her car registration was about to expire, and he warned her to update it.
Driscoll says ex-boyfriends have been ruled out in her disappearance. The sheriff also says her family told them she struggled sometimes with mental health but nothing definitive.
If you have any information about Chelsea Grimm and her disappearance call Coconino County Sheriff at 1-800-338-7888.
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