Mystery widens after teen found in wilderness
Fauna Jackson disappeared during a bathroom break Thursday morning into the deep, rugged wilderness of the Grand Teton National Park.
Rangers immediately scoured the area but found no trace of the girl. They later expanded their search, setting out across the park’s 310,000 acres, where between the summits and lakes live creatures that can kill.
For two days, more than 100 people deployed to look for the 16-year-old girl from Ohio, there in the park with an environmental group conducting a service project.
But when they finally found Jackson, she didn’t look the same.
Her hair, once long and sandy brown, was now a different cut and color, according to a statement from the National Park Service. The teenager had changed her clothes.
And as her rescuers approached, she ran not toward them, but away.
Though she appeared uninjured, Jackson was taken to St. John’s Medical Center, officials said, then turned over to the Teton County Sheriff ’s Office.
Authorities have yet to explain her odd behavior. Nor has she. Did she leave the park and go somewhere else, have her hair dyed and get a change of clothes, and then return once more so she could be “found?” Or did she not want to be found at all?
A sophomore at Clark Montessori High School in Cincinnati, the teen is known in her community as kind, reliable and a budding young leader, reported the Cincinnati Enquirer.
It was those skills that had brought Jackson to Wyoming in the first place. After spending eight weeks in a youth employment program through the Cincinnati chapter of Groundwork USA, a national civic organization that focuses on green issues, Jackson was selected as one of three teens to make the trip to the Grand Tetons, the newspaper reported.
“She’s very strongminded, very smart, able to handle all the tasks we had over the course of the summer — trail-building, invasive removal, restoration work,” Alan Edwards, with Groundwork Cincinnati chapter, told ABC affiliate WCPO. “Honestly, one of the best employees we had, and that’s why she got to go.”
The Wyoming trip lasted nine days and included attending an NPS-sponsored event with outdoor activities, leadership and teambuilding and fieldwork, Robin Corathers, executive director of the chapter, told the Enquirer. The details of her disappearance and her physical transformation are still under investigation.
“This I don’t think anyone saw coming,” Tanner Yess, a youth leader with Groundwork Cincinnati, told Fox 19, “but right now we’re just relieved.”