Missing teen found safe in Colorado

LOVELL (WNE) —  The saga of a missing Lovell teenager has a happy ending.

Kourtnee Lea Roper, 17, a senior at Lovell High School, went missing on Wednesday, Feb. 11, and finally called her mother Tuesday, Feb. 17, from Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she had driven after leaving her home nearly a week earlier.

She is safe and will soon return home.

Kourtnee, the daughter of Sarah and Shane Pitt and Brad Roper, dropped her sister off at school on Wednesday morning, Feb. 11, telling her sister she had to run back home because she forgot something, according to Lovell Police Department Officer Dusty Schultz. But she didn’t return to school or her house.

Schultz said there were indications Kourtnee might run, including the fact that she was switching bi-polar medications due to some side effects from her previous medication. She had also recently broken up with a boyfriend.

What was odd, he said, is that she took very little with her.

“Generally, when somebody runs away, they plan,” he said. 

As it turned out, Kourtnee did have a plan. 

She had done research and found out that, as a 17-year-old, Colorado would not detain her and force her to return simply for being a runaway. And indeed, when contacted Tuesday, the Colorado Springs Police Department refused to detain her, saying it  had no authority to do so. “That was her whole plan in the first place,” Schultz said. “She didn’t want to come back, and she knew that the Colorado Springs PD wasn’t going to do anything to make that happen.”

Kourtnee called her mother Sarah at about 11:15 a.m. on Tuesday, saying she was OK but that she didn’t want to – or have to – come home. 

But she needed money and medication. 

Schultz worked with Big Horn County Attorney Marcia Bean to file charges necessary for the Colorado Springs police to detain her so she can be returned home safely. Schultz was able to obtain an extraditable warrant so that Kourtnee would be detained in a juvenile facility, and she was taken into custody that afternoon.

This story was published on Feb. 19, 2026.