Body found in Missoula-area Clark Fork River identified as former-Bonner County woman

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

Authorities announced Nov. 1 that they had recovered the body of Eva Masin Prather, 43, from the Clark Fork River in the Missoula area. 

Prather grew up in Bonner County, but later made her home and established a family in Missoula. She went missing there in the early hours of Dec. 30, 2023, when she left her house amid a reported mental health crisis, leaving behind all her forms of identification, personal items and dressed inappropriately for cold weather.

Eva Masin Prather. Courtesy photo.

At the time, Missoula police indicated that she may have been headed west toward Idaho.

Prather’s remains were discovered on Oct. 13, but officials didn’t release the news of her identification until Nov. 1. Meanwhile, Missoula police are investigating the cause and manner of her death.

In a Nov. 1 post on the Search for Eva Facebook page, which had amassed 1,200 followers, Dave Prather — Eva’s husband — wrote that the family is “devastated” and is heartbroken “as we held out hope, however slim, for a different outcome.”

“While the coming months will be difficult, we are certain that this news will eventually lead to some closure for our family and for those close to Eva,” he wrote, expressing gratitude to extended family, friends, neighbors and the community for their support and efforts to locate Eva.

That effort included nine and a half months of searching by the Missoula Police Department, the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department, Missoula Fire Department, Missoula County Search and Rescue, Life Guard, K9 Task Force, and other agencies in Montana and elsewhere — to all of which Dave Prather expressed special thanks.

Meanwhile, missing person posters were displayed throughout the area. 

“We know that many who we have never met across the region devoted time and resources to search for Eva and shared prayers and well wishes for our family across these months,” Dave Prather wrote. “For this, we remain grateful.”

Asking that community members “keep missing people and their friends and family in your thoughts and prayers,” he added that details related to a celebration of life service will be shared at a later date. In the meantime, he also asked that the family’s privacy be respected.