Stefanie Kelly Stroh Was A Free Spirit Who Was Last Seen In Wells, Nevada.

Stefanie Kelly Stroh

"We'll be free spirits, free spirits

Can you hear me calling?

Oh, it's all or nothing

When you're free spirits, free spirits

Can you hear it calling?

'Cause I don't wanna live and die alone, don't let me go."

-Khalid

Stefani was a free spirit. She was born on September 26, 1966 to Joan Settlemier.  She was a student of Reed College in Portland Oregon. She had decided to take a year off from school. Stefanie spent 9 months backpacking through India, Pakistan and other far off places. When she returned the states she started out in New York and was going to hitchhike across the U.S. to California. She was last seen by a desk clerk at a motel in Winnemucca, Nevada, on October 15th, 1987. She tried to get a room, but the place was full. Later that day, she called her parents from a truck stop in Wells, Nevada. At the time, her parents lived in San Francisco. She told them that she had a ride and was coming home the next day, but never arrived. She has not been seen since. Her her light grey suitcase, orange sleeping bag and pink purse has never been found.

Stefani's best friend and her beloved, Caroline Waters, had dreams before Stefani disappeared and warned her not to backpack alone. She knew something bad was going to happen. After Stefani went missing, Caroline traveled to the town of Wells, Nevada. Armed with a machete in one hand, and a gun in the other, she walked for a year, searching for Stefanie. She also carried a pick to dig the earth.

There in the desert Caroline did a private ceremony letting Stefani's soul fly home.

Tommy Lynn Sells, a confessed serial killer who was arrested for a 1999 murder, later confessed to Stefanie's murder. In 1987, he was working for a roofing company in Winnemucca, near where Stefani was last seen. He claimed that he picked Stefanie up while she was hitchhiking and told her that he would take her to Reno, Nevada. He also claimed that they took LSD together, where upon he strangled her, put her body in concrete, and dumped it in a hot spring described a being 30 feet wide. Despite extensive searches for the hot spring, it was never found.

Sells was never charged in connection with Caroline's case and police believe his claims about his criminal activities are exaggerated. He is also considered a possible suspect in the disappearances of Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman from Oklahoma and the murder of Freeman's family, but has not been charged in any of the cases. He has been convicted of murdering two Texas girls and was executed by lethal injection in April of 2014.

In 2010, investigators noted that they were looking into the possibility that Dale Wayne Eaton was responsible for Stefanie's disappearance. Eaton is a suspected serial killer, convicted of murdering Lisa Marie Kimmell and suspected in several other disappearances and murders.

At the time of her disappearance Stefani was 21 years old. She was 5'5" tall, 130 pounds with brown hair, and brown eyes. She had a brown birthmark on the instep of her right foot. She had pierced ears. Stefani was last seen wearing black corduroy pants, a black tank top, a black shirt with elbow-length sleeves, brown leather ankle-high shoes and a wooden bead necklace.

If you have a any information no matter how small, please contact 

Federal Bureau of Investigation
Las Vegas, Nevada Office
702-385-1281