Missing Oregon Woman: Might She Be Here?

— by Lin McNulty —

UPDATE: Tuesday, August 5, 2014, 4 p.m.
Officials are reporting the body of Jennifer Huston has been located in Yamhill County Oregon.

Jennifer Huston, missing Dundee, Oregon woman.

National media attention on the missing woman from Dundee, Oregon, Jennifer Huston, is now focused on the San Juan Islands due to an uncorroborated 24-hour-old report of a possible sighting of the missing woman on the 9 a.m. sailing from Anacortes to Friday Harbor last Thursday.

Undersheriff Bruce Distler says he has fielded calls from most of the national broadcast media and The New York Times as news of this possible San Juan County sighting has captured attention across the country. Officials in Yamhill County, Oregon, have officially ended their active search for the missing woman with no further clues about her whereabouts. Her cell phone has been turned off and there have been no charges on her credit cards.

Jennifer Huston, mother of two young children, was last seen late Thursday, July 24 on a Dundee convenience store video. She drives a dark green 1999 Lexus LX-479 SUV, Oregon license WXH-011. The vehicle has a crack in the windshield and a ski rack on top. Huston is 38 years old, 5’7″ average build, shoulder length hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing black/pink Nikes and black yoga pants.

A San Juan ferry rider reported to San Juan County Sheriff’s Office on Friday that a blonde female, possibly matching Huston’s description, had been observed Thursday on board the Anacortes-Friday Harbor sailing. They also reported seeing a dark green SUV with a cracked windshield. It was not clear that the woman and vehicle were necessarily linked. No license number was obtained by the witness on the ferry.

Huston is known to have visited, and liked, the San Juan Islands in the past, but has no known ties to any particular place or person in the islands.

Undersheriff Distler says they have requested that WSF review their surveillance videos for that day and report back to San Juan County Sheriff’s Office if there is any evidence it was Huston on that boat.

Distler says our local Sheriff’s Office is not currently engaged in an active search, but rather a “heightened awareness” to watch for the missing woman’s vehicle, and ask the public to call the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office at 360-378-4151 with any information. As of publication time,  flyers have not been publicly posted locally.