Women killed in Yosemite

A CAR USED by three tourists who drove into the Yosemite National Park in California a month ago and never returned was recovered yesterday with two bodies charred beyond recognition stuffed in the trunk.

The discovery appeared to confirm investigators' worst fears that the three tourists, all women, had fallen victim to violent crime in the celebrated park of mountains and dense forest in central California.

Carole Sund, her daughter Julie, 15, and a 16-year-old girl from Argentina, Silvina Pelosso, rented a car and drove down to Yosemite from Eureka in northern California in mid-February. They were last seen leaving a restaurant at the western end of the national park. Carole Sund's wallet was recovered, with the cash removed, in the central Californian town of Modesto on 19 February.

Investigators said the car appeared to have been ditched and burned the day after the three disappeared. It was found off a highway north-west of Yosemite, some 40 miles fromwhere the women were last seen. There was no word on thewhereabouts of a third body. Two men were being held in a county jail for questioning, but it was not clear if they were suspects.