Twin sister, mother search for missing woman in Jemez wilderness

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – It was three weeks ago today when Kelsey Lane had a feeling she should call her twin sister. Since then, no one has seen or heard from Ingrid Lane from Albuquerque. 

Now, a mother and a daughter are spending the next week in New Mexico looking for answers.

“She’s much more fashionable than me, so she would buy me stuff – give it to me – and tell me I would need to wear it,” said Kelsey Lane. 

Kelsey’s conversations with her sister might sound familiar.

“Whenever she’d come to my house, she’d say ‘I’m taking that purse back. I regret giving that to you.’ Or I would come here and be like ‘I want that. I think I – I gave that to you by accident,’” Kelsey said. 

But going through her closet this time feels weird because Ingrid was last seen more than three weeks ago in a remote part of the Jemez wilderness.

“The Monday after she went missing I felt like, I needed to call her, and we needed to talk. Um – that certainly haunts me a little bit like – what was happening on that Monday,” Kelsey said. 

Kelsey and her mom, Becky Lane, just arrived in New Mexico from Oregon. They made the drive, and plan to use the more than $25,000 from a GoFundMe to find Ingrid – they are hoping for a tip.

“Hopefully, I mean, somebody might have just given her a ride,” said Kelsey. 

On Oct. 15, Ingrid went to the Zen Center in Jemez Springs. 

That Sunday afternoon a couple of hunters spotted her on a remote forest road with a flat tire, and she apparently told them she was determined to hike to a nearby peak. They later found her car and her husband says it had some weird things inside.

“One very strange detail is that they found a burner phone in her car, but still in its package, not opened, not activated,” Scuderi told KOB 4 on Sunday. “That’s a shock to me. That’s a huge shock to me to find out.”

“Yea. That’s huge. Those are huge puzzle pieces that are just unknown,” said Becky. 

The rear window of her car was shattered, and an out-of-place rock was in the back seat.

“She weighs like 120 pounds, so I was like, I don’t think she could get that rock through there on her own. Um – so that’s weird. That’s super weird, and she’s not like a violent person,” said Kelsey. 

Cash and electronics were also still in the car.

While her family says she was struggling with mental health, and at a career crossroads. Her sister says she was making plans for the future. 

“I don’t think that she went into the mountains not planning to come back,” said Kelsey. 

Renting a search helicopter, hiring a private investigator – everything is on the table. While some fear the worst, her sister and mom hold on to hope. 

A lieutenant with the Sandoval County Sheriff’s Office says this is an active missing person case, and there is no evidence of foul play.