MISSOULA – The Missoula Police Department has identified persons of interest in the disappearance of Jermain Charlo.
The Native American female in her early 20’s went missing this past summer and was last seen in Missoula in the early hours near Orange Street Food Farm on June 16.
Missoula Police Detective Guy Baker said Charlo is believed to be a victim of a criminal act, and they do not believe she ran away from home.
Baker said the Missoula Police Department, Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, Lake County, Tribal Police, and the FBI have spent several hundred hours working on the case.
The agencies have conducted multiple searches including the use of cadaver dogs, looking through social media, emails and cell phone records, along with residential search warrants in Missoula County, Lake County, and the Reservation.
The results have led to a few different leads, one of those being related to a possible abduction into sex trafficking.
Baker said the outcome of her being found alive is slowly dwindling.
“We don’t know that and we continue to hold out hope, but it’s been four and a half months and the pattern of life drastically changed on the night of June 15, 2018,” Baker said. “There has been no activity on social media, there has been no contact with anyone she knows. I mean, I hold out hope that she’s ok and she’s still alive but each day that passes kind of points to the opposite direction.”
Baker said there is no connection with Charlo’s disappearance and the recent Missoula doublie homicide, or the murder of William “Bill” Conko Camel near Dixon on October 5.
Evidence in the case has been submitted to the crime lab and Baker said the results will take a few months.
Baker added that anyone with information should come forward and can contact him at 406-396-3217.
-Reported by Kent Luetzen/MTN News
