Missing St. Ignatius woman found safe
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ST. IGNATIUS — When a loved one disappears, the story rarely ends as happily as it did for a tightly knit Amish community in St. Ignatius last week.
Local authorities began a massive ground and air search for 30-year-old Naomi Ruth Engbretson around midnight Sunday, Jan. 23, after her family reported her missing. Over a two-day period, search teams including members of Lake County Search and Rescue; Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ Division of Fire; CSKT Fish and Game; Tribal Law and Order; an ALERT helicopter from Kalispell; the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and dozens of volunteers combed the area around Allison Road where Naomi lives with parents Steve and Edith Engbretson. Naomi was described as a 5-foot-6, 113-pound woman with red hair and blue eyes.
Mounted horse patrols, search dogs and aircraft with infrared technology were all involved in the search, which extended up and down Foothill Road and the surrounding area and up into the Mission Mountains. As many as 118 people, mostly volunteers from the Amish community and their neighbors, were searching on the ground at one point Tuesday, LCSR coordinator Dan Duryee said.
It’s not the first time people in the St. Ignatius area have come together in a crisis. Duryee saw a similar response last summer when two brothers visiting the area disappeared in a canal off St. Mary’s Lake Road, and area residents showed up to help look for the boys, who were later found drowned in the canal.
“People came out of the woodwork to help,” he said. “That area down there is really fantastic.”
After two days of searching with no results and with little information to go on, the sheriff’s office called off the search Tuesday afternoon, pending any new developments in the case.
While Naomi’s family and friends kept searching, hope was waning for the Engbretsons.
But their despair changed to rejoicing when the phone rang early Thursday morning.
A motorist had spotted Naomi walking on Airport Road near Watson Road and offered her a ride, which she declined. The driver then called Naomi’s family, who had her safely home by 6:15 a.m., Sheriff Jay Doyle said. After a check-up at St. Luke Community Hospital in Ronan, Naomi was deemed fine to return home. Doyle visited the family at the hospital, but said Naomi wouldn’t talk to him.
“She is very shy,” Doyle said.
When she left her home on foot Sunday evening around 7 p.m., Naomi had left a note for her family saying that she was OK, she loved them, and asking, “please, please don’t look for me,” Doyle said. She then hid at an empty house less than two miles away — she had keys to the residence, which is the owner’s second home, Duryee explained.
“Searchers were at that house three times, and she did not make herself known,” he said.
Whatever her reasons for leaving — “We just don’t know,” Duryee said — Naomi’s family and friends were overjoyed to find her safe and well. Less than 12 hours after her return, the Engbretsons and friends hosted a “thank-you” dinner of pizza and ice cream for everyone involved in the search effort.
In a standing-room-only gathering Thursday evening at the Amish community church, Naomi’s father Steve choked back tears as he thanked the search and rescue team and all the volunteers.
“My prayer today was that I could keep my composure long enough to say ‘Thank you,’” he said. “I wish I could come along the road and give each one of you a big hug.”
“Us Engbretsons could say our lives will probably never be quite the same again,” Naomi’s younger brother Josh added. “You have no idea what this meant to us — thank you.”
Duryee and Doyle also said they’d like to thank all the volunteers who gave their time and hard work throughout the search.
“I’m glad that it came out like it did,” Doyle said.
For the Engbretsons, no day had ever seen such a dramatic shift from hopelessness to celebration as Thursday, Steve said.
“God is good,” he told the crowd. “Rejoice with us — our daughter that was lost is now found.”
