For a week, Lizzy Barrett’s parents had no idea where their 17-year-old daughter was.
On Tuesday evening, they finally got the call they had been waiting for.
Lizzy had been found safe — reportedly curled up beneath piles of clothing in a tiny cubbyhole in the loft of a shed in Lander.
By 5 p.m., her parents were picking her up from the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office.
“She was OK,” her mother, Shara Barrett, told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday.
And after a week away from home, Lizzy had one ordinary request.
“She just wanted to shower,” Barrett said.
Missing Person Tip
The discovery ended a weeklong search that began Sept. 8, when Lizzy reportedly climbed out her bedroom window at the family’s Pavillion home sometime during the night.
She took clothes and a maroon-and-white L.L.Bean hiking backpack but left behind her active cellphone — the phone her parents knew about and could use to keep in contact with her, said her father, Charles "CJ" Barrett.
Her parents believed she might have taken two older phones that no longer had active service.
The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation listed Lizzy as missing, her photograph spread across social media, and her parents pleaded for information about where their daughter had gone.
On Monday, Fremont County Undersheriff Mike Hutchinson told Cowboy State Daily detectives were “still actively searching.”
While Hutchinson said there is always potential danger when a juvenile is out on their own, investigators at that point had found nothing suggesting Lizzy was in immediate danger or that the case was anything other than a runaway.
The break in the case came Tuesday, Shara Barrett said, after someone who knew where Lizzy was saw the missing-person posts circulating on Facebook.
Barrett said Lizzy had been staying in a shed behind a home in Lander with her boyfriend.
The friend contacted the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office and told Detective Sarah Lowe where investigators should look, Barrett said.
The tipster reportedly described a tiny cubbyhole in the loft of a shed where Lizzy could conceal herself beneath piles of clothing.
Barrett said Sgt. Scott Gardner managed to get into the cramped space and began poking through the clothing.
Lizzy came out.
The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office announced at about 5:20 p.m. Tuesday that the missing teenager had been located and was safe.
Found In A Shed
Barrett said the family has since learned Lizzy was picked up near a bar parking lot in Pavillion after leaving home.
She was taken to the Lander property, where Barrett said she spent the following days in the shed.
Barrett said the boyfriend brought Lizzy food and drinks and gave her his phone to use while she was there.
She also said investigators had been to the shed while searching for Lizzy but hadn't found her until receiving the tip describing exactly where she could be hiding.
Barrett said the boyfriend apparently told others that Lizzy had her parents' permission to leave home and stay with him.
After Lizzy was found, she was taken to the sheriff’s office in Riverton to speak with investigators, her mother said.
Then Lowe called her parents.
Warm Welcome Home
CJ and Shara Barrett were in Lander when they learned their daughter had been found. They headed for Riverton and were told when they arrived that Lizzy was inside.
More importantly, she was OK.
It was a radically different moment from only a day earlier.
When Cowboy State Daily spoke with Lizzy's father Monday, the family had gone nearly a week without knowing where she was.
Asked what frightened him most, CJ paused before answering.
“Being hurt,” he said.
Lizzy's younger brother was trying to be tough, her mother said, while relatives and people throughout the community shared missing-person information and offered support.
CJ had only one thing he wanted.
“We just need her home,” he said Monday.
A day later, she was.
“We never stopped loving you,” Shara said in a message to Lizzy, adding that the family is excited to have this time together before her daughter eventually leaves for the Army.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
