Ending a desperate search, an Idaho mother and her 16-year-old daughter have been found dead after vanishing during a purported camping trip.
The bodies of Dawna Roe and her daughter Gabrielle were found in Dawna’s van near Drewsey, Oregon on Thursday, according to the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.
The grim discovery, made by employees working at a ranch in the area, came just a day after police in Caldwell, Idaho, sought the public’s help in locating the pair, saying they had last been seen driving on June 30 and there was “concern for both Dawna and Gabrielle’s safety.”
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“Gabby and Dawna might have been on their way to go camping. Family and friends do not know where they might have gone and camping is out of character for Dawna,” police said in a statement at the time.
After they were found, Caldwell Police Chief Rex Ingram was quoted telling local media the deaths appeared to be a murder-suicide, adding that a toxicology report and autopsy are forthcoming.
He told CBS 2 that the pair had apparently gone on a “camping trip” and that Dawna Roe “had a history of mental illness,” but he stressed that there were no signs that “specifically said that she was gonna put themselves in danger.”
A GoFundMe set up by Maria Villesca, who identified herself as Dawna’s daughter and Gabrielle’s sister, stated that Dawna had “battled with and eventually succumbed to mental illness, and Gabby was a victim of that illness as well.”
Villesca wrote on Facebook that she’s tried to gain custody over Gabrielle to no avail. She wrote that while she loved her mother, “I have always felt deep sadness for how lonely she must feel. How she must always feel panicked and helpless over meeting life’s demands.”
“It’s horrifying to be stuck in a sick mind,” she wrote.
Another man who identified himself as a family friend on Facebook posted that Dawna had taken her daughter, who had Down syndrome, on what was supposed to be a camping trip after quitting her job.
