On a rainy morning in October 2023, a police officer in a small Arkansas town approached a parked SUV to check on a family inside.
In the passenger seat, a tired mother in a red T-shirt smiled politely as she folded baby clothes. Her toddler climbed between the seats. A baby cried in the back.
She told the officer they were just passing through… trying to get back to Wyoming.
That officer would become the last confirmed person to ever see Katheryn “Katie” Ferguson alive.
Days later, her boyfriend would continue the trip without her.
And when investigators finally searched the vehicle they had been traveling in, they found something chilling — blood, bullet holes, and a missing passenger seat.
Katie Ferguson has never been seen again.
As some background, Katie had been in a relationship with Adam Aviles Jr for years prior to her disappearance. The couple have two daughters together, who were aged almost 1 and 4 as of October 2023.
Katie was described by her family as a ‘goofball’ and a doting mother. Katie gave herself the nickname ‘Gangsta Kate’ because she loved rapping along with songs while driving in the car.
Katie’s sister Nicole told Fox that she had known Adam since he was a teenager. She also said that she and Katie had become very close when she was a teenager. “From the time I was like a teenager on, we got very close. We always had so much in common,” said Nicole, who described their fun nights out dancing and goofing around.
Nicole said he always seemed like a nice enough guy and that she didn’t think he would have hurt anyone.
Both Katie and Adam had previously struggled with addiction but were said to seemingly be on a better path. (Adam was convicted of heroin possession in 2017).
Katie’s stepmother Angela Ferguson said they took a family trip in 2021 and that the couple were in a good place at that point.
“It made me feel really good that she seemed to have turned things around, and she was in a good spot in life,” Angela told Fox News Digital. “She was very attentive to the kids, and I just got to know her better.
“On this vacation, I saw her in a different light and had hope that everything was going to turn out all right.”
When Katie became a mom, Nicole said she saw her “incredible” transformation into a “great mom who would do anything for her kids.”
“She was a really kind person. She had a really kind heart, just like her kids they have really kind souls,” Nicole said. “We’ve always just had this bond.”
By April 2023, Katie and Adam’s relationship had turned into an ‘ugly, verbally abusive mess.’
Nicole said that something shifted in Adam after the birth of the couple’s second daughter.
“I don’t know if it was the stress of having a baby with her or the stress of life or what it was, but he was different. He was very controlling. Like, she wasn’t allowed to go do anything or go anywhere,” Nicole said.
“I would be like, ‘Katie, you know, let’s get together. My kids miss you.’ And she would be like, ‘I can’t. Adam doesn’t want me to.’”
Katie decided to end things with Adam in 2023. There are varying reports as to the date that happened, but it was around April-May that year.
Katie decided that she and the kids should leave their home in Cody, Wyoming to get away from Adam. Katie made a plan to move in with her biological mother Mona Hartling in Newton, Alabama. The drive would have taken them around 28 hours.
Katie sent some texts to her stepmother during the road trip, indicating that she was scared of Adam.
“I don’t want to be stranded on the side of the road with two kids,” Katie wrote to Angela. “I know you’re probably thinking well you should have thought about it and planned about it, but Adam kept following us.
“I kept seeing him everywhere. I couldn’t stay in Cody (city in Wyoming) … I’m not asking for a lot. I just need help.”
Angela sent Katie some money and helped her to find a hotel room.
“Thank you very much … We didn’t know what we’re going to do, and we’re almost out of gas,” Katie wrote to Angela. “We are so exhausted. We just want to get as far away from him as we can because we’re tired of looking over (our) shoulders constantly or scared to take the girls anywhere.”
Katie also told Angela that Adam had relapsed and was using drugs again at this time.
Amanda Ferguson, another sister of Katie’s said to NBC “She was scared of him. She didn’t want the girls around him,” she said.
“She had bruises around her neck, bruises around her belly,” her mother Mona said. “She said, ‘Mom, I need to get away’ and I said, ‘Let’s go.’”
Katie ended up calling Adam to come and get her and the kids and take them back to Wyoming.
“Katie stopped talking to Adam (after they broke up),” Nicole said. “That’s why it was so weird to me that all of a sudden he was in Alabama.”
It is estimated that Adam, Katie and the children left Alabama to begin their journey back to Wyoming on Tuesday, 3 October 2023.
On Thursday 5 October, 2023 a Trumann, Arkansas police officer contacted Adam, Katie and the kids in their Durango while stopped in a parking lot to check on them.
Trumann is around a 7.5 hour drive from Newton.
The officer approached the family at around 11am. This info about the encounter is from CowboyStateDaily.com:
“How you guys doin’?” asks a police officer with an Arkansas accent in the body cam video. “What you guys up to?”
Rain drizzles, fleeting across the body cam view and dripping onto the SUV.
The body cam video shows the officer approaching a dark-colored Dodge Durango and walking to the passenger side. The camera captures a clear view of Katie Ferguson, in a red T-shirt, her legs crossed casually, as she sorts through snacks and folds baby garments in the car’s passenger seat. She smiles in mild surprise at the officer’s approach.
A baby coos in the back seat. A toddler clambers in the front-seat area between her parents.
“Trying to clean up and head over to Jonesburough, how you doing?” answers Aviles Jr., who sits in the driver’s seat, shadowy in the day’s weak light.
“I was just seein’ the door open and it looked suspicious, so I had to come check it out,” says the officer.
Ferguson smiles again. “Yeah, we’re headin’ out,” she says, adding that the family is on its way back to Wyoming.
“Do you guys have a ID or anything?” asks the officer.
“Yeah —“ Ferguson begins, still folding baby garments.
“Is Arkansas an ID state?” asks Aviles.
“I just need to verify you,” says the officer.
“I don’t think we’ve done nothing – I don’t think we’re breaking the law,” says Aviles. “Unless we got a call called on us, I don’t think we’ve done nothin’ wrong.”
“Well, it is a suspicious vehicle in a parking lot,” says the officer. “I was drivin’ right here and I seen you guys.”
“So no one called in. ‘K,” says Aviles.
The officer asks Ferguson for her ID. She sorts through some of the items in the vehicle, saying she didn’t have her wallet just then.
The officer asks her name.
“Katheryn – Ferguson,” she answers.
The baby’s crying intensifies.
“Calm down,” says Aviles to the child.
‘We’re Trying To Get Back To Wyoming’
Ferguson, who appears fatigued throughout the encounter, yawns.
“We would have been at a hotel but Priceline took a bunch of our money,” Ferguson says.
The officer asks how long they’ve been in Trumann.
Just one night, says Ferguson.
“You guys just passin’ through?” asks the officer.
“Yeah, we’re trying to get back to Wyoming,” says Aviles.
Ferguson explains that she was with her family in Alabama because she and Aviles had “separated for a while.” Then they came back together.
“So, he came down to see me. And we decided to just get back together and take care of the girls,” Ferguson adds.
“I don’t want to be here, at all,” she says with a smile, through a yawn.
“All right,” says the officer, and walks promptly away.
This officer was the last person to see Katie. Her phone activity also ceased around this time.
Adam seemed to continue on his way back to Wyoming, cross-country. He was stopped by a Texas trooper on Monday October 9, 2023. He was stopped for driving on the wrong side of the road and was cited for a child safety seat violation. Katie was not with him at this time.
On October 11, 2023, Adam was in Colorado and he was contacted by a Colorado State police trooper. Again, Katie was not in the vehicle.
When Katie’s family could not get in contact with her by November 2023, her mother Mona filed a missing person report. This happened on 2 November 2023.
After Adam found out about the report, he told Mona that Katie was not missing but that she did not want to have contact with her family.
The same day Adam let his father Adam Sr borrow a Glock pistol to take on a hunting trip. After Adam found out about the missing person report, he went to his father’s campsite and demanded the gun back.
“When I first found out about my sister missing, I was in shock. I cried for three or four days,” Nicole said. “I know in my heart, he (Adam) did something to her.”
On 4 November 2023, Adam’s Durango was found abandoned in a rural area near Cody, Wyoming. Trash bags were covering the windows of the vehicle. When deputies arrived, they broke into the car because of Adam’s connection to Katie, who was a missing person.
Deputies wanted to make sure there was no one who required medical attention inside the Durango, the complaint said. A law enforcement officer indicated “he could smell the odor of ‘putrefied blood’” inside the Durango, the complaint said.
The passenger’s seat was missing and there were cleaning wipes inside, according to the court document. A Glock pistol magazine loaded with live ammunition was near the vehicle’s center console, the complaint said.
“There was also what appears to be a projectile hole in the front passenger door,” the complaint said.
(Side note – When the previously mentioned body cam footage was examined, no projectile hole could be seen at that point.
“K.F. was present in the passenger seat and Aviles Jr. was operating the vehicle,” the complaint said. “There was no projectile hole in the passenger side door on bodycam video.”
Authorities also reviewed bodycam footage from the Texas interaction. The projectile hole could be seen at that point, but it was covered with tape.)
While the deputies were examining the vehicle, Adam approached them, holding a gas canister. He told authorities it was his car and that it had run out of gas.
Investigators learned that one of the first things Adam had done when he returned to Wyoming was to borrow an angle grinder from a friend. He told that friend he needed to cut something off his car.
Fox News has some more information about the state of the Durango:
Federal investigators executed a search warrant two days later and allegedly found dried blood, which was confirmed by a crime lab, and three “fired projectiles” consistent with a .45-caliber round inside the passenger side and two stuck in a door, a federal complaint says.
The front seat was missing, and a “large portion” of the truck’s trim was removed and stuffed in trash bags in the back seat, according to the indictment.
Angela (stepmother) has said that the family found out about the evidence by watching and reading the news.
“I wish we could have been informed, or it could have come out different,” Angela said. “Just the thought of her possibly suffering as her life slipped away. And the kids where they are with her. Like, there are so many things that we just will probably never know.”
Authorities searched along the route that Katie and Adam would have taken and narrowed their search at that time to a stretch of Arkansas between Little Rock and Gurdon.
They found a strip of fabric which was said to match a pattern on Katie’s pyjamas during that search.
Police also questioned Adam’s father, Adam Shane Aviles Sr and looked into his phone search history. This info is from Cowboy State Daily:
“Did you whack her?” asked the father.
“The kids are safe, that’s what matters,” answered Adam, reportedly.
Adam’s phone search history shows he was looking for answers about how Americans can move to Canada, and about strong cleaning products like lye, according to court testimony.
Adam Sr said that Adam Jr and the two children had been living with them upon their return to Wyoming.
When the father returned from the hunting trip that we spoke about previously, he returned to find his home in disarray. When he went to shower, he found a razor blade with meth, as well as a water pipe used to smoke meth, sitting on a bathroom sink.
He grew angry, threw the things away and started cleaning his house. He allegedly found a needle and syringe and about a half-gram of meth on a shelf in the upstairs bathroom. He knew by then that Adam was using again.
Adam Sr destroyed all the drug paraphernalia and he told Adam that he was not welcome in his home any longer. Adam asked if he could borrow both money and his dad’s truck. Adam Sr said no.
Adam then asked if he could go downstairs to get some pants as he was wearing shorts and was cold. His father agreed to that and followed Adam down stairs.
“Aviles Jr. was obviously looking for the controlled substances Aviles Sr. had disposed of,” Sheriff Steward later said.
Adam Sr gave his son a ride into the town and dropped him off. He then went to a law enforcement center for a scheduled interview. Adam Sr was asked where his truck was, and he told authorities it was parked in front of his home. The sheriff asked if he was sure and gave Adam Sr a ride home. The truck was gone.
Adam Jr allegedly stole the truck and charged fuel to his father’s account. Both he and the truck were unable to be found that day.
On 8 November 2023, Adam was arrested on suspicion of drug delivery and unauthorized use of someone else’s vehicle. Authorities asked Adam where his father’s truck was and he told them ‘it was a long way away.’ Police would later find the vehicle backed in near a building, north of Cody.
If convicted and sentenced, each charge could have brought up to one year in jail and $1,000 in fines. Those charges ended up being dropped without prejudice.
This happened so that federal authorities could lay heavier charges against him.
Monte McClain, Public Information Officer for the Park County Sheriff’s Office, told the media:
“We dropped the local charges. We used those to hold him ‘til the big charges came out,” said McClain. “His charges have escalated to the point that a misdemeanor ticket of unauthorized (truck) use is a moot point. It would actually delay the furtherance of justice in trying to get this taken care of.”
Adam was then charged by the federal court with being a felon in possession of a firearm or ammunition. The charge is punishable by up to 15 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, per count.
According to solvethecase.org, Katie’s oldest daughter was interviewed on 8 November.
A forensic interview of the 4-year-old daughter of Katie and Adam included a statement about Adam accidentally hurting Katie.
The older daughter told investigators that she heard a loud “bang” while her parents were in the front seat of the vehicle during the trip.
She reportedly said that her mother then fell forward and did not respond afterward.
The child also described seeing blood.
Mona has said that she has not asked the child about that because she doesn’t want to traumatize her. She believes the kids saw what happened to their mother.
When Katie did not show up for her youngest daughter’s first birthday on 27 November, 2023, her family said they knew something bad happened to her.
“I still have a little bit of hope. But with all the evidence I’ve heard, if Katie is still alive, I just want her to know that we love her and miss her and we’re here for her,” Amanda said. “But if she isn’t, I want to know where she’s at so I can properly say goodbye to her. Our whole family would love that.”
“I just really hope he, Adam, will talk and just really say what happened,” Nicole said. “I love her and I don’t want to be negative but I don’t think she’s coming home, but I at least want her to be found.”
“It all points in a very tragic direction, and so it’s hard. It’s hard to hear the rumors, to hear what might have happened to her. It’s just unfathomable,” Angela said. “It’s devastating. It’s the most tragic, awful thing.”
In September 2024, Adam was sentenced to 87 months (just over 7 years) in federal prison for being a felon in possession of ammunition.
This info is from a statement by U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Wyoming:
Based on evidence presented by the government at the sentencing hearing, Judge Johnson found that Aviles unlawfully possessed the ammunition in connection with the voluntary manslaughter of Katheryn Ferguson. She was reported missing in October 2023 and is presumed dead.
Aviles was arrested in early November 2023, after the Park County Sheriff’s Office found bullet holes, a fully loaded .45 caliber magazine and ammunition, and numerous blood-stained items inside his vehicle. Aviles is a convicted felon and is not allowed to possess firearms or ammunition. Aviles was indicted by a federal grand jury on Nov. 15, 2023 and he pleaded guilty on Jun. 14.
“Today’s sentence is a product of close cooperation between local, state, and federal law enforcement and prosecutors. We hope the sentence provides a measure of justice, however partial, for the loss of Katheryn Ferguson to her children and her family,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Eric Heimann. “This case is a sad reminder that felons cannot be trusted with firearms. The U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to aggressively prosecute gun crimes to help make the people of Wyoming safer.”
In March 2025, Angela (stepmother) spoke to East Idaho News and gave an update on the case. She said the investigation shows Katie was likely killed between Texarkana, Texas and Arkansas.
“They’re trying to find a fire pit where she might have fallen into the fire,” says Angela. “I feel like they’re getting close to finding her…They’re doing search parties and they have cadaver dogs out.”
In July 2025, authorities asked hikers in Park County, Wyoming to be on the lookout for two objects that may be related to Katie’s disappearance. People were asked to stay alert for a pink tote container bearing white duct tape; and the removed, possibly charred or damaged front-passenger seat of a Dodge Durango.
The tote was said to possibly be in Park County, Natrona or other surrounding counties.
Sheriff Darrell Steward said that authorities had searched extensively for the tote which was likely to contain DNA.
FBI Special Agent Luke Williamson spoke about the tote during Adam’s sentencing in November 2024.
Aviles’ father in November 2023 had reportedly found a large pink tote container which smelled of “rotting meat,” at the Cody home he shared with his son, Williamson testified under questioning.
Williamson, meanwhile, continued with his testimony, saying Aviles’ father put the tote in the dumpster and that this upset Aviles Jr.
Aviles Jr. told his father that the tote contained “DNA” and retrieved it from the dumpster, according to court testimony.
But investigators never found it.
Katie’s mother Mona spoke to the media in 2025.
“It’s killing us not knowing where she is,” Mona said. “It’s for justice, for her and her babies – for her family – her beautiful children.”
“They’re adorable. They’re so adorable – and Katie just shines through them.” Mona said that she dreads having to explain the case and their mother’s disappearance to the girls as they grow older.
Mona also spoke about her anguish at hearing graphic descriptors during Adam’s previous sentencing.
“I couldn’t handle it at the time,” she said. “To see (Aviles) – No. 1 – and not be able to go up there and just rip his head off. And, that was my baby girl’s blood up there. You never imagine that – it’s like watching a movie. I couldn’t handle it at the time.”
As of March 2026, Katie remains missing. Her two daughters are said to be living with Adam’s mother. Mona has said that their paternal grandmother is a wonderful caretaker and that she is allowed to see the girls often.
SOURCE LIST
https://www.newsnationnow.com/missing/katie-ferguson
https://www.solvethecase.org/case/2023-8/timeline
https://www.solvethecase.org/case/2023-8/katheryn-ann-ferguson
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/11/09/ex-boyfriend-of-missing-cody-woman-arrested-in-wyoming
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wy/pr/boyfriend-missing-cody-woman-sentenced-87-months-federal-prison
