Sharon Baldeagle, 12, of Eagle Butte, South Dakota, was reported missing after leaving her home on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation on September 18, 1984, with a 15-year-old friend. The two girls, both from South Dakota, hitchhiked to Casper, Wyoming, where on or about September 19, 1984, they were picked up by Royal Russell Long, a truck driver in his late 40s. Long drove the girls to his residence in nearby Evansville, Wyoming, where he restrained both girls at gunpoint and sexually and physically assaulted them. Baldeagle's friend escaped the residence and contacted authorities; by the time officers arrived, Long and Baldeagle were both gone. Baldeagle was 5'3", approximately 110 pounds, with black hair and pierced ears, and was last known to be wearing a black and yellow tiger-striped top with black pants and shoes, carrying a red bag. She has not been located since.
Long was apprehended a week later, on September 26, 1984, in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Baldeagle was not with him, and he denied knowledge of her location. He pleaded guilty to kidnapping-related charges connected to the abduction of both girls and was sentenced to two life terms in prison. Long died in custody at the Wyoming State Penitentiary in November 1993 without providing a corroborated account of Baldeagle's fate; he maintained, uncorroborated, that he had left her with another trucker bound for Texas. The case, led by the Fall River County (SD) Sheriff's Office, remains open and classified as a non-family abduction; foul play is suspected. In September 2019, partial skeletal remains found near Sweetwater County, Wyoming, were publicly linked to Baldeagle by a podcast and subsequent news coverage; the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office later stated the remains were unlikely to be hers, and further reporting indicated they were likely of an unrelated, non-forensic origin. Unconfirmed reported sightings placed a person believed to be Baldeagle in Wisconsin and Colorado in the years following her disappearance; neither was substantiated. Case identifiers: NCMEC #600185, NamUs #MP4382, NCIC #M-179514672, agency case #63037R. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Fall River County Sheriff's Office at (605) 745-4444 or NCMEC's 24-hour call center at 1-800-843-5678.
