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Justice Unresolved: Police say Wyoming man Chance Englebert's death was accidental, but his mom thinks he was murdered, ‘Someone hit him…’
Last year, Chance Englebert's remains were found at the Scotts Bluff National Monument property in Nebraska. His mom told HT.com she suspects foul play.
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Justice Unresolved is a series of articles examining cold cases, disappearances and unsolved crimes that continue to haunt families and communities in America. The stories revisit the known facts, unanswered questions and latest developments in cases where the search for truth is far from over.
On October 10, 2025, human remains were found at the Scotts Bluff National Monument property in Nebraska. The remains were identified over a month later as belonging to Chance Englebert, a Wyoming man who went missing from nearby Gering in 2019.
The remains were discovered by hikers. A joint statement from Gering Police Department and the Scotts Bluff County Attorney’s Office said that “after a full investigation, there is no evidence that the death of Chance Englebert was anything other than accidental.”
“The cause of death is listed as ‘a pattern of blunt force trauma most consistent with a rapid deceleration event including, but not limited to, a fall from height,’” authorities stated in their press release, per NBC News. “It was further determined the distance from where the fall occurred ranges from approximately 130 feet at the shortest point to 290 feet.”
However, Chance's mom, Dawn Englebert, refuses to believe her son’s death was accidental.
“They call it an accident, that he took that path thinking it was a shortcut to Torrington. No way he would have gone that way. He would have stayed on the highway if he was going to Torrington,” Dawn told HindustanTimes.com.
Chance, from Moorcroft, Wyoming, was last seen on surveillance video on July 6, 2019, walking north on 10th Street and then cutting west through Terrytown. His phone pinged for the last time near a tower by Western Travel Terminal.
Chance was a husband and father, a and had taken a new job in Moorcroft when he disappeared. He was a native of Edgemont, South Dakota, and had taken part in rodeo competitions in high school. He attended Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Dawn said that on the day of his disappearance, Chance and his wife were visiting her grandparents in Gering. He went golfing with some of his wife's family members, and later called his wife and asked her to pick him up so they could go home.
Chance did mention that he had an argument with his golf partners. He is believed to have become upset and walked off to clear his head. When his wife arrived, he had disappeared.
What Dawn Englebert thinks may have happened to her son
Dawn said that she believes someone Chance knew “hurt him and just dumped him like trash.”
“I think someone either accidentally hit him while he was walking or someone stopped to try to get him to come back to grandparents’ house and for some reason a fight happened,” Dawn said. “I don’t really think it was a plan to kill him but something went wrong. But when you don’t call for help and make us live like this for so long, then it really is murder.”
Dawn said she believes foul play was involved in Chance’s death.
“Our boy would never have gone up towards the monument thinking it was a shortcut. He would never go out of his way to work that hard when he could have just stayed on the highway or walked back to the grandparents,” she said.
“I think someone hit him by accident or had a confrontation with him and it escalated. I think they hid him for the last few years and then moved him where he was found,” she added.
Over the six years that Chance was missing, several searches were held for him. The investigation involved more than a dozen agencies from around the state of Nebraska, as well as forensic K-9 and search teams from Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Utah and New Mexico. Federal agencies were also involved.
“Officers conducted hundreds of interviews” and “served numerous search warrants for phone records, social media accounts, financial records and other technical data,” authorities’ press release said.
“I wish law enforcement would listen and understand that Chance would have never gone the way they wanted us to believe he did, and that even park rangers have told family members that he was not there when we all searched that first few weeks,” Dawn said.
Dawn said that they had a beautiful celebration of life on July 11 in Edgemont at the Fall River County Fair.
“It showed how proud of him we were, and how missed and loved he is,” she said.
Dawn runs a Facebook page – Help Chance Englebert – where she shares updates on the case and keeps her son’s story alive.
