Missing teen found safe in Colorado

Kourtnee is safe.

The saga of a missing Lovell teenager that captivated and worried people in the Lovell area and beyond has a happy ending.

Kourtnee Lea Roper, 17, a senior at Lovell High School, went missing on Wednesday, Feb. 11, and finally called her mother Tuesday, Feb. 17, from Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she had driven after leaving her home nearly a week earlier.

She is safe and will soon return home.

Kourtnee, the daughter of Sarah and Shane Pitt and Brad Roper, dropped her sister off at school on Wednesday morning, Feb. 11, telling her sister she had to run back home because she forgot something, according to Lovell Police Dept. officer Dusty Schultz. But she didn’t return to school or her house.

“Sarah got a notification from the school that she (Kourtnee) was absent, and that’s when Sarah started digging and found out that she had run away or was missing,” Schultz said. “It was kind of a case of both, like she was missing, because we didn’t know where she was, but there was a good possibility that she just ran away.”

Schultz said there were earlier indications that Kourtnee might run, including the fact that, as a person with bipolar disorder, stated openly on Facebook by her mother and the LPD, she was in the process (via her doctor) of switching medications due to some side effects from her previous medication, which played a major role in her state of mind. She had also recently broken up with a boyfriend, Schultz said, giving an emotional element to her state of mind.

Kourtnee drove off in the family’s 2007 Buick Lucerne, which she drove daily, and apparently left the community and the state. What was odd, Schultz said, is that she took very little with her.

“She left everything at the house,” Schultz said. “She didn’t take anything with her, like, she didn’t take her driver’s license, her bank cards, no change of clothes. The only thing she did take was her medication, … but she only had enough for a certain number of days. If I remember correctly, it was about seven days worth of medication.”

Schultz said running out of medication, and money, may have played a role in her reaching out to her mother on Tuesday.

Kourtnee also left two cell phones at home, and a tablet, Schultz said, though he found out later that she had acquired a Tracfone or “burner phone” along the way. Kourtnee having none of her typical devices made it extremely hard to track her, Schultz said.

“She wasn’t using any of her normal social media, not her normal Snapchat, Facebook, none of that,” he said. “She wasn’t using any of her personal devices, so it made it very difficult to try to locate her position or location. Kourtnee has an extensive amount of networking contacts. She knows people from Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. So in theory, she could have literally been anywhere, in any of these surrounding places, and in law enforcement, without something to track, we had to start finding out, OK, who was she talking to?”

Schultz said Officer Scott Burlingame with the Cody Police Department had technology at his disposal through the CPD to break into the Tracfone, which was very helpful and gave Schultz a few leads, for instance a person she had called the night before that the office was able to speak with.

Schultz also contacted the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, which started using the DCI’s License Plate Reader technology to look for the car, but the car never showed up on the LPRs, leading Schultz to believe Kourtnee had already left the state or was parked.

“She cut off all contact with anybody locally, as far as we know,” Schultz said. “Again, we don’t really know for sure, because we don’t have her phone that she was using while she was gone.”

There was also a great fear that Kourtnee might harm herself as she was possibly in a manic state, as noted on Facebook posts, given her medical and emotional status.

A mother’s anguish

Mother Sarah put numerous posts on Facebook during the week, which were shared widely, appealing to Kourtnee to come home, worrying about her health and state of mind, fearing she might harm herself, and offering a substantial reward for information. She wrote on the first afternoon, “We love you! Come home!”

Officer Schultz was also concerned.

“Generally, when somebody runs away, they plan. They have money, they have their clothes, they have a backpack. They have something, some sort of means of survival,” he said. “But all indications and signs pointed toward Kourtnee having very little money, no way to contact anybody, no extra clothes, no plan as to where she was going. It seemed like she just left the house with her medication.”

Sarah wrote on February 12 that there were indications Kourtnee had run away, and she appealed to anyone reading the posts who had spoken to or seen Kourtnee to reach out to the family, adding, “I’m begging for help to bring her home safe.”

The Lovell Police Department also posted a Missing Person message on Facebook, regional media picked up the story, and friends passed out flyers. A GoFundMe page was established. Many prayers were offered.

And meanwhile, Schultz and others were chasing down every lead, from Rexburg, Idaho, to Colorado and even close to home.

“Sarah and I talked every single day, several times a day,” he said. “We kind of leaned on each other, told each other, you know, to stay positive. Think the best. And we just went from one lead to another. Any time a lead came in, we hammered it immediately.”

But there was no sign of Kourtnee.

The search and lack of progress was frustrating for all.

On Monday evening, Sarah posted, “I’m living my worst nightmare. I don’t know what to do next or even the strength to do it. Today we passed out flyers to Cody, Powell and Greybull. As the days go on my heart is sinking. Kourtnee isn’t just some teenage kid running away from home that will come back in a few days. Please help us bring our baby home! We love her so much!”

As it turned out, Kourtnee did have a plan. She had done research and found out that, as a 17-year-old, Colorado would not detain her and force her to return, simply for being a runaway. And indeed, when contacted Tuesday, the Colorado Springs Police Department refused to detain her, saying they had no authority to do so.

“That was her whole plan in the first place,” Schultz said. “She didn’t want to come back, and she knew that the Colorado Springs PD wasn’t going to do anything to make that happen.”

By Tuesday, Schultz said, Kourtnee may have been running out of money and medication, or maybe she just wanted to reach out to her mom and tell her she was OK. Whatever the motivation, Kourtnee called Sarah at about 11:15 a.m. on Tuesday, said she was OK but that she didn’t want to – or have to – come home. But she needed money and medication. She had been living with a girl but had been kicked out that day. She said she was working at an iHop.

Schultz and Sarah worked together on a plan, and Schultz worked with Big Horn County Attorney Marcia Bean to file charges necessary for the Colorado Springs police to detain her so she can be returned home safely. It took some time, but eventually Schultz was able to obtain an extraditable warrant so that she would be detained in a juvenile facility. She was taken into custody between 3:15 and 3:30 p.m., Schultz said.

He added that the county attorney and police aren’t in the habit of criminally charging juveniles with mental disorders, but it was a way to get her home and protect her health and safety. Once she’s home, Kourtnee’s case will likely be handled through juvenile court, which has more flexibility to help her stay in school and the like, Schultz said.

As for Schultz, he is relieved that the long ordeal has come to a successful conclusion and grateful for the support he received from Officer Burlingame and the Cody PD, Park County Sheriff Darrell Steward, the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Office, DCI, the Basin and Greybull police departments and all who played a role in the safe return of Kourtnee.

“Darrell Steward did a phenomenal job. Anything that I needed from him, he immediately jumped on it,” Schultz said. “DCI did a phenomenal job. Anything I asked them to do, any kind of resources, suggestions, anything like that. They were on top of it. And Scott Burlingame with Cellebrite (technology) assisting us with getting in the phone … that is a service that nobody really has around here, and luckily, Cody PD got on it. That’s extremely important that they have that available for us in law enforcement.”

And of course, there was Mom Sarah, who kept battling every day to find her daughter.

“Sarah never gave up,” Schultz said. “You could tell she was extremely concerned and passionate about getting Kourtnee back here so she could get her some help. Like I said, we were in contact pretty much every single day, several times a day, trying to come up with things, bounce ideas off each other, and any kind of information she got, she would immediately send it to me, and I would chase down the leads as soon as I got them.”

Praise for police work

In an interview earlier this week before Kourtnee called home, Sarah Pitt spoke of her appreciation for the work Schultz and the Lovell Police Department had been doing.

“Dusty Schultz has been amazing,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to thank him enough. He has worked a night shift and then went home and slept for an hour or two, and then turned around and went up to Cody, to DCI, and spent all day there, and then came back and worked another night shift, and then got up and did it again. So he has been working tirelessly.”