The older sister of a missing Casper man refuses to give up the search for her brother, who mysteriously vanished more than six years.
Jose Mendoza, who would now be 46, disappeared in early May 2019 following a trip to Utah to visit his mother. That was the last time any member of his family saw him alive.
About five months later, Mendoza’s burgundy Subaru Forester was found abandoned more than 400 miles away on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Fremont County in October 2019.
In the ensuing months and years since Mendoza went missing, his family has not heard from him, and there has been no activity on his cellphone or bank accounts.
His sister, Carmen Couch, wonders why more is not being done to find her brother and is making an impassioned plea to police to follow up on the evidence she’s uncovered through her own meticulous research, which she shared with police in 2024.
Couch, who lives in Arizona and is confined to a wheelchair, said the hardest thing when her brother went missing was not being able to physically get in a car and search for him.
Instead, she did the next best thing by trying to retrace his last steps through his bank transactions and calling those who last saw him as well as the investigators — both federal and state — who have had a hand in trying to find him.
What she’s uncovered in her mind suggests foul play and she fears someone had cause to harm him.
For its part, the Casper Police Department said it continues to actively investigate Mendoza’s disappearance, according to Rebekah Ladd, public information officer for the department.
“We recognize the emotional impact this ongoing uncertainty has on Mr. Mendoza’s family, loved ones, and our community,” Ladd said in an email. “Our detectives remain committed to pursuing every viable lead with diligence, compassion, and professionalism.”
That Weekend In May
Couch will be the first to admit that her brother is no angel in terms of his past skirmishes with the law.
In fact, when he disappeared, he had just been paroled and was living at the Hope House in Casper, a home for formerly incarcerated men and those in recovery, as he attempted to get his life back on track.
Family is important to Couch, who said her brother was regularly in touch with her, her daughter and his mother.
Mother’s Day was also a big deal to him, so he and a female friend made the trip to Scipio, Utah, to see his mother on May 2, 2019, one week before the holiday.
“He’d never miss not going to see her on Mother’s Day because her birthday is in June, so we kind of celebrated those together,” she said.
Mendoza and the friend spent the weekend at her house and left on Sunday, May 5, to head back to Casper.
Before leaving his mother’s house, Jose made one phone call to a male friend. His phone was then turned off about five minutes after he left and was never turned back on again, Couch said.
The next day, a Monday morning, staff at the Hope House called Couch’s mother to ask if Mendoza was still there because he hadn’t made it back yet.
This was when alarm bells went off for the family and they reported him missing, both in Casper and Utah.
Mendoza’s bank records suggest that he and his female passenger did make it back to Casper — or at least his bank card did — based on a gas purchase made at a local gas station around 6 p.m. Sunday evening.
Couch obtained Mendoza’s bank records following his disappearance, with the last three purchases, including the one in Casper, setting off some red flags for her.
Typically, Mendoza ran his card as a debit using his PIN number, Couch explained. However, the gas purchase in Casper was run as a credit transaction, as were the final two transactions made on his card the following day in Riverton, 122 miles away.
These two purchases were for less than $50 at a second gas station and a smoke shop in Riverton.
“Jose always used his PIN number,” Couch said. “All the other transactions on his statement were with PIN numbers except these last three.”
Could this mean that the purchases were made by someone else? Couch thinks so.
She went so far as to call the gas station in Riverton where the purchase was made to ask for video surveillance but was told she needed a warrant.
According to Couch, the woman offered a tangled account of their journey home that struck her as inconsistent.
Cowboy State Daily is not mentioning the name of Mendoza’s traveling companion because she has not been publicly implicated by police as a person of interest in connection with his disappearance.
The Casper Police Department declined to provide any information about who has been interviewed and whether they have identified any persons of interest to protect the integrity of the investigation, Ladd said, noting that it’s still very much an active case.
Abandoned Car
Another troubling clue for Couch is Mendoza’s car being found abandoned on the Wind River Indian Reservation six months later.
Couch said she was told by the federal agent at the time that the car appeared to have veered off the side of the road and was stuck in snow, so authorities had to wait until the weather cleared to get a tow truck to move it.
Oddly, the car was completely clean on the inside, which Couch said didn’t make sense for a car that had been stuck in the snow.
“Why was it clean?” Couch asked rhetorically. “If it had been stuck, it should have been full of mud and stuff.”
Carmen fears that the car had been dumped there by someone other than her brother.
He wouldn’t just leave his own car, she said. As an illustration, Couch told the story of how Mendoza had gotten caught in a snowstorm while driving his pickup in Utah and slid off the road and down into an embankment. He called his mom and dad for help, Couch said, but by the time they arrived he’d already pushed his truck back up onto the road.
“He would not leave his car,” Couch said, “and it wouldn’t (have) been so clean inside.”
Because Mendoza’s car was located on the Wind River Indian Reservation, the FBI assisted in the investigation, Ladd said, but again declined to provide details about the scope of the other agency’s role.
The abandoned car was the last known trace of Mendoza, and since then, there have been no indications of what might have happened to him as Couch and her family continue to search for answers.
Sister Not Giving Up
She hopes her brother is still alive but admits that there’s no way he would have gone this long without contacting his family, Couch said.
She and her brother were very close, she said. Sometimes he would call her upward of three to four times a day and would also regularly call her daughter and their mother.
“There wasn’t a day that he didn’t call one of us,” she said.
Mendoza was the youngest sibling, and as the oldest, Couch would often take care of her brother when their parents were working.
As an adult, it was her brother who was there for Couch after she was paralyzed following a surgery in 2009.
“Jose helped me a lot in and out of my wheelchair,” she said. “And it breaks my heart that he’s out there somewhere.”
It’s hard to keep the faith as time passes with no answers.
“I just wish our family could get some answers to actually know what actually happened and who did this,” she said. “Jose is missed and very loved.”
Not forgotten
Mendoza's disappearance also hit some in the community of Casper like Desirée Tinoco, executive director and founder of the nonprofit, Missing People of Wyoming.
Tinoco said it was Mendoza's disappearance and that of another local man who encouraged her to start the group after realizing someone from her community had vanished after seeing his missing person poster in a shop window. At the time, Wyoming lacked a statewide, public-facing missing person database, so Tinoco felt compelled to start a Facebook group to share Mendoza's missing person case as well as others.
Meanwhile, Mendoza’s case remains active, and the Casper Police Department is asking for help from the public.
“We strongly urge anyone with information, no matter how small it may seem, to come forward,” Ladd said. “Even the smallest detail could be meaningful and help bring resolution to this case.”
Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Casper Police Department at 307-235-8278.
Tips may also be submitted anonymously through Crime Stoppers of Central Wyoming at 307-577-8477 or at crimestopperscasper.org or on the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation’s website.
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
