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Nevada Teen Found Dead After Friend Said He Dropped Her Off To Meet “Cowboy” | Oxygen

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Nevada Teen Found Dead After Friend Said He Dropped Her Off To Meet “Cowboy” | Oxygen


Britney Ujlaky was a free spirit.

The beautiful 16-year-old loved riding on horseback through the picturesque hills of Spring Creek, Nevada, where she lived. She was close with her friends, wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself, and had an exceptionally tight bond with her gold-miner father, according to Dateline: Unforgettable.

But on Sunday, March 8, 2020, Britney mysteriously vanished, leaving her family desperate for answers.

“Some stories are memorable for their twists, or their characters, or where they happened,” correspondent Josh Mankiewicz said in the “Open Desert” episode of Dateline: Unforgettable. “This one checked all three boxes.

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“Spring Creek is in Elko County, Nevada, a place I’d never been,” he added. “It’s genuine cowboy country and its natural beauty is stunning. It’s also where the Ujlaky family came face to face with a cold hard truth: You can do everything possible to keep your child safe and sometimes that still won’t be enough.” 

Who was Britney Ujlaky? 

Growing up in the rural wilderness, Britney was a girl who loved horses and the rodeo, and often displayed her own blend of cowboy bravado. 

“The way that she carried herself was very like you don’t want to mess with me, like she stood up straight and she squared her soldiers. She never slouched,” her best friend Saquarra Ashby remembered. 

The high schooler loved to spend time with her friends and had a close relationship with her father, Jim Ujlaky, whom she lived with after her parents divorced. 

“From the day she was born, she kind of saved my life,” Jim told Mankiewicz through tears. “I was on drugs and I was single, lived a party life and everything, making really good money and just living it up and (the) first breath she took, (I) looked at it, and straightened my life up, sobered up and devoted my life to raising my kids.” 

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The day Britney Uklaky disappeared 

Sunday, March 8, 2020 started out just like any day for the Uklaky family. Britney, a self-appointed music critic of her dad’s heavy metal band File Not Found, accompanied him to his weekly band practice.

“She’d storm in like she owned the place,” Jim remembered of her frequent advice, telling the band members every time they missed a note or didn’t sing something right. 

But she was also a typical teen and eventually tired of the middle-aged musicians. Britney arranged for her friend Bryce Dickey to pick her up at a nearby park in the mid-afternoon, promising her dad that she’d be home later, likely even beating him home from practice. 

Jim grabbed dinner with the band and then drove home, calling Britney along the way. But his calls went unanswered, something that was highly unusual for the teen.

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“After the third time, [I] started getting a little panicky,” Jim said. 

It was now nearly 7 p.m. and Jim hadn’t heard back from Britney. He called her mom, Alisha, thinking maybe she’d gone to visit her, but she hadn’t heard from their daughter either.

Britney’s younger brother James Jr. called Dickey to find out what time he last saw her.

“He told me he’d dropped her off with some new friend at the high school,” James Jr. said.

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Bryce Dickey tells story of cowboy

Dickey later told the same story to the Elko County Sheriff’s Office, insisting that after hanging out with her for about three and a half hours that afternoon, he dropped Britney off at the school.

“He said that she wanted to get dropped off at the Spring Creek High School because she was going to meet a new friend and he saw her get into a truck with an unknown cowboy,” Nick Stake, then a detective, told Dateline.

Dickey — who had been a close friend of Britney’s since middle school and acted as a big brother of sorts — described the truck as an older model green Ford F-150 and said the man was a tall, white cowboy, adding that Britney never told him the stranger’s name.

As news of Britney’s disappearance began to spread, her mom got a tip on social media that her daughter may have been out with a man named JT. 

That tracked with what Ashby knew about her friend. 

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“She had started talking to a guy named JT,” she recalled. “She had told me about him.” 

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Detectives set out to try to track down the mysterious stranger driving a green pickup truck, who possibly went by JT. But after combing through databases and DMV files and chasing down false leads, they weren’t able to find anyone that appeared to match the description.

They also knew that Britney had been bullied by a group of girls at her high school and found video of Britney getting into a physical altercation with two of them at a rodeo about a year before she disappeared. 

They considered the possibility that Britney had been the victim of foul play at the hands of one of the girls, but that theory didn’t pan out either. 

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Search widens for Britney Ujlaky

Investigators and Britney’s family launched an extensive search effort through the vast Elko County wilderness. Britney’s friends, including Dickey, came out in droves to try to find any sign of the missing teen.

Jim took his truck, driving through the remote woods looking for any sign of her. By then, he had a sense that his daughter was no longer alive.

“We’re looking in the sky for birds cause we were out looking for a body,” he said. “We couldn’t see anything, couldn’t find anything.”

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Britney Ujlaky’s body found

But on the third day of the search, someone stumbled on a blue tarp and discovered the teen’s body hidden underneath it. She’d been strangled, had a single knife wound to the neck and there were signs of a possible sexual assault.

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Britney’s mom Alicia was at the sheriff’s office when Stake got the news.

“I couldn’t walk,” she said. “My legs didn’t work and he just had this look on his face, just this, such tortured look on his face and he’s like, ‘I gotta go, I gotta go, are you ok?’” 

For Jim, it brought a sense of relief, knowing his daughter wasn’t out in the elements any longer, but he also deeply grieved the loss of his daughter.

“I lost the only person who ever truly loved me, without any conditions, nothing,” he said. “My son loved me too, but she was the first born and you know living the life I led didn’t think anyone ever cared. She did.” 

At the crime scene, detectives found what looked like chewing tobacco on the ground and recovered a used condom about 60 feet away from the body.

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Investigators shift focus back to Bryce Dickey 

After still finding no sign of the mysterious stranger that Britney allegedly went off with, detectives turned their attention to the last known person to see the teen alive: Dickey. 

Dickey was two years older than Britney and had been a close friend for years.

“He’s kind of just one of those geeky kids, just a shy little cowboy kid that would kick his feet and look at the ground when you talked to him,” Britney’s mom, Alisha, recalled. “He’d come sit over at the house while Britney was getting her makeup on to go to the rodeos. He was always her ride to places.” 

The family had no reason to worry when Britney left that day with Dickey, since she had done the same thing so many other days. Britney even posted a picture of the pair smiling from Dickey’s truck on the last day of her life.

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Investigators noted that the desert landscape in the photo was eerily similar to their crime scene. They called Dickey in for more questioning and he agreed to hand over his phone and give a DNA sample. It turned out to be a match to the condom and the chewing tobacco left at the scene.

Surveillance footage also confirmed he’d been lying to investigators about where he was that day and put his truck going in the direction of the crime scene, not the high school. 

Confronted with the information, Dickey admitted to having sex with Britney, but said they both immediately regretted it. He insisted he didn’t kill her. 

Bryce Dickey charged in Britney Ujlaky’s murder

Dickey was arrested and charged with sexual assault and murder.

Authorities were never able to determine exactly why Dickey turned on his friend that afternoon, but those who knew him suspect he may have been tired of being relegated to the friend zone.

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“You know, unfortunately, or maybe even fortunately, we’ll never know exactly what happened, but I know that the evidence supported that Britney and Bryce went out there willingly,” Elko County District Attorney Tyler Ingram said. “I think Bryce didn’t get what Bryce wanted and he took it into this own hands.” 

Dickey went on trial in May of 2022 and was found guilty of murder and sexual assault. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole at the age of 64 years old.

For Jim, it could never be enough of a punishment. 

“There’s no justice,” he said. “She’s not coming back.”



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Nevada

Lee: Trump ‘cruel’ for ending SNAP funding, Nevada ‘complicit’ for not doing more

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Lee: Trump ‘cruel’ for ending SNAP funding, Nevada ‘complicit’ for not doing more


Democratic U.S. Rep. Susie Lee on Tuesday criticized Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo for not doing more to provide substitute benefits to the hundreds of thousands of Nevadans who are supposed to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits next month but who won’t because of the government shutdown. Lee first called it “cruel” of the Trump […]



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Nevada attorney general joins multi-state lawsuit over SNAP benefit cuts during government shutdown

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Nevada attorney general joins multi-state lawsuit over SNAP benefit cuts during government shutdown


LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford announced Tuesday he is joining a multi-state lawsuit against the Trump administration over cuts to federal food assistance benefits amid the ongoing government shutdown.

As the shutdown enters its fourth week, approximately 500,000 Nevadans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, face uncertainty about their November benefits. Our state typically receives around $90 million per month in federal SNAP funding.

WATCH | Anyssa Bohanan breaks down some of the ways the shutdown is affecting Southern Nevadans

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Nevada SNAP to go without funding as government shutdown stretches on

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says on their website that SNAP benefits will not be distributed starting Nov. 1, stating “the well has run dry” and pointing to Senate Democrats as the reason for the shutdown. Nationally, SNAP helps approximately 42 million Americans.

WATCH | Scripps News speaks with USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins about the ongoing shutdown, impact to SNAP benefits

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Agriculture secretary says emergency fund isn’t enough to cover SNAP benefits

However, attorneys general from 23 states and the District of Columbia argue the USDA is making a “deliberate” decision to withhold contingency funds that exist for exactly this scenario.

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“The Trump Administration’s choice to cut SNAP benefits is not only a deliberate, cruel and extraordinarily harmful decision, it is unlawful. And the reason it cites — the ongoing federal government shutdown — is inadequate,” Ford said in a news release.

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In an agency memo obtained by Scripps News, the USDA says they are saving more than $5 billion in contingency funds for more immediate emergencies like “hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, that can come on quickly and without notice.” Further, the agency says the appropriations for regular monthly benefits do not exist anymore due to the shutdown, and they will not reimburse states who try providing benefits themselves.

“Contingency funds exist for this exact scenario, yet the USDA has decided to abdicate its responsibility to Nevadans and refused to fund SNAP benefits. I understand the stress of not knowing where your next meal is coming from, because I’ve lived it. I don’t wish that stress on any Nevadan, and I’ll fight to be sure nobody in our state goes hungry. I urge Governor Lombardo to do the same and to work with his party and President Trump to ensure that Nevadans receive their SNAP benefits,” Ford continued.

Gov. Joe Lombardo has urged the federal government to end their standstill, citing its harmful effects on Nevada in letters sent our federal delegation, specifically over SNAP.

In the 51-page lawsuit, attorneys general claim the lapse in SNAP benefits would bring more harm beyond just those who rely on the program, but also local governments, school systems and food pantries as their supplies can’t meet the spike in demand.

WATCH | Steve Sebelius speaks with local food pantry over the SNAP benefit crisis

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Members of Congress, Governor Trade Letters Over SNAP amid Shutdown

Ford joins attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin in the lawsuit. The governors of Kansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania have also joined the suit.





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Nevada-grown tree begins journey to become Capitol Christmas Tree

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Nevada-grown tree begins journey to become Capitol Christmas Tree


The Nevada Air National Guard in Reno will unveil a 53-foot Christmas tree on Tuesday — a Nevada-grown red fir that will travel across the country to the U.S. Capitol Building.

According to a news release from the Nevada Air National Guard, the tree was grown in the Carson Ranger District and has been temporarily housed at its Reno base. The Guard transported the tree on Sunday for decoration ahead of its whistle-stop tour through Nevada and beyond.

The tree will also appear in Carson City for the Nevada Day Parade on Saturday before continuing its journey east.

The U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree initiative is a 55-year tradition in which one of America’s 154 national forests provides a tree for the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol during the holiday season.

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Jim Kaufmann, executive director of Capitol grounds and arboretum at the architect of the Capitol, selected this year’s tree from nine candidates identified by Forest Service staff in the Carson Ranger District in northern Nevada and the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area outside Las Vegas.

“Selecting a tree to adorn the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol is a great honor,” Kaufmann said in a previous Forest Service release. “Forest Service staff showed me nine wonderful candidates during my visit. Ultimately, we selected a magnificent red fir to represent the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest and Nevada at the U.S. Capitol during the 2025 holiday season.”

The red fir, or Abies magnifica, grows at higher elevations and is known for its blue-green needles that point upward and dense, sturdy branches — ideal for displaying ornaments, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.

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