Ashley Loring Heavyrunner
Ashley Heavyrunner was just 20 years old when she vanished in June 2017. Her story is as infuriating as it is heartbreaking—a classic small-town mystery where someone knows something, but nobody’s talking, and law enforcement bungles every step.
Days before her disappearance, Ashley ran into her family’s home and frantically started shutting all the windows and blinds. When her father asked her what she was doing, she cryptically replied, “I did something,” and nothing more. Minutes later, her father reported hearing a car pull up, and then drive away. Ashley seemed panicked the whole time, and fled a few minutes later.
The last definite sighting of Ashley was a party on June 6, 2017 in Browning, Montana. She’s in a video from the party, relaxing on a couch with a few others–and then nothing. She was very close with her sister, and when Kimberly didn’t hear from her for a few days, she became worried and started to investigate. The family went to police a few days later, who said they can’t do anything because she’s an adult and there’s nothing suspicious yet. That is, until someone told Kimberly they saw a woman running from a car off a main road in the area that very night.
The reservation police set up a search of the area, and they find a sweater thought to belong to Ashley, along with a pair of boots that appeared to have blood on them. And then, in typical police fashion, that crucial evidence gets “misplaced”, and not found again until almost a year later when the FBI gets involved. There have been no updated on the testing of this evidence, which seems incredibly suspicious. It either is Ashley’s blood or it isn’t–the family should know that much.
Things get twisted in the rumor mill in this small town, complicating and contradicting the facts. Ashley was thought to be in some sort of relationship with a man named Sam McDonald, a much older man in the area. In my opinion, there are very few good reasons a woman like Ashley would be dating a rough older man like Sam. Nevertheless, Sam actually admits to seeing Ashley that night, and for a few days after. He says that she stayed with him for a few days while they did copious drugs. And here’s where his bullshit starts: then he says he told her to go home because she seemed unwell and needed to sleep it off. Not only that he told her to go home, but that while he was driving her there, she told him to stop and drop her off at another location, a remote cabin, and that someone else would give her a ride. Then, after all the drugs and partying, he fell asleep in the driver’s seat of his own truck on th side of the road, and she was gone when he woke up.I call BS on this story, but that’s just me.
In the days that follow, Kimberly called Ashley’s cousin T, who said that her husband Paul picked Ashley up that day. Naturally, Kimberly called Paul who immediately got defensive, says he never saw her, and hung up. Within a few days, bloody shorts are found at Paul’s trailer, which good old cousin T later sets fire to. Apparently, it was around this time that T might have found out that Ashley may have also been seeing Paul, but T claims it was because Paul was kicking her out. And where are those shorts now? Surprise, nobody knows. A year later, the family searched the trailer again (the fire only scorched the kitchen), and they found a section of blood-stained carpet that they gave to the police, again, to no avail.
Finally, the FBI gets involved. Up until this point it was only the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Blackfoot Police. Yet, Paul, who was incarcerated on other charges, reached out to ABC News, saying he knows everything, but wanted to be moved to a different prison, as if ABC News has any control over his accomodation. Then he stops talking.
Another twist: after the FBI takes over, a witness reaches out to them. After reporting a sighting of Ashley just days after her disappearance was publicized, she reported it to Blackfoot police. She never heard anything, so she followed up with the FBI–who has never heard about this tip. The Blackfoot Police never included it in their case file.
Two years later, Ashley’s father dies. While at the funeral, Kimberly gets a text that some local guy named Big Al is involved in Ashley’s disappearance. Immediately after, Big Al’s torso is found in one town, and the rest of him in another. But a few days later, someone confesses and it doesn’t seem to be related to Ashley’s case. Every lead is a dead end, or completely mishandled. This case is endlessly frustrating.
Ashley’s disappearance highlights how Indigenous women are systematically failed—by communities, law enforcement, and an indifferent system. Someone knows what happened to Ashley—maybe it’s Sam, Paul, or someone entirely unexpected. Until they talk or law enforcement gets serious, Ashley’s family is left with only heartbreak and unanswered questions.