Two days after Jerimiah Jensen went missing in Lincoln County, his family is pleading for help to find him while the Sheriff’s Office is asking the public not to search.
Jensen’s aunt, Laura Faye Jensen, told Cowboy State Daily that his truck and all his belongings were left at his home in Star Valley. Only his phone is missing, and Laura Faye Jensen said it’s been either turned off or dead since 12:30 p.m. Friday.
“We need to know that he’s OK,” Laura Faye Jensen said. “He is very close to all of us. We talk on a daily basis. It is completely out of character for him not to let us know he’s alright. We need to find him and we cannot get the sheriff’s office to understand that we need that help.”
Meanwhile, Lincoln County Sheriff Shane Johnson told Cowboy State Daily that Jensen is missing voluntarily after charges were filed against him for several domestic incidents Friday.
“It’s not a typical missing-person situation,” Johnson said. “It’s somebody that’s eluding law enforcement.”
Jensen faces felony counts of strangulation of a household member, aggravated assault, stalking, and a misdemeanor domestic battery, according to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office in Afton.
Both Johnson and Jensen’s family members told Cowboy State Daily those charges stem from an incident between Jensen and his wife.
While Jensen’s family is calling for more help from law enforcement, Johnson said the agency is not sitting idle.
“We’re actively looking for him and we want to locate him as well,” Johnson said. “He was aware that he had active felony warrants and that’s when he chose to disappear.”
Discouraging Public Search
On Sunday evening, Jensen’s cousin Ruby Sinclair made a Facebook group to organize community search efforts because law enforcement had not yet made a public announcement. As of Monday afternoon, the group had 398 members.
Sinclair told Cowboy State Daily her family believes Jensen left home on foot.
“We are concerned that he may be in danger or injured,” Sinclair said.
Johnson said that when he saw these efforts taking shape on social media, he decided to issue a statement on Monday to “discourage” the public from searching.
“He’s missing for a reason,” Johnson said. “He’s eluding law enforcement, so it would be not a great idea to have a search party and go look for him.”
The statement said it is the office’s policy not to activate the county’s search and rescue for people who are actively eluding law enforcement. It's a small community, and Jensen’s family said he is personally familiar with the volunteers in that organization.
“Search and rescue members here know him, like him, and want to help,” Laura Faye Jensen said. “The sheriff’s office won’t let them.”
The statement also said the office is unwilling to put searchers “in harm’s way” due to the nature of Jensen’s charges and his access to firearms.
Johnson said he does not know if Jensen was carrying a gun when he went missing, adding that the department is concerned but is not assuming he is armed.
“We’ve attempted to reach out to him and have been unsuccessful,” Johnson said. “He needs to do the right thing and turn himself in.”
Laura Faye Jensen said that after the incident between Jensen and his wife, he asked his uncle, Laura’s husband, to pick up all of his guns and store them for a while. She could not say for certain whether Jensen might still have kept a firearm, but she said the family does not believe he was armed when he went missing.
“There’s two sides to every story,” Laura Faye Jensen said. “We don’t know what happened, we just don’t know. But we know him.”
Family fears for safety
Though Laura Faye Jensen said she’s never known her nephew to be dangerous, she understands why law enforcement sees him differently.
“He’s a wonderful fellow, but the sheriff’s office doesn’t know that,” she said. “All they know is that there was a warrant for his arrest and instead of turning himself in he chose to leave and not turn himself in. But, on the other hand, he is missing.”
Johnson said Jensen had no prior criminal history.
“It’s a small community so he was known,” Johnson said of Jensen. “But not necessarily because of law enforcement.”
Laura Faye Jensen recognized that her nephew will have to face the charges against him but said the family’s first concern is making sure that he is safe. She hopes law enforcement is correct that Jensen is eluding them because that would mean at least he is alive.
But Jensen lives in a house right next to the woods he has spent his entire life recreating in, she said, and his family fears he might have gone int and isn’t coming out.
“We don’t even know if he has a coat,” Laura Faye Jensen said. “We’re scared to death that he is down in the forest and we can’t find him. The more time that goes by that we don’t hear from him, it gets bigger that we think we’re going to find him down.”
With temperatures dropping and a chance of thunderstorms in the area Monday, Johnson said the weather conditions are also why his office is urging people not to search.
“We have bad weather here right now,” Johnson said. “If you have inexperienced people out searching the woods and the mountains, the likelihood of somebody getting hurt and turning into another search or another law enforcement reaction is not ideal.”
Johnson said his office has not ruled out suicide as a possibility.
“I hope he’s safe and I hope he makes a decision to contact us and turn himself in,” Johnson said.
For Jensen’s family, the priority is still finding him safe, however the charges against him play out. Johnson said Jensen’s wife has a protection order against him and has been in contact with the department.
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
