A woman who was hoping to walk away from her marriage before vanishing late last month while hiking with her two dogs near Mount Hood in Oregon has been found dead.
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The body of Susan “Phoenix” Lane-Fournier, 61, who went missing Nov. 22 while hiking in Mount Hood National Forest with her Malinois-mix dogs Elrond and Elros, was found the morning of Nov. 29 along the side of a road in in Clackamas County, Ore., according to the New York Post
The state medical examiner did not release a cause of death but ruled it a homicide.
The same day the body was found, Lane-Fournier’s husband, 71-year-old Michel Fournier, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, according to KGW8. Fournier was booked into Clackamas County Jail, according to the county sheriff’s office, and is ineligible for bail.
Lane-Fournier was reported missing on Nov. 22 after failing to show up for work, police said.
A search ensued — a friend found Lane-Fournier’s white 1992 Ford F-250 truck parked along a road south of Welches, Ore. — but it was called off Nov. 26 after more than 800 search-hours by 20 volunteers. Two dogs believed to be Lane-Fournier’s were found dead by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office on Nov. 30, Clackamas cops said.
A passerby told cops she found a woman’s body alongside a highway near the base of Mount Hood. It was later identified as that of Lane-Fournier.
Lane-Fournier filed for divorce after 12 years of marriage on Oct. 31, citing “irreconcilable differences” just three weeks before she vanished. But she was still legally married when she died.
A neighbour told KGW8 that the tragic news of Lane-Fournier’s death didn’t come as much of a surprise to those in the community who knew them.
“They were expecting it; a lot of people talked about domestic violence,” Betty Swan-DeLong told KGW8.