A romance novelist who engaged police in a car chase in in Grand Teton National Park at the end of January has been reported missing by friends and family.
Faleena Hopkins, 52, is currently listed on the WyomingDivision of Criminal Investigations Missing Persons page. A friend told the Jackson Hole News & Guild last Friday that Ms Hopkins had been missing for 10 days.
Ms Hopkins was confronted by police on January 27 when National Park Service officers say they saw her parked in the road at a junction in the park. Ms Hopkins then fled from the officers in her vehicle, leading them on a 24-mile long chase that ended with officers used spike strips to puncture her tires.
The novelist, who made headlines in 2018 when she successfully trademarked the word “cocky,” is scheduled to appear in federal court on charges related to her conduct in the national park on the morning of Feburary 28. She is facing charges of stopping or parking on the roadway, speeding, and fleeing from the police.
Right now, however, it is unclear where Ms Hopkins is. According to her missing person profile, Ms Hopkins was last seen on January 30 in Jackson — the day she was released from jail in Teton County.
Ms Hopkins listed Jackson as her home city, but the News & Guild reported that the Teton County jail roster had her listed as a resident of Seattle.
Her move to trademark the word cocky caused a major wave in the romance novel landscape, leading the author to eventually surrender the trademark registration. Ms Hopkins at the time of the controversy wrote that she decided to trademark the word to protect her readership.
“I receive letters from readers who lost money thinking they bought my series,” Ms Hopkins wrote. “I’m protecting them and that’s what trademarks are meant for.”
Ms Hopkins self-publishes her books and is the author of the Cocker Brothers series. Her IMDb page claims that she was raised in the Bay Area and at one point worked as a stand up comic in Los Angeles before becoming an author who has sold more than one million copies of her more than 40 books worldwide. The IMDb page says that she lives in Manhattan.
Law enforcement officials are urging with knowledge of Ms Hopkins’ whereabouts to contact either the Jackson Police Department or the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation.
