Police drop probe of woman who was missing

Jen Lawson

Wednesday, June 9, 2004 | 11:52 a.m.

Despite their suspicions that hiker Christine Asleson wasn't telling the whole truth about her alleged five days of surviving in Red Rock Canyon last month, Metro Police have dropped their investigation into the case.

The search for her cost an estimated $5,000 a day, as well as many volunteer hours.

Metro never determined if her family knowingly filed a false missing persons report, but there are no plans to follow up on it, Deputy Chief Greg McCurdy, the man in charge of Metro's investigative services division, said Tuesday.

"There's nothing more to pursue," he said. "She refused to talk to us and we can't force her to talk to us."

Asleson hasn't committed any crime as far as police can tell, McCurdy said.

Asleson, 45, has never given investigators a full account of where she was during the time she was missing, police said. She cut off an interview with investigators when they began pressing her for details to reconcile her initial accounts with those of the search team, police said.

Members of Metro's search and rescue team said they doubted her story because, they said, they had been through the area where she was found and where she said she had been.

Asleson left her home May 2 to search Red Rock for a friend's dog. Her family called police the next day after she failed to return.

The search team scoured the canyon for days, initially using six horses, two helicopters, dogs and more than 30 volunteers on foot.

A few days into the search police began to look at foul play for a possible explanation of Asleson's disappearance.

But on May 7 she was found on a cliff by two tourists and hospitalized for dehydration. Metro searchers and investigators expressed doubt that Asleson had been there the entire time because they had been through that area.

"We know the area she claimed she was in," Sgt. Tom Wagner of Metro's missing persons section said. "Our search and rescue people were just filthy dirty and she was (relatively) clean when she was taken to the ambulance. That definitely sheds a lot of light on the situation for us."

She obtained an attorney, Barry Levinson, and refused to answer investigators' questions as part of the routine follow-up that accompanies any missing person case.

Asleson retained him as her spokesman because media outlets "were getting the story confused," Levinson said. He said he sent a letter to Metro officials informing them that he is representing Asleson but he hasn't heard back from anyone.

"I don't know if she has problems, but anybody can get lost in Red Rock, even people with problems," he said.

About a week after Asleson was found, Levinson confirmed reports that a trace of amphetamine was in her system, further raising the suspicions of investigators.

Levinson said she could have accidentally taken her son's perscription drugs for hyperactivity disorder.

While police and the public may want to know the truth about Asleson's disappearance, police said it may never be known.

"We can all try to speculate, but speculation is speculation," he said. "Could she have done it to get a book deal? Maybe. Could she have been on drugs? Maybe."

"All we can do is wait for her to talk to us one day," McCurdy added. "We have too many other cases to deal with."