Law enforcement on the Wind River Indian Reservation is investigating the case of a person found dead in the region Monday.
The daughter of a man who has been missing since at least December told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday she’d received a tentative confirmation the decedent is her long-missing dad, Rex Allen Lofts.
Lofts, 72, has been on the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation’s missing persons’ database for months. The agency reported he was last seen Dec. 14.
DCI confirmed Tuesday to Cowboy State Daily that it no longer considers Lofts a missing person, but declined to venture additional details since it is not running the investigation.
Scanner traffic from Monday afternoon broadcast the exchanges of multiple Wind River Police Department agents in a rural location, investigating the discovery of a truck. One officer said the reporting party had reported finding a person dead in the truck, and that the truck had been shot.
Lofts' daughter Kodie Olsen told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that she'd spoken with the Fremont County coroner and learned the decedent may be Lofts. As of Tuesday afternoon, Olsen said she was still waiting for official confirmation.
Fremont County Coroner Erin Ivie did not return a Cowboy State Daily voicemail by publication time.
The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office call log from Tuesday says the coroner responded to a “suspicious” call at 4:49 p.m. Monday.
Olsen said she’s not sure why DCI reported Lofts last seen Dec. 14. A Fremont County Sheriff’s Office detective had a report of someone seeing Lofts around the first of December in a Walmart.
Olsen said she doubts the veracity of this sighting too, since the person who’d reportedly seen Lofts at Walmart related that he talked about going to visit his daughter in California.
Neither of Lofts’ daughters lives in California, Olsen noted.
Most recently, Lofts had been swapping items with people on the Wind River Indian Reservation, his daughter said.
“Like (with) horses, and he was picking up old dumpy campers and converting them into garbage trailers — that kind of thing,” said Olsen. She said Lofts would strip a camper down to its axles and turn it into a trailer to sell.
Fremont County Sheriff’s personnel told Olsen that ping data showed the last time Lofts used his phone was on the reservation in November, Olsen said.
Olsen said the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office, after some urging, listed her dad as missing in January.
Lofts was a “jack of all trades,” and Olsen said she doubted any mechanical failure of his truck would have led to him being stranded and dying in the elements.
The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) which runs the Wind River Police Department and is known for its reticence, sent a terse email Tuesday in response to Cowboy State Daily inquiries:
“BIA officers from Wind River Agency and an agent from the BIA MMU (Missing and Murdered Unit) are working with the FBI to identify and investigate the unattended death of a person on the Wind River Indian Reservation,” says the email, adding, “No additional information at this time.”
The FBI deferred to the BIA as the case "lead."
Odd Gossip
Odd, third-hand gossip reached Olsen in February. She said Lofts’ former employer relayed to others a rumor that Lofts’ body was found north of the dump in Fort Washakie.
Authorities told Olsen they had no evidence of that, she recalled.
The former employer, the elder George Coen, told Cowboy State Daily he heard “several stories” about Lofts being found above the dump, but figured “there was nothing to it” since no news outlet had reported that.
Coen, who lives near the border of Riverton and the Wind River Indian Reservation, recalled Lofts as a difficult employee whom he had to let go, but said he wished the man was found.
Coen said he had plans in late November to trade for a one-ton truck that Lofts had.
“I seen him again two weeks later pulling a trailer out there; he waved, but he was in a hurry and didn’t get a chance to talk,” Coen recalled.
Most recently, said Coen, Lofts had been living in his camper in the Delfelder neighborhood north of Riverton.
“I’ve had 100 people ask me if I have any idea where Rex is,” said Coen. “He was a grown man, and he lived in a different world (culturally) than I do.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
