Woman in fatal DUI walks away from conservation camp

A 69-year-old woman serving a sentence of 10 years to life for a Feb. 8, 2020, fatal DUI crash on Highway 395 near Johnson Lane walked away from a conservation camp.

Joan Katheryn Wenger, 69, was found missing during a 3 a.m. Saturday count at Jean Conservation Camp 20 miles south of Las Vegas, according to the Nevada Department of Corrections.

“Escape procedures were initiated, and search teams remain in effect,” the department said on Monday.

She has been an inmate since Dec. 1, 2021, just two days after her sentencing.

Wenger is 5 feet 1 inch tall, 135 pounds with green eyes and gray hair.

A retake warrant has been issued. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Wenger should immediately call 911.

Wenger was a Reno resident with a long history of drunken driving who was northbound on Highway 395 after driving from Mammoth Lakes with a bottle of whiskey when she slammed into the back of a vehicle containing a Dayton man and his mother.

Laura Staugaard, 70, was ejected from the vehicle, and her son testified he was knocked unconscious and awoke to see medics trying to save her.

Wenger had a .308 blood alcohol content, according to a blood test taken after the collision. Her license was suspended at the time of the collision, one of 26 times her driving privileges had been with withdrawn since 2000. She’d had three prior convictions for DUI, according to court documents.