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Body of Missing Wisconsin Mother, Marya Christiansen, Recovered From Mississippi River

By Janice Malcolm
Published on: 05:49 PST, Mar 17, 2016

On Wednesday night, the body of a Western Wisconsin mother, who had been reported missing since Saturday, has been found in the Mississippi river along with the white van she was last seen driving.

The missing person’s alert, that had been issued for 23-year-old Marya Christiansen on Sunday, has been cancelled following the discovery of her body. Her boyfriend had been the one to file the report when she did not make it home. The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department says that the mother of two young boys had been missing since early Saturday, when she was last seen leaving a friend’s house in Red Wing, Minnesota. To get to her home in Hager City, Christiansen had to cross the river. It is believed that the woman may have been under the influence of alcohol during that last, fatal drive.

Relatives advised that before driving to her friend’s house on Friday night, Christiansen had been at a bar called Red Wing, but after leaving the friend’s, she had every intention of driving straight to her own home. The cause of Christiansen’s death and exactly how the accident was caused is still under investigation.

Authorities revealed that finding the van on Wednesday was actually a stroke of luck, as according to Kare 11, the same spot where the vehicle was located had already been searched by Sonar before, but the vehicle seems to have shifted with the current. Sheriff Nancy Hove of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department said the department’s water patrol unit located a vehicle in the Mississippi River near the Trenton Island Boat Landing in Hager City and realized that it matched the description of the van the missing woman had been driving.

“Today the vehicle must have turned just right so we could get a couple Sonar shots that looked like tires. So we got our divers in from Goodhue County to check it out and hook onto whatever was there.”

The police found the body of a woman inside the vehicle and identified Marya Christiansen based on information provided by her family about the clothes she had been wearing as well as a description of a tattoo the young woman had.

The Superior Telegram reported that the recovery of the van took place at about 5:40 p.m., and a reporter who was at the scene, as well as other eyewitnesses, mentioned that a coroner was called in as well to examine the body found. The Goodhue County Sheriff’s dive team had been called to the scene of the accident from 3:30 p.m.

Search parties had been actively out looking for the missing woman, led by the volunteer nonprofit search group called United Legacy and Sheriff Hove remarked on their efforts once the search ended in tragedy.

“The family and friends came out and did a wonderful job with the search, covering every area they could to try to find her.”

Friends and family of Marya Christiansen held a vigil for her Wednesday night outside the Bluff’s Bar in Hager City, which had been the headquarters for the organization of the search parties. Marya’s father, Steve Christiansen, took the time to thank all those who had participated in the search for his missing daughter for the past couple of days, and her godmother spoke of the beauty and energy that the young mother had possessed.

Marya’s two young boys, who had been with their father at the time of the discovery, were reportedly still not told of their mother’s death, nor the vigil on Wednesday, but the family plans to rally around and support the boys to the best of their abilities when the time came.

[Photo by Friends and Family organizing search party]

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