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By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
A body was found at this rocky shoreline at the west end
of Bellows Air Station yesterday. Though police could not
confirm, they are fairly sure that it is the woman reported
missing last week at Lanikai Beach, less than a mile away.

Body believed
to be missing
woman visitor

An autopsy was performed
today to determine if the
victim was Ming Fang Lee

By Rod Ohira
Star-Bulletin

An autopsy was performed today on the partial remains of a badly decomposed body recovered in waters off Bellows Air Force Station.

The medical examiner plans to use dental records or DNA tests to identify the body and skull, which by preliminary indications appears to be 32-year-old Ming Fang Lee.

Ming Fang Lee
The Taiwan native, a resident

of New York, told a friend she

was going to the beach May 15.

Joseph Self, of the police missing persons unit, said the body had a swimsuit on, similar to the one that Lee was reportedly wearing when she disappeared nine days ago.

The body found yesterday was about a mile away from the beach in Lanikai where Lee left her towel and other personal items.

Lee, a resident of New York and native of Taiwan, had been in Honolulu for a few months and was staying at a friend's Lanikai home for the weekend when she disappeared.

She was last seen the afternoon of May 15 when she told her friend she was going to the beach.

She was reported missing that night when she didn't return.

Dozens of firefighters, police and state land officers conducted an extensive land, air and water search for three days.

During the search, fire Capt. Richard Soo noted that currents could have swept a body toward Bellows. Searches in that direction last week turned up nothing.

Detectives said that Lee was "an inexperienced swimmer."

The body was recovered at Bellows Recreation Center beach near the end of Tinker Road.

Two enlisted people spotted the body offshore about 11 a.m., Soo said. "The tide was bringing it in," he added.

By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Workers remove the body from the beach.

A fire company from Kaaawa, which was standing by to assist in a Waimanalo brush fight, was dispatched to Bellows to recover the body at about 12:30 p.m.

The floating body became wedged between rocks and was retrieved about 10 feet from the shoreline in waters 3-1/2 to 4 feet deep.

"It appears to have been in the water for several days," Soo said.