In the missing persons case of Braigene Collins, the Jackson Police Department is looking through bank records and have recently served a search warrant to Verizon Wireless for phone records.
That is the only update since police first publicized her disappearance on Facebook on Oct. 14. A separate missing persons Facebook page called “For the Missing: Pacific Northwest,” posted about her on Oct. 5 by sharing a poster made by the Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigations, which had been notified by local police. The police have yet to issue a press release.
Collins, 30, was last seen on Sept. 14 at the 49’er Inn & Suites in downtown Jackson.
Lt. Russ Ruschill with the Jackson Police Department said it seems Collins led a “very migratory” lifestyle, living about a year in resort towns before moving to another. She came most recently from Big Sky, Montana. He said her family in Pennsylvania hadn’t heard from her in nearly a decade and contacting them hadn’t generated any new information.
Kirsten Eubank, assistant general manager at the 49’er Inn, said Collins called in sick Saturday Sept. 14 and skipped work without calling on Sunday, Sept. 15. The following Monday and Tuesday were her days off. Eubank said she called the police Wednesday. A wellness check in employee housing found a notebook with her personal writing and a bag of her clothes on the floor. Her room key was left behind. Eubank said she did not have a car.
Eubank said she was “really disappointed” that the police didn’t put out a public request for information right away.
“They said that they can’t access her information, that she’s an adult, she can do what she wants,” Eubank said. “My concern is that if she is in trouble, if she did have her phone, it’s probably dead.”
Eubank was not the only community member disturbed by the amount of time that passed before news outlets picked up the story.
Patrice Gonzales first learned of Collins’ disappearance on the second page of the Oct. 18 Jackson Hole Daily and was surprised that the article was the first she was learning of the case.
“Then, of course, when I saw that she was a Black woman I was like, well, that actually makes a lot of sense,” Gonzales said. “I think if it was a white woman in this town, if a white hiker went missing, she would have been on the front page of the News&Guide.”
Jackson Hole News&Guide Editor in Chief Johanna Love said the paper reported on Collins’ case as soon as they learned about it and they take the story “very seriously.”
“The News&Guide has made repeated inquiries on this case with authorities and will continue to cover it,” Love wrote in an email.
This report is KHOL’s first article about Collins’ case. KHOL began reporting as soon as it became aware of the Facebook post.
Days after Collins’ first appearance in the local news, Gonzales watched a flood of headlines and community gatherings for a famous grizzly bear, which died after being struck by a car on Oct. 22.
“This is a living, breathing woman that was a member of our community. And I think she deserves people to care about her as much as you care about a bear,” Gonzales said.
When local news outlets first picked up the story from the police’s Facebook post, online comments showed similar confusion and some outrage as to why the post came a month after Collins’ last appearance.
“I live in Jackson and this is the first I’ve heard about this,” one commenter said.
In online comments and even inside the police department, Collins’ case has been compared to that of 22-year old Gabby Petito, whose 2021 disappearance in Teton County made international news and whose death was ruled a homicide just over a week after her parents filed a missing persons report. This year, Florida lawmakers passed a bill named after Petito specifying how law enforcement should respond to domestic violence calls.
Media bias favoring stories of missing white women over missing men or people of color has been well-documented.
A 2016 paper from researchers at the University of South Florida found “higher article counts, as well as higher out-of-state and national-level coverage” with female victims, younger victims, and white victims in Louisiana.
People of color are also over-represented in the statistics of missing people.
A 2021 report from the University of Wyoming showed that 710 indigenous people were reported missing in the previous decade. That was 15% of the total missing people entered in the same timeframe, though American Indians make up about 5% of Wyoming’s population according to the U.S. Census.
Lt. Ruschill denied that race was a factor in the timing of information coming from his department.
Asked to explain the delay, Ruschill said that, in part, the department is stretched thin and the detective on the case was working on several child abuse cases.
“When we have child victims they take a priority over most everything,” Russchill said, “We have to triage cases based on our resources.”
For Gonzales, that defense fell flat.
“I think this town has plenty of resources,” she said.
Gonzales and Ruschill, though, both pointed out the media’s lopsided coverage of a famous grizzly bear.
“Where are our priorities?” Ruschill asked.
The 49’er Inn & Suites lobby where Collins worked for a year. (Sophia Boyd-Fliegel/ KHOL)
Both hotel manager Eubank and Lt. Ruschill said no generative tips had come from publicity on Collins’ case so far, but they are holding out hope.
Sitting beside the fireplace in the Inn’s lobby with her small dog on her shoulder, Eubank said in a soft voice that Collins’ disappearance and police and media response had been very upsetting.
“We all do care for her and hope that she is well,” Eubank said.
Collins is described as 5 feet, 6 inches tall, 135 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes and uneven skin pigmentation. She is known to wear a black curly-haired wig. Information can be directed to police at 307-733-1430.
