NEWTON, Ill. (WCIA) – The spotlight is back on the case of a Newton woman who disappeared in July of 2021. After a missing family of four turned up alive in Arizona Monday, people are wonderi…
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NEWTON, Ill. (WCIA) – The spotlight is back on the case of a Newton woman who disappeared in July of 2021. After a missing family of four turned up alive in Arizona Monday, people are wondering – what ever happened to Bethany Bower?
The Lutz family was missing for more than two months before police tracked them down across the country. But in nearly two years, there haven’t been many updates in Bower’s case.
“I do believe that Bethany is gone. The family, I think, believes that she’s gone,” Missing Person Awareness Network President Gia Wright said.
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“It was at night, and she was home. Then all of a sudden, the next morning, there was no response to her phone,” Wright said.
Wright says when Bower first went missing, friends and family members told her different stories about what happened that night, and the details changed quickly, several times.
“It’s the last set of circumstances as to where she was, what time of day, the last contact with Bethany,” she said.
But there was one thing she says was consistent across the board.
“We knew right away that this could be really bad.”
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The investigation remains open, and Wright says the nearly two years of silence have been deafening – until the Lutz case made headlines. New friends and extended family members of Bower started reaching out.
“[People] that I’ve never heard from before. I didn’t know they existed,” she said.
She says they’ve provided more details that could be helpful, but she needs to confirm them.
“My understanding is that it’s all hearsay, not directly spoken to them or that they actually saw it,” Wright said. “They’re telling me what other people have said.”
Wright has to pick apart what’s true and what’s not as she investigates missing persons cases. She says it’s an important job because assumptions can carry a stigma that will lead people to dismiss someone’s disappearance.
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Now that the Lutz family has been found, Wright says she can follow up on all the new tips she’s received in Bower’s case.
“I just hope that we can come out there and make a difference and get information that we can share with law enforcement that could bring her home,” Wright said.
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