“I love her and I miss her,” Vanessa Simmons told Dateline.
Vanessa’s daughter, Elizibeth Green, has been missing for over a year. The 21-year-old was last seen on April 17, 2024, in Callao, Utah.
“I wish I would’ve been able to protect her from whatever this was,” Vanessa said.
Elizibeth is Vanessa’s second oldest child. She grew up in Salt Lake City but moved to Callao four years ago. “In Utah itself, there’s a lot of things to do but in Callao, there’s not a lot.”
Elizibeth found her fun in crafts and social media, Vanessa said. “Her and I would craft together,” she said, adding that her daughter is a “loving, compassionate, person.”
At the time of her disappearance, Elizibeth lived in Callao with her mother.
Vanessa says she last saw her daughter on the morning of April 17, 2024, when Elizibeth was headed to her new job. “She was going to work at a ranch,” she said. “Do some cleaning on one of their properties.”
The ranch was familiar to the family. Vanessa says her son also did some work on the property. “Her brother worked for them and was familiar with them,” she said. “They had come over and asked if she wanted to earn some money and she agreed.”
Vanessa says her daughter seemed “excited and happy” before she left for the job around noon. Elizibeth headed out on foot to the ranch, which was about a 10-minute walk.
At 6 p.m., Elizibeth’s brother went to the ranch to check on her. “You know, see if she was ready for dinner,” Vanessa recalled. “And he came back and he’s like, ‘Mom, she’s not there.’” Vanessa says her son learned from the property owners that Elizibeth never showed up for work.
While Elizibeth does have a cell phone, Vanessa says there’s no cell service in the area, so she wasn’t able to call her. She decided to give her daughter a few hours to show up at home, but by the time it grew dark, panic set in. Around 8 p.m. Vanessa reached out to the community’s group chat to help search for her daughter. “I started asking questions — if anybody had seen her walking through the community, or had come across her at the ranch, or anything like that,” she said. “They all went out and got their ATVs and started searching.”
By 10 p.m., Vanessa called the Juab County Sheriff’s Office. “They were unable to make it out that night; it was already dark,” she said. The next day, officers got to work. “They showed up the next morning with dogs and did a search for her,” she said.
According to a search warrant, officers searched the area between Elizibeth’s home and the ranch, and the ranch itself, but found no trace of Elizibeth. According to Vanessa, they were not able to ping her phone’s location, either.
Dateline reached out to the Juab County Sheriff’s Office, which declined to comment on the case at this time, citing the active nature of the investigation.
Vanessa told Dateline the fact that her daughter left all of her identification at home was an indication to her that Elizibeth was not planning to take off. “If she was planning to leave, it would’ve made more sense for her to take that stuff with her,” she said. Vanessa says the family was able to get into Elizibeth’s social media and saw that she had been communicating with a lot of people. “So there is, of course, a possibility that she was going to meet someone,” Vanessa said. However, there was no clear indication of that based on what they found.
Vanessa says it’s unlike her daughter to just take off and hopes that she is still out there. “I have faith and hope she’s out there being a rebel child,” she said. “I’m here and ready to hear from her.”
Elizibeth is 5’11” and 125 lbs. She has light brown hair and green eyes and was last seen wearing a pink tie-dye hoodie, light blue jeans, black Converse shoes, and a white backpack purse.
Anyone with information about Elizibeth’s disappearance is asked to call the Juab County Sheriff’s Officeat 801-794-3970.
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