Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series on the infamous "Rawlins Rodeo Murders." Part one was published Saturday and focused on the disappearances of four young girls that remain unsolved 52 years later.
In the early 1970s, the small, rugged city of Rawlins, Wyoming, was in the dawn of an energy boom.
The summer of 1974 arrived like any other, but then between July and August, four girls vanished.
Two of then — 10-year-old Jaylene Banker and 19-year-old Christine “Christy” Gross — were eventually found dead.
The other two teens, 19-year-old Carlene Brown and 15-year-old Deborah Meyer, were never found at all.
All their murders and disappearances remain unsolved, and more than 50 years later law enforcement has yet to publicly named any suspects or persons of interest.
Carbon County Sheriff Alex Bakken, who wasn’t born at the time the murders took place, admits that his knowledge is limited on the cases. He took over as sheriff four years ago and inherited these among other cold cases.
He said the files are securely stowed in an offsite storage facility that he plans to retrieve.
His office, like other cash-strapped agencies throughout the state with large jurisdictions and limited staff, is “slowly but surely” working to digitize older case files in accordance with state statute passed in 2024.
It requires agencies to report cold cases dating back to January 1972 to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation’s Cold Case Database.
To date, only Banker appears in the database.
This work is being done around their current workload, Bakken said, but it doesn’t mean that they’re forgotten, he said.
Retired homicide detective and Powell-based cold case investigator Janet Franson likewise believes there’s still work to be done.
She’s been looking into these cases for 25 years, specifically trying to locate the remains of the missing girls.
“I know people would say it’s so old,” Franson told Cowboy State Daily. “But two girls are still missing and need to be found.”
Christine “Christy” Gross disappeared from the Little Britches Rodeo on July 4, 1974. The 19-year-old had been visiting Rawlins from South Dakota, and vanished with friend, Carlene Brown. Her body was found nine years later, and to date, her murder remains unsolved. (Find a Grave) 
Carlene Brown, 19, disappeared from the Little Britches Rodeo in Rawlins on July 4, 1974. She was one of four girls who went missing within two months that summer, and her remains have yet to be found. (Find a Grave) 
Royal Russell Long abducted Sharon Baldeagle, 12, along with another teenager. The second teen escaped and called for help. Long fled with Baldeagle. She has not been seen or heard from since. 
Deborah Meyer, 15, disappeared on her way to the movie theater in downtown Rawlins on Aug. 4, 1974. She was never seen or heard from again. Right, an age progressing photo from around 2012 of what Meyer might look like at age 53. (The Charley Project)
Possible Suspects?
The first two teens vanished on July 4, 1974, which was a big year for Rawlins.
Fireworks were returning to the town’s Fourth of July celebration after being absent for several years, according to local reporting at the time.
Two friends, 19-year-olds Carlene Brown and Christine “Christy” Gross, attended the Little Britches Rodeo, a local favorite annual event. Gross had been visiting from Bowdle, South Dakota.
Details surrounding their disappearances are vague, but former Carbon County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Faycosh reported that their van was found parked at the fairgrounds, according to a November 1983 Casper-Star Tribune story.
Gross’s remains were found nine years later near Sinclair, a small town of around 350 residents located about 6 miles from Rawlins along Interstate 80.
At the time, Faycosh said his office had turned up a “few new leads” from the crime scene and indicated that a suspect had been identified after looking at “all possible suspects,” according to local media reports.
He further stated that his office was in the process of attempting to locate the suspect, who he declined to name.
Faycosh also said that he hadn’t given up hope of finding Brown.
“You spend nine years sweating a case like this and you think you are at a dead end. Then you get a new lead,” he told a Rawlins Daily Times reporter in a November 1983 article.
Many believe that Royal Russell Long is a viable suspect in the "Rawlins Rodeo Murders." Long served time and died in a Wyoming prison after abducting two girls at gunpoint and raping them, one of whom has never been found. (Find a Grave) 
Many believe that Royal Russell Long is a viable suspect in the "Rawlins Rodeo Murders." Long served time and died in a Wyoming prison after abducting two girls at gunpoint and raping them, one of whom has never been found. (Find a Grave) 
Likely Not Bundy
It’s not clear what “suspect” Faycosh was referring to or if any suspects have ever been publicly named.
Many in the community, including Brown’s longtime friend Mary Kay Albrechtson, believe that notorious serial killer Theodore “Ted” Bundy may be responsible for the murders.
However, former Carbon County Sheriff Chuck Ogburn dispelled that speculation, telling reporters that his office had looked into Bundy, but he’d been incarcerated in Colorado when Gross and Brown vanished.
That timeline, however, appears to be off, according to public records released by the FBI that say Bundy was not arrested in Utah until August 1975, when he was taken into custody for kidnapping and assaulting a teenager in that state.
He faced additional murder charges in Colorado and was moved to an Aspen jail in January 1977.
Bundy later escaped from the jail in June 1977 from a second-story window while using the jailhouse law library but was captured five days later.
Authorities believe Bundy’s killing spree began in 1974, as he confessed before his 1989 execution to the murders of more than 30 women and young girls.
In July 1974, however, it’s likely that Bundy was still in Washington state, where he abducted and killed Janice Ott and Denise Naslund from Lake Sammamish on July 14, 1974.
Bundy may have been in the Rawlins area, however, when Meyer and Banker disappeared in August — the same month he relocated to Salt Lake City to begin law school and continue his prolific killing spree.
He’s thought to have killed at least eight young women during his time in Utah. His latest victim there was 17-year-old Laura Ann Aime, which the Utah County Sheriff’s Office solved in April after 52 years.
This discovery also allowed authorities for the first time to upload Bundy’s full DNA profile with more murders expected to be linked to the notorious serial killer.
He’s known to have killed victims in at least seven states — including Utah, Idaho and Colorado — but so far, Bundy has not been tied to any murders in Wyoming.
Serial killer Ted Bundy. (Getty Images) 
A Utah booking photo of Ted Bundy. (Getty Images) 
An FBI wanted poster for Ted Bundy, left, and his reaction to being given the death penalty. (Getty Images)
Tracking A Suspected Murderer
A more likely suspect for some is Royal Russell Long, said Janet Franson.
“I’d put my money on this guy,” Franson said.
Franson, a retired Lakeland, Florida, homicide detective now living in Powell, has been studying Long’s connections to the Rawlins murders since 2001.
After retiring from the Lakeland Police Department, Franson continued investigating cold cases.
She worked as a volunteer cold case investigator for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and later for the Human Identification Lab at the University of North Texas.
It was this work that sent her to Wyoming and other states to investigate cases and procure DNA from victims’ families for identification.
Long’s name popped up a lot in her investigation into Brown’s disappearance.
He was a long-haul trucker known to carry equipment to carnivals and fairs. In 1984, Long was arrested for kidnapping and raping two teen girls.
The girls had been hitchhiking when they were abducted by Long, who tied them up at gunpoint and took them to his home in Evansville, Wyoming.
The 15-year-old was able to escape and call for help, but Long fled with 12-year-old Sharon Baldeagle.
Long was eventually caught in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Baldeagle was not with him, however, and remains missing to this day.
Predilection For Pairs
Long has never been charged with murder. He pleaded guilty to the two counts of kidnapping and received two life sentences, according to legal documents.
He was also charged with the kidnapping and murder of two 13-year-old girls whom he’d abducted from the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds in September 1981.
Despite having several witnesses that recognized Long as well as hairs of one of the girls in the trunk of his car, authorities were unable to make the charges stick.
Long died in a Wyoming prison of a heart attack in 1993, taking his secrets to his grave.
Though never charged, Long is suspected of multiple rapes and murders across many states, Franson said.
She firmly believes that not only did he murder Baldeagle and dispose of her body, but he’s also responsible for the deaths of all four Rawlins victims.
Franson notes the similarities of the abductions and Long’s predilection for taking victims in pairs, which is rare, she said.
Though there’s no record of address that Cowboy State Daily could locate, Franson was told by a local she interviewed years ago that Long had been staying in Rawlins at the time of the murders at a residence within blocks of the fairgrounds.
Long, who is originally from Indiana, has a long rap sheet dating back to the early 1950s when he was still in his late teens.
This includes a charge for assault with a deadly weapon in Reading, California, in 1952, and also escaping from jail, forged checks and burglary, among other charges, according to a criminal record shared with Cowboy State Daily.
Franson believes Long escalated to murder, and that the Wyoming incarceration was preceded by a trail of victims.
Long was considered a suspect but not the “only viable” one, said Ryan Cox, commander and head of cold cases for the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI).
He did not share information about additional suspects or whether there is any DNA or any evidence still on file.
Finding Brown’s Family
With justice for the “Rawlins Rodeo Murder” victims is likely not possible at this point, Franson thinks the next best thing is finding the remains of Brown and Meyer.
Meyer’s DNA is in the national database, so she can be identified should her remains be found.
Brown, however, is a different story.
She and her brother Rick Brown were adopted by Carl Brown and Catherine T. Gutsch, who split up when the kids were teens.
Carl remained in Rawlins while Gutsch moved to Colorado.
Both Brown’s adopted parents and brother are now deceased, so Franson has taken it upon herself to attempt to track down Brown’s biological parents or family to procure a DNA sample from them.
She’s been trying for years in vain to track this information down.
A spark of hope came this spring when Sheriff Bakken was able to get Brown’s birth certificate from the Colorado Department of Vital Services. However, the birth certificate contained the names of her adopted, not biological, parents.
Franson said she’d never seen that before nor did the genealogists with whom she consulted on Brown’s case.
Now, it’s back to the drawing board with Bakken in the process of seeing if he can attain an amended or earlier birth record.
Anyone who might know Brown’s biological family or have information about her birth is asked to contact Sheriff Bakken at the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office.
For now, both Bakken and Franson will continue to try to piece together the mystery while keeping the girls’ names alive.
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
