Spurred by the deaths of two young adults last year, a bipartisan group of Colorado lawmakers is advancing legislation that would require colleges to conduct wellness checks within six hours of a missing student report and mandate statewide law enforcement training on missing persons — an effort supporters say will close dangerous gaps that cost critical time.

The bill, sponsored by Sens. Janice Marchman, D-Loveland, and Katie Wallace, D-Longmont, and Reps. Yara Zokaie, D-Fort Collins, and Brandi Bradley, R-Roxborough Park, would give colleges and universities six hours to conduct a wellness check on students reported missing. If the student is not located within that time frame, the university would be required to contact law enforcement.

Joe Trussell and Vanessa Diaz say the provision might have saved their daughter, Megan’s, life. Last February, Megan, a student at the University of Colorado Boulder, was reported missing from her dorm room. Two days later — and five days after Megan was last seen — the Colorado Bureau of Investigation issued a Missing Indigenous Person Alert.

On Feb. 15 last year, Trussell’s body was discovered by park rangers near Boulder Canyon Drive. Her death was ruled a suicide. Last month, Joe and Vanessa requested that CBI and the Colorado Department of Public Safety conduct a review of the case under a law requiring independent reviews of cases involving Indigenous people whose deaths were ruled a suicide or overdose under suspicious circumstances.

“Sometimes the problem isn’t bad intentions, it’s uncertainty,” Joe Trussell said at Monday’s press conference, where the new legislation was unveiled. “It’s the confusion about knowing who calls whom, how long to wait, and what tools are available. This bill brings clarity and makes sure that every peace officer in Colorado is trained on the alert systems that already exist.”

Also in attendance was the family of Kaylee Russell, a 20-year-old woman who went missing near Loveland on Nov. 30. Her mother, Rebecca, said that when she called law enforcement to report her daughter missing, they told her Kaylee was too old for them to file an Amber Alert.

Marchman said she believes the officers in charge of Kaylee’s case weren’t aware that they could have filed an Endangered Missing Person Alert.

Russell’s body was found inside an overturned vehicle in a canal near Timnath on Dec. 4.

“Five days was too long for Megan,” Marchman said. “Too old was the wrong answer for Kaylee. Today, we choose a different path. We choose urgency. We choose professional standards, and we choose to bring our children home.”

Along with the reporting requirements for colleges and universities, the bill would require law enforcement officers to be trained on all missing person alert options.

“We need to ensure consistent training on all the tools available and when to activate them,” Zokaie said. “That consistency saves lives.

In situations where an adult is missing, families are told to wait before filing a report, institutions are unsure of who has jurisdiction, and critical information simply doesn’t make it into databases quickly enough, and those gaps cost time. In these situations, that lag of time can lead to tragic outcomes. Parents should not be told to just wait when their child is missing.”

The bill is expected to be officially introduced this week.