Girl, 14, vanishes during family camping trip to ultra-remote beauty spot
Maya Suisse was last seen at 10am Thursday in the Uinta Mountains, a vast range in northeastern Utah that extends slightly into Colorado and Wyoming.
The teenager had been staying at a campsite with her family, but vanished after she left on her own to use the bathroom, police said.
She was last seen in the in the Painter Basin area near Kidney Lakes, according to the Duchesne County Sheriff's Office.
She was wearing a pink hooded sweatshirt and gray capri pants.
Maya's sister, Brittany Suisse, described the missing teen as a fairly experienced backpacker, KUTV reported.
Search-and-rescue crews began searching the area on foot, horseback and via helicopter.
'They wonder if she's possibly okay and just going in circles, which is why they haven't been able to find her,' Brittany told KUTV.
'They haven't found any signs of her yet, to my knowledge. They are optimistic that they will find her.'
Capt. John Crowley of the Duchesne County Sheriff's Office said the best way to search such a remote area is to 'ride it out and hope for the best.'
Brittany said she asked the sheriff's office how often they are unable to locate missing people, and they responded that it was uncommon.
'That made us feel better about the situation,' she told KUTV. 'Still not great. She's been missing for almost a full day now.'
Brittany wrote in a Facebook post that search crews do not want additional help, 'but that may change.'
'If you are willing to be on standby, please let me know,' she said.
Her Facebook post has been flooded with supportive messages and shared over 175 times.
In its Friday statement, the sheriff's office said that search teams 'remain on site and are expanding efforts on the ground and by air as conditions allow.'
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Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
Teen who vanished on family camping trip found SAFE after spending over 24 hours in the wilderness when she 'got lost on the way to the bathroom'
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Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
Put down your phones and find my son: Mum's powerful plea to Australia after young tradie Jack McLennan, 27, vanished off the face of the Earth
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The Sun
a day ago
- The Sun
Key points ‘missing' from Netflix doc could prove what really happened to Amy Bradley when she vanished from cruise ship
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He said he will discuss his theory in full in his book, A Cruise to Nowhere, which will be released next summer. He said, "I talk about some stories where eyewitness testimony was faulty, and it's because memory doesn't work like it does on TV and film, where you see this flashback in technicolor. "Every time we access a memory, we rewrite it a little bit. "These people have the best intentions. They want to help this family. But you know, they're coming at it backwards, they've been shown the picture of Amy, and then it matches up with this memory in their mind.' On the theory that Amy was kidnapped and sex-trafficked, Renner claims there is no verified account of a caucasian woman being abducted and trafficked in the Caribbean. I do think that if Amy had lived, she'd probably be with her partner Molly." Author James Renner "This would be a first, which is very unlikely," he said. "It's just not worth the trouble. A white woman is gonna stand out in Grenada, and it's not worth the risk for the people that do this. "They have plenty of women from the Dominican Republic, from Columbia, from these poor countries, that can go there and make more money than their family could in a year working a couple of weeks for these brothels." Renner met with the Bradley family while researching his book several months ago, but he alleges they cut contact with him after an initial meeting. "I came to care for the Bradley family quite a bit. Iva [Amy's mom] is the type of person that loves hard," he said. "I met with them about a year ago and was invited to their house, and had lunch with them." He claims that before he arrived, Iva told him anyone who is invited into their home was considered family, a comment he did not take lightly and he was hoping to build a relationship with them. 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She was also last seen in her family's cabin smoking on the balcony, and there is no proof she ever left. Accidental Overboard - Amy was under the influence of alcohol when she was on the balcony after a night of partying in the ship's nightclub. She may have climbed up while intoxicated and fallen overboard. However, this is considered the least likely theory due to the height of the balcony and Amy's reported fear of heights. Voluntary Departure - It has also been suggested that Amy may have intentionally left the ship to start a new life after revealing her sexuality to her family. The documentary explores this theory as a mystery internet user with an IP address linked to Barbados would often spend minutes on pages of the website created by her family every year on Christmas and Thanksgiving. "It's very sad. I do think that if Amy had lived, she'd probably be with her partner Molly, and I hope she would've had the support of her family." Asked what drew him to the case, Renner said he likes unsolved mysteries that are "giant puzzle boxes." "It could be that they walked away to start a new life. It could be they committed suicide. It could be they were abducted. It could be they were murdered. So everything's on the table. "And those cases intrigue me because they're very rare. And, you know, one of the reasons they're still like that is because they haven't been properly investigated. "So what I like to do is just chip away at some of those other theories and see what's left. "And for me, I've narrowed [it] down, what happened to Amy Bradley ... to the point where I don't believe she ever came off that balcony. "I think it's highly likely that she is responsible for whatever took place there." Renner also previously spoke to The U.S. Sun about the now-debunked theory that Amy was taken from the ship and sex-trafficked by a bass player called Alister Douglas, known then by his nickname "Yellow". He took the same journey as Amy on the Rhapsody of the Seas and tracked Douglas down in Grenada, where the now-reverend granted him a brief interview. Douglas claimed the case had turned his life upside down, and he was still receiving hate from trolls online despite being ruled out by the FBI on more than one occasion. Tearing up, he admitted, "I've lost so many opportunities because of this," explaining that people Google his name and believe he had something to do with Amy going missing. "My inbox, my Facebook, people have been writing me horrible stuff for years." 5
