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West Central Tribune, Minnesota
April 4, 2006
SUPERIOR, Mont.
A Minnesota woman and her teenage son who had been missing for nearly a week were found dead late Monday, victims of apparent hypothermia, an official said Tuesday.
The bodies of Niki Thomas, 51, a high school librarian from Rochester, Minn., and her 15-year-old, Nicholas, were found in the snow on a hillside. Sanders County Sheriff Gene Arnold said it appeared the two had become stuck in their car on an isolated Forest Service road and attempted to walk out.
Thomas was in Montana visiting her son, who attended the Spring Creek Lodge Academy in Thompson Falls.
She rented a vehicle and drove him from Thompson Falls to an orthodontist appointment in Missoula on March 27. The two were last heard from the following afternoon when they called a family member from a cell phone. They had just left Missoula and were traveling west on Interstate 90, headed back to Thompson Falls, authorities said.
Arnold said Tuesday it appeared Thomas tried to use a Forest Service road as a shortcut into Thompson Falls.
"It's snowpacked and you can't get in there," he said.
A snowmobiler spotted their stranded vehicle.
Search crews from both Sanders and Mineral counties had been looking for the two.