What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host Teeve and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to going west. Howdy folks! How's everybody doing? Not that I can hear you.

Thank you guys so much for joining us today for yet another episode of Going West. I hope you're having a great week. I just wanted to give a special shout out to Tiffany for recommending us this case today. She sent it into us a little while ago and it's been on our list and we are finally covering it.

So for anybody else who has any case recommendations the best place to send that in as we always say is email it is going west podcast at gmail.com that is the best place for us to see it and we really appreciate all your guys recommendations.

Today we're going back to the year 2000 in Utah so let's not waste any more time. Alright guys this is episode 218 of Going West so let's get into it.

In June of 2000 a 15 year old aspiring writer vanished from her home in Utah. Her mom turned to her daughter's own stories for clues but having been a victim of bullying police initially believed that she was a runaway.

But as witnesses came forward she appeared to have a stalker who had lured her from her home on the very computer where she sat every night to write.

This is the story of Trisha Autry.

Patricia Anne Autry who went by Trisha was born on December 12th 1984 to Joanne and Roy Autry in Millville, Utah.

She was the youngest of five children so when she was born she joined older brothers Brock and Aram and sister Heather and Brienne. Trisha's dad Roy was born in Texas and he grew up in California where he met the love of his life Joanne.

Now Roy was raised religious but after graduating high school he converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and when Joanne was 21 and Roy was 23 they were married and moved to the state of Utah to be closer to the headquarters of their church which was in Salt Lake City.

Trisha's dad Roy was very active in his local congregation he taught Sunday school and he even served as a counselor to the bishop.

He was a builder by trade but stopped working after his cancer diagnosis in 1996 when Trisha would have been just around 12 years old.

And again Trisha and her siblings were born in Millville, Utah which is about 80 miles or just 120 kilometers north of Salt Lake City and near the border of Utah and Idaho.

But eventually the Autry family relocated to Hiram, Utah just eight minutes down the road from Millville and still situated in Cash County so not far at all.

Trisha was a bright creative and free spirited teenager known for her bright red hair. She loved playing in the rain and singing and she dreamed of attending the Juilliard School of Music one day.

She performed in the Cash County Children's Choir she played guitar and belonged to the arts program at her high school which was South Cash School where in the year 2000 she had just finished up her freshman year.

So far she had only traveled to Arizona, California and Montana but she dreamed of moving out of Utah and just kind of traveling the world.

Joanne said of her daughter quote, she was a confident, opinionated and powerful young woman. She didn't take guff off of anyone. She spoke up passionately on crimes against women and she didn't frighten easily.

Trisha said that she wanted to change the world.

So just 15 years old Trisha seemed like such a bright and mature person.

Yeah it seemed like she really understood the world better than most 15 year olds.

Right. Above all so more than guitar singing and all of her other artistic interests Trisha loved to write.

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