A license plate camera captured her auto near the Idaho-Washington state line, using phone data police located the vehicle near the Spokane Airport where Maze’s body was found in the trunk.
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A woman who was kidnapped at a Montana rest stop in broad daylight was able to talk with her husband by cellphone several times and even talked with police, but she was dead by the time authorities found her auto 325 miles away near Spokane International Airport, Montana authorities said. But authorities have not ruled her death a homicide, and new details add a layer of intrigue to the case. Rita Maze’s horrific ordeal reportedly began late Tuesday morning at a rest stop along Interstate 15 near Wolf Creek, Montana.
Rita’s body was discovered by Spokane County Sheriff’s deputies at about 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
The office said the cause of death was a “single gunshot involving the chest and abdomen”.
Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich told The Spokesman-Review the kidnapping narrative will remain in question “until we actually find out what is going on”.
When Montana woman Rita Maze described her attacker to her family, she said that he was a large man, roughly six-feet, five-inches tall, either Native American or African-American, and wearing a black hoodie. “What happened in between?”
The Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office released information about her death Thursday.
Investigators were checking the auto for fingerprints and DNA to see if they could find a match to someone with a criminal record, Rochelle Maze said.
Law enforcement officials say during the course of the investigation into the death of Rita Maze, it has been determined that preliminary reports of a possible person of interest are inaccurate. The official would not elaborate.
In this July 28, 2016 photo provided by Lanni Klasner, Rita Maze, left, and her daughter, Rochelle Maze, pose for a photo in Great Falls, Mont. It will be in the garden area of Gibson Park at 8 p.m. A license-plate reader also picked up Maze’s vehicle in Post Falls, Idaho.
Maze spoke with her husband and Helena police by cellphone before she died later that night, Dutton said. She had spent all Monday in Helena visiting her ailing mother. She had not returned to Great Falls from a trip to her hometown of Helena 90 miles to the south, and she wasn’t answering phone calls from family.
Rochelle then said, a purchase was made in Ritzville, WA with Rita’s card at a Loves Travel Stop at 9:55 pm. “She did not hit herself, stuff herself in the truck and drive all the way to Spokane and shoot herself”. “There’s an outpouring in this community that you would not believe”, she said. Her purse and keys were in the vehicle. There was blood on the ground, and a $20 bill lay nearby.
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“I told her that I loved her, and my dad told her that he loved her, and she said that she loved us, and then the phone shut off”, Rochelle Maze recounted to reporters.
