Sister Turns to TikTok to Find Sibling Who Vanished in a Forest
Katana Curven’s “free spirit” sister went into a national forest in California last month but never came out.
Facebook/Katana Curven
“Hey TikTok, I need you guys to do your thing, please. My sister is missing.”
That’s the heartbreaking plea Katana Curven made to her 31,900 TikTok followers three days ago about her 32-year-old sister Courtney Bryan. An employee at Patagonia, Bryan was last heard from on Sept. 23 at the Shasta National Forest in the Sacramento Valley with her dog, Booch, police said.
“No calls and texts have been sent from her phone since,” Curven said in the video that has now been viewed over half a million times. She also showed Bryan’s last Instagram post from the day she went missing, which showed Bryan at the Hunt Hot Springs near Big Bend—about an hour from the national forest.
The Reno Police Department has now taken over the investigation into Bryan’s almost three-week disappearance that her younger sister insists is out of character. In an interview with NBC News, Curven said that Bryan, who lived in Reno, showed up to work at Patagonia’s repairs department on Sept. 22, but had planned to take a few days off for bereavement after their grandfather died a week earlier.
Authorities believe that the next day, Bryan went into the Shasta National Forest with her red Subaru Outback and her black and white border collie wolf mix. Neither has been found.
“It makes sense that she wanted to get away,” Curven said. “But she would’ve been back by now. She wouldn’t let us worry.”
Bryan’s family said it took about four days, and her not showing up for work, for them to realize something wasn’t right. After reporting her missing on Sept. 27, authorities were able to discover that Bryan’s last phone calls and texts were in the national forest, including one at 9:03 p.m. on Sept. 23 to a friend that just included a link to a Spotify song.
“She’s a free spirit and would often travel alone,” Curven told NBC. “But she would’ve let us know when she was coming back. She would’ve checked in with somebody.”
Over the last two weeks, authorities say they have received countless reporting sightings of Bryan—though none have been confirmed to be the 32-year-old. Since Curven took to TikTok, however, the number of reported sightings—and attention on the case itself–has grown. The three videos that Curven posted with updates have been seen by almost 650,000 people.
“It’s worked for other cases and missing people,” Curven said about her decision to take to the video platform to spread the word about her sister. “So now I’m hoping TikTok comes through for us. Please help me find my sister.”