Victim's car recovered after deadly crash down Yavapai County embankment

YAVAPAI COUNTY, Ariz. - There are new developments in the investigation into the death of the 39-year-old woman who died after her SUV plummeted a thousand feet off a mountain in Yavapai County.

A towing crew recovered her vehicle at the bottom of the cliff in Yavapai County on Aug. 20 after a 2-day mission.

Wild West Off-Road Recovery is a specialized group that regularly assists with towing and recovering vehicles. When they got the call that the sheriff's office wanted to examine Little's SUV, they assembled their crew from the embankment off Thumb Butte Road.

But, they had no idea the emotion coming along with this work.

"I've never done another job like this," said Carl Girard, one of the crew members who helped recover the SUV.

Two full days – that's how long Girard says it took to pull Little's car, nicknamed Penelope, from where it landed after she drove off Thumb Butte Road on the evening of Aug 16.

Kristin Little

"We brought our wrecker, which is basically a twin-line old school wrecker, and then we brought just thousands of feet of cable and line. We made very slow progress on the first day. We had some trees in the way and some obstacles that we had to work around," Girard said.

At the end of the first day, Girard said he called Little's mother, Jinger, and asked if the family would like to be there when the car was brought up.

"Jinger was very open. She shared a lot of information, and we were on the phone for the better part of an hour, hour and a half," Girard said.

The recovery group, after that call, became tied to Little's family.

"Emotionally, it hit hard for us, especially when I found out from Jinger that the vehicle's name was Penelope and things like that. So, you know, day one was different. We didn't have all that information. We knew that there was a casualty involved, so we were treating it with care, but you don't have that connection," Girard said.

When Penelope was back on Thumb Butte Road, Girard said he gave the family time with Little's beloved car. The entire group was emotional.

"There was hugs, there was tears, there was just everything and um, I still get worked up over it," Girard said.

The investigation into Little's fatal crash is still ongoing.

The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office and Little's family are actively searching for drivers who were there at the time of the wreck.

"We think that they witnessed this accident, and we need to speak with them. We need to find out. Kris was headed down and she, we believe, gave up the inside of the mountain for somebody who was not traveling on the right side," Jinger, her mother, said.

Girard said they did find three other vehicles down the embankment while working to recover Little's Toyota 4Runner. He said one of those vehicles was actually an obstacle they had to navigate in order to get Penelope out.

FOX 10 reached out to the sheriff's office for an update on the case.