Woman searches for sister who vanished on her 54th birthday in Montana

A woman is desperately searching for her sister, who mysteriously vanished on her 54th birthday.

Danette Tenas was last seen on October 8 in a town in the US state of Montana, not far from her sister Dana Hewankorn.

Hewankorn says she last spoke to her sister a few weeks before her disappearance and everything was normal.

“She doesn’t carry a phone so it’s, like, she’s not the easiest to get ahold of,” she told Dateline.

She then stopped by Tenas’ house on her birthday to drop off a box of food, but she wasn’t home.

“But I didn’t know she was in any kind of trouble,” she said.

A few days later, Hewankorn then got a concerning call from their brother.

“He said, ‘Hey, I’m starting to get worried. Sister hasn’t checked in or anything,’” she said.

Hewankorn believed her sister would have been out celebrating her birthday week with friends, but their brother said nobody had seen her since her birthday.

Hewankorn later discovered her sister went to a casino the day of her birthday with a friend, before they visited a river near Buffalo Bridge in Lake County, which is her last confirmed location.

“Danette had been with friends in that area and became separated from them after a breakdown had occurred on a vehicle they were operating,” the Lake County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

“The friends she was with attempted to locate her, but eventually assumed she got a ride from other friends or people who were present in the area as this would not be out of the ordinary for Danette to do.”

In a desperate bid to find her sister, Hewankorn stayed at the river from October 17 to November 4 in the hopes her sister would return to the area.

“They had search and rescue and volunteer searches out there,” she said. “I was just making a presence.”

Hewankorn told Dateline massive searches of the area were conducted by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and tribal police.

“They had an intensive search at the river area. Hundreds of man-hours and volunteers,” she said.

“Drones, water sonars, boats, tracking dogs, horses, ATVs.”

But they found no sign of Tenas, which her sister finds odd.

“She has these (flip-flop) shoes on — we scoured the entire area. We would’ve found some piece of her articles (of clothing),” she said.

“Her shoes weren’t tied to her feet.”

Hewankorn says her sister knows how to survive in wildlife and believes she would have made her way safely out of the area.

“She was homeless for a couple of years. She was a survivor and a walker,” she said.

“She could have walked out of there.”

Hewankorn also believes her sister wouldn’t have gone in the water because she has arthritis.

“It would have hurt her bones. The water is cold,” she said.

But if she had, Hewankorn says her sister is a strong swimmer.

“I believe something happened. Somebody did something to her on accident or on purpose,” Hewankorn said.

“We love her, and we need her to come home.”

Hewankorn added when Tenas was younger, she got into a bad car accident, and disability cheques she receives every Monday haven’t been picked up since her disappearance.

Although she suspects the worst, Hewankorn says she’ll never stop looking for her baby sister — the sister she helped raise and will always look out for.

“The hope is that she’s still alive,” she said.