Carlene Brown

Case background and investigation

On July 4, 1974, 19-year-old Carlene Brown attended the Little Britches Rodeo at the Carbon County Fairgrounds in Rawlins, Wyoming, with Christine Ann "Christy" Gross, a 19-year-old friend visiting from South Dakota. Neither young woman returned home. Accounts of what was found afterward conflict: their abandoned vehicle was reported located either at the fairgrounds itself or in Worland, more than 200 miles to the north. Police initially considered the possibility that the two had left voluntarily. Brown, born January 14, 1955, was described as 5'0" to 5'3" tall and 100 to 120 pounds, with brown-red hair, brown eyes, and surgical scars on the big toes of both feet. She was adopted and had recently graduated from the local high school with strong marks.

The disappearances were not isolated. On August 4, 1974, 15-year-old Deborah Meyer, visiting Rawlins from Red Lodge, Montana, vanished on her way to a downtown movie theater and has never been found. On August 23, 1974, 10-year-old Jayleen Banker disappeared from the Carbon County Fair; her remains were found outside town in April 1975, and her death — from a fractured skull — was ruled a homicide. The cluster of cases from that summer has become known locally as the "Rawlins Rodeo Murders." A childhood friend of Brown's later said she had planned to attend the rodeo with the two women but stayed home ill.

In October 1983, more than nine years after the disappearance, Christy Gross's skeletal remains were discovered about three miles south of Sinclair, Wyoming. She was identified through partial dental records and a distinctive ring made by her uncle, and investigators determined she had been killed by at least two heavy blows to the skull. No trace of Brown was found at the scene. The sheriff at the time said investigators had new leads and at least one suspect, but no arrest in the case followed.

Suspicion eventually centered on Royal Russell Long, a long-haul trucker who hauled equipment for carnivals and fairs and who, according to investigators, lived in the Rawlins area and worked local fairs in 1974. In 1981 Long was charged in Oklahoma with the kidnapping and murder of two 13-year-old girls who vanished from the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, but those charges were dismissed for lack of evidence. In 1984 he was arrested for abducting two teenage hitchhikers at gunpoint; one escaped, while 12-year-old Sharon Baldeagle was never found. Long pleaded guilty to two counts of kidnapping and received two life sentences. He died of a heart attack in a Wyoming prison in 1993 and was never charged in the Rawlins cases; he was never convicted of any murder. Retired investigator Janet Franson has said she believes Long was responsible for all four Rawlins-area victims, noting his pattern of targeting girls in pairs. A theory involving Ted Bundy has circulated but, according to Cowboy State Daily, Bundy has never been tied to any Wyoming murders. Brown's case remains open with the Carbon County Sheriff's Office, and her adoptive parents died without learning her fate.