David Louis Sneddon

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

U S State Department Chinese Public Security (BUREAU)

Missing From:

Shangri-La, Yunnan Province, China

Summary:

David Louis Sneddon was an American university student who disappeared after crossing through the Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan Province, China on 14 August 2004. The official position of the Chinese government is that Sneddon died after falling into the Jinsha River, which passes through Tiger Leaping Gorge. Over 12 years later, on August 31, 2016, the Abductee's Family Union of South Korea claimed that it had gathered intelligence demonstrating Sneddon had been abducted by North Korean agents and taken to North Korea where he became the personal English language tutor to Kim Jong-un.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

In the summer of 2004 he studied abroad in China at Beijing's University of International Relations to improve his Mandarin Chinese and prepare for graduation. He was 24 years old. After the summer course ended, Sneddon and Bailey traveled together for a few days in the Guangxi province before they separated on August 9 to follow different routes. He was last seen leaving a Korean restaurant in nearby Shangri-La, after which his passport and credit cards showed no activity. Zhang told the Sneddons that David stopped by for the last time around noon on August 14 to say goodbye; she assumed he was leaving Shangri-La. Sneddon, then 24, was last seen in August 14, 2004, in a Korean cafe in Shangri-La, a city in the Yunnan province of China, near the Myanmar border. He had just finished a hike at the Tiger Leaping Gorge, and told the owner of the cafe that he was making his way back to Qiaotou to pick up his bags from a youth hostel and continue his journey through China.

Additional Details:

He earned his Eagle Scout, attended Brigham Young University, and served as a full-time missionary in South Korea where he learned to speak Korean fluently. The youngest of eleven children, David grew up in Nebraska and enjoyed musicals, sports, and backpacking. A Brigham Young University student fluent in Mandarin and Korean from prior study and missionary service in South Korea, Sneddon was an experienced outdoorsman and Eagle Scout who had planned further travels and academic commitments following his hike. His father, Roy Sneddon, and two of his brothers started retracing David's steps and encountered multiple locals who recalled meeting him. A tour guide even said he had walked the entire gorge with Sneddon and seen him reach a youth hostel at the far end. After supposedly discovering evidence that Sneddon was abducted by the North Korean government, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously voted on September 28, 2016 to direct the U.S. State Department and all other intelligence agencies to reopen the investigations into Sneddon's whereabouts. The U.S. Senate passed a similar resolution by unanimous vote more than two years later on November 29, 2018. The National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea obtained Chinese security documents indicating that in August 2004, a 24-year-old American studying at a Chinese university was arrested in Yunnan province on charges of aiding illegal residents. According to the documents, China's authorities had released the American and he'd ended up in the hands of North Korean secret agents who were in the area, searching for defectors. Local news sites say that Sneddon is married to Kim Eun Hye in North Korea, with whom he has two children, and goes by the name of Yoon Bong Soo. North Korea has denied its involvement in Sneddon's disappearance.

Case Last Updated:

Jul 27, 2026