A Jackson, Wyoming, hotel worker missing since September has been located safely in another state, the Jackson Police Department announced Friday.
Braigene Marcel Collins, 30, of Pennsylvania, was reported missing Sept. 14 by her employer at the 49’er Inn & Suites in Jackson after she failed to show up for her shift as a guest service agent for the past year. Collins had worked at the hotel for the past year.
“One of our detectives spoke with her on the phone and she is no longer considered a missing person,” the Jackson police reported Friday.
Jackson Police Detective Heidi Schmidl did not return a request for comment, though in an earlier interview told Cowboy State Daily that she was in the process of attempting to secure a warrant to ping Collins’ cellphone.
The police did not specify where Collins was located, though she has a history of working in resort towns throughout the West, Schmidl said.
Didn’t Show Up
Collins had initially been reported missing by the hotel manager, Kirsten Eubank, when she didn’t report for her shift or notify staff.
Eubank said that Collins had a history of calling in sick to work, but that she was always responsive in the past and would always contact someone to say she wouldn't be in to work that day.
Eubank began to get concerned after Collins still had not responded for three days, so she and staff did a welfare check on Collins in her employer-provided on-site housing, but Collins wasn’t there. Also gone were her phone and wallet.
Left behind were some personal items, including water bottles that Collins was known to use on shift, a journal of creative writing as well as clothing packed in plastic bags on the floor.
Collins did not own a vehicle, and Eubank was concerned for her safety and notified police.
According to Eubank, Collins was very private and didn’t divulge any details of her personal life, which made her whereabouts even harder to chase.
Collins is apparently also estranged from her family in Pennsylvania, Schmidl said in an earlier interview.
The Jackson Police thanked everyone who helped in the search.
Braigene Marcel Collins (Courtesy Photo) 
Braigene Collins (Photo by Latham Jenkins via Flickr)
Others Still Missing
With Collins having been found, there are now still two people listed as missing from Teton County, according to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation’s missing person database
One of those people is 42-year-old James Daniels Jr. Daniels had been living in Teton County but disappeared in Arizona in 2021 while helping a friend move from Nevada to Mississippi, according to the Charley Project, a nonprofit missing person site.
Daniels had been driving in a separate vehicle when one of the vehicles got a flat tire between Kingman and Wickenburg, Arizona, and the friend went to Wickenburg to get help and Daniels remained behind with his dog, Penny, according to information from the Charley Project.
Four witnesses reporting seeing a disoriented Daniels on the side of the road on U.S. Highway 93 in Yavapai County, Arizona, between 3 and 4 a.m. on Aug. 22, 2021.
The Charley Project further reports that by the time an Arizona State Trooper arrived on scene, Daniels was gone and the trooper witnessed Penny running off into the desert.
Also missing from Teton County is Katherine Schupp Major, who was last seen leaving her hotel in September 2009.
Major, then 53, was known to suffer from bi-polar disorder and was last seen leaving the Four Seasons Resort in Teton Village where she left behind several belongings, including her purse.
Anyone with information on either of these missing people is asked to contact the Teton County Sheriff at 307-773-2332 or DCI at 307-777-7181.
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
