One of Wyoming’s most enduring mysteries has been the disappearance of a beautiful young woman in the mountains above Lander 28 years ago.
Amy Wroe Bechtel was back in the news this past week when there is renewed speculation that she was murdered by imprisoned killer Dale Eaton and perhaps is buried on property where he once lived.
I knew Amy well. She was an excellent photographer and our Lander newspaper used her pictures. It was heart-breaking for all of us when she disappeared so mysteriously back in 1997.
My Column About Amy
Following is a column that I wrote about her disappearance:
Amy Bechtel Went To The Mountains, And never came home again
There is this favorite alpine place that I like very much. It is in the mountains next to a lake in the midst of a huge national forest.
Over the past many decades, there have been many times when my job stress could get so bad, I just wanted to flee from the phones, and hassle of work. And that was when I would go to my favorite place. I visited it again this past summer and it was just as therapeutic as before.
It takes about 30 minutes to get there and I can wander around among the trees and clear my head. There is a big rounded rock that I call my “thinking rock” where I can relax and ponder all the things swirling around in my life.
Most of us who live next to the Wind River Mountains in west central Wyoming have a favorite place up there, too. It is either a campground, a riverbank, a mountain pass, or a boulder field. It is our personal place where we commune with nature. We can actually increase our personal energy levels by relaxing in these wonderful places. It is a place to recharge our souls.
Most people like to camp in these places. Others love to fish. Hiking and rock-climbing rank high as favorite activities. In the winter, some snowmobile or cross-country ski. And there are people who like to ride their horses in these places -- it is their special time away from the hustle and bustle of their busy daily lives.
Amy Wroe Bechtel understood this.
At the young age of 24, Amy loved to be outside. She was an accomplished photographer and a champion athlete. She loved going up to the mountains. On the day she disappeared, she was mapping out a track for a mountain road race she was planning.
There are joggers and there are runners. Anyone fortunate enough to have seen Amy run needed to do it quickly. She didn’t jog, she ran. It’s easy to imagine how good she must have felt racing along those two-track roads in the mountains with the warm Wyoming sun shining down and the wind blowing through her shoulder-length blond hair.
A Happy Jogger
There is an old observation that you never see a happy jogger. Well, Amy was a happy jogger. You can bet she was enjoying herself immensely on that Thursday, July 24, 1997, when she was running in the mountains above Lander.
But then something bad happened on that afternoon to Amy. She disappeared.
Actually, she didn’t disappear -- she is somewhere. It is just that family and authorities don’t know where she is now. She met with foul play. They think she was snatched and none of her family or friends knows what has happened to her. She was wrenched away from her normal surroundings.
The state of Wyoming and the Lander community responded in an extraordinary manner over the past years with hundreds of searchers and thousands of dollars being spent. Dozens of people suspended their normal lives to work full-time trying to figure out what happened to Amy.
Besides the dark cloud that descended over our community and most particularly over the family and friends of Amy, smaller individual clouds of doubt, fear and uncertainty have settled over many of us.
We lost more than Amy.
We lost our sense of security.
Mountains Are Not The Same
None of us will ever be able to go back to these mountains with the same secure feeling we had before. For we now know that, at least on the afternoon of Thursday, July 24, 1997, something evil was up there. Someone terrible was lurking and stalking one of our own. And it was successful in turning our community upside down.
Until some truth emerges about what happened to Amy, we will feel different about our beloved Wind River Mountains and our wonderful Loop Road area.
And personally, now when I go to my favorite place to get away from the hustle and bustle of my busy life, it is not the same.
I will be looking over my shoulder and I will maintain a level of vigilance that comes from knowing that bad things can happen in beautiful places like this.
Amy went to the mountains and didn’t come home again.
When that happened, we lost more than Amy -- we lost our innocence, too.
Bill Sniffin can be reached at: Bill@CowboyStateDaily.com
