A Utah teenager missing for more than 500 days has been found safe in Oregon. The girl, from Garden City in Rich County, Utah, was 15 years old when she was last seen by her family at home on May 29, 2025. On Sunday afternoon, November 1, law enforcement officers in Oregon — working directly with the FBI's Salt Lake City field office and the Rich County Sheriff's Office — recovered her safely, according to a law enforcement news release. She is now 17. She was found with a 39-year-old man, who was taken into custody without incident. Officials have not released his name or any charges against him. In line with the protection owed to a minor, she is not named in this report.
Source: FBI Salt Lake City Field Office release, via Rich County Sheriff's Office
“The FBI and the Rich County Sheriff's Office have been actively investigating this case for more than a year and pursuing every lead received from across the United States and in other countries,” the FBI's Salt Lake City field office said in its statement on Sunday. “As this case is ongoing, no further information will be released at this time.” FBI Director Kash Patel credited local officers in Oregon and the bureau's Salt Lake City team: “Tonight, local police in Oregon brought a minor who had been missing for a year and a half to safety, acting on information provided by our FBI Salt Lake City Field Office,” he told Fox News Digital.
Source: Fox News Digital
A search that never stopped
For a year and a half, the case was worked continuously. Rich County Sheriff Dale Stacey said last year that detectives had chased reports of sightings across multiple states, and he urged the public to preserve any photographic or timestamped evidence that might place the missing girl at a location. Dozens of unconfirmed sightings were followed up before Sunday's recovery. Just weeks ago, her mother marked the 500-day milestone of the disappearance publicly, keeping the case in view while the search continued.
Sunday's recovery was a multi-agency operation. As well as the FBI's Salt Lake City field office and the Rich County Sheriff's Office, the effort was assisted by the Oregon State Police, the FBI's Portland field office and the Utah Department of Public Safety, according to Fox News reporting of the agencies' statements. The Oregon city where she was found has not been publicly identified by officials.
What investigators were examining in the final weeks
Newly unsealed search warrants, reviewed by KUTV and reported on October 29, showed the investigation had also looked inward before it looked outward: investigators had questioned the girl's mother about a 2024 allegation of physical abuse — an allegation, not a finding — while the mother maintained that her daughter had most likely been groomed and lured away by someone she had encountered online. A law enforcement source has said the man now in custody allegedly first met the teenager on Snapchat before she disappeared; that claim is reported here as an allegation from a single source and has not been confirmed by the FBI, which is releasing no further detail while the case is open.
Source: KUTV
In Garden City, the small Bear Lake community the teenager disappeared from, local outlet Bear Lake TV thanked Sheriff Dale Stacey and the Rich County Sheriff's Office “for a year and a half of work and for never giving up,” and wrote: “A family waited more than 500 days for this news. Please give them the privacy and grace they need as she comes home.”
What happens next
The investigation remains open, and the next facts will come from Oregon and Utah authorities: the identity of the 39-year-old man, the charges he faces, and his first court appearance have not yet been announced. The FBI says no further information will be released at this time, so timelines for charges and for the teenager's return home have not been made public. For now, the outcome every missing-child search hopes for has been reached: after more than 500 days, she was brought to safety alive.
The case also carries a lesson that investigators in this case have pointed to from the start. The working belief of the family — and the allegation reported from a law enforcement source — is that the disappearance began with online contact, on an app, with a stranger. For Punjabi and other immigrant families across the United States whose teenagers live much of their social lives on phones, the 500-day search that ended in Oregon on Sunday is a reminder of why officers ask parents to keep photographs, timestamps and message records, and to report a missing child immediately: in this case, leads gathered over a year and a half are what finally brought her home.