Rock Springs police and family of a missing Rock Springs woman are requesting the public’s help in locating her.
Searra Gentry, 20, who family says struggles with mental health and is considered to be endangered, was last seen around 2 p.m. Tuesday afternoon at the Greyhound bus station on Sunset Drive getting into a late-model, gray-primer colored pickup truck with an unknown male, according to Gentry’s aunt, Jessica Richter.
Rock Springs police say they have spoken to a Greyhound bus employee who reported Gentry leaving with the man but are waiting to receive surveillance video from the company as of late Wednesday to verify the sighting, police spokeswoman Elizabeth Coontz said.
Richter, who spoke to the Greyhound employee who also sold Gentry a bus ticket, said an older woman who felt sympathy for Gentry, had purchased her a bus ticket to Salt Lake City on Tuesday for $46.98.
Gentry has no money or cell phone with her, Richter said.
Gentry had told people that she wanted to go to her mother’s house in Prescott Valley, Arizona, and she was carrying four black trash bags full of her belongings and possibly also a suitcase, her aunt said.
Instead of boarding the bus, however, Gentry instead opted to willingly get into the pickup truck with the man.
Prior to leaving with Gentry, the man had reportedly tried to cash out the bus ticket to no avail, Richter said.
Richter said Gentry is very trusting of people and will willingly get into vehicles with strangers who are nice to her and might possibly hitchhike.
No confirmed sightings
The man is described as a Black male about 6-feet tall in his 20s or 30s who was wearing whitish blue jeans with a grey hoodie and beanie cap who is muscular and neat in appearance.
His pickup is described by witnesses as a “primer gray” late 1990s or early 2000 Chevy or GMC pickup.
It’s not believed that Gentry knew the man. She was seen earlier talking to the man at the McDonald's next to the bus stop, and he apparently followed her to the Greyhound station, Richter said based on her conversations with employees with both establishments.
Coontz said the department received three calls from people who claimed to have seen Gentry throughout Rock Springs on Wednesday but none of those have been confirmed.
She further said the police consider her missing and vulnerable and asks for the public’s help in locating her.
Family frantic
Richter said she and her family are very concerned and worried for Gentry’s safety and that she had been acting erratically lately and hadn’t been taking her medication as prescribed.
Though she has disappeared briefly in the past on occasion, Richter said, it’s not like her niece to leave and not be in touch with her family.
Richter and Gentry’s family are gravely concerned for her safety and ask anyone with information to contact Rock Springs police.
“She has family and friends who love and care for her deeply,” Richter said.
Gentry is likely wearing all-black clothing and a top hat, her aunt said.
She’s described as 5-feet, 4-inches tall and about 120 pounds with black hair and dark brown eyes.
Rock Springs police say Gentry “may be experiencing mental health challenges that increase her vulnerability and heighten concern for her safety.”
Anyone with information can call police at 307-362-6575 and reference case No. R25-23163.
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
