A young woman vanishes. The police can’t help. Her desperate family won’t give up
Ashley Heavyrunner Loring disappeared from the Blackfeet reservation in Montana – a one and a half million acres expanse of land. To find her, family and allies are deploying everything they can think of – including drones
On a summer’s evening in early June 2017, Ashley Heavyrunner Loring messaged some friends on Facebook, looking for a ride into town from her family’s ranch on the sprawling Blackfeet reservation in north-west Montana. As she waited for the friend to arrive, she grabbed some clothes, packed them into a blue string backpack and said goodbye to her grandmother. Then she ran outside to the waiting car.
Later that night, someone posted a short video of a party somewhere on the “rez”. In it was Ashley, then aged 20, nestled on a couch, surrounded by people drinking beers and chatting. At one point, Ashley messaged her older sister Kimberly, who was in Morocco visiting her fiance.
