Remains found confirmed by family as Marie Hanson; Services on Saturday at Sierra Community Church

Update 7:14PM: Marie Hanson's family has confirmed through Facebook that the remains found Sunday at the site in Washington are Marie's. Services will be held this Saturday, October 15th at Sierra Community Church, Sierra Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe at noon. More info to follow.

UPDATE 3:52PM: Searchers have found skeletal remains and jewelry in an area of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest where a South Lake Tahoe woman, Marie Hanson, was last seen during the Rainbow Family gathering. The Skamania County Sheriff's Office said in a statement Monday that searchers would continue to look for other evidence to link the remains and jewelry to Hanson, 54, reported missing by family since July 9. Go here for the story.

Here is the press release:

Items Of Interest Located In Search For Missing Woman

After several extensive searches of the area where a missing South Lake Tahoe woman, Marie Hanson, was last seen during the Rainbow Gathering in early July of this year, searchers located skeletal remains and jewelry yesterday afternoon. Search efforts and scene processing is continuing today to locate any additional evidentiary items.
“We will continue with this investigation to attempt to positively identify any remains that we locate throughout this process, stated Undersheriff Dave Cox. “We are hopeful but not jumping to any conclusions at this point. Marie’s family have been notified of this development and are requesting that we all respect their privacy during this time.”
A media area will be located at the Lone Butte Snow Park area at the junction of the Forest Service 30 and 3211 roads.

Dave Cox
Undersheriff
Skamania County Sheriff’s Office
509-427-9490
Email: davec@co.skamania.wa.us

The following note was left today on the Marie Hanson Missing Facebook page:

Late this afternoon the Skamania County Sheriff informed Marie's family that human remains and jewelry were found at the search site. Positive identification has not been made, however the remains were located near Marie's camp, and there are no other missing persons reported. Sheriff officers will remain at the site throughout the investigation.

Marie's family requests that you allow them their privacy for a couple of days. When positive identification is made, we will post the news.

Thank you friends for your loving support.
By: Marie Hanson Missing

On Oct. 4, Nancy Enterline, whose son is married to Hanson's daughter, Tawny Enterline, reported the following:

Tawny has asked me to give you an update on our search over the weekend. If you have any additional questions please email or ask me on my break. Tawny would rather not talk about the search, as you will see it was very emotional.

Friday and Saturday there were about 15 volunteer searchers at the site. About a dozen were Rainbow Family, 3 locals. They were led by an experienced Search and Rescue man named Rob Savoye (from Montana and recently Colorado). Other searchers came from Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon and California. It was cold and a light rain fell most of both days, searchers worked the area Marie was last seen for about 8 hours each day. Saturday, Rob and Circus rappelled down a 450 foot cliff (280 feet was a waterfall) but found no sign of Marie. (See our website www.mariehansonmissing.com for a video link of the waterfall climb.)

On Sunday we had heavy rain throughout the day. In addition to the volunteers searching (there were about 10 left on Sunday) the sheriff called an official law enforcement search.. They had about 10 ground searchers, two coordinators and 3 dogs w/ their handlers. After lunch, a dog named Murphy picked up a scent in a certain area and they worked him for about 4 hours, until he was exhausted. The two other dogs were brought in, and worked for several hours. Although they did not find Marie, we are certain that she will be found near that area.

The sheriff has called another search with the dogs for this Sunday. If they do not find Marie, we will use our fundraising money to pay expenses for a private team to come in w/in the next two weeks.