Investigation ongoing in Okla. Girl's disappearance

Alice Campbell Havre Daily News [email protected]

It will be weeks before remains discovered in a storage unit in Oregon are positively identified, said Jessica Brown, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation public information officer. The remains are thought to be those of 12-year-old Cheyenne Wolf who, Brown said, authorities believe died in April 2008. Authorities believe that Cheyenne's body was then buried several times as the family moved through Oklahoma, Montana and Oregon. The Oregon state medical examiner's office "cannot make a positive ID based on the dental records that were provided," she said, because the records were of Cheyenne's teeth before all of her adult ones grew in. "We're going to have to do DNA," Brown said, adding that it is a lengthy process, beginning with the bones being transported to a facility at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, DNA being extracted from the bones and those samples then being compared to either the mother and father or just one of the parents. While no positive identification has been made, "there is a body in those containers consistent with your victim based on her size and the age of her bones and the medical condition that was reported that she had everything is consistent with the little girl," Umatilla County Sheriff John Trumbo said. He declined to specify what medical condition Cheyenne had. Brown also has said that the Remains appear to be Cheyenne's. Cheyenne's father, 35-year-old Abel Wolf, and stepmother, 40-year-old Denise Ann Wolf, were arrested southwest of Havre July 2 on warrants from Oklahoma that charged them with unlawful removal of a body. Those charges have been officially filed in Bryan County District Court in Oklahoma. The couple has waived their right to an extradition hearing and will remain in the Hill County Detention Center without bond until transportation is arranged to take them back to Oklahoma. The Bryan County Sheriff's office will handle the arrangements, Brown said. "Normally we don't announce when we're going to pick somebody up," she said and added that to do so poses a security risk. The Oklahoma warrants claim the couple buried their daughter in Bokchito, Okla., after her death in April 2008 and then dug her up and moved her body several times between Oklahoma, Oregon and Montana over the following year. According to affidavits, the couple became upset with Cheyenne during dinner because she would not eat. When Abel went outside for a while, he heard a loud thump. Cheyenne seemed to be acting strangely when he returned inside, but nothing seemed wrong, and she went to bed. The following morning, Denise called him and told him to come home because of a problem with Cheyenne. She told him Cheyenne was dead when he got there. "It's possible that one of her siblings actually beat her to death," Brown said. Based on a signed affidavit from reports by Denise's brother, Edward Davis, and his daughter, Tricia J. Wells of Alvarado, Texas, Cheyenne's sister beat her before Denise found Cheyenne's body. "Davis ... informed your affiant that when Denise Wolf lived in Oklahoma on one occasion she went into the house and found (Cheyenne's sister) kicking and stomping Cheyenne Wolf in the bedroom. Cheyenne Wolf was already dead," according to the affidavit.