'Generational curse': Augusta Old Crow's family mourns and grapples with her demons

When Augusta Old Crow went missing in mid-February, her daughter Courtney Gutierrez felt a familiar grief. When Gutierrez was 10 years old, her father went missing and was later found dead in a river, leaving her mother with lasting heartbreak.

“She would always talk about him,” Gutierrez said. “And just cry and cry.”

The same fate would befall her mother. On Feb. 24, a week after Old Crow was reported missing, her body was found near Baxter Lane and Sacco Drive via a drone search. She was 56.

Gutierrez remembers her parents as loving, but both struggled with drinking. Chaos was inescapable. She last saw her father at Crow Fair in 2003, before he left to drink with friends and never came back.

“I always hated alcohol, because ever since I was younger it was always fighting or people were leaving,” Gutierrez said. “Alcohol really traumatized me. And I knew he was going to go drink, and I didn’t want him to.”

After her father’s death, Gutierrez said her mother got sober and stayed that way for the past seven years, becoming a steadying presence in the family.

“She loved her grandkids so much,” Gutierrez said.

“Anything she could help us with, she always would help us with. She was always kind, even when people did bad things to her she would just let it go.”

During those years, Gutierrez said she was also able to form a bond with her mother that she didn’t have in childhood. She grew accustomed to her mother’s steady presence, and allowed herself to depend on her. But a year before her disappearance, Old Crow started drinking again, Gutierrez said.

“When she fell off, it really hurt and would get me mad,” Gutierrez said. “Because here you are choosing alcohol again.”

After the relapse, Gutierrez stopped answering her mom’s calls as often, and when she did she tried to give her tough love — hoping that would be the jolt her mother needed to stop drinking. She wasn’t expecting those calls to be the last time she’d hear her mother’s voice.

But when her mother went silent, stopped calling and stopped responding to texts, Gutierrez reported her missing.

“I feel terrible now,” Gutierrez said. “About ignoring the calls, or just the things I said.”

In the days after filing the report, Gutierrez traveled from her home in Billings to Bozeman, where Old Crow lived in an RV. Along with her brother, they hung flyers throughout town and combed the spots where homeless people often gather, looking for any clues.

Gutierrez said the process was grueling, as some said they saw her mother but all those leads turned up dry.

“You get hopeful, and then they’re just shot down,” Gutierrez said.

According to Bozeman Police Detective Spencer Jenkins, the lead investigator in the case, this area off Baxter Lane where Old Crow’d body was found is a known gathering spot for the homeless.

“We found her body on scene and didn’t see any obvious signs of trauma,” Jenkins said. “An autopsy was conducted the next day, and me and my partner went to that autopsy and there was no evident signs of any trauma that occurred to her body.”

Days later, the Bozeman Police Department announced that foul play was not suspected in Old Crow’s death. For Gutierrez, the news came as a relief, but lingering questions still occupy her thoughts.

Old Crow had been living in her RV, moving it around town and parking in various spots. When Gutierrez and her brother tracked down the RV during their search, the state of the interior left her with more questions than answers.

“Her stuff was all over and she left her groceries out,” Gutierrez said. “She would never do that. She’s a clean person. She wouldn’t just leave her groceries out like that.”

Jenkins said the state of the RV was initially a concern, but turned out not to be a pivotal piece of the investigation. Because the case has not been closed, he said he could not provide further details.

For Old Crow’s sister, Juanita Ward, the details still don’t add up. The body was discovered a short distance from the RV, and Ward said her sister’s purse and jacket were found 20 feet away but she did not bring her phone with her.

“She’s not just going to walk off and die like a dog,” Ward said.

Adding to the concern, Ward said, was a domestic violence incident months earlier. After Old Crow was physically assaulted by her partner, Ward said she sought help at the emergency room and reported him to police.

“She told me that she had to escape because she feared for her life,” Ward said. “She told me that he had threatened her, that she was going to get beat up by some of his friends.”

When her sister was found dead less than two months later, Ward worried that, although the perpetrator remained in jail after he was arrested Dec. 23, he might have made good on those threats. Jenkins confirmed that Old Crow was the victim in that case, but said the angle was investigated.

“We definitely considered it,” Jenkins said. “Jail phone calls are all recorded, and those were reviewed.”

Ward has spoken with detectives, but the fear that her sister’s death will not be taken seriously because of her struggles with alcohol lingers.

“Just because she did those things, it doesn’t make her life any less important,” Ward said. “My sister was such a caring lady. She would go to the homeless shelter, buy eggs, tortillas, and she would make breakfast burritos for these people in the morning. That’s the kind of heart she had.”

Gutierrez said the family is still waiting on the toxicology report to determine the cause of death. In the meantime, she is balancing grief with the work of charting a different course for her own children, one free from the cycle of alcohol that scarred her childhood.

“I don’t want it to be passed on to my kids and for them to think it’s OK to be around that and the chaos that comes with it,” Gutierrez said. “I’m trying to stop that generational curse.”