The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office has reversed course and will allow local search-and-rescue volunteers to assist in the hunt for Jerimiah Jensen, one week after his family appealed for help.
Lincoln County Sheriff Shane Johnson told Cowboy State Daily on Friday he is deploying drones from the Teton County Sheriff's Office and the Department of Homeland Security's emergency-management division to search the woods around Jensen's Star Valley home in Grover.
The county’s search-and-rescue volunteers will began ground searches Friday, Johnson said.
“If he’s in the forest area, it’s been very cold at night,” Johnson said. “At this point, I don’t think he’s likely a threat to searchers. Not making a prediction on his condition, but I feel like enough time has passed that he’s not a threat to search-and-rescue members and not actively eluding.”
‘No Idea Where He Went’
The reversal marks a shift from Monday, when Johnson publicly discouraged community search efforts and stated that the agency’s policy is not to activate search and rescue for individuals actively eluding law enforcement.
“He’s missing for a reason,” Johnson previously told Cowboy State Daily. “He’s eluding law enforcement, so it would be not a great idea to have a search party and go look for him.”
Jensen was charged Oct. 9 with felony counts of strangulation of a household member, aggravated assault, and stalking, as well as a misdemeanor count of domestic battery.
Johnson stands by his initial assessment but said that circumstances have now changed.
“I believe that his intention in leaving was to elude law enforcement and that hasn’t changed,” Johnson said. “The hope is that we find him safe and can move to the next step of this whole process.”
He also confirmed that Jensen left with just his phone, leaving his vehicle and all other items at home.
“We have no idea where he went,” Johnson said. “We know he didn’t drive anywhere. We don’t know if he got in with a friend. We don’t know if he went into the forest. That’s been a concern the whole time.”
Johnson said the department has also been working to ping Jensen’s phone, but those efforts have not yet produced any results.
‘We Want Him To Be OK’
Johnson said his primary concern is the cold weather and how many days have passed since Jensen was last seen or heard from.
Jensen’s aunt, Laura Faye Jensen, told Cowboy State Daily on Friday they’ve had similar concerns since Day 1.
“It’s heartbreaking for all of us,” Laura Faye Jensen said. “We love him. He’s a really wonderful person. We want him to be OK.”
Earlier this week, Jensen’s cousin Ruby Sinclair launched a Facebook group to organize community searches because law enforcement wasn't deploying county search-and-rescue volunteers, pointing out Jensen is a fugitive. Hundreds of members joined in the first couple days, with 530 members by Friday.
As community members prepared to take matters into their own hands, Laura Faye Jensen said the dynamic between the family and law enforcement finally shifted after Lincoln County Sheriff’s Detective Jody Gardner met directly with Jensen’s parents.
“It was Jody Gardner who helped Jerimiah’s parents,” Laura Faye Jensen said. “His poor parents. He’s their only son and they’re just devastated. They don’t know what to do.”
Frustration And Relief
With a full week of no answers, Laura Faye Jensen said a quicker deployment of full law-enforcement resources would have helped Jensen and the family.
“We don’t know at this point whether he’s OK or not,” Laura Faye Jensen said. “If they’d have been looking for him sooner, of course we would have stood a better chance of having a good result.”
The past week, she said, has been grueling for the family, between their fears for Jerimiah and plea to law enforcement to help find him. Still, she said the family understands the initial reticence from law enforcement because of Jensen’s charges.
“We do understand their perspective on it,” Laura Faye Jensen said. “We do. They had one side of the story and it’s taken his parents this whole week to get Jerimiah’s story and what they were told in the sheriff’s departments’ ears so that they could make this decision.”
Johnson also explained to Cowboy State Daily last week that, “It’s not a typical missing-person situation. It’s somebody that’s eluding law enforcement. We’re actively looking for him and we want to locate him as well. He was aware that he had active felony warrants and that’s when he chose to disappear.”
Though the family was and still is “terribly frustrated” over perceived delays, Laura Faye Jensen said they are relieved a full search is underway now.
“We’re really grateful that the sheriff’s office is finally willing to do something,” Laura Faye Jensen said.
Johnson said the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office has been deploying its own drones since the day he was reported missing and began searching with a drone from the Department of Criminal Investigation on Wednesday.
He planned to meet Friday night with the search-and-rescue commander to make a more detailed plan for the multi-agency effort in the next few days.
“They’re experienced searchers,” Johnson said. “We’ve searched the area enough to know that we don’t think he’s in a shelter or in a camp. We’re just wanting to make sure we clear that area, and in order to that reasonably we’re going to need search and rescue.”
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
