Where the Mountains Still Hold Her Name - The Disappearance of Ashley Loring HeavyRunner

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A Young Woman With a Future Taking Shape

Ashley Loring HeavyRunner was 20 years old when she disappeared from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Browning, Montana, in June 2017. A member of the Blackfeet Tribe, Ashley was a student at Blackfeet Community College, where she was studying environmental science. Family members and people who knew her described her as intelligent, outgoing, strong-willed and deeply connected to those she loved. She was only 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed roughly 90 to 105 pounds, but those closest to her remembered a young woman whose personality and determination were much larger than her small frame. She had brown or dark hair, brown eyes and a distinctive scar shaped like a checkmark on the top of one of her hands.

Growing Up on the Blackfeet Reservation

Ashley spent part of her childhood with her older sister Kimberly Loring HeavyRunner in foster care before the sisters eventually went to live with their grandparents and siblings on a horse ranch. Kimberly later recalled a childhood filled with riding horses, chopping firewood, cleaning stalls and swimming in a nearby creek. Their grandmother remembered Ashley as dependable and willing to work. Those experiences helped create an unusually close bond between Ashley and Kimberly, a relationship that would become central to the years-long search after Ashley disappeared. According to Kimberly, when the sisters were children she promised Ashley that if they were ever separated, she would find her. Years later, that childhood promise would take on a heartbreaking new meaning.

College, Ambition and Plans Beyond Browning

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