Shivangi Sinha
In June 2017, Ashley Loring Heavyrunner was looking ahead to what she hoped would be a bright future. She was pregnant and planning to move in with her sister, Kimberly Heavyrunner, but those plans never came to fruition. Ashley disappeared, and as her sister worked with various investigative agencies and members of the local community to find answers, many pieces of the puzzle failed to come together. There were conflicting accounts of Ashley’s last known movements, and her family also raised concerns about the effectiveness of the investigation into the disappearance of the young Blackfeet woman. NBC’s ‘Dateline: Missing in America’ podcast examines the timeline of the case and explores the many questions that continue to surround her disappearance.
Ashley Heavyrunner Had Stayed With a Friend in the Days Leading Up to Her Disappearance
Loxie Loring and Roy Lee Heavyrunner welcomed their younger daughter, Ashley Loring Heavyrunner, on November 23, 1996. The family is part of the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana. Ashley and her older sister, Kimberly Heavyrunner, spent part of their childhood in foster care, and that brought the two sisters especially close. They later moved to a ranch near Heart Butte to live with their grandmother. Ashley was a bright and promising student throughout high school, where she played volleyball and participated in cross-country running. In 2015, she enrolled at Blackfeet Community College to study environmental science and had ambitious plans and dreams for her future.
In 2017, Ashley was also dealing with several personal challenges, including the loss of her grandfather and the end of a long-term romantic relationship. Despite these difficulties, she was preparing for a new beginning. That fall, she planned to transfer to the University of Montana and move into an apartment with her sister. Reports also indicate that she was pregnant at the time and looking forward to starting a new chapter in her life. In April 2017, when Kimberly left for a trip to Morocco, she was concerned about Ashley, who had begun spending time with a crowd much older than herself. One of the people she had become particularly close to was Sam McDonald.
On June 5, 2017, Ashley was reportedly seen attending a party with some friends at a cabin owned by Sam. When detectives later interviewed him, he claimed that the last time he saw Ashley was on June 11, 2017, when she asked him to drive her to a roadside pull-off along US Highway 89 so that someone known as V-Dog could pick her up. According to his account, he drove her there and then fell asleep for about 30 to 40 minutes. He said that when he woke up, Ashley was no longer in the vehicle and he assumd that the person she had been waiting for had arrived and taken her away.
Ashley Heavyrunner’s Family Knew Something Was Amiss After Her Father Fell Sick
Meanwhile, Kimberly Heavyrunner was already growing concerned about her sister. On June 6, 2017, she received a message from Ashley Heavyrunner asking for money, but because she was out of the country at the time, she was unable to send any. When Kimberly asked whether everything was okay, Ashley reassured her that it was. Another person reported that on June 7, they received a message from Ashley asking for a ride, but by the time they responded, she never replied. When Kimberly returned to Montana on June 8, she immediately felt that something was wrong because her sister had not gotten in touch with her. Initially, she believed Ashley might simply be staying with friends. However, when their father, Roy Lee, became ill and Ashley still failed to contact any family members, they realized that something was seriously amiss.
In late June 2017, investigators received a tip that a young woman had been seen running from a vehicle along US Highway 89. Authorities conducted a search of the area, but the effort did not uncover anything of significance. Investigators interviewed Sam McDonald and also carried out a search near his cabin, where Ashley had reportedly been seen on June 5, 2017. During the search, authorities found a torn gray sweater and a pair of red-stained boots that were allegedly close to Ashley’s shoe size. However, according to reports, no testing was ever conducted on the items because the evidence was allegedly misplaced.
Ashley Loring Heavyrunner’s Case is Still an Ongoing Investigation
Detectives also identified the man Ashley Heavyrunner had referred to as V-Dog. He was Paul Valenzuela, a man married to Ashley’s cousin, Tashina Running Crane. According to reports, Ashley’s family confirmed that Paul and Ashley had been involved in an affair. The reports further state that about a month after Ashley’s disappearance, Paul filed for divorce from his wife. Tashina was also interviewed by detectives and stated that she had no knowledge of the affair until after Ashley went missing. She said that she and her husband were in Seattle around the time of the disappearance, but that Paul had returned to Montana on his own on June 11, 2017.
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