The Disappearance of Amy Wroe Bechtel: Suspects and 2025 Tip

The disappearance of Amy Wroe Bechtel began on July 24, 1997, when the 24-year-old runner and Olympic Marathon hopeful vanished while scouting a 10K race course on a remote forest road outside Lander, Wyoming. Her unlocked white Toyota Tercel was found hours later at a Burnt Gulch turnoff along the Loop Road, but no body, blood, clothing, or verifiable footprint has ever been recovered. After early suspicion fell on her husband, Steve Bechtel, investigators have since named convicted serial killer Dale Wayne Eaton as the prime suspect.

What Happened on July 24, 1997

Amy spent the morning running errands tied to a planned move: calling the phone company, arranging gas service, handling home insurance. A to-do list later found in her car showed four of thirteen items checked off.¹ Around 2:30 p.m. she was last seen at a Lander art gallery, wearing a yellow shirt, black shorts, and running shoes.² Investigators believe she then drove into the Shoshone National Forest to scout the hill-climb route for a 10K race she was organizing that fall, which would finish at Frye Lake in Sinks Canyon.³

Her husband, Steve Bechtel, told investigators he spent the day scouting climbing locations in the Cartridge Creek area with climbing partner Sam Lightner Jr., meeting in Dubois and returning when thunderstorms moved in.³ Phone records placed Steve at the couple’s home at 4:43 p.m.⁴ When Amy still had not returned by 8:15 p.m., Steve alerted neighbors Todd Skinner and Amy Whisler. At 10:00 p.m. he called Amy’s parents and then the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office.²

What Was Found at Her Car

Around 1:00 a.m. on July 25, Skinner and Whisler found Amy’s Toyota Tercel parked at a Burnt Gulch turnoff on the Loop Road, a 30-mile back road through the Shoshone National Forest. The car was unlocked. The keys sat on the passenger seat beneath her to-do list, which included milepost notes for the 10K route. Her sunglasses lay beside them. Her green Eagle Creek wallet was missing, which struck investigators as unusual because Amy did not typically carry a wallet while running.³

The search that followed grew to more than 500 volunteers working outward from a five-mile radius to thirty, with horses, tracking dogs, helicopters, the FBI, the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, and the National Guard. Investigators obtained NASA satellite imagery and contacted Russian authorities about photos taken from the Mir space station over Wyoming during that period. Caves, abandoned mines, and old homestead cabins across Sinks Canyon and the Popo Agie River drainage were checked. After eight days the search was called off with nothing recovered.¹ Within a week the case was reclassified from missing-persons to criminal.

According to Fremont County Sheriff’s Lt. John Zerga, the scene itself was compromised early on: authorities allowed the Skinners to drive Amy’s Tercel home, potentially destroying trace evidence inside and around the vehicle.¹ No fingerprints, DNA, or forensic evidence has ever tied anyone to her disappearance.

In 2003, hikers found a watch along the middle fork of the Popo Agie River matching the description of the one Amy wore the day she vanished. Bones found nearby turned out to be animal, and investigators could not definitively confirm the watch was hers.¹

Why Steve Bechtel Was Suspected

Steve Bechtel was named a “key suspect” early in the investigation. Sheriff Dave King explained that standard procedure required eliminating the person closest to the victim before looking elsewhere.⁴ Several circumstantial threads kept him there. A camper on the Loop Road reported a blue pickup driving fast with a man at the wheel and a blonde woman in the passenger seat, and later identified the truck as matching Steve’s. A youth camp minister reported a vehicle like Steve’s truck parked alone at the spot where Amy’s car was later found.³ Investigators seized Steve’s personal journals, which Sheriff King described as containing writings about “power and death” and “killing people.” Amy’s brother, Nels Wroe, told investigators Amy had once appeared bruised and joked that Steve was “a little rough.” Investigators also noted that although phone records placed Steve at home at 4:43 p.m., Burnt Gulch was roughly 45 minutes away, so his earlier movements could not be ruled out.

On August 5, 1997, FBI agent Rick McCullough confronted Steve directly, accusing him of murdering his wife and claiming to have evidence. Steve, who had already been interviewed four times, believed the agent was bluffing and hired Wyoming attorney Kent Spence, son of trial lawyer Gerry Spence.¹ Spence advised him to refuse a polygraph, calling the tests “unreliable, inadmissible in court, and prone to false positives.” Steve later said, “It’s like one of those monkey traps. Anybody who needs me to take that test — I don’t need them in my life.”³ He stopped cooperating with investigators after retaining counsel.

The physical evidence did not support the suspicion. A search warrant served on the couple’s home and Steve’s pickup in early August 1997 produced negative luminol results for blood in both locations, and cadaver dogs detected nothing.¹ Sam Lightner Jr. corroborated Steve’s account, saying he would not “cover for somebody who might have murdered a friend of mine.”³ No charges were ever filed against Steve. In 2004 he had Amy legally declared dead, and he has since remarried. Lander remains divided over his possible involvement.⁴

Why Dale Wayne Eaton Is Now the Prime Suspect

Investigative focus has shifted over the years to Dale Wayne Eaton. Lt. John Zerga has called Eaton the “prime suspect” in Amy’s disappearance.⁵

Eaton was convicted in 2004 of the kidnapping, rape, and premeditated murder of Lisa Marie Kimmell, who disappeared in March 1988 while driving from Denver to Billings. Her car was later discovered buried beneath his trailer in Moneta, Wyoming, after DNA from preserved crime-scene semen matched Eaton in 2002. He is serving life without parole.⁶ Less than two months after Amy vanished, Eaton attacked Shannon and Scott Breeden and their infant son after giving them a ride near Red Desert, Wyoming, pointing a rifle at Scott and attempting to stab Shannon before Scott subdued him.⁷ FBI profilers and cold-case investigators have suggested Eaton may be linked to the so-called Great Basin Serial Killer, tied to murders across Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado in the 1980s and 1990s.⁸

The connection to Amy’s case is circumstantial but has grown. Eaton’s brother confirmed Eaton was camped in the Lander area during the summer of 1997, and investigators note Eaton was familiar with the Burnt Gulch area, where few people camped.¹ After consulting FBI profilers, Colorado cold-case workers, and Kimmell-case detectives, Zerga said in 2013, “We believe through all our interviews there’s a good reason to believe Dale was involved with this.”⁸ In 2010, Zerga and an FBI agent tried to interview Eaton in prison; he refused. His counsel has repeatedly blocked the Bechtel family’s attempts to contact him as well. Eaton’s own family members have alleged Kimmell was not his only victim and that he has refused multiple chances to confess to other crimes.⁶

The 2025 Waltman Tip

In October 2025, Tracey Sve, who owns a property in Waltman, Wyoming, where Eaton parked his camper in 1996, came forward with information she had been gathering since 2012. Searching Eaton’s old vehicles still on the property, Sve said she found a gas receipt dated near the time of Amy’s disappearance hidden inside a cowboy boot, along with other papers tucked into a van’s headliner. She turned the materials over to the FBI.⁵

Sve also reported finding a modern Wonder Bread bag buried roughly a foot and a half deep in the dirt floor of an old 1800s cabin on the property, a detail investigators found noteworthy given Eaton’s known pattern of burying victims’ belongings. Lt. Zerga said that while he does not “necessarily believe that people are psychic,” he considered the tip “worth checking out” and confirmed the sheriff’s office could bring cadaver dogs. Earlier searches of Eaton’s vehicles at the Waltman site had not used cadaver dogs because the property functioned as an “old junkyard.”⁵

Where the Case Stands

The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office keeps two investigators assigned to the Bechtel case and continues to follow tips, some of which have prompted inquiries on the Wind River Reservation. Dale Wayne Eaton, in his late seventies and reported to be suffering from dementia, remains in prison for the Kimmell murder. He has never been charged in Amy’s disappearance, and no physical evidence has been recovered linking him or anyone else to it. Amy’s brother, Nels Wroe, confirmed in late 2025 that the family is working closely with local law enforcement and the FBI: “We are definitely following up on this information.”⁵

1
Cowboy State Daily. Disappearance of Amy Wroe Bechtel Still Haunting After 26 Years
2
Outside. Travel End Run
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Runner’s World. Long Gone Girl
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Unsolved. Amy Bechtel
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Cowboy State Daily. Police Believe Tip in Amy Wroe Bechtel’s Disappearance Worth Looking Into
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Oil City News. Convicted Murderer Dale Wayne Eaton Re-Sentenced
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WyoFile. Wyoming Should Abolish the Death Penalty Even for Eaton
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Wyoming Public Media. Authorities to Investigate New Leads in the Disappearance of Amy Wroe Bechtel