Camillia Olson is glad to be home. After decades of being away from Wyoming, the 77-year-old moved back to her hometown of Pinedale in March. It’s a special place to her in many ways.
It’s where she grew up in a family deeply rooted in the ranching community — a place filled with fond memories and close friendships.
It’s also the place where she feels closest to her older sister, who disappeared on their grandfather’s ranch 62 years ago.
Lynn Dianne Olson, known as Dianne to those who knew her, was 16 when she vanished from the GP Bar guest ranch about 50 miles northwest of Pinedale.
She and her twin brother, Mike, had come from Utah to spend the summer working on the ranch. She had only been there for about a month when she disappeared on June 28, 1963.
Mike was the last person to see her walking over a footbridge at Green River Lakes on the ranch property.
Despite massive searches on foot, horseback, helicopters and by divers in the lake, Dianne was never found.
Now home more than six decades later, Camillia, who is the last living member of her immediate family, holds out hope that it’s never too late to find her sister’s remains.
She knows Dianne is no longer alive but feels a complicated sense of comfort in returning to her Wyoming home and the place where she disappeared.
“She was such a beautiful person,” Camillia said of Dianne. “We were best friends. I miss her to this day.”
Summer In Wyoming
The twins were excited to spend the summer on their grandparent’s ranch, Camillia said, while she and her other two siblings remained at home with their mother in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The kids grew up on a cattle ranch in Pinedale with their parents, Naomi and Perry, until their parents separated when Camillia was a teen and the kids went with their mother to Utah while Perry stayed behind.
Their grandfather, Stan Decker, ran the ranch that attracted guests from all over the world.
It was also a “magical” place for Camillia and their siblings, she said.
Camillia recalled the “luxurious wilderness” and the quaint dining room with beautiful, white tablecloths with real silver and the Unionville Railroad bell they rang for meals that also attracted two tiny, orphan bear cubs that would jump on the bell.
That summer, Dianne and Mike had been invited by their grandparents to work at the guest ranch.
“It seemed like the ideal thing,” Camillia said. “I always loved that ranch. It was such a lovely, gracious place to work.”
Last Sighting
It was a Friday evening around 6:30 that Mike said he last saw his sister walking over the footbridge at Green River Lakes, according to news reports at the time.
Law enforcement was immediately called in when she failed to turn up that evening, and dozens of volunteer searchers descended upon the property led by former Sublette County Sheriff Morris Horton.
Riders were dispatched on horseback up and down Big Sheep and Little Sheep mountains as bloodhounds sniffed along trails. Boats and divers searched the lake that was also dragged, according to an article in the Casper-Star Tribune.
No trace of Dianne was found during those initial searches, until a month later when her clothing was mysteriously found neatly folded on a rock about 200 yards from the edge of the lake in an area that had previously been searched.
Along with the clothing, authorities also found a partially written letter from Dianne to her boyfriend in Salt Lake City.
Sheriff Horton passed away in 2012 at age 92 after serving about 20 years and left no clues as to his insights into Dianne’s disappearance.
Reporting at the time, however, quotes Horton as saying that circulars and posters of Dianne were distributed throughout Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Colorado, but “nothing has developed from them.”
Horton also told reporters that it’s possible that Dianne changed her clothes near the lake to throw searchers off track, though acknowledged he doesn’t know why she’d do such a thing.
After her clothes were found, Horton ordered the lake dragged for a second time, but again, no further trace of Dianne was found.
Some theorized that Dianne may have gotten lost in the wilderness, which is an entry point to the Bridger Wilderness Area.
Big Fish
Documents in the original case file have disappeared or been misplaced over the years, but what’s left provides a lopsided glimpse into the investigation.
Contents in the file were shared with Cowboy State Daily by current Sublette County Sheriff K.C. Lehr, who has taken an interest in the case.
Though well before his time, Lehr was eager to help get the information out there because, like Camillia, he believes it’s never too late to get answers.
One report in the file documents efforts by the divers who searched the lakes for the missing teen.
The search was conducted by the Civil Defense Diving Team, then a state agency based in Cheyenne, according to Lehr.
Two teams of two men took turns diving, reaching depths up to 122 feet with a temperature as low as 48 degrees. The water visibility was “excellent,” according to the Aug. 6 report, with a white sand bottom.
Divers saw nothing other than extremely large fish.
Lehr remembers talking to a former deputy who was familiar with the search, who said one of the divers reported seeing a fish so large that it scared him.
Leads Go Nowhere
Meanwhile, investigators focused on tips that came in from surrounding states of alleged sightings of Dianne.
A Missouri woman reported seeing a girl who looked like Dianne at Mack’s Inn in Idaho. However, when authorities tracked the girl down, they learned she was runaway but not Dianne, according to case notes.
Another tip came in about a teenage boy “with a big boil on his face” who was spotted with a girl in a “blue sack dress” in Denver who was thought to be Dianne.
Again, authorities followed up to find the couple had just left Las Vegas and were looking for an empty box car to make the return trip home to New York.
Then there was a gas station attendant in Vernal, Utah, who reported seeing a girl who looked a lot like Dianne, traveling with two “very suspicious acting” men.
The attendant said the men didn’t buy any gas but asked to use the phone and wanted to know how far it was to Salt Lake City. The men let the girl use the restroom, but hovered by the door, grabbing her arm as she exited and telling her to hurry up because they needed to leave.
Other sightings were reported but none of them panned out. She was gone, never to be seen again.
A Mother’s Plea
Meanwhile, Dianne’s mother Naomi grew increasingly more worried and frustrated with what appears to be the sheriff’s unwillingness to call in federal agencies.
She had confidence in her daughter’s survival skills, which she shared with the sheriff in an Aug. 11 letter.
“Dianne has a strength of physical constitution and a certain general strength possibly unmatched by any female ever born. Truth!” Naomi wrote.
She further described Dianne’s patience and “lady-like quality” and her gentle spirit that she found unmatched in anyone.
Though she had faith in her daughter's capabilities, she also noted that was running out and urged the sheriff to call in for backup.
She had personally contacted the FBI and National Guard and asked the sheriff to reach out to the federal agencies for help.
“You just better call the Cheyenne National Guard and have them parallel foot-comb Bit Sheep and both sides of Little Sheep Mts area because one skinny, lost, hungry needing care and needing to be rescued 16-year-old modest girl can be found alive very, very possibly,” Naomi wrote.
She asked the sheriff to have canned milk and a wrap at the ready if she was found to give to Dianne.
No Help Sent
Despite Naomi’s pleas, letters in the file from federal agencies suggest that Sheriff Horton did not call them in.
An apologetic letter to Naomi dated July 18, 1963, from Major Gen. D.W. McGowan of the National Guard Bureau told her that the sheriff did not request their help, so they had no jurisdiction to send troops in.
“The Office of the State Adjutant General has advised that the Sheriff working on the case did not consider the use of National Guard troops necessary, but that they would have been made available had this help been desired by the civil law authorities concerned,” McGowan wrote.
Another letter in the file from then former FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, said his agency lacked jurisdiction. Hoover explained the search for Dianne fell outside of the purview of federal authorities.
Suspicion And Theories
In the absence of proof and evidence, theories emerged based on information that wasn't publicly reported at the time.
Camillia, who was 15 at the time of Dianne’s disappearance, remembers that her brother, Mike, told her that he had last seen Dianne running naked on the other side of the lake as if being chased by someone.
Mike didn’t like talking about what he saw, Camillia said, because she thinks he harbored guilt over not being able to save her that night.
“He knew something was wrong,” Camillia said, “and he knew he couldn’t catch up with her, so he ran to get his horse. The two were so close, and it was really hard on him.”
At the time, her parents tried to shield the other siblings from the grim reality of what likely happened to Dianne that night, but as an adult, Camillia now believes that her sister was being chased by a man who caught, raped and killed her.
She believes this man hid her body somewhere in the mountains.
Her father believed that it may have been a guest at the ranch, but there was no proof to tie the man to the crime.
Not Like Dianne
As to other theories, Camillia is adamant that Dianne would not have run off on her own or tried to hitchhike back to Salt Lake City or anywhere else as some suggested.
She’s also positive that she would not have tried to come home because she was missing her boyfriend. The two had just started dating, Camillia said, and it wasn’t serious.
Also, her sister was a straitlaced teen who didn’t get into trouble.
“She was just the sweetest, most beautiful girl that you can imagine,” Camillia said of her sister. “She was a devout, church going girl who didn’t smoke or curse. If you could put a little halo around somebody, she’d be that kind of girl.”
Nor does Camillia believe her sister got lost in the wilderness as was also proposed. They were ranch kids, Camillia said, and were comfortable outdoors. Plus, Dianne was athletic and knew her way in the wilderness, despite having poor eyesight.
She’s also convinced that someone other than Dianne came back later and put her clothes on that rock.
Pain Doesn’t Go Away
Dianne’s disappearance devastated their family, Camillia said.
Her parents never got over it. For nearly two years, her mother held out hope. She was convinced that Dianne had been kidnapped but would eventually fight off her captor and find her way home.
“It was the most distressing part of my parents’ life,” she said. “It was just a horrifying experience to lose a child and not know where, what and why it happened to her.”
The rest of the family was mired in grief but went on with their lives.
Camillia got married to a military man and lived all over the West before settling in Salt Lake City, where she worked as a genealogist in a family history library.
In recent years, she lost her husband and first-born son, which prompted her to move back home, where she now lives in an independent retirement community in town, surrounded by mountains. She feels comforted by her memories of her family and home.
“I just feel joy in these last few months in Pinedale,” she said.
She feels her sister smiling down on her from Heaven, she said, and who knows, maybe Dianne will even guide her in finally solving the mystery.
Recently, one of her close friends from childhood, loaded her up on a horse and led her up to the Green Lakes area where her sister was last seen.
“It was the most amazing thing,” Camillia said. “I felt right at home.”
Camillia hopes her sister’s remains will one day be discovered and believes it’s never too late to get answers.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Sublette County Sheriff’s Office at 307-367-4378.
Another Missing Teen
Dianne was not the only Wyoming teen to disappear in 1963. In February, Edward Eskridge, 16, disappeared after he and his 15-year-old brother, Richard, wrecked their car about 30 miles north of Green River.
Edward left his brother at the car and went for help and was never seen again.
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
