29-year-old woman found dead month after vanishing on solo trip, Oregon cops say
A 29-year-old woman was found dead in Oregon nearly a month after she vanished during a cross-country solo trip, deputies said.
Kaylee Birt's remains were discovered by volunteer search teams May 3, the Harney County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post.
The sheriff's office did not say where her remains were found, and they have not responded to McClatchy News' request for more information as of Monday, May 5.
Birt was last seen April 4 leaving The Fields Station in her gold 2008 Chevy Malibu, McClatchy News reported from authorities.
The Fields Station is a burger joint, store, motel and gas station in Fields, which is a remote and unincorporated community in southeastern Oregon.
She was headed to Iowa, deputies said, but her vehicle was discovered abandoned April 6 in a remote part of Harney County in Oregon.
Deputies said they determined a location where her cell phone last pinged, and they searched the area but couldn't find her.
Search teams looked for her for seven days by 'air, ground, UTV, drone, foot and horseback,' deputies said. However, authority-led search efforts ended April 10.
Her friends and family are grieving her death and sharing the experiences they had with her.
'I met Kaylee in Peru. She could always light up a room. You knew as long as Kaylee was there you would never feel alone. She was truly one of a kind and her laugh was too,' her friend Tara Timmerman wrote on Facebook.
'Was neighbors in essex for years! All the sleepovers, sporting events, Halloween parties at her house and countless fun nights in Maryville after we graduated high school! Kaylee was always the life of any party and such a great friend,' Koreen Johnson said in a post.
'Kaylee was my best friend our freshman year of college. She lived across the hall from me. We instantly hit it off. Throughout the years, we stayed in touch off and on. She had the BEST personality. She was hilarious and always down for a good time,' Leah Phillips wrote.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Miami Herald
3 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Jail staff ignored dying man face-down for days in CA, suit says. Company to pay
A major health care provider for U.S. jails and prisons has settled a federal lawsuit over the death of Maurice Monk at a Northern California jail, where his family's attorneys said he spent days lying face-down without staff stepping in until after he died. Wellpath, which has thousands of employees working in corrections facilities in nearly 40 states, will pay $2.5 million to Monk's children, who sued the company within a year of him dying at the Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County in November 2021, according to a June 5 news release from Pointer & Buelna, Lawyers For The People, the Oakland-based law firm representing the case. Joanie Brady, the company's director of external communications and reputation management, declined McClatchy News' request for comment about the settlement June 5. 'Consistent with our policy, Wellpath does not comment on active legal proceedings or related resolutions,' Brady said. Monk died on Nov. 15, 2021, more than a month after his arrest on a misdemeanor charge, at the Santa Rita Jail, McClatchy News reported in October 2023, when an amended suit was filed. The jail is about a 40-mile drive east from San Francisco. His arrest stemmed from him not wearing a mask on a bus, according to his attorneys. After he missed a court appearance, he was detained because he and his family couldn't afford a $2,500 bail. Alameda County sheriff's deputies at the jail and Wellpath medical staff ignored Monk during his final days alive as he lay face-down on his bunk in his cell, with meals, water and his needed medications left to accumulate on the floor, according to the lawsuit. The Alameda County Sheriff's Office didn't return McClatchy News' request for comment June 5. According to civil rights attorneys for Monk's family, the settlement with Wellpath comes after Alameda County paid $7 million in 2023 to settle the lawsuit's claims against the county, which was named in the lawsuit, along with several Alameda County sheriff's deputies. One of the attorneys, Adanté Pointer, said in a statement that Wellpath agreeing to settle the case is an 'admission' that 'they failed to protect and ensure the health and well-being of a man whose life was entirely in their hands.' Monk had been managing his diabetes and schizoaffective disorder medically before he was jailed, according to Pointer. Throughout Monk's detention, his family begged jail staff to give him his needed prescriptions, the lawsuit details. His neglect was captured by multiple deputies' body-worn cameras, his family's attorneys said. The footage of Monk lying motionless showed him surrounded by his urine and body fluids, and was released after the lawsuit's filing, according to legal counsel. Nine deputies, a doctor and a nurse who worked for Wellpath were criminally charged over Monk's death, KTVU reported. They've pleaded not guilty to the pending charges. Wellpath's contract with Alameda County is scheduled to expire in 2027, according to Pointer & Buelna. The company is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, and cares for more than 200,000 patients, Wellpath's website shows. Dozens of other lawsuits alleging wrongful death and negligence have been brought against Wellpath, which filed for bankruptcy in November, NPR reported in December. The bankruptcy filing has led to delays in the civil cases. Pointer told KTVU that 'bankruptcy affected the litigation of justice.' Attorney Ty Clarke, of Pointer & Buelna, also represented Monk's family and said his death was 'needless.' 'There is simply no excuse for any medical professionals, no matter the setting, to neglect their primary duties and their Hippocratic oath,' Clarke said.
7 hours ago
'I have killed for you': Husband's words crack nearly decade-old murder of missing nurse's aide
A husband's chilling words to his wife -- "I have killed for you" -- finally cracked a cold case murder that had haunted an Illinois town for nearly a decade. Bonnie Woodward, a 47-year-old mother of four, vanished from her workplace parking lot in Alton, Illinois, on June 25, 2010. A nurse's aide at Eunice Smith Nursing Home for 25 years, Woodward was last seen talking to a man after her shift. Witnesses described him as a white male with salt-and-pepper hair, driving a silver or gray Chevy Malibu. A new "20/20" episode, "I Have Killed For You," airing Friday, June 6, at 9 p.m. ET on ABC and streaming the next day on Hulu, examines the case. You can also get more behind-the-scenes of each week's episode by listening to "20/20: The After Show" weekly series right on your "20/20" podcast feed on Mondays, hosted by "20/20" co-anchor Deborah Roberts. Her red Chevy Avalanche was found abandoned with windows rolled down -- a detail that immediately alarmed her family. "She loved that truck. She worked really hard to get that truck. She absolutely wouldn't have just left it," her niece Rachel Lee told "20/20." The disappearance was particularly suspicious given that Woodward's 17-year-old stepdaughter, Heather, had recently run away from home. Eight days after Woodward vanished, Heather suddenly appeared at a local library, revealing she had been staying with a family from her church, the Carrolls. The investigation's first break came when Roger Carroll's fingerprints were found on Woodward's truck. Even though he and his car matched witnesses' descriptions of the man Woodward was seen talking to the day she vanished, he denied the evidence. "Then I've been framed," Carroll told detectives. "There's no way that my fingerprints are on that car door." Prosecutors determined there was not enough evidence to charge Carroll based on fingerprints alone. The case went cold until March 2018, when Carroll's wife Monica fled their home after an alleged domestic assault. While recounting the alleged violent incident to police, Monica told them that Carroll said, "I have killed for you." When police searched for him afterward, they found him in the woods, having attempted suicide by insulin injection. Carroll was arrested and charged with Woodward's murder and domestic abuse of Monica. The case broke wide open when Roger and Monica's son Nathan, then 24, was called to testify before a grand jury. With immunity granted, Nathan detailed what he said happened to Woodward eight years earlier. He told prosecutors that his father made him leave their family vacation early, while his mother stayed behind, and drive to the nursing home where Woodward worked. Later that day, while eating lunch at home, Nathan said he heard eight or nine gunshots. When he walked outside, he said he saw feet wearing tennis shoes and tan scrubs. What he said happened next was even more disturbing -- Nathan testified that his father had him help maintain a blaze in their backyard to burn Woodward's body. "They start a massive fire," Jennifer Mudge, the special prosecutor on the case, said. "It had to be stoked all night, all day, all night, every couple of hours, and Roger had Nathan help him do that." Nathan led investigators to three key locations on the Carroll property: where he said Woodward was shot, where he claimed her body was burned and the creek where he said her ashes were dumped. Police found 27 pieces of what they believed to be bone fragments although later tests could not determine if they were Woodward's remains. Nathan also testified that his father described Woodward as "a bad person" and that she was mean, aggressive and abusive to her stepdaughter Heather. Heather told police she did not know anything about her stepmother's disappearance and murder. Despite not having a body, prosecutors secured a conviction in Woodward's case on March 16, 2020. Carroll was sentenced to 65 years in prison -- 40 years for first-degree murder, plus 25 years for using a firearm. The domestic abuse charge was dropped by prosecutors. Carroll is appealing his conviction. The Illinois Supreme Court granted permission for the appeal, which is likely to be argued this fall. "When I heard the jury found him guilty, that was the blessing to my ears to hear," Gary Wilmurth Sr., Woodward's boyfriend, told "20/20." "Roger Carroll robbed her kids, her grandkids, friends, family. But we won't never forget her, and we won't forget him." For Mudge, the verdict carried a deeper meaning. "Bonnie, finally, she could be at rest," she told "20/20." "I don't believe in the word closure. It doesn't exist in my mind. But Bonnie can now rest peacefully." If you need help or need help supporting someone else, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or text START to 88788 or chat online at All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7. If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Yahoo
Feather Alert issued for Indigenous woman missing from Sacramento County
( — The California Highway Patrol has issued a Feather Alert for a missing Indigenous woman. According to CHP, the alert was issued by request of the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office. Video Above: How to report a missing person CHP said Tiffany Shoulderblade, 33, was last seen on Tuesday around 2:20 p.m. in Lincoln. Shoulderblade is 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighs approximately 180 pounds, with brown hair and eyes. She was believed to have been driving a grey 2015 Chevy Malibu with a California license plate number of 7JVU836. CHP said members of the public should call 911 if they see her. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
