Bounty Hunter Takes On Cold Case Of Missing Wyoming Millionaire

Nearly two and a half years after she went missing, a bounty hunter is reopening the cold case of the mysterious disappearance of Wyoming millionaire Kristi Richardson.

Richardson was last seen on October 6, 2014, at her daughter’s house in Casper, Wyoming. Since then, police have been unable to come up with any clues, leads, or suspects tied to her sudden vanishing act.

Now, a local bail bond agent and bounty hunter named Steven Willadsen is taking matters into his own hands. An experienced vigilante, Willadsen has helped solve more than 650 missing persons and fugitive cases in his career. He also currently owns more than 300 bail bonds.

“I decided to contact and the [Richardson] family and ask them permission and they gave me permission and I’m going to do my best to find their mother,” Willadsen told local news station KCWY 13. “If it was my mother that disappeared I would do anything and everything in my power to find some answers and I believe we’ve not found answers yet.”

Richardson, aged 60 at the time of her disappearance, was a wealthy widow who owned and operated a large trucking company in Casper. Her daughter, Amber Fazio, reported her mother missing after she failed to show up to work on October 7, 2014.

“When I saw her car still sitting in the garage I knew that something was not right,” Amber said of the day her mother disappeared. Inside the house, she recalled, it was like she vanished into thin air. “Everything [was still there], a purse sitting on the kitchen counter with $700-plus in it; driver’s license, cellphone, passport, birth certificate, suitcases, clothes.”

At the time, police did discover what appeared to be stains of blood and urine on Richardson’s bed. But information on the lab results of such evidence is unavailable to a bounty hunter like Willadsen, who operates outside of an official police capacity.

“Many of the leads are dead, many of the leads are cold, many of the leads are not available to the public such as me,” Willadsen explained. “We can assume she is either deceased or not ever coming back. That’s where it becomes difficult, because there is no paper trail, there is no line I can follow even in the slightest.”

He did, however, express hope and confidence that he might be able to open a new chapter in what investigators now regard as a cold case.

“I have a good feeling in my heart and in my stomach and the direction we are going, now that the family has let me do this,” he said. “I have a really good feeling that we’re going to generate some leads and a really good feeling that we’re going to find her.”

Richardson’s family, including her two children, have offered a reward of up to $250,000 for information leading to her whereabouts or fate.