The friends and family of a missing Idaho woman are asking for the public’s help locating her after she failed to return home from Buffalo, Wyoming, 10 days ago.
Laura Lane, 54, had been making the roughly 12-hour drive home to Nampa, Idaho, on June 2 when her digital trail seemingly disappeared near Signal Mountain in Grand Teton National Park.
Laura’s sister Grace Lane, daughter Jen Lane and best friend Angelina Ramirez say it’s not like her to go off the grid and not communicate with friends and family for any reason, especially while traveling.
All are worried that she may have been in a car accident or had other trouble while traveling through Teton County and have spent the past 10 days doing everything they can to find her.
Lane has officially been reported missing by the Nampa Police Department, though several other agencies have been involved in the search in Idaho and Wyoming.
Trail Goes Cold
Lane had been staying in Buffalo for the three weeks prior after dropping off a friend there. She had taken a brief leave of absence from her full-time job at Symms Fruit Ranch in Idaho during the slow season and picked up a temporary job at a Buffalo hotel to tide her over until her seasonal work resumed June 10.
Prior to heading home that Sunday, Lane had shared her Google password with Ramirez, who was able to access her Google account and follow her journey home via Google maps.
Before leaving Buffalo, Lane used last her Cash App on June 2 at 7:48 a.m. to fill up the gas tank of her 2013 red Dodge Dart. She also texted Ramirez to say that she thought she’d be home by 8 or 9 that night.
Just over two hours later, Ramirez tracked Lane stopping at the Fast Lane gas station in Shoshone at 10:19 a.m., where she rested for five minutes but did not buy anything.
She then arrived in Moran Junction in Teton County at 12:49 p.m., which is where Lane’s digital trail ends. After that point, nobody has seen or heard from the woman.
The next morning when Ramirez, who lives next to Lane, noticed that her friend wasn’t home, she immediately called police in Idaho and Wyoming when she didn’t answer her phone. Her GPS location remains in that same spot in Teton County while her phone continues to ring but goes straight to voicemail.
On June 8, the Nampa Police Department secured a warrant to ping Lane’s phone, which alerted off a tower near Signal Mountain in Grand Teton National Park, within a roughly 4-mile radius of Moran Junction.
Ramirez is adamant that her best friend would not just disappear without contacting her, even if she decided to go off the grid.
“I know everything about her,” Ramirez said. “There’s absolutely no way that she’d do anything without contacting me first.”
Further evidence in her mind that something’s very wrong is the fact that Laura has not yet picked up her pain medication at her home pharmacy, which she requires to function following a motorcycle crash a decade ago in which she broke her back and neck requiring metal vertebrae.
Navigating Jurisdictional Boundaries
Over the past 10 days since learning her sister is missing, Grace Lane has filled 18 pages of a notebook, documenting all of her various calls to and conversations with police agencies, state park rangers, hospitals, jails and anyone else she can think of to call.
By now, the dispatcher in Teton County, Lane’s last known location, knows her by first name, Grace said.
On a worry scale of 1 to 10, Grace ranks herself a 30.
“I'm having a panic attack,” she said. “I can’t help picturing my sister dangling upside down in her car somewhere.”
Lane’s case highlights the intricate nature of jurisdictional boundaries that come into play when reporting a person as missing.
Technically, Lane has been reported missing in Idaho, while the Buffalo Police Department took a report for a wellness check for an overdue motorist, said Erika McCarter, a dispatcher for the department.
McCarter said an officer checked her last known residence at the hotel in Buffalo and confirmed she had left town.
The Teton County Sheriff’s Office likewise was pulled in because Lane’s phone pinged last within the county, though there’s been no known sighting of her.
Sgt. Jesse Willcox of the Teton County Sheriff’s Office has checked the desolate area in which Laura’s phone last pinged without finding any trace of her or her vehicle. He likewise reported Laura’s information to both parks, but as of Wednesday, no sightings have been reported.
He cautioned about the accuracy of the GPS locator on Laura’s phone, which may be the result of a lack of internet service or being the last known location when her phone may have been turned off.
False Sightings?
Willcox also was informed by a Nampa PD officer June 5 that Laura’s license plate had been picked up by city license plate readers in several locations throughout Nampa and Caldwell, a neighboring city within the same county.
He was also told that Lane’s Dodge Dart had been located at a hotel in the Caldwell area, which Cowboy State Daily was unable to verify.
Both Nampa and Caldwell police declined to provide information, instead requiring Cowboy State Daily to submit a records request.
Ramirez made the drive to the hotel to confirm if her friend had been staying there. Both of them had resided in that location before, and it was the same address that Lane listed on her car registration.
She also spoke to the hotel owner, who she said knows Lane, and said that neither Lane nor her vehicle had been there.
Ramirez said that Laura has not stopped by her home since she left three weeks ago and believes the reported sightings of her license plate are not accurate.
Meanwhile, both Ramirez and her family believe that something has happened to Lane between her last sighting in Moran Junction, Wyoming, and Idaho, and they’re desperate to find her.
Laura is driving a red 2013 Dodge Dart with a baseball-sized dent and spiderweb cracking in the windshield. She’s described as having long auburn hair with a petite frame standing about 5 feet, 1 inch tall and weighing about 110 pounds. She also has a small unicorn or horse tattoo on her right ankle and scarring on her back from the motorcycle crash.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Teton County Sheriff’s Office at 307-733-2331 or Nampa Idaho Police Department at 208-465-2257.
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
