A Casper woman whose sudden disappearance alarmed her family when she failed to pick up her children from the local Boys & Girls Club on Thursday was found dead Sunday with her vehicle after it went off Casper Mountain Road and through a guardrail near Lookout Point.
Kandice Gunter, 30, had been missing for days as her family, law enforcement and people across central Wyoming circulated her photograph and kept watch for her gray GMC Canyon.
Her sister, Kayla Gunter, told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that she is distraught by the discovery.
“She was such a loving, kindhearted person who had such a good head on her shoulders,” she said. "It’s not fair and we will get justice for her.”
Kayla had been desperately hoping for a very different ending.
The sisters normally spoke several times a day, and Kayla said one of the most frightening signs that something was wrong was that Kandice hadn't shown up to pick up her two children, ages 9 and 6.
“That’s why I started freaking out. It’s totally out of character for her not to show up to get her kids," said Kayla at the time.
Through The Guardrail
At about 9:20 a.m. Sunday, multiple first-responder agencies were dispatched to Casper Mountain Road after reports that a vehicle had left the roadway and gone through a guardrail, the Casper Police Department reports.
Responders located the vehicle and Kandice Gunter, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Natrona County Coroner's Office later identified the driver as Kandice Gunter.
Casper police reports that there is no evidence at this time suggesting foul play or the involvement of another person.
The circumstances surrounding the crash and the woman's death remain under investigation.
That leaves unanswered questions about what happened between the last time Kandice Gunter was seen and the discovery of her body in her vehicle days later.
Suddenly Gone
Kandice Gunter had only recently moved from Nevada to Casper about a month before her disappearance, hoping for a fresh start and to be closer to her children, Kayla previously told Cowboy State Daily.
Although Kandice and the children's father were no longer a couple, Kayla said they were living in the same household and caring for the children.
Kayla and Kandice remained in frequent contact, and then Kandice went silent.
Casper police have since said Kandice Gunter was last seen in person on Thursday morning and was reported missing that evening.
Police said her last known cellphone location was along Highway 387 near the Natrona County line at about 12:30 p.m. on Friday.
As the search developed, Kandice Gunter's information was entered into Wyoming's statewide missing-person system.
The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation listed her as missing from Natrona County and told the public she might be traveling in a gray 2016 GMC Canyon with Wyoming temporary plates.
Photos and descriptions of the mother of two and her vehicle began spreading rapidly online.
Desiree Tinoco, executive director of Missing People of Wyoming, said that public attention can be critical when somebody disappears.
“I can't stress it enough,” Tinoco told Cowboy State Daily. “This kind of work doesn't happen without the public.”
No 24-Hour Rule
Kandice Gunter's disappearance illustrates something Tinoco said remains widely misunderstood about missing-person cases: Families don't have to wait 24 or 48 hours before contacting law enforcement.
Tinoco blames movies and television for perpetuating that myth.
“There is not a waiting period, and there has never been a waiting period for reporting a loved one missing,” she said.
In Kandice Gunter's case, Tinoco said she independently checked with Casper police and was told she was reported missing when her family contacted the department to make the report.
Wyoming has also changed how information about missing people reaches the public.
Tinoco advocated for the creation of DCI's public missing-person database and later for Wyoming's missing-person protocols.
When a law enforcement agency enters a missing person's photograph and description into the National Crime Information Center system, Tinoco said, that information can feed into DCI's public database during business hours.
That can put a face in front of thousands of Wyoming residents quickly, which Tinoco said matters.
Getting A Face Out There
The earliest information distributed about a missing person isn't always the most current.
Law enforcement may at first have to rely on a driver's license photograph or other government record because that's what is immediately available, Tinoco said.
People change. They gain or lose weight. Their hair changes. Tattoos are added. A driver's license photograph can be years old.
Family members can provide updated photographs and information to law enforcement, she said, but that takes time.
“I would rather have a description that's not quite right than not have it in those first few critical hours,” Tinoco said.
That's also why sharing information from verified sources is important, she said.
As a case spreads across social media, outdated photographs, incorrect descriptions and rumors can travel alongside legitimate information.
“Ensuring that you're getting your information from a verified source is always important regarding missing persons cases,” Tinoco said.
In Kandice Gunter's case, the public was asked to keep watch for her vehicle as investigators worked to narrow down where she might have gone.
There wasn't initially a sufficiently precise area to organize a large public ground search, Tinoco said.
A cellphone connecting with a tower provides investigators with a general area, but it doesn't give a small enough location to send people into the field.
Tinoco said she had spoken with Natrona County Search and Rescue about Kandice Gunter's case and stressed that members of the public should work through trained search-and-rescue organizations rather than venturing into Wyoming's backcountry on their own.
“Mother Nature is relentless,” she said.
Without A Voice
For Tinoco, missing-person work is about more than databases and search areas.
She started Missing People of Wyoming after watching two cases struggle to receive the attention she believed they deserved because of the backgrounds and lifestyles of the men who were missing.
Years later, she still sees the same problem.
People who disappear can be dealing with substance abuse, mental health struggles, unstable homes or other circumstances that make it easier for the public to dismiss them, she said.
Some old Wyoming missing-person cases don't even have a photograph attached to them. Tinoco said she has tried to find relatives or others who can provide one and, in some cases, nobody comes forward.
“They were reported as missing, but a photo was never added,” she said. “There's just nobody there for them. It's really sad to see that.”
It is one of the reasons she believes every disappearance deserves attention, regardless of the circumstances of someone's life before vanishing.
“The kinds of people that typically go missing are the ones that don't have a voice,” Tinoco said.
Kandice Gunter had people raising theirs.
Her sister spent the days after she disappeared trying to find her, telling people what Kandice looked like, describing the tattoos that could help identify her and explaining why missing her children was such an alarming departure from the woman her family knew.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
