NY grandparents who vanished on religious trip found dead in embankment

A family of upstate New York grandparents who went missing while on a religious road trip were found dead next to their car in West Virginia on Saturday, police said on Saturday.

The four elderly relatives, identified by authorities as Dr. Kishore Divan, 89, Asha Divan, 85, Shailesh Divan, 86, and Gita Divan, 84, were on a road trip from Buffalo to the Palace of Gold, a historic Hindu site in Marshall County, West Virginia, when they disappeared Tuesday.

They were found dead next to their wrecked Toyota Camry along Big Wheeling Creek Road on Saturday, the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook.

Sheriff Mike Dougherty said their bodies were found along a steep embankment around 9:30 p.m.

“First responders were on the scene for more than five hours,” he said. “Sheriff Dougherty extends his condolences to the families of the victims.

The group was last seen around 2:45 p.m. Tuesday when their license plate was detected by a Pennsylvania state trooper while they traveled on I-79, WTOL-TV News reported.

It is unclear exactly how the four, who are all of Indian descent, are related.

According to the Hindustan Times, they had booked a room at the religious retreat for Tuesday night but never arrived — with their last known stop a Burger King in Pennsylvania.

Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold in Moundsville was erected in the 1970s by the followers of Srila Prabhupada, a spiritual leader from India who spread the teachings of Hare Krishna before his death in 1977. It remains a historic Hindu retreat.