The parents of Henny Scott, Paula Castro and Nathan Stops, confirmed Saturday morning that their 14-year-old daughter's body was found Friday by a search party looking in an area west of Lame Deer on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation.
The FBI says they are investigating the discovery of a body found Friday outside of Lame Deer but declined to provide the identity of the body in a statement emailed Saturday to The Billings Gazette.
The body was found covered in snow in an area behind a house in the Muddy Creek area west of Lame Deer, said Conrad Fisher, the acting president of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.
Around 20 people, many of them volunteers, searched for Scott on Friday. Her body was found at around 5 p.m., Fisher said.
Scott, 14, was a freshman at Lame Deer High School and would have turned 15 in January, Castro said. She had been missing for several weeks. The Montana Department of Justice issued a Missing and Endangered Person Advisory on Wednesday stating Scott was last seen Dec. 13 at 8 a.m. near Busby and that she might have been headed toward Hardin.
Volunteers gathered Friday west of Lame Deer at Muddy Hall to look for Henny Scott, who was last seen at 8 a.m. on Dec. 13.
Scott is Native American, stands 5’1” tall and weighs about 115 pounds. She has brown hair, brown eyes and a mole on the bridge of her nose. She wore a black Columbia jacket, gray Nike hoodie and blue jeans when she was last seen.
At least initially, officials said they suspected Scott might be traveling to Hardin and was possibly injured, though the nature and cause of the injury weren’t revealed.
Details about Scott’s disappearance have been slow to surface. Montana’s Department of Justice confirmed Friday that it issued a “missing or endangered person advisory” on Dec. 26, the day the FBI requested one, which was nearly two weeks after Scott went missing. The Bureau of Indian Affairs had entered Scott into the missing persons database Dec. 13, meaning she was in the system, but her disappearance wasn't broadcast to the media until the day after Christmas. The advisory ended Dec. 27.
Local, non-federal, law enforcement officers weren’t familiar with the specifics of the report Friday. The Big Horn County Undersheriff said he wasn’t aware Scott was thought to be headed to the Crow Indian Reservation, or Hardin.
The volunteer search party Friday was organized by Theresa Small of Northern Cheyenne Disaster and Emergency Services.
Acting Tribal President Conrad Fisher offered administrative leave to any tribal employee who joined the search, encouraging them to sign up.
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