Authorities in Washington County have been searching for a missing 20-year-old woman for five days amid the mud and fog near the small city of North Plains. Allyson Watterson disappeared Sunday and was reported missing Monday by her boyfriend’s family.
In a press conference Friday, authorities said they are gathering information through “boots on the ground” — a significant law enforcement effort supported by the sheriff’s offices of Washington, Clackamas, Columbia and Multnomah counties, including search and rescue teams.
Publicly circulated photos of Allyson Watterson show a woman with long dark hair, pale skin and a nose ring.
Initial reports suggested Watterson and her boyfriend Benjamin Garland were hiking together in the area. But Watterson’s mother, Misty, said Friday the couple was in the small Washington County city to visit a friend, and when they had car trouble, they went looking for help.
“They went to get help, and somehow got separated, that’s why they were out here,” Misty Watterson said.
At the press conference recorded and posted by KGW-TV, Allyson's mother said she wanted to “clear that up.”
Washington County Deputy Incident Commander Tony Morris said, “I honestly don’t know who put the information that they were out here hiking. That wasn’t information that came from us.”
The original news release about Watterson’s disappearance, from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, said “Allyson Joy Watterson, 20, was last seen during the day on Sunday, December 22, while she was hiking with a man.”
After the Friday press conference, WCSO public information officer Brian van Kleef emailed OPB to say the initial suggestion that Watterson and Garland were hiking “was called in by the boyfriend’s father who said they were ‘hiking in the woods.’”
Garland has since been arrested, but not for anything directly related to Watterson’s disappearance. The Washington County Jail lists Garland as in custody on 13 charges, including several alleged probation violations and “failure to appear” citations, as well as accusations of possession of a stolen car, theft and credit card fraud.
Misty Watterson tried to tamp down rumors in social media suggesting the couple was using drugs or doing “bad stuff” in the North Plains area. Watterson described her daughter as an “activist” for “the less fortunate and animals.” She thanked authorities and the North Plains community for their help and support, and she asked nearby residents to review security footage to see if it shows her daughter.
The Washington County Sheriff's Office has asked people not to come to the area and start searching on their own, without checking in and coordinating through authorities who are already scouring the area.
“Unfortunately, you think you’re helping, and you’re actually not,” Morris said, because people might inadvertently leave “clues” that divert search efforts.
WCSO has made specific requests for help on Twitter. For instance, deputies are looking for North Plains residents who might’ve gotten a knock on their door late Sunday or early Monday. And they’re trying to find a customer of the Reedville Cafe who at some point in the last month, might “remember giving an Apple iPhone to Allyson’s mother, Misty.”
Copyright 2019 Oregon Public Broadcasting