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Chance Englebert disappeared in 2019 after an argument with his wife's family
Andrea CavallierTuesday 25 November 2025 18:09 GMT
open image in galleryDNA results confirm that the remains discovered in October belong to Chance Englebert and the cause of death has been deemed accidental due to a fall. (The Missing Truth/Facebook)
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Six years after Chance Englebert walked away from a family gathering in Nebraska and vanished, the question of what happened to him has finally been answered.
DNA results confirm that the remains discovered in October belong to the Wyoming father and the cause of death has been deemed accidental due to a fall, his family said in a post on Facebook.
But for Englebert’s family, who have been searching for answers since 2019, the revelation brings little relief and even more questions.
The remains were found by a hiker in a rugged, remote area on the north side of Scotts Bluff National Monument. Police in Gering, Nebraska, alerted the family at the time and said the remains might be Englebert’s based on items found on and near his body. They told the family that they believe Englebert chose that trail as a shortcut.
But his mother, Dawn Englebert, remains skeptical, telling Cowboy State Daily this week that she cannot see how her son would have ended up in such an isolated location on his own.
“This is not closure to us at all, but only more whys,” she said. “Our hearts hurt more than ever.”
open image in galleryDNA results confirm that the remains discovered in October belong to Chance Englebert and the cause of death has been deemed accidental due to a fall. (Facebook/Help Find Chance Englebert)Englebert vanished on July 6, 2019, after an argument with his in-laws during a family golf outing.
He told his wife he wanted to leave, and when she hesitated, he walked off, telling his best friend Matt Miller and relatives he planned to walk roughly 35 miles to Torrington, Wyoming, following the North Platte River.
He was last seen on surveillance video in Terrytown, about 1.5 miles north of Gering. In the footage, he looks down at his phone before making a sharp left turn, as if following a map. His final communication, a text sent at 9:08 p.m., contained jumbled letters and a smiley face emoji that made no sense to his family, just as a violent storm hit the area.
Extensive searches by more than 17 agencies using drones, divers, cadaver dogs, boats, ATVs and volunteers turned up nothing. Independent searches by Miller and others also yielded no clues.
open image in galleryThe human remains were discovered near the Scotts Bluff National Monument (Google Streetview)Investigators investigated several theories. As previously reported by Cowboy State Daily, a private investigator found that Englebert had a tense interaction with an unidentified man at a Scottsbluff convenience store shortly before he disappeared.
He told a clerk he was heading back to his in-laws’ home ahead of the storm, two miles from his last confirmed sighting. The clerk described him as “level-headed” but did not see how he left.
The same investigator reported that two women were seen screaming along a roadside a mile from the store around the same time. Moments later, they got into a white pickup truck towing a small boat.
Englebert’s grandmother, Linda Kluender, previously offered a $200,000 reward for information, but it was never claimed.
“Seems the people in the know feel their life is more valuable than $200,000, and Chance’s life is worth nothing,” she told the Wyoming Truth.
open image in galleryThe young father was golfing with his father-in-law and other members of his wife’s family when he vanished. (Help Find Chance Englebert/Facebook)Locals familiar with the area have also raised doubts about the location where Englebert was found.
Longtime Gering resident Kelly Mumm said he encountered a large police presence while walking his dogs along the north canal road on October 11. He said he rarely sees anyone else in that area, estimating one or two walkers a month. All official trailheads for the monument are on the south side.
To reach the area where his remains were discovered, Englebert would have had to leave the canal road, swim across a 15-foot-wide canal, push through brush and climb steep terrain.
“That’d be the longest way I could imagine you could walk to Torrington,” Mumm said, “especially at night in the rain.”
Dawn, who launched a Facebook page “Help Find Chance Englebert,” which regularly posts updates about the case, wrote on Tuesday that Englebert’s remains will be officially released to his wife, Baylee.
“All I can say is, that this is not any type of closure to us,” she added. “(There) will always be more questions.”
