Forensic Astrology: Amy Bechtel Wroe

Another Mom Goes Jogging and Disappears

From the The Charley Project

Amy Joy Wroe Bechtel

Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

# Missing Since: July 24, 1997 from Lander, Wyoming
# Classification: Endangered Missing
# Date Of Birth: August 4, 1972
# Age: 24 years old
# Height and Weight: 5'5 - 5'6, 110 - 115 pounds
# Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Amy has pierced ears.

Some agencies hyphenate her last name, as in "Wroe-Bechtel," or refer to her as Amy Wroe. Her hair was shoulder-length at the time of her July 1997 disappearance. She wears size 8 shoes and gas-permeable contact lenses. Amy has 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 large; the scar is only noticeable when she is cold.
# Clothing/Jewelry Description: A yellow or gold tank top, blue or black shorts, Adidas Trail Response running shoes, a Timex Ironman Triathalon watch and a small double wedding band on her left ring finger.

Details of Disappearance

Amy departed from the Lander, Wyoming apartment she shared with her husband of one year, Steve Bechtel, at approximately 9:30 a.m. on July 24, 1997 to run errands for the house they had just purchased and were going to move into. She was seen at a local photo shop at approximately 2:30 p.m. that afternoon; employees at the store said she seemed to be in a hurry and looked at her watch several times.

Authorities believe Amy left the business and drove to Shoshone National Forest to check the course of an upcoming ten-kilometer run planned by her gym. She have have been seen running along the Loop Road; a footprint similar to her sneaker was found there, but it was destroyed before police could attempt to match it. Amy is an avid runner. She has never been seen again.

Steve returned to their residence at approximately 4:30 p.m. He had been socializing with friends and moving items into his new house all day. Steve was not initially concerned for Amy, but he summoned the authorities when his wife did not arrive home by 10:30 p.m. Amy's white Toyota station wagon was discovered abandoned along Loop Road in the Wind River Mountains near Shoshone National Park shortly after her disappearance. Her keys, her $120 sunglasses, and her to-do list for the day were inside the vehicle, but her green Eagle Creek wallet was missing. There was no other sign of Amy at the scene, nor were there any indications of foul play.

Investigators began focusing on Steve and searched his journals for possible clues as to his wife's whereabouts. 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. A woman who was camping in Shoshone National Park on the day Amy was last seen told authorities that she witnessed a truck similar to Steve's vehicle speeding through the park during the early evening hours. The woman stated that she saw an unidentified blonde-haired woman in the passenger seat. It is not known if the incident is related to Amy's case. Acquaintances of the couple gave conflicting statements about their relationship; some described it was idyllic, but others stated that Steve was jealous and often belitting to Amy and her demeanor changed whenever she was around him.

Steve's attorney advised him to stop cooperating with law enforcement and refuse a polygraph test. Steve maintains his innocence and believes that authorities focused on him due to a lack of suspects and evidence in Amy's disappearance. He was interviewed only once by authorities; he refused to speak with them further after he said the questions turned accusatory. Steve remarried several years after Amy vanished and still lives in the house they purchased days before her disappearance.

In June 2003, nearly six years after Amy's disappearance, a Timex Ironman digital watch similar to hers was found near the middle fork of the Popo Agie River. The river runs alongside Loop Road, where Amy was possibly seen running. A man found the watch while hunting elk and told police about it later. Some bones were found near the watch; they turned out to be animal bones. Timex Ironman is a common, inexpensive brand of watch and authorities are not certain if it was Amy's.

Amy graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1995. She is described as shy, quiet, disciplined and goal-oriented. She enjoys rock climbing and amateur photography in addition to running, and hoped to someday be an Olympic marathoner. Her family continues to search for her, though her father died after her disappearance. Amy's case remains unsolved. Foul play is suspected.

Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Fremont County Sheriff's Office
307-332-5611

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This case was suggested to me by an astute reader. I took a look at it and thought it might make an interesting post so I went over the data. It is one of the few cases where I have been lucky enough to get a birth chart on the victim. I will use it to see if something useful can be found that might help solve this cold case. And in looking at Amy's birth chart I notice that she is a Leo with three planets in Leo. She also has several planets in Gemini in close sextile to the Leo planets and other planets in Libra and Sagittarius. There are no harsh aspects in her chart! The Node is in Capricorn, the only earth sign placement in the chart, and it is in a close inconjunction to Mars. Harsh aspects to the Node simply describe areas in the person's life that carry lessons from the past life. I am seeing a free spirited, happy go lucky woman who loves to talk, socialize and be the center of attention. If anyone could tell a story and put on a performance, it was Amy. Busy, active and energetic, she had a great deal of optimistic energy. She could not ever have imagined something bad happening to her; it just wasn't on her radar. The world was her "oyster" and she loved every single moment of her life. The negative energies other people may have experienced with Amy would have been a tendency to gossip, to talk too much, to be a "drama queen", to crave flattery, to be way "too social", involved in too many lives. This was not a wallflower or a woman who would rather stay home.

Solar Chart

The first chart I explore is for the last time she was reported seen, which was around 2:30 at the photo shop. The people who remember her at that time said she was in a hurry, looking at her watch. So I draw the chart up at 3 pm, hoping to see where she had been headed when she left the store. At that time, Scorpio was rising, with Mars in the eleventh and Pluto in the first house. She was definitely doing something she had previously planned to do, possibly with the hopes of seeing or meeting with a friend. Mars was in fall in Libra, disposed of by Venus in the tenth. Mars is, as well, nearing a conjunction with her natal Uranus in Libra. This all tells me that she made a last minute decision to do something, something that involved a friend of hers in some way, either to do something for this friend, with this friend or because she had discussed it with her friend. The eleventh house, coupled with the sign Libra, often points at friends, partners, groups, teams, etc... and perhaps she was doing something for a team or a group. She was an avid runner, which is clearly described in her birth chart by the opposition from her Gemini Venus to her Sagittarian Jupiter. In this configuration, Jupiter rules by dignity and overpowers the nervous Venus. She found running to be an outlet for otherwise uncontrolled neurosis that kept her on edge mentally all the time. Jupiter helped her tame these energies in a positive direction. Did she run with other people? Was she a part of a team or a group? Is this why she was training? It looks like there was someone else on the horizon on this day, so these questions should be asked.

This connection to another person is defined even more in the chart by the presence of Libra on the descendant, making Venus a marker for the other person. Since her Mars is disposed of by Venus, this tells me she was going somewhere to meet someone. No doubt about it. And who is this person? Why has no one mentioned him or her? When I see that Venus is in Virgo and that it squares her natal Neptune, I begin to wonder if this person wasn't a secret of some sort. Or if her meeting this person was a secret? And the fact that the meeting was kept a secret made it easy for her to "disappear". No one would know that she had met with anyone. Venus is disposed of by Mercury, closely placed to Venus in the tenth house. This is a strange combination that puts them out in public, not in hiding at all. So the messages appear to be contradictory. But not if you consider this: she made a last minute agreement to meet someone and tell no one that she doing so but they did meet somewhere in public, where they could have been easily seen. The tenth house is ruled by Leo and the Sun is in the ninth, so they were right outside, in the sunlight, in a park or other recreational area. This makes it sound like the National Forest where she went to run. So she went to the forest to run, had made a quick promise to meet with someone there before actually running, and from that point on disappeared. Interesting.

When I draw up the next chart, for 4 pm, I see that the planets are starting to move in ominous directions. First noted is that Venus, still the ruler of the descendant, has now moved into the ninth house. This other person is with her at the park. In the recreational area near the woods. Mercury, which is nearby, can point at activities like golf, tennis, badminton, volleyball or baseball. If there are any fields of play for these types of game nearby, then this is the location where they met. Venus is directly square Pluto so I believe they argued and that one of them had violent ideas. Mars is also sinister to an opposition with Saturn, in the fifth house which tells me that some of the argument is about her athletic activities. Someone feels put out by her engagement in sports and is jealous or feeling neglected. Mars and Pluto are not a good combination when arguing is involved. When I said earlier that the planets were moving in "ominous directions", I will show you now what I mean. They are sweeping towards death placements. Moving towards the fourth, eighth and twelfth houses and definitely will occupy them all in a short time. Venus is under stress from Venus, the Moon and Pluto, these aspects combine to make the seventh house the sensitive area in this chart. The person who met with Amy had a reason to do so and was willing to make a point through violence if necessary. In fact, the anger may have been high enough that the violence was given forethought and was considered inevitable.

At sometime between 4 and 5 pm that day, the violence occured. It looks like it was violence with the end of death for Amy. Look at the 5 pm chart and notice that the death houses have been occupied. Noticeably, Pluto has crossed the ascendant into the twelfth, the Sun is moving through the eighth and Saturn with the Moon are sitting in the fourth. Couple all of this with a tragic grand trine in fire signs involving these planets and you can see how easy this was for her killer. She was just so happy go lucky and trusting, so easy to get along with, so willing to see the good things in life, she had no idea. Pluto is crossing her natal Neptune, the transiting Moon is opposing her natal Pluto, transiting Jupiter is opposing her natal Mercury and Mars. Her judgment was clouded; she was making assumptions she should not have. She thought she was "right" in her assessment of the situation but she was not. She just had no idea it would end this way, except when you look at her birth planets combined with the transiting configurations, it is impossible to think it wouldn't. Violence was a grave possibility this day and that is what came to pass. I believe she was knocked unconscious and then killed. Probably strangled. I say this because of the natal Gemini and Libra planets and how they are aspected. Saturn looks like smothering. So Amy was knocked unconscious during an argument with someone else, probably there in the forest, and then smothered or strangled to death.

These charts lead me to believe that the sightings of Amy in a car with another person are plausible. Whether this was her husband or not I can't say at this juncture. I am hoping that by looking at the charts more closely I can attempt my usual stab at describing her killer. I find it amusing that her family describes her as "shy, quiet and studious" when the charts describe her as social, outgoing, adventurous, entertaining and energetic. This is not a misnomer. For instance, my family would define me as the "mother" of the pack, serious, hard working, fussy and organized. But my friends would describe me as a ham, a talker, a show off, a clown. We are all different people in different circles. Our friends get a side of us our family would find tedious and our family gets a side of us that perhaps our friends would find boring. Common. It is possible and likely that Amy was all of these things and more. Still, there is one thing that holds true for this young woman. She was innocent and open, trusting and positive. She could not have imagined that anyone, even this angry person she met with this day, was capable of killing her. For this, I have to say that Amy was a sweet and gentle soul and she will be greatly missed.

With that much said, I am going to finish up with a few things I think might be important. At the time of her passing, she was ruled by Jupiter in Aquarius. This lends even more credence to the possibility that she was smothered or strangled. However, it also describes where her body was left after she died. Jupiter tells me she was taken further into the forest. Aquarius describes an area that had been excavated or recently dug up. It also defines an area with a landing strip, either for aircraft or for airboats. If there is an area of the forest where people hunt with bows and arrows, this is an area that should be searched. Even just an archery target where archers go to practice. If there is a radio tower, even just for transmissions from walkie talkies, this is an area that should be searched. A tree house type of ranger station, a lightening rod, a lookout tower, these are all places she may be near. Ground that was being excavated in the forest area in 1997 that was near a radio tower, airboat launch, lookout tower, an archery target area, etc... these are all to be considered in trying to find where he left her. She is not under water.

Her killer is marked by Mercury in Leo. This is a big boned man with a large frame but average in height. He has a darker complexion, maybe even swarthy or meditteranean in coloring. He has a high, broad forehead that sometimes seems to "reflect light". Brown eyes, light brown hair with a high, arched nose. This is a prideful man who can be somewhat conceited and lazy. He is also honorable and loyal and loves the good things in life. Likes luxury and likes to think of new ways to make money. Full of ideas but slow to act on any of them. Careful at times but often stubborn and willful. Tends to get into a rut.

Regardless of my findings, Amy Bechtel Wroe is still a missing persons case. Her remains have never been found and no one has been charged in this case. She could well be anywhere in the world, perhaps even in your neighborhood. Please look closely at her picture and commit it to memory. If you have seen her, know anything about what happened to her or have any information about her present whereabouts, please contact CRIMESTOPPERS AT 1-800-442-8477.