Casper Mother Missing After Failing to Pick Up Kids

# DHF-030 — Casper Mother Missing After Failing to Pick Up Kids

**Case No. DHF-030 | Subject: Kandice Gunter | Date: 29 October 2026 (last contact, Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation) | Location: Natrona County, Wyoming, USA | Status: MISSING**

**Posted:** 1 November 2026

**Status stamp: MISSING**

> **Image note for readers:** All images in this file are original illustrations created for Dark History Files. They are atmospheric artwork, not photographs and not real evidence. No image in this file depicts Kandice Gunter, any member of any family, any investigator, or any real person, and no image depicts any act of violence or any

harm.

*Caption: Case card for DHF-030 — Kandice Gunter case, Natrona County, Wyoming. Status: MISSING.*

## THE FILE CARD

| **Case File No.** | DHF-030 |

| --- | --- |

| **Subject** | Kandice Gunter, 30, of Casper, Natrona County, Wyoming, USA |

| **Date** | 29 October 2026 (last contact, as listed by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation); reported missing to the Casper Police Department on the evening of 29 October 2026 |

| **Location** | Natrona County, Wyoming, USA; last phone location reported near Highway 387, near the Natrona County line, on 30 October 2026 |

| **Status** | MISSING |

| **Investigating authorities** | Casper Police Department; Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation |

| **Tip contact** | Casper Police Department at 307-235-8278; Crime Stoppers of Central Wyoming (anonymous) at 307-577-8477 or crimestopperscasper.org; Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation at 307-777-7181 |

| **Description (official listing, via reporting)** | 5 feet 7 inches tall, about 185 pounds, black hair, blue eyes; a butterfly tattoo on her neck and other tattoos on her arms, hands, legs and feet |

| **Vehicle** | Gray 2016 GMC Canyon pickup with Wyoming temporary registration, also missing |

| **One-line summary** | Kandice Gunter, 30, a mother of two who had recently moved to Casper, Wyoming, to be closer to her children, did not collect them from the Boys & Girls Club and has not been heard from since; the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation lists her last contact as 29 October 2026 in Natrona County, and she remains missing. |

> **Why this file is stamped MISSING:** The stamp records only the position as it stands on 1 November 2026. Kandice Gunter has not been located in any source relied on here, and no source relied on here reports that she has been found safe or otherwise. The stamp is not a claim about what happened to her, why contact stopped, or where she is now. It records one fact only: she is still missing. If she is located, this file will be updated, dated, and re-stamped — never quietly rewritten.

> **A date conflict the reader must know about:** The public record does not yet agree on the day-by-day sequence, and this file does not pretend otherwise. The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation lists Gunter's date of last contact as 29 October 2026 in Natrona County. Her sister, Kayla Gunter, told Cowboy State Daily that their last phone call was at 10:41 a.m. on a Wednesday, and that Gunter then stopped answering calls. Wednesday of that week was 28 October, one day before the Division's date. The reporting relied on here does not reconcile the two: it does not say whether the sister's "Wednesday" is a weekday error for 29 October, or whether the last family contact and the official last-contact date are two different days. This file therefore keeps the two accounts separate and attributed, and does not merge them into a single settled timeline. Where this file says "Wednesday", it means the sister's account as reported; where it says "29 October", it means the Division's listing as reported.

## THE CASE

### A move to be closer to her children

Kandice Gunter was 30 years old, a mother of two children, aged nine and six. About a month before she disappeared, she had moved from Nevada to Casper, in Natrona County, Wyoming, to be closer to her children. Her sister, Kayla Gunter, told Cowboy State Daily that the move appeared to be going well. That single fact matters, because it is the background against which everything that followed was judged by the people who knew her: this was not a move made in anger or in flight, as far as the family account goes, but a move made toward her children, and it was, in her sister's words as reported, going well.

Kayla Gunter also told Cowboy State Daily that she and her sister were close, and that they typically spoke by phone at least three times a day. That rhythm is what makes the silence that followed so stark: when a person who calls three times a day stops calling altogether, the break in the pattern is itself the alarm. And in this case, the alarm was not only a missed call. It was a missed pickup, and two children waiting at an after-school club for a mother who did not arrive.

Kandice Gunter was still relatively new to Wyoming. Her sister said she did not have a large circle of friends in the area. That detail is worth stating plainly, because it shapes the search in a practical way: a person who has lived in a place for only about a month has fewer people to turn to, fewer routines for others to notice, and fewer places where she is known by sight. It also means that the people most likely to notice her absence quickly were her family, and in particular her sister, who was watching the daily rhythm of calls and waiting for the pickup that did not happen.

### The missed pickup

Gunter was supposed to collect her two children from the Boys & Girls Club. She did not arrive. That is the central, undisputed fact of the first day of this case, and it is the fact that set everything else in motion. Her sister reported her missing after the failed pickup, and a missing-person report was filed with the Casper Police Department. National reporting of the police record puts the report on the evening of 29 October 2026. The original Wyoming reporting, in Cowboy State Daily, records that the outlet contacted the Casper Police Department on Friday seeking confirmation and further information about the investigation, and had not received a response at the time of that report. This file therefore treats the police-held facts with care: the Division of Criminal Investigation listing and the police facts carried by national reporting are stated here with their attributions, and the absence of a direct police statement in the original Wyoming report is itself recorded, rather than hidden.

Kayla Gunter's own words, as reported by Cowboy State Daily and repeated in national coverage, explain why the missed pickup frightened her family at once. She said it was totally out of character for her sister not to show up to get her children. That is not a dramatic claim. It is a sister's judgment about a routine: a mother who collects her children does not miss a pickup without a reason, and when she does, the people who know her best assume something has gone wrong. The file does not need to embellish that judgment. It stands on its own, and it is the reason a missed pickup became a missing-person case within hours rather than days.

The last conversation between the sisters, as Kayla Gunter described it, took place at 10:41 a.m. on a Wednesday. Nothing in that conversation suggested anything was wrong, Kayla said, and Gunter had given her family no indication that she planned to leave or to suddenly cut off contact. After that call, the calls stopped. Gunter stopped answering. That is all the family account says about the last contact, and this file adds nothing to it. It does not describe the content of the call beyond what Kayla reported — that nothing in it suggested anything was wrong — because no source relied on here gives more. A last conversation that sounded ordinary is, in its own way, one of the hardest facts in a missing-person case: there was no warning in it to hold on to, and no farewell to interpret. There was only an ordinary call, and then silence.

### Two phone locations, two levels of certainty

After contact stopped, two phone locations entered the public record, and they must not be treated as equally solid, because they do not come from the same kind of source. The first is family-reported. Kayla Gunter said the family was later told that her sister's phone pinged in the Gillette area around noon on Wednesday, about an hour after the sisters' last call. The reporting relied on here does not name who told the family this, and this file does not upgrade it into a police-confirmed location. A ping reported by family, from an unnamed source, is a lead to be checked, not a confirmed sighting, and it is presented here as exactly that. Gillette lies to the north-east of Casper, in Campbell County, and the direction matters only in the limited sense that it points away from Casper, toward the open country of north-eastern Wyoming. It does not establish that Gunter was in Gillette, or that she travelled there herself, or that the phone was with her when it pinged. A phone location is a location of a phone. This file does not turn it into more than that.

The second phone location comes with a different attribution. National reporting citing police states that Gunter's cellphone was last located at around 12:30 p.m. Mountain Time on Friday 30 October 2026, near Highway 387, close to the Natrona County line. Highway 387 runs north out of the Casper area toward the country between Midwest and Wright, in the direction of Gillette. Both locations point north, but consistency of direction is not confirmation of a route, and this file does not claim one. The last police-reported location, on Friday afternoon, was still in the Natrona County border country, on a highway leading into sparsely populated oilfield and ranch land, where a vehicle can travel a great distance without being seen.

The vehicle is missing with her. According to the Division of Criminal Investigation, as reported by Cowboy State Daily, Gunter may have been driving a gray 2016 GMC Canyon pickup with Wyoming temporary registration. The truck has not been reported found in any source relied on here. That makes the vehicle as important as the person in the practical work of the search: a gray pickup on a Wyoming highway is something a driver, a ranch worker, or a fuel-station attendant might remember, and the police appeal asks the public to watch for the truck as well as for Gunter herself. The description of Gunter herself, from the Division's listing as reported, is that she is 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs about 185 pounds, with black hair and blue eyes, a butterfly tattoo on her neck, and other tattoos on her arms, hands, legs and feet. Those are the details the public is asked to use, and they are stated here exactly as reported, without addition.

### What the record does not contain

It is as important to state what is not in the record as what is in it, because a missing-person file that fills its gaps with guesses does harm twice over: it misleads the reader, and it can misdirect a search. No source relied on here names any person of interest in connection with Gunter's disappearance. No source relied on here states that any crime is suspected, or that foul play is suspected, or that Gunter came to harm. No source relied on here reports any sighting of Gunter herself after the last-contact date, any message from her after the last call, any discovery of her vehicle, or any search result, positive or negative, beyond the phone locations already described. In particular, no source relied on here says where Gunter was going, why she may have travelled north, whether she was alone, or whether she intended to return. This file says none of those things either.

That restraint extends to everything said about Gunter on social media since she disappeared. Grief and speculation travel fast in a case like this, and the social-media discussion of this disappearance already contains theories about the people around her. This file does not repeat those theories, does not name any person as a suspect or a person of interest on the basis of a social-media post, and does not treat a comment thread as evidence. The only people named in this file are Kandice Gunter herself and her sister Kayla, who spoke on the record to Cowboy State Daily. Everyone else in Gunter's life remains unnamed here, because no source relied on here gives this file a verified, on-the-record reason to name them in connection with her disappearance. A missing person's family does not need a file that turns their loss into an accusation against someone who has not been charged with anything, and this file will not do that.

There is one further absence worth naming honestly. As of the sources relied on here, dated 1 November 2026, there is no report of a coordinated ground search with a stated result, no report of a search area being closed, and no report of any agency saying the search has ended. The case, on the public record, is an open missing-person investigation with a last phone location on a highway north of Casper and a vehicle still unaccounted for. That is a thin record, and this file does not pretend otherwise. But thinness is not a reason to wait: a file published while the search is live puts the verified description, the vehicle, and the tip numbers in front of readers who might have seen something, while the sighting could still matter. A file published weeks later, when the trail is cold, helps no one.

### Why this file is published now

The test for publishing a live missing-person file is not whether the story is complete. It is whether the verified facts are enough to help, and whether the file can be written without guessing at the rest. Here, the verified facts are enough: a named woman, a description, a vehicle, two phone locations with their attributions kept distinct, a missed pickup that explains why her family raised the alarm, and three tip numbers that are live now. The guesses have been left out: no fate is speculated about, no motive is suggested, no person is accused, and the one real conflict in the record — the Wednesday last call against the 29 October official last-contact date — is put in front of the reader at the top of the file, not buried in a footnote. If the police clarify that conflict, or if Gunter is found, or if a new phone location or a vehicle sighting is confirmed, this file will be updated with the date, the source, and the new stamp if the facts require it. Until then, the honest position is the one the record supports: Kandice Gunter, 30, a mother of two who had just moved to Casper to be closer to her children, has not been heard from since late October 2026, her truck is missing with her, and the search for her is still open.

## TIMELINE

- **About a month before late October 2026** — Kandice Gunter moves from Nevada to Casper, Wyoming, to be closer to her children, aged nine and six. Her sister later says the move appeared to be going well.

- **Wednesday (sister's account; see the date-conflict note at the top of this file)** — Kayla Gunter last speaks to her sister by phone at 10:41 a.m. Nothing in the conversation suggests anything is wrong, as reported. Gunter then stops answering calls. The family is later told her phone pinged in the Gillette area around noon that day; the source of that information is not named in the reporting relied on here.

- **Missed pickup (day placed on Wednesday in the reporting relied on here; see the date-conflict note)** — Gunter does not collect her children from the Boys & Girls Club. Her sister reports her missing, and a missing-person report is filed with the Casper Police Department.

- **29 October 2026** — The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation lists Gunter's date of last contact as 29 October in Natrona County. National reporting of the police record puts the missing-person report on the evening of 29 October. The reporting relied on here does not reconcile this date with the sister's Wednesday account.

- **30 October 2026, about 12:30 p.m. Mountain Time** — National reporting citing police places Gunter's cellphone last near Highway 387, close to the Natrona County line. This is the last police-reported phone location in the sources relied on here.

- **30–31 October 2026** — Cowboy State Daily publishes its report (page dated 31 October, URL dated 30 October) and records that the Casper Police Department had not responded to its Friday request for confirmation and further information. National coverage follows on 1 November 2026.

- **1 November 2026** — As of the sources relied on here, Gunter has not been located, her gray 2016 GMC Canyon pickup has not been reported found, and the investigation remains open. This file is published on this date.

## EVIDENCE & LEADS

- **The move to Casper (Cowboy State Daily, 30–31 October 2026, via the sister's account):** Gunter moved from Nevada to Casper about a month earlier to be closer to her children, aged nine and six. Her sister said the move appeared to be going well, and that Gunter was still relatively new to Wyoming without a large circle of friends there.

- **The daily-call rhythm and the last call (Cowboy State Daily, via Kayla Gunter):** The sisters typically spoke by phone at least three times a day. Their last call was at 10:41 a.m. on a Wednesday; nothing in it suggested anything was wrong, and Gunter then stopped answering calls. See the date-conflict note: Wednesday of that week was 28 October, while the Division lists last contact as 29 October.

- **The missed pickup and the report (Cowboy State Daily; Fox News and New York Post national reporting, 1 November 2026):** Gunter did not collect her children from the Boys & Girls Club. Her sister reported her missing, and a missing-person report was filed with the Casper Police Department; national reporting puts the report on the evening of 29 October 2026.

- **The official last-contact listing (Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, via Cowboy State Daily and Times Now World reporting):** The Division lists Gunter's date of last contact as 29 October 2026 in Natrona County.

- **The vehicle (Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, via Cowboy State Daily):** Gunter may have been driving a gray 2016 GMC Canyon pickup with Wyoming temporary registration. The vehicle is missing with her and has not been reported found in any source relied on here.

- **The family-reported Gillette ping (Cowboy State Daily, via Kayla Gunter; family account):** The family was later told Gunter's phone pinged in the Gillette area around noon on Wednesday, about an hour after the last call. The reporting does not name who told the family, and this file treats it as family-reported, not police-confirmed.

- **The police-reported Highway 387 location (Fox News and New York Post, 1 November 2026, citing police):** Gunter's cellphone was last located at about 12:30 p.m. Mountain Time on Friday 30 October 2026, near Highway 387, close to the Natrona County line. This is the last police-reported phone location in the sources relied on here.

- **The description (Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, via reporting):** 5 feet 7 inches tall, about 185 pounds, black hair, blue eyes; a butterfly tattoo on her neck and other tattoos on her arms, hands, legs and feet.

- **The absence of a direct police statement in the original report (Cowboy State Daily):** The outlet contacted the Casper Police Department on Friday seeking confirmation and further information, and had not received a response at the time of its report. This file therefore attributes police-held facts to the Division listing and to national reporting citing police, and does not present them as a police release read in full.

- **What is NOT evidence in this file:** any sighting of Gunter herself after the last-contact date; any message from her after the last call; any confirmed route or destination; any person of interest or suspect; any suggestion of foul play or of any fate; any social-media theory about the people around her; and any reconciliation of the Wednesday last call with the 29 October official last-contact date, which the reporting relied on here does not provide.

*Caption: Illustration of an empty Wyoming highway at dusk — atmospheric artwork, not a photograph of Highway 387 and not evidence.*

## STILL UNKNOWN

- **Which day was the last contact — Wednesday 28 October or Thursday 29 October?** The sister's account places the last call on a Wednesday at 10:41 a.m.; the Division lists last contact as 29 October, a Thursday. The reporting relied on here does not reconcile the two, and this file does not choose between them.

- **Was the missed pickup on the same day as the last call?** Reporting places the missed pickup on Wednesday in the sister's account, but does not give a police-confirmed date for the pickup itself. The sequence of call, pickup, and report is therefore not fully settled.

- **Who reported the Gillette phone ping, and was the phone with Gunter?** The ping is family-reported from an unnamed source. It is not police-confirmed in the sources relied on here, and a phone location does not establish that the phone's owner was at that location.

- **Where did Gunter go after the last phone location?** The last police-reported location is near Highway 387 on 30 October. No source relied on here reports a destination, a sighting of the vehicle after that point, or a further phone location.

- **Is her vehicle still on the road, parked, or elsewhere?** The gray 2016 GMC Canyon has not been reported found. No source relied on here says where it was last seen by a witness, as opposed to where the phone was last located.

- **Is any crime suspected?** No source relied on here states that a crime is suspected, names a person of interest, or describes any evidence of foul play. This file makes no such claim.

- **What happened to Kandice Gunter?** Nothing in the sources relied on here answers that question, and this file does not speculate about it. She is missing, and the investigation is open.

> **What would change this file:** if Gunter is located, if her vehicle is found, if police confirm a sighting or a new phone location, if the Wednesday/29 October date conflict is clarified by an official source, or if any person is charged or named by police in connection with her disappearance, this file will be updated with the date, the source, and the new stamp if the facts require it — never quietly rewritten. Until then, the stamp stays MISSING.

## WATCH THE FULL STORY

No companion video yet. If Dark History Files' sister channel Curiozoid publishes a video on this case, it will be linked here.

## SOURCES

- Cowboy State Daily, Kolby Fedore, "Casper Woman Missing After She Didn't Pick Up Her Kids From Boys & Girls Club" (URL dated 30 October 2026; page dated 31 October 2026) — read in full via live-browser read: the move from Nevada about a month earlier; the missed Boys & Girls Club pickup; the sister's account of three calls a day, the 10:41 a.m. Wednesday last call, and "totally out of character" for the missed pickup; the Division of Criminal Investigation last-contact date of 29 October in Natrona County; the family-reported Gillette ping around noon Wednesday from an unnamed source; the gray 2016 GMC Canyon with Wyoming temporary plates; the description (5 feet 7 inches, 185 pounds, black hair, blue eyes, butterfly neck tattoo and other tattoos); tip contacts (Casper Police Department 307-235-8278, Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation 307-777-7181); and the fact that the Casper Police Department had not responded to the outlet's Friday request for confirmation. This is the primary source for the family account and the Division listing.

- Fox News, 1 November 2026 — "Wyoming mom reported missing after not picking up kids; sister, police search for answers" — read in full: last seen Thursday morning in Natrona County and reported missing later that evening, according to the Casper Police Department; the gray 2016 GMC Canyon with Wyoming temporary registration; the cellphone last located around 12:30 p.m. Mountain Time on Friday along Highway 387, near the Natrona County line; the 10:41 a.m. Wednesday last call and the Gillette ping around noon Wednesday; the description and the tip contacts (Casper Police Department 307-235-8278, Crime Stoppers of Central Wyoming 307-577-8477, crimestopperscasper.org). Corroborates the Cowboy State Daily facts and is the source, with the New York Post, for the Highway 387 phone location.

- New York Post, 1 November 2026 — "Wyoming mom of two vanishes after failing to pick up kids from youth club" — read in full: the same police facts (last seen Thursday morning in Natrona County, reported missing later that evening; gray 2016 GMC Canyon; last phone location along Highway 387 around 12:30 p.m. Friday); the sister's Wednesday account and the Gillette ping; the description including the memorial tattoo on the side of the neck. Corroborates Fox News on the Highway 387 location and the vehicle.

- Times Now World, 1 November 2026 — "Search Underway for Missing Casper Mother Kandice Gunter" — read in extract via search: the missing-person report filed on the evening of 29 October; the Division of Criminal Investigation last confirmed contact in Natrona County; the Highway 387 phone location at about 12:30 p.m. on Friday 30 October; the family-reported Gillette ping around noon Wednesday. Further corroboration for the report date and both phone locations.

- No competitor article text or image is reproduced in this file. Facts are stated in Dark History Files' own words, with official material attributed to its source. No source beyond those listed above was relied on for facts in the draft. No search-volume numbers are stated, because no tool returned any.

> **Tip box — if you have information:** If you have seen Kandice Gunter or the gray 2016 GMC Canyon pickup, or have information about where she may be, contact the Casper Police Department at 307-235-8278, or submit an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers of Central Wyoming at 307-577-8477 or via crimestopperscasper.org. The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation can also be contacted at 307-777-7181. If you believe you see her or the vehicle now, call 911 first. Do not approach, follow, or attempt to detain anyone yourself, and do not send money to anyone claiming to know where she is or offering to bring her home — genuine tip lines never ask for payment. Share only the official description, not rumours or unverified sightings, and do not repeat social-media theories about the people around her: no person has been named by police in connection with her disappearance.

*Caption: Illustration of an empty prairie town street at dawn — atmospheric artwork, not a photograph of Casper and not evidence.*

**Reader question:** When a missing-person record contains a real conflict — a family's Wednesday last call against an official 29 October last-contact date — what should a reader trust first, and what should a careful file do with a conflict it cannot yet resolve?

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This file is based on public reporting and official statements available as of 1 November 2026. Read how every file is built on the About page (https://thedarkhistoryfiles.blogspot.com/p/about.html), or request a file via the Contact page (https://thedarkhistoryfiles.blogspot.com/p/contact.html).