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The search for Amy Harding: Dispatch log from 911 call

By: MTN News

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GREAT FALLS — The Cascade County Attorney's Office on Thursday released the dispatch log from the 911 call made by John VanGuilder the night that Amy Harding-Permann was reported missing.

The 911 call came in at around 8 p.m. on the night of January 26th. The caller - Harding's boyfriend, John VanGilder - said that she was intoxicated and throwing punches at him before she left the house. About an hour later, Search and Rescue was put on standby for a possible river rescue.

They also put a call out requesting that a thermal imager be put on standby as well. About two and a half hours after Harding left the house, officials tried to ping her phone and also contacted family and friends, to no avail. Search and Rescue deployed crews to cross the river to sure sure it was safe for other crews. Nearly four hours into her disappearance, Homeland Security was called to see if they could do a fly-over with their thermal imager; unfortunately, they learned the helicopter was down for maintenance.

Harding was officially listed as a missing person just before 4 a.m.
Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter told MTN News on Wednesday that they're continuing to explore numerous leads in their investigation into her disappearance.

He says officers will likely be doing a helicopter search this weekend, following up on several possible leads. If you have any information about Amy’s whereabouts, you are asked to call the Sheriff’s Office at 406-454-6979.

Here is an excerpt from the Dispatch log of the timeline:

We talked with Sheriff Slaughter on Wednesday about the case; here is what he told us:

We are currently at this point in time we are going through multiple leads through our investigation. I’m not going to discuss those leads, but yes, we have been sifting through multiple leads and we will be ramping up the search again this weekend based upon those leads we’ve been working on.

It would be irresponsible at this point in time to have any of those leads go “cold” and the reason being is we haven't found Amy yet. One of the biggest mistakes we could make as investigators is to start ruling things out when we actually haven't found her.

I have given direction to all the investigators we have involved in this, that everything is still a possibility. All the leads are still open and to investigate those leads thoroughly.

We are talking to people that aren't local because there are people that are connected to her and other people involved in the investigation that aren’t local.

We will be doing a helicopter search I believe Saturday or Sunday and we have some more follow-up searches this weekend. It will be a pretty intense weekend with searches. Part of it is the weather and part of it is also when we learn about the information then we can react on it. The weather does play a factor in what we do, that is for sure.

There’s a massive amount of information that we’re taking in. We are then having to analyze all of that. And then it is creating leads. And leads are coming up in this investigation daily or hourly as far as that goes.

Unfortunately, and I’ll reiterate this, we cant really close any of those leads until we find Amy.

Missing people have been found 20 years later alive and well, so I don’t speculate on that, I think it’s natural for the public to always speculate the worst if they can't locate someone quickly.

What can happen is you don't have any leads. Which in this three week period of time you guys have seen us ramp up, and slow down, and ramp up and slow down. Well, we ramp up based on the information that we have so that we can search correctly.

We are going to search diligently, we’re going to follow leads diligently, we’re going to investigate. And then there might come a period of time where we don't have the leads that we had, or we’re waiting on more information to come from, say, a crime lab or a cell phone, or what have you. There’s lots of different avenues that we could get information. Sometimes we are in a waiting period and sometimes we don't have any more leads. Then you get leads and you ramp up again. So the reality of that is you never really are going to give up on it, and just say, 'Oh, we’re done.' We’re not going to do that. The truth of the matter is only really Amy knows where Amy is at this point.

If you have any information about Amy’s whereabouts, you are asked to call the Sheriff’s Office at 406-454-6979.

JANUARY 27: Great Falls woman reported missing
JANUARY 28: Volunteers needed to help search for Amy
JANUARY 29: Volunteers help search for Amy Harding
JANUARY 30: "Multiple agencies" working to find Amy Harding
JANUARY 31: Sheriff: the search for Amy Harding continues
FEBRUARY 10: Search for Amy Harding enters third week
FEBRUARY 10: Search for Amy Harding enters third week

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The search for Amy Harding: Dispatch log from 911 call

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