Susan “Phoenix” Lane’s friends suspected foul play as they searched near Mount Hood, while detectives quietly built a criminal case.
WELCHES, OR — When Susan “Phoenix” Lane failed to arrive at work in November 2024, friends in her close-knit Mount Hood community quickly knew something was wrong. What began publicly as a search for a missing woman and her two dogs soon became a homicide investigation that eventually sent her husband to prison for life.
Lane, 61, was known around the mountain community where she worked at the Hoodland Bazaar and lived in nearby Brightwood. Friends described her as a familiar and well-liked presence. After she missed work on Nov. 22, 2024, her employer reported her missing. Her sudden absence, along with the disappearance of her two dogs, prompted friends, volunteers and law enforcement officers to begin looking for her.
The case is receiving renewed attention Saturday as CBS’ “48 Hours” examines the investigation in an episode titled “Murder at Mount Hood.” The program focuses on how Lane’s friends and neighbors organized searches and questioned whether her disappearance was an accident. Behind the scenes, investigators were beginning to suspect foul play and were pursuing a criminal investigation.
A community member found Lane’s white 1992 Ford F-250 on Nov. 23 along East Salmon River Road near the Green Canyon Way Trail south of Welches. The discovery initially appeared to suggest that Lane, who was familiar with the area, may have gone hiking with her two large dogs. Search teams spent four days in the rugged Mount Hood area, using volunteers, tracking dogs and other resources. Crews logged more than 800 search hours before formal search-and-rescue operations were suspended Nov. 26 because of weather and concerns about survivability.
Friends remained troubled by the location of the truck and by Lane’s disappearance. The new “48 Hours” report recounts how people close to her believed she would not have taken her dogs to the area where the vehicle was found. Some community members continued searching even after the official rescue operation ended. Investigators, meanwhile, were examining Lane’s home life and the movements of her estranged husband, Michel Fournier.
Lane had served Fournier with divorce papers on Nov. 20, two days before she was reported missing. The couple had been married for about 12 years. Prosecutors later said Lane had become increasingly afraid of Fournier and had begun taking important documents, a laptop and her dogs with her when she went to work. The divorce and the couple’s property became important parts of the prosecution’s case, though those details were not publicly known during the first days of the search.
Investigators also found evidence that contradicted Fournier’s account of what happened. Fournier told authorities he had traveled to Portland to obtain a vehicle part and returned to find Lane, her truck and the dogs gone. Surveillance video, prosecutors later said, showed Fournier driving Lane’s truck with the dogs inside. Additional video placed the truck near the Columbia River, where investigators later recovered Lane’s damaged cellphone.
On Nov. 29, a community member searching for Lane found her body beneath a tarp within about 400 yards of the home she had shared with Fournier, according to Clackamas County prosecutors. The Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office determined that her death was a homicide. Prosecutors later established that Lane had been shot three times with a .22-caliber rifle. Fournier was arrested that day and charged with second-degree murder. Lane’s two dogs were later found dead in Multnomah County.
Fournier went on trial in Clackamas County Circuit Court in February 2026. Prosecutors argued that he killed Lane shortly after she sought a divorce and then tried to create the appearance that she had vanished with her dogs. After an eight-day trial, a jury found Fournier guilty of second-degree murder and unlawful use of a weapon. On March 5, he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
Clackamas County prosecutors said Fournier still faced separate first-degree aggravated animal abuse charges connected to the deaths of Lane’s dogs when his murder sentence was announced. No later disposition of those charges was confirmed in the sources reviewed. The murder conviction, however, brought a legal conclusion to the central question that had driven Lane’s friends and neighbors to keep searching after she disappeared.
The case returns to national attention with “48 Hours: Murder at Mount Hood,” scheduled to air Saturday, Nov. 14, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and stream on Paramount+. The program revisits the community search, the suspicions that emerged in the first days of Lane’s disappearance and the investigation that ultimately resulted in Fournier’s conviction.
Author note: Last updated November 14, 2026.