Body Found on Wyoming Sheep Ranch Not Missing Mom Susan Powell
Wyoming police find remains of a woman, but it could take weeks to identify.
Sept. 14, 2010— -- The remains of a woman found on a Wyoming ranch are not those of Susan Powell, a mother who disappeared from her Utah home on a wintry night while her husband claims he took their two young children camping, officials said.
The Albany County Coroner determined it was not Powell through dental records, and said the remains are still unidentified, according to a statement this evening from the Albany County Sheriff's Office.
The unidentified woman was described as caucasian, 30 to 40 years old and about 5 foot 3 with short brown hair.
Officials were tipped off to the location of the unidentified body on Sept. 9 by a sheep herder who found the body on a ranch outside Laramie, Wyo.
Police are "estimating she died last fall in 2009 to as recently as spring 2010," said Albany County Sherriff's spokesman Lt. Michael Garcia.
Garcia said the sheriff's office had been contacted by law enforcement officials in Utah looking to determine if the body belonged to Powell, who vanished without a trace from her home in West Valley City, Utah, on Dec. 9, 2009.
"The physical description is a little bit closer than some of the other bodies that have been found," said Shelby Gifford, spokeswoman for Susan Powell's family.
"Every time, police let us know they've found a body, it's a lurch in your throat," she said. "If it's her we don't want to know she's dead, and if it's not her, it means she is still shes still missing and we don't have closure. It's been a waiting game for months."
Powell's husband Josh Powell has been named a person of interest, but never arrested or charged. He told authorities he took his two sons, then 4 and 3, to go camping some two hours away around midnight, despite it being a cold and wet December night.
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