Ashley Mariah Loring HeavyRunner, born November 23, 1996, in Browning, Montana, was 20 years old and living on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Browning when she disappeared in June 2017. She was last seen by her mother at the family home on the evening of June 5, 2017; she messaged friends for a ride into town and was seen at a party on the reservation that night. According to an account an acquaintance later gave to media, Ashley stayed at his residence for several days afterward, and he reported driving her to a roadside location on the reservation on or about June 11, 2017, to meet another acquaintance, saying he fell asleep and she was gone when he woke — the last reported account of her physical presence.
Her family's final contact with her was a text message to her sister asking for money, to which Ashley replied she was okay. On June 25, 2017, a witness reported seeing a young woman run from a vehicle on U.S. Highway 89 near the reservation; her identity was never confirmed. Ashley was reported missing after she failed to visit her hospitalized father and did not reconnect with her sister as planned. She is described as 5'2", between 90 and 106 pounds depending on source, with brown hair, brown eyes, pierced ears, and a checkmark-shaped scar on one hand. She was last seen wearing a t-shirt and jeans and had packed a blue string backpack. A gray sweater and a pair of boots with reddish staining, reported by a witness to match clothing Ashley wore, were later recovered near the northern edge of the reservation.
Blackfeet Law Enforcement Services and the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Justice Services led the initial investigation, conducting multiple searches and dozens of interviews and offering a reward reported at different points between $5,000 and $15,000. The FBI began assisting in late 2017 and became the lead agency in March 2018. In December 2018, Ashley's sister, Kimberly Loring Heavyrunner, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that recovered evidence sat in storage for six to eight months before being sent for laboratory testing, and described jurisdictional confusion among tribal, BIA, and federal authorities.
Human remains found on the reservation in December 2018 were confirmed by FBI laboratory analysis in February 2019 to be unrelated to Ashley's case. Media accounts, based on witness statements, have named two men as persons of interest; neither has been charged in connection with Ashley's disappearance, and the FBI has not publicly named a suspect. The case remains open and unsolved as of August 2026, with no arrests made. It appears in the FBI's Indian Country missing-persons listings and is reported to carry NamUs case number MP40815. Tips may be directed to the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or tips.fbi.gov, or to the BIA Missing and Murdered Unit by texting "BIAMMU" to 847411.
