Woman gets 5-year ban from Grand Teton National Park for false report on missing hiker

A woman accused of providing false information about a missing hiker in Grand Teton National Park has been banned from the park for five years, officials said.

The woman, Heather Mycoskie, 40, may not enter the park in northwest Wyoming under a deferred prosecution agreement, park officials said in a statement Thursday. She must also pay $17,600 in restitution.

The National Park Service said it spent about 532 hours conducting searches and investigations in response to the false report.

“This wasted valuable time that could have been focused on searching areas of higher probability, and it cost the federal government approximately $17,600,” the statement said.

The missing hiker, Cian McLaughlin, is from Ireland and was last seen June 8, 2021.

About two weeks after McLaughlin disappeared, Mycoskie told investigators that she had seen and spoken with him and that he was heading south toward Taggart Lake, where he planned to jump off his favorite rock into the water.

Parks officials said a subsequent investigation revealed that this did not happen.

Other potential sightings of McLaughlin were north of Taggart Lake on a trail system that leads to Garnet Canyon, and Surprise, Amphitheater and Delta lakes. An updated missing person’s flyer says he was last seen on the Lupine Meadows trail system leading to those lakes.

McLaughlin had searched online for Delta Lake, an alpine lake and popular destination in the park, before his hike, park officials said.

The missing person’s flyer said he was wearing a red Apple Watch, white short-sleeve T-shirt, silver U-shaped pendant and gold-rimmed sunglasses when he went missing.

Park officials said that Mycoskie said June 21, 2021, that she had seen a person matching the description of McLaughlin on the day he disappeared. She provided a “very detailed” description of him and said they had a conversation in which he shared where he lived, where he was from and where he worked.

Witnesses told investigators that Mycoskie had fabricated the sighting to make sure search efforts continued, the statement said.

Mycoskie, who lived in Jackson, Wyoming, and now lives in Costa Rica, did not respond to requests for comment.