Was Olympic Marathoner Amy Bechtel A Victim Of A Serial Killer?

Amy Joy Wroe Bechtel

She was shy, quiet, disciplined and goal-oriented. She enjoyed rock climbing and amateur photography in addition to running, and hoped to someday be an Olympic marathoner.

She was born on August 4th, 1972 in Santa Barbara, California to Duane and JoAnne Wroe. She graduated from the University of Wyoming, where she met her husband, Steve Bechtel. 

They both had degrees in exercise physiology. They were married in 1996 when Amy was 24 years old. 

The couple were avid fitness enthusiasts. Amy loved running while Steve loved climbing. They moved to Lander, Wyoming, because its rugged terrain made it a perfect training ground for them. Lander was a small town with a population of population around 7,000. 

In college, Amy was a competitive long distance runner, and hoped to try out for the 2000 Summer Olympics. 

Amy and Steve both worked part-time at Wild Iris, the local climbing shop, and Amy also waited tables at the Sweetwater Grill and taught a youth weight-lifting class at Wind River Fitness Center. 

They had recently bought a home of their own and planned to move in sometime during late July 1997. For the time being the couple was staying in an apartment. 

On was July 24th, 1997, at 9:30 a.m. Steve left to go rock climbing with a friend while Amy left to teach fitness. She told Steve that she was going to run errands for the new house after class. Amy was seen at a local photo shop at approximately 2:30 p.m. After that she went to Gallery 331, where she spoke to the proprietor, Greg Wagner. She seemed to be in a hurry and looked at her watch several times.

Authorities believe that Amy then drove to the Shoshone National Forest to practice the course of an upcoming 10K run she was enrolled to compete in. A woman resembling Amy was seen running along Loop Road wearing black shorts similar to those she had worn earlier that day.

At 4:30 p.m., Steve returned to an empty apartment after spending the day with his friend Sam Lightner  rock climbing in the mountains above Dubois. He then allegedly spent the rest of the day moving things from their apartment to their new house.

Around 8:15 p.m., Steve visited his neighbors, Todd and Amy Skinner, who were cooking dinner. He didn't seem to worried when he asked them if they'd his wife.

At 10:30 p.m., Amy still was not home yet, so Steve called police.

"Uh, yeah, hey, I’ve got a person missing here, I think, and I wondered if you had a spare around anyplace?” said Steve.

At around 11 p.m., Steve went back over to the Skinner's, whom had just gotten back from a movie. The Skinners went out to look for Amy while Steve stayed behind in case she called or came home. The Skinners drove along several roads that Amy liked to frequent on her jogs.  

At around 1 a.m. on the 25th, after driving on Loop Road for about an hour, the Skinners found Amy's white Toyota Tercel wagon is parked by the side of the road where the Loop Road splinters out to the smaller, pine-shrouded Burnt Gulch turnoff. It had stormed in the afternoon the day before. There were puddles below the driver’s door and behind the vehicle, but no footprints, no tire tracks in the mud. The Skinners then called Steve.

Inside Amy's car were her $180 sunglasses, her car keys left on the driver’s seat, and Amy's to-do list. According to the list,  she had already contacted phone and electric companies to have services turned on at her and her husband’s newly purchased home, dropped off the recyclables from the gym where she worked at the recycling center and been to the photo store. There were other things she hadn’t yet done, or at least hadn’t yet checked off the list. The thing at the very bottom of the list was run. Only Amy's green Eagle Creek wallet was missing.

Steve and two dozen of his friends started the search. Later that day there were ATVs, dogs, dirt bikes, and over 100 volunteers showed up. The next day horses and helicopters joined in. Eventually, more than 500 people covered a twenty-mile radius searching for Amy. The only that was found was a footprint similar to her sneaker on Loop Road, but it was lost before police could retrieve it. After eight days, the massive search was called off. And that is when the area around Amy's car was declared a crime scene.

A female camper claimed she had seen a blue pickup truck racing through the forest with a strange blonde woman in the passenger seat. She claimed that she saw it the next day during the search. Later, she identified that truck as Steve's. However, Steve made a phone call from his home at 4:43 p.m., the same time as the sighting. 

Investigators found several journals in Amy and Steve's home. In them Steve wrote about an apparent need for control in his journal and also penned an undated poem that revolved around murdering a person and then hiding the remains. Steve claimed the journals had comprised song lyrics he had written for his band, and that they were unrelated to Amy.

Some described Amy and Steve's relationship as idyllic, but others stated that Steve was jealous and often belittled Amy, and that her demeanor changed whenever she was around him. Amy's brother, Nel, said that she had a suspicious bruise on her arm a few weeks before her disappearance. She said that Steve would get a little "rough" sometimes. She did not act as if it was serious. However, Nel believed that he was abusive.

Investigators noted that there were gaps in Steve's activities for the day that Amy went missing.

On August 1st, 1997, Steve was interrogated by police that falsely claimed to have evidence proving he had murdered his wife, so Steve terminated the interview.

On August 5th, Steve was interrogated by the FBI and accused again of murdering his wife. Steve then retained the counsel of Kent Spence. By then, Steve had already been interviewed four times by investigators. Spence advised Steve not to take the polygraph they were asking him to take.

In late August 1997, the FBI requested satellite photos from NASA of the area on the day of Amy's disappearance, but the photos were of no help.

Amy's family believes Steve might know more about Amy's disappearance than what he has said. They want him to take a lie detector test.

Steve maintains his innocence and believes that authorities focused on him due to a lack of suspects and evidence in Amy's disappearance. Steve remarried several years after Amy vanished and still lives in the house they purchased days before her disappearance.

In 2001, Amy's dad passed away.

In June 2003, a Timex Iron Man digital watch was discovered by a doctor hiking near the Popo Agie River and was turned in to police. It was the same as the watch Amy was last seen wearing, but it has never been proven to have been hers or not.

In 2004, Steve had Amy declared legally dead.

In 2006, Todd Skinner died in a climbing accident.

Dale Wayne Eaton, a convicted murderer on Wyoming's death row, has also been cited as a suspect in the case. According to Eaton's brother, he had been near the area where and at the time Amy disappeared. Eaton had a diminished mental capacity and has never confirmed or denied his involvement in Amy's case.

At the time of her disappearance, Amy was 5'5" - 5'6", 110 pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes. She had pierced ears. She wore a size 8 shoes and gas-permeable contact lenses. Amy had scars on both shins and knees, a checker-shaped scar on her lower back, and a scar on her left cheek approximately half an inch by two inches in size; the scar is only noticeable when she is cold.
She was last seen wearing a yellow or gold tank top, blue or black shorts, Adidas Trail Response sneakers, a Timex Ironman Triathalon watch and a small double wedding band on her left ring finger.