Found Deceased WY - Tami Lynn Sturgeon, 55, missing where she and her 60-year-old husband returned to after they had been shed hunting, Gillette, 23 Mar 2024

[IDK]

Missing Gillette Woman Found Dead, No Foul Play Suspected

The five-day search for Tami Sturgeon, 55, ended tragically Thursday afternoon. The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office announced that her body was discovered less than two miles from where she went missing on Saturday.

cowboystatedaily.com

RIP Tami

So sorry to hear this tragic ending.

“The deceased body of Tami Sturgeon was located approximately 1.8 miles from where she was reported missing,” Campbell County Sheriff Scott Matheny said in a statement dispatched Thursday evening. “No foul play is suspected, and cause and manner of death will be determined by the Campbell County Coroner.”

“Matheny said Search and Rescue personnel located a cigarette butt and a pair of gloves in the area just prior to locating Sturgeon. Her body was found in a ravine at 4:22 p.m. Thursday, almost 118 hours after she was reported missing”

 

[Hestia's Fire]

I was so afraid this was going to be the outcome. She just didn't have any supplies to survive out in that weather for so long.
What a tragedy.

 

[IDK]

I wonder if she fell into the ravine the first day and had serious injuries. May even have passed away the first day? I guess we’ll know more after the autopsy. RIP.

 

[carbuff]

I wonder if she fell into the ravine the first day and had serious injuries. May even have passed away the first day? I guess we’ll know more after the autopsy. RIP.

I was wondering that too. The terrain is so rugged and it's so easy to fall, especially in bad weather.

Condolences to her family and friends.

 

[iamshadow21]

Sleep well, Tami.

 

[tezi]

RIP Tami.

 

[slowpoke]

“[Sheriff Scott] Matheny said the search widened Wednesday and while finishing a detailed grid search of that expanded radius late Thursday afternoon, Sturgeon’s body was found.

“She was in a different area than we thought,” Matheny told the News Record. "And I believe weather had a lot to do with that.”

Investigators and searchers had tried determining which way Sturgeon would have traveled, including whether she moved toward the lights and sounds of the nearby coal mines or toward Bishop Road.”

Body of missing Gillette woman found Thursday, ending five-day search

The body of a woman who went missing Saturday in a harsh stretch of Campbell County south of Gillette has been found after dozens of people from multiple agencies spent

www.gillettenewsrecord.com

 

[windrower]

Missing Gillette Woman Found Dead, No Foul Play Suspected

The five-day search for Tami Sturgeon, 55, ended tragically Thursday afternoon. The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office announced that her body was discovered less than two miles from where she went missing on Saturday.

cowboystatedaily.com

RIP Tami

The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office announced that her body was discovered less than 2 miles from where she went missing Saturday.

I’m from this area. Yes, it’s rugged and rough country, but a lot of fairly open ground. Sagebrush, but not a lot of tree cover.

Less than two miles away?!?

IMO, SAR policies and procedures need revamped, because something is clearly not working with the current system. (Based on this, and other cases.)

People on horseback, on ATVs, on dirt bikes, walkers, hikers, drone operators (Gillette had at least one drone business awhile back because they were doing flyovers for real estate listings), etc., could surely have covered a lot of ground in five days.

I guess a grid search is okay, depending on the size. But isn’t that usually used in looking for evidence, not a, hopefully, living person?

And darn it, why didn’t husband and wife search together from in the side by side? Or one drive and the other walk a ways out within sight of each other?

Am I to assume they didn’t have a Find My Phone app or something similar? Although, maybe cell service is iffy in that area.

I truly hope there’s no foul play.

IMO

 

[windrower]

Remains belonging to missing French boy found in the Alps

Ramblers discovered the bones of two-year-old Émile Soleil close to the isolated family home from here he went missing last year.

www.dailymail.co.uk

A statement released by public prosecutors in Aix-en-Provence on Sunday said 'genetic analysis identifies' the bones as belonging to Èmile.

It added that 'criminalistic analysis' was also underway, and that gendarmes were carrying out 'additional research' in the area where they were found.

The search site is two miles as the crow flies from the house in Haut-Vernet, a hamlet south of Grenoble, where Émile was last seen with his grandfather, Philippe Vedovini, 58.

Two miles as the crow flies— that is quite a way for the little guy.

From this article : Disparition d'Emile : ossements du petit garçon retrouvés, fouilles approfondies... suivez la situation en direct

"The area had been “extensively searched”
According to the mayor of Vernet, François Balique, the area where Emile's bones were found had "been thoroughly searched by the gendarmes", he told Le Figaro. “It’s a place where hunters and their dogs and residents pass daily and where forestry work was carried out in the fall,” he said, suggesting that if the body had been there from the beginning, it would inevitably have been discovered before."

I'm pretty sure his bones were moved not so long ago. It's not possible, after all the time and with all those resources that they had, that they didn't find him earlier.
No way he could have just ondered off and he was there since july. NO WAY.

There have been a few cases in Australia, one was a child where the child was found further than LE said they could possibly be so they had not searched that far.

A young boy’s remains found two miles from where he went missing.

An area LE said they searched, and I think foul play has not been ruled out at this time.

 

[slowpoke]

The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office announced that her body was discovered less than 2 miles from where she went missing Saturday.

I’m from this area. Yes, it’s rugged and rough country, but a lot of fairly open ground. Sagebrush, but not a lot of tree cover.

Less than two miles away?!?

IMO, SAR policies and procedures need revamped, because something is clearly not working with the current system. (Based on this, and other cases.)

People on horseback, on ATVs, on dirt bikes, walkers, hikers, drone operators (Gillette had at least one drone business awhile back because they were doing flyovers for real estate listings), etc., could surely have covered a lot of ground in five days.

I guess a grid search is okay, depending on the size. But isn’t that usually used in looking for evidence, not a, hopefully, living person?

And darn it, why didn’t husband and wife search together from in the side by side? Or one drive and the other walk a ways out within sight of each other?

Am I to assume they didn’t have a Find My Phone app or something similar? Although, maybe cell service is iffy in that area.

I truly hope there’s no foul play.

IMO

“For several days, search and rescue personnel have concentrated primarily on fast-paced searches focused on likely destinations Sturgeon could have been heading for. Thursday morning, however, the approach shifted to a meticulous and methodical grid search which ultimately uncovered a cigarette butt and gloves before the 55-year-old woman’s body was found near a ravine, according to the sheriff’s office.”

Missing Gillette woman found dead near ravine; autopsy set for April 1

GILLETTE, Wyo. — A Gillette woman who went missing last week was found dead Thursday afternoon, concluding a multi-agency search and rescue effort

oilcity.news

It sounds like a grid search would have been the way to go, from the start, in Tami’s case. Sounds like they only did that after unsuccessfully searching areas they thought she might have headed towards, logically.

 

[windrower]

“For several days, search and rescue personnel have concentrated primarily on fast-paced searches focused on likely destinations Sturgeon could have been heading for. Thursday morning, however, the approach shifted to a meticulous and methodical grid search which ultimately uncovered a cigarette butt and gloves before the 55-year-old woman’s body was found near a ravine, according to the sheriff’s office.”

Missing Gillette woman found dead near ravine; autopsy set for April 1

GILLETTE, Wyo. — A Gillette woman who went missing last week was found dead Thursday afternoon, concluding a multi-agency search and rescue effort

oilcity.news

It sounds like a grid search would have been the way to go, from the start, in Tami’s case. Sounds like they only did that after unsuccessfully searching areas they thought she might have headed towards, logically.

bolded and underlined by me

I guess the underlined is my problem.

Focusing on a “likely” action doesn’t seem to work in a lot of cases. I can’t imagine most lost people are thinking and acting logically.

In the prairie, in the area Tami went missing, there would be places you can stand and see a wide swath of fairly open ground. Yes, lots of sagebrush ( of various height) and some trees on the hills. But not dense foliage at all.

The caveat is if she became injured or had a medical event that first night, or had to try and shelter up for the night and became hypothermic, the search difficulty ratchets up quickly.

Iirc, it did get below freezing the night of March 23. I think that area was on the fringe of a winter storm, and more of a problem if her area got the rain that came along in some places before the few inches of snow.

If Tami had good visibility the next morning, she would have been able to see a landmark in one direction or another, and able to orient herself.

fyi: I recently came across a study trying to prove/disprove the theory that lost people will move in a circle, direction depending on their dominant hand or something. I’ll try to find the link, as different variables affected the study group.

 

[carbuff]

I've seen other searches where the search starts off with checking the most likely places as quickly as possible, in the effort to save the person's life. But we don't usually hear much about the searches that succeed because they just make small good-news headlines.

 

[cocomod]

My sons go shed hunting in a different area in Wyoming. The weather is up and down this time of year.

Rest peacefully Tami

 

[GraceG]

Her cause of death has been released by the coroner. Hypothermia with no other medical event. My thoughts go out to her loved ones. Coroner: Missing Gillette woman died of hypothermia

 

[Catmommy]

I doubt that it's much of a comfort to her loved ones but I'm relieved and thankful her death wasn't attributed to nefarious or undetermined causes. RIP Tami.

 

[acutename]

My sons go shed hunting in a different area in Wyoming. The weather is up and down this time of year.

Rest peacefully Tami

what do you do with the antlers?

 

[iamshadow21]

what do you do with the antlers?

Not a hunter or a collector, but people have carved horn and antler for tens of thousands of years, both for practical things like tool making, and for decorative things. A lot of people have heard of scrimshaw, which was the carving of the bones and tusks of aquatic animals, but people did similar work on horn and antler, too.

 

[Teche]

Collectors will sometimes use them to create light fixtures. Check out the Suzanne Morphew thread.

 

[Ladyotm]

I doubt that it's much of a comfort to her loved ones but I'm relieved and thankful her death wasn't attributed to nefarious or undetermined causes. RIP Tami.

Terribly sad. I'm so glad there was no foul play involved, but so disheartening to know it is a result of a search for a cell phone.
For those that hunt, or participate in outside activities in wooded or forested areas, would a compass work in these areas? To help people find their way? If they had one on their cell phones, would it even work if network was spotty?
I'm what I call directionally dysfunctional. Just had those questions about compasses.

 

[carbuff]

what do you do with the antlers?

They make great coat racks or hat racks.

Side tables: Elk Antler Breakfast Table

They can be twined together to make gateposts or arches. Here's a famous one: The History of The Jackson Hole Antler Arches

Wine rack: Mule Deer Antler Wine Rack- Rustic Farmhouse Decor

Moose antlers make nice bowls: Detailed Moose Antler Deer Horn Centerpiece Bowl - Moose-R-Us.Com Log Cabin Decor

Picture frames, mirror frames, candle holders, bookends, magazine racks--your imagination is the only limit.