Lauren Thompson

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Panola County Sheriffs Office (TX)

Missing From:

Rock Hill, Texas

Summary:

Lauren Thompson, a mother of three, went missing on Jan. 10, 2019. On January 10, 2019, at 2.24 pm, a 911 operator in Panola County, Texas, received a call from a female reporting she was in a wooded area and thought someone was chasing her, who identified herself as Lauren Colvin Thompson. Skeletal remains which were discovered in Panola County in East Texas back in July have been identified as belonging to a woman who went missing in 2019.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

At 2.04 pm on January 10, 2019, she called her mother, sounding frantic. She asked to speak to her children, but they weren't at home, so she asked her mother to tell her children and her father that she loved them and was sorry. She also stated if she got out of this, she would never use drugs again. Her mother thought she heard a man talking in the background. On January 10, 2019, at 2.24 pm, a 911 operator in Panola County, Texas, received a call from a female reporting she was in a wooded area and thought someone was chasing her. The 911 operator could hear background noise, and it was clear she was running. The female caller identified herself as Lauren Colvin Thompson during a conversation that lasted 22 minutes. She sounded "disoriented and confused" as she told the operator she had fled her vehicle. Through 911 phone pings, officers quickly obtained a general area of where Lauren had called from and located her vehicle quickly. It was stuck in the mud on the side of a road in the Rockhill community outside Panola County, off FM 1794. They found no sign of Thompson, however. That person said they were in the car with Thompson when she apparently ran off the road. "He said he then told her he was going to walk to his house to get a vehicle to get them out of the mud, but then she took off running into the woods."

Additional Details:

The search for Lauren started on the afternoon of January 10. Off-road vehicles and canine teams scoured the area during the first night. The following day, three hours away in Fort Worth, Texas, Lauren's mother, Torie Colvin, awoke to missed calls from the sheriff's office. Meanwhile, organized search teams were trying to find Lauren, and they located a shoe that was identified as belonging to the missing woman. It was such a heavily wooded area that no footprints were found around the shoe. Around 2,000 acres of woodland and open fields were searched with ground search crews, and drones and helicopters searched over 9000 acres. Despite the search efforts by the SAR teams, Lauren could not be found. At the time, Lake said they had no information to believe that the people Thompson was with were involved in her disappearance. The sheriff's office has never publicly announced any suspects or a person of interest. Thompson's family has set up an anonymous tipline and doubled a previously-offered reward to $10,000 for information leading to her whereabouts. On July 27, a work crew in eastern Texas came upon skeletal remains in a wooded area in Panola County. On December 13, 2022, the Panola County, Texas Sheriff's Office announced that skeletal remains found in July by a work crew have now been identified as Lauren Thompson, who has been missing since January of 2019. In a press conference on December 13, Panola County Sheriff Cutter Clinton said, "The anthropologists have determined through multiple dental comparisons, that the remains are those of Lauren Elizabeth Thompson." "Additional items have been located today and collected as evidence and will be submitted to the crime lab for further analysis," said Panola County Sheriff Cutter Clinton. No cause of death could be established.

Case Last Updated:

May 07, 2026