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Unsolved July 24, 1997 Missing Person

Amy Wroe Bechtel

Status Unsolved
Type Missing Person
Date July 24, 1997
Location Lander, Wyoming
Victim Age 24
Gender Female

Competitive runner Amy Wroe Bechtel vanished near Lander, Wyoming. Her car was found at a trailhead. Her husband was named a suspect but never charged. Serial killer Dale Wayne Eaton was also investigated.

On July 24, 1997, twenty-four-year-old Amy Wroe Bechtel, a competitive runner and environmental studies student, disappeared near Lander, Wyoming. She had been running errands and scouting a course for an upcoming 10K race in the Shoshone National Forest.

Amy's car was found parked at a trailhead near Loop Road in the Wind River Mountains. Her keys were not in the car. Despite extensive searches of the surrounding wilderness, no trace of Amy was found.

Her husband Steve Bechtel was named a suspect early in the investigation, but insufficient evidence prevented charges. In later years, serial killer Dale Wayne Eaton, who murdered another Wyoming woman in 1988, was investigated as a possible suspect.

The case remains one of Wyoming's most prominent unsolved disappearances. The Lander area terrain is extremely rugged and remote, complicating search efforts.

missing person Wyoming 1990s unsolved
1997-07-24
Amy Wroe Bechtel vanishes near Lander, Wyoming.
1997-07-24
Her car found at a trailhead.

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