On November 26, the Pima County Sheiriff’s Office suspended the search on an Oro Valley woman who had gone Wednesday November 21 due to the fact that they had exhausted all of their leads. On November 27, 2012, at about 3:00 p.m., the Pima County Sheriff’s Department Search and Rescue Unit responded to Mount Lemmon reference the discovery by a hiker of a deceased female.
Once deputies arrived on scene and were able to get to where the body was located, they established the body fit the description of and is believed to be that of missing Oro Valley woman Janet Rennspies.
Detectives from the Sheriff’s Department Homicide Unit responded to conduct the investigation. At this time the investigation is ongoing and there are no additional details available.
Ms. Rennspies was last seen by her family Wednesday morning, according to an Oro Valley Police Department news release.
Rennspies’ family later called Oro Valley Police, who placed an attempt-to-locate alert in Pima and Pinal counties. Her son said Rennspies left to see the sunrise on Mt. Lemmon. She was recently widowed.
“She just wanted to be alone, and we respected that,” her son told KVOA news. “And when she didn’t come back that night, we just figured she was staying with a friend of something like that. We figured she didn’t want to be around family for thanksgiving because it would be hard not having him there. She kind of just wanted to be alone, and when she didn’t come back that day that’s when we knew something was wrong really wrong.”
Her family members eventually found her vehicle on Mount Lemmon in the parking lot of the observatory.