Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Part 2

Ashley 

20-year-old Ashley Loring HeavyRunner was a member of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana. She was smart, athletic, and a happy girl. Her friend described her as “emotionally, spiritually, and physically strong”. In June of 2017, Ashley left her home and got into a car with a friend to head to a party. A video posted on social media later that night showed the party and Ashley, sitting on the couch with others, drinking beer and having fun. She messaged her older sister, asking her if she could send her some money. Her sister, Kimberly, who was vacationing in Morocco, asked her if she was okay. Ashley replied, “Always”. 

The two sisters had made plans to move Ashley from Browning to Missoula, where they could share an apartment. She didn’t hear from Ashley for a few days, but it wasn’t unlike her to lose her phone. However, after a week of not hearing from her, Kimberly called some of Ashley’s friends and found out that no one had seen her since that party.

Ashley’s family reported her missing to the Blackfeet reservation’s tribal police. They told the family that because Ashley was over 18, she was able to leave whenever she wanted. It was left to the family to search for Ashley. Later that month, they received their first lead. A woman matching Ashley’s description was seen running from a vehicle on a rural stretch of Route 89. The tribal police and BIA actually organized a three day search, but found nothing. Volunteers found a sweater in a nearby dump that was possibly Ashley’s, but the authorities lost the sweater before it was able to be tested. Kimberly found a torn sweater and a pair of red-stained boots that she believed belonged to her sister near the edge of the reservation. The sweater was identified by a witness who saw Ashley wearing it on the night she disappeared. Both of these items were given to authorities. The family has not received any results. Two months passed before an actual investigation into Ashley’s disappearance was launched by authorities. 

Kimberly said that one of the tribal officers apologized to her, saying that he was sorry about her sister and that he was putting in overtime working on her case, but that nobody was really taking it seriously. She believes that people in the town knew what happened to Ashley, but weren’t speaking up. Unfortunately, while rumors spread, there were no further leads or developments in Ashley’s disappearance. 

Though many deaths of Indigenous women are ruled as accidental, a lot of them due to hypothermia, specifically in the northern states, some cases like Kaysera’s seem to clearly point towards foul play. Unfortunately, it seems obvious that law enforcement has pushed many of them to the side. Not only do the deaths of Indigenous women seem to be ignored, the many  disappearances are seemingly overlooked as well. There are many Indigenous people who struggle with substance abuse and dangerous lifestyles. When a woman with a history of drug or alcohol abuse disappears, it seems that they’re even less likely to be searched for. 

Shacaiah 

19-year-old Shacaiah Blue Harding was born into a family of addiction. Her mother was an addict and as Shacaiah became a teenager, she began struggling with alcohol and drug abuse. She was eventually diagnosed with meth-induced schizophrenia. Shacaiah was living with friends and on the street until she began staying at the Tumbleweed Runaway Center in Billings. Shacaiah was last seen on July 23rd, 2018 at Tumbleweed.

Yellowstone County Detective found that a bus ticket was purchased in downtown Billings on July 4th in Shacaiah’s name to Colorado. There was no evidence that the bus ticket was used. Rumors circulating said that Shacaiah was sold for drugs, then trafficked. The highways that run through Montana and into other parts of the country makes it impossible to track women that are suspected of being trafficked. 

While many of the crimes against Indigenous women are committed by non-Natives, tribes realize that there is still violence against their women committed by those who live in the tribal community. The lack of clear law enforcement boundaries seems to almost make it too easy for murders and assaults to take place within reservations.

Mackenzie

13-year-old Mackenzie Howard, a Tlingit Native, (Ti-ling-it I THINK. It was difficult to even understand the pronunciation videos!) was found beaten to death in her small community of Kake, Alaska. It took 11 hours before the Alaska State Troopers arrived on scene, with investigators taking even longer to show up. One of the community members said that the delayed response wasn’t unusual.

“When there’s any fishing violation or hunting violation, they’re here in full force…to have one of our own laying there for so long was traumatic for everybody.”

A 14-year-old teenage boy from the same community was charged with her murder. 

Alaskan Native 

17-year-old Yupik Native Stella Evon disappeared in Bethel, Alaska in 1996. She missed her curfew, leaving her friend’s home around 2AM, which led to her being locked out of her house. Stella walked across the street to the police department. An officer walked with her back to her grandmother’s house, where they attempted to wake Stella’s grandmother by banging on the front door, with no luck. He offered to drop Stella off at her sister’s nearby apartment. He left her there around 4:30AM. Stella left her sister’s apartment sometime between 5 and 6AM to walk home. She hasn’t been seen since. There has been no solid information shared with the public and no concrete developments.

43-year-old Native American Valerie Jeanette Sifsof disappeared in 2012 while camping in Anchorage, Alaska. Her boyfriend said that around midnight, they’d had an argument and that Valerie walked off without any of her belongings, including her cell phone. He said that he looked for her, but couldn’t find her. He left the campsite the following day. Valerie’s family located some of her clothing in the area, but she has never been found and there are no reports of her boyfriend being investigated as a person of interest. 

59-year-old Native American Debra Nictune left her apartment in 2020 in Fairbanks, Alaska and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. No further details in her disappearance. 

18-year-old Alaskan Native Karen Dean Evan was last seen in May of 1980 in Anchorage. She hasn’t been seen or heard from since. No further details in her disappearance.

37-year-old Ida Rose Jacomet, a Native American, disappeared from the Circle M Bar in Fairbanks in October of 1975. Her purse was found in the parking lot. No further details in her disappearance. 

62-year-old Native American Lorraine Juanita Ginnis was last seen in Fort Yukon, Alaska in 2018 walking near her residence. She hasn’t been seen or heard from again. No further details in her disappearance.  

32-year-old Native American Mary Anne Alexie last spoke to friends at 3AM in October off 2012. She’d traveled to Anchorage for school. On the phone call, she sounded intoxicated and told her friends she was lost and didn’t know where to go. She had a history of alcohol abuse and had a few run-ins with law enforcement. She has four children. She hasn’t been seen or heard from since. No further details in her disappearance. 

29-year-old Hispanic and Native American Ashley Elizabeth Rosales was last seen in New Mexico after having an argument with her sister. She left her home and wasn’t seen again. She missed her court date to regain custody of her two children. No further details in her disappearance.

25-year-old Tina Finley of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe was last seen in 1988 in Plummer, Idaho. A man gave her a ride from a bar and said that he dropped her off near her home. He passed a polygraph regarding his involvement. Her purse, ID, and shoes were found on the side of the highway. More of her belongings were found in an abandoned house. No further details in her disappearance. 

39-year-old Mary Johnson of the Tulalip Tribes was last seen walking on a road in Washington state on her way to a friend’s house in November of 2020. No further details in her disappearance. 

24-year-old Native American Khadijah Rose Britton was last seen in Covelo, California outside of a house. She was being forced into a vehicle at gunpoint by her ex-boyfriend after a fight broke out inside the home. Though the man has been identified, law enforcement has not filed any charges against him, stating that they need either a body, a confession, or hard evidence. No further details in her disappearance.

28-year-old Native American Janson Secody was last seen in January of 2011. Her boyfriend said that she left home to walk to work. She hasn’t been seen since. No further details in her disappearance. 

34-year-old Native American Kimberlena Yellowhair was last seen in October of 2021 in Chilchinbeto, Arizona. No further details in her disappearance. 

54-year-old Native American Marie Benally was last seen in Chilchinbeto, Arizona in November of 2021. No further details in her disappearance. 

The list of missing women seems endless. The number of deaths are just as upsetting. There appears to be multiple things that have and continue to contribute to the lack of attention and focus on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. The first and foremost is that it’s difficult to identify and present a problem when there is no reliable data. It’s known that the rates of murder, rape, disappearances, and violent crimes of Native American and Alaskan Natives are higher than national averages, but they remain skewed. Less than half of violent aggressions and crimes against these women are ever reported to police. Whether this is because victims are scared to report their attackers or because they’ve lost faith in the law enforcement, it means that more crimes are happening behind closed doors.

Additionally, there is no research on the rates of violence against these women living in urban areas, which accounts for over 70% of the American Indian and Alaska Native women. There is no reliable count of how many of these women are murdered or go missing every year. Many of these cases are misclassified from the beginning, wrongly labeling the women as Hispanic or Asian.

Regardless of the reasoning, this is a problem that has been overlooked and ignored for entirely too long. In September of 2020, Savanna’s Act was passed. This is a bill that required the Department of Justice to “strengthen training, coordination, data collection, and other guidelines related to cases of murdered or missing Native Americans”. It aims to clarify law enforcement responsibilities and improve tribal access to resources needed to respond to missing and murdered cases. The bill was named for Savanna LaFontaine-Grewind, who was a member of the Spirit Lake Nation. In 2017, her body was found in a river. She was 22 years old and eight months pregnant when she was murdered. 

The Not Invisible Act was introduced in 2019 and intended to “increase intergovernmental coordination to identify and combat violent crime within Indian lands and of Indians”.

Both are steps in the right direction, but there is still so much more to tackle. In a documentary on Showtime telling the stories of the women in Big Horn County Montana, one of the Indigenous women described their female population as “the silent population that disappears”. It’s now everyone’s responsibility to make these women no longer invisible, no longer silent. For ways that you can help, please visit the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women USA Facebook page.