In November 2023, St. George, Utah, authorities shared missing person reports for 32-year-old Courtney Townsend. According to those reports, Townsend had taken her mother’s vehicle, which was found near Duck Creek high centered and burned as though set on fire. Search and rescue operations were conducted at the time, with no results, until snowy weather forced operations to stop.
As May began and the weather warmed, local authorities marshaled an- other attempt to locate traces of Townsend in the region surrounding where the car had burnt up. The Kane County Sheriff’s Office and its partnered Search and Rescue agents returned to the Duck Creek area on the weekend of May 11, with plans to try again on subsequent weekends.
In a statement for the St. George News, Sheriff Tracy Glover reported, “We logged 455 man-hours between search and rescue and law enforcement folks, [we] covered about 160 miles of tracks looking for clues or anything like that. We didn’t locate her, but we’re still looking.”
Authorities found no trace of Townsend in the area, though anecdotal reports from searchers indicate a potential silver lining: considering the weather and the length of the search, it is unlikely search and rescue officials would have found Townsend alive in the area, and realistically they were searching for a body were she there at all.
As it stands, search and rescue reports indicate no evidence that Townsend is still in the area. There are still a few auxiliary searches occurring, and some volunteer groups are still putting on their own search efforts.
Anyone with information on Courtney Townsend’s whereabouts is encouraged to call St. George Police at (435)-627-4300 and reference case number 23P032456.
