• Missing Since 06/01/2006
• Missing From Quartzsite, Arizona
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Age 69 years old
• Distinguishing Characteristics White female.

Details of Disappearance

Japel disappeared with her 73-year-old boyfriend, Kenneth William Miller, from Quartzsite, Arizona sometime in 2006. Japel and Miller's motor home was found abandoned in a remote area near Redmond, Oregon in mid-2006. Their truck was found in Montana. The last activity on their bank accounts was in June 2006. They were last known to be in the company of a friend, Gregory Allen "Groundhog" Cole.

On May 17, 2007, Cole shot a police officer in Quartzsite. The officer survived the shooting, although he was hit seven times. Cole was already wanted on other, unrelated felony charges and authorities started a manhunt for him. Cole's body was found in the Arizona desert, twenty miles from the Mexican border, on May 23. He had shot himself to death.

In June 2007, authorities searched the area where the missing couple's motor home had been found the previous year. They found Miller's body buried in a shallow grave there. In March 2008, Japel's skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave in Churchill County, Nevada. They were not identified until February 2024.