Missing in Indian Country part II: Lawmakers seek answers for why Native American women vanish
This is part II in a series on missing Native American women. See last week’s edition of the Navajo-Hopi Observer for part I.
VALIER, Mont. (AP) — Matthew Lone Bear spent nine months looking for his older sister, Olivia — using drones and four-wheelers, fending off snakes and crisscrossing nearly a million acres, often on foot. The 32-year-old mother of five had last been seen driving a Chevy Silverado on Oct. 25, 2017, in downtown New Town, on the oil-rich terrain of North Dakota’s Fort Berthold Reservation.
On July 31, volunteers using sonar found the truck with Olivia inside submerged in a lake less than a mile from her home. It’s a body of water that had been searched before, her brother says, but “obviously not as thoroughly, or they would have found it a long time ago.”
Photo Gallery
Why Are Native Women Vanishing
Roxanne White, whose aunt was murdered in 1996, sings and drums a women's warrior and honor song created for missing and murdered indigenous women, before joining a search in Valier, Mont., for Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, who disappeared last year from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Wednesday, July 11, 2018. For many in Native American communities across the nation, the problem of missing and murdered women is deeply personal. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Searchers pause against the scenery while looking for clues in the disappearance of Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, who has been missing for over a year from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Babb, Mont., Thursday July 12, 2018. Ashley's disappearance is one small chapter in what one senator calls an epidemic, the unsettling story of missing and murdered Native American women and girls. No one knows precisely how many there are in the U.S., partly because some go unreported and others haven't been accurately documented. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Randy Ortiz, left, shows a bone he found to George A. Hall as they look for clues outside a trailer in Valier, Mont., during a search for Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, who went missing last year from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Wednesday, July 11, 2018. The group found several bones and alerted police, who responded in five squad cars. After studying the bones, an officer broke the news _ they're from animals. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Kimberly Loring, from left, Staci Salois, Randy Ortiz, Lissa Loring and George A. Hall, look for clues under a trailer during a search in Valier, Mont., for the Loring's sister and cousin, Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, who went missing in 2017 from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Wednesday, July 11, 2018. Lissa says Ashley's disappearance constantly weighs on her. "All that plays in my head is where do we look? Who's going to tell us the next lead?" (AP Photo/David Goldman)
George A. Hall draws his pistol as grizzly bears are heard nearby during a search in Valier, Mont., for Ashley HeavyRunner Loring who went missing last year from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Wednesday, July 11, 2018. The searchers have trekked through fields, gingerly stepping around snakes and keeping watch for bears lurking in the brush. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Randy Ortiz combs a field outside a trailer during a search for Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, who went missing from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation more than a year ago, in Valier, Mont., Wednesday, July 11, 2018. Ashley's cousins lived at the trailer, and there are reports it's among the last places she was seen. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Kimberly Loring, from right, Roxanne White, Lissa Loring and George A. Hall, cross a creek looking for clues during a search for the Loring's sister and cousin, Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, who went missing in 2017 from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Valier, Mont., Wednesday, July 11, 2018. Kimberly has logged about 40 searches for her sister, with family from afar sometimes using Google Earth to guide her around closed roads. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
George A. Hall, right, holds up a jacket found with Lissa Loring, during a search in Valier. Mont., for Loring's cousin, Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, who went missing last year from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Wednesday, July 11, 2018. "We're following every rumor there is, even if it sounds ridiculous," Loring says. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Kimberly Loring, left, touches her forehead to her little sister, Jonnilyn, 17, as she says goodbye before heading out on a search for their missing sister Ashley with their cousin, Lissa Loring, left, outside their home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Wednesday, July 11, 2018. "I'm the older sister. I need to do this," says 24-year-old Kimberly. "I don't want to search until I'm 80. But if I have to, I will." (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Lissa Loring points Blackfeet law enforcement officers to a trailer in Valier, Mont., where she believes clues have been found during a search for her cousin, Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, who went missing last year from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Wednesday, July 11, 2018. This search is motivated, in part, by the family's disappointment with the reservation police force_ a common sentiment for many relatives of missing Native Americans. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
A female contestant waits to rope a calf during a practice run for a rodeo competition on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Tuesday, July 10, 2018. A 2017 analysis by Montana's Department of Justice found Native Americans account for 30 percent of missing girls and women _ 22 of 72 _ even though they represent only 3.3 percent of the state's population. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
A poster of Ashley HeavyRunner Loring hangs on the wall as her sister, Kimberly, walks through her room at their grandmother's home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Friday, July 13, 2018. Kimberly was 8 when she made a promise to Ashley, then 5, while the girls were briefly in a foster home. "'We have to stick together,'" she'd said to her little sister. "I told her I would never leave her. And if she was going to go anywhere, I would find her." (AP Photo/David Goldman)
A train rounds a bend while traveling across the landscape of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Tuesday, July 10, 2018. Tribal police and investigators from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs serve as law enforcement on reservations, which are sovereign nations. But the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice investigate certain offenses and, if there's ample evidence, prosecute major felonies such as murder, kidnapping and rape if they happen on tribal lands. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
A missing poster for Ashley HeavyRunner Loring is posted to the entrance of a grocery store on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Thursday, July 12, 2018. At first, her relatives say, tribal police suggested Ashley was old enough to take off on her own. The Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal police headed up the initial investigation. The FBI later took over. BIA spokeswoman Nedra Darling says 55 people have been interviewed and 38 searches conducted. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Tyisha ArrowTop Knot, right, sprays her nieces and nephews with a garden hose while looking after them in the backyard of their home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Thursday, July 12, 2018. "We've always been a cautious family," she said of watching out for the children in light of recent disappearances of Native American women. "The world is just getting worse." (AP Photo/David Goldman)
A couple walks through the main business district on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Wednesday, July 11, 2018. Browning is the heart of the Blackfeet Nation, a distinctly Western town with calf-roping competitions and the occasional horseback rider ambling down the street _ and a hardscrabble reality. Nearly 40 percent of the residents live in poverty. The down-and-out loiter on corners. Shuttered homes with "Meth Unit" scrawled on wooden boards convey the damage caused by drugs. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Beatrice Kipp, 13, right, spars with Timmy Sellars, 14, at the Blackfeet Native Boxing Club on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Saturday, July 14, 2018. "I'm protective of our children because of human trafficking. What happened to Ashley is really worrying," said Frank Kipp who teaches his daughters how to box and runs the club. "We teach our girls if someone grabs you, you fight to your death." (AP Photo/David Goldman)
George A. Hall carries his shotgun as protection against bears while searching for Ashley HeavyRunner Loring in the mountains of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Babb, Mont., Thursday July 12, 2018. No one knows how many Native American women and girls go missing, but there's often a similar pattern once they do: A community outcry, a search and the offer of a reward. There may be a quick resolution. But often, there's frustration with tribal police and federal authorities, and a feeling many cases aren't handled urgently or thoroughly. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Randy Ortiz wears a shirt with the names of missing and murdered indigenous women as he searches for Ashley HeavyRunner Loring in the mountains of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Babb, Mont., Thursday July 12, 2018. On some reservations, Native American women are murdered at a rate more than 10 times the national average, and a third of all Native American women will be raped at some point, according to the Justice Department. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Randy Ortiz, right, pushes Ronnie Loring, 3, the cousin of Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, as they take a break from searching for her on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Thursday July 12, 2018. The family has logged about 40 searches but there's no way to cover a 1.5 million acre reservation, an expanse larger than Delaware. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Friends and family members of Ashley HeavyRunner Loring hold a traditional blanket dance before the crowd at the North American Indian Days celebration to raise awareness and funds for her search on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Saturday, July 14, 2018. In January, the FBI took over the case after a tip led investigators off the reservation and into another state. A $10,000 reward is being offered in the case. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Jenna Loring, left, the aunt of Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, cries with her cousin, Lissa Loring, during a traditional blanket dance before the crowd at the North American Indian Days celebration on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Saturday, July 14, 2018. The 'dance' was held to raise awareness and funds for Ashley's search. With just about 1,000 residents on the reservation, many folks are related and secrets have a way of spilling out. "There's always somebody talking," says Lissa, "and it seems like to us since she disappeared, everybody got quiet. I don't know if they're scared, but so are we. That's why we need people to speak up." (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Kenny Still Smoking stands over the tombstone of his 7-year-old daughter, Monica, who was disappeared from school in 1979 and found frozen on a mountain, as he visits her grave on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Saturday, July 14, 2018. "I talk to her, let her know I'm doing ok, that I'm still kicking," he said. "I think about her all the time." (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Kenny Still Smoking wipes his eye while talking about his 7-year-old daughter, Monica, who disappeared from school in 1979 and found frozen on a mountain, as he sits in his home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., Thursday, July 12, 2018. No arrests were ever made. His daughter's death was so consuming he asked his creator "to help me forgive, to help me forget, to help me not be so hateful, help me be a better person." He pauses, "So far, he's done a good job." (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Lone Bear says authorities were slow in launching their search — it took days to get underway — and didn’t get boats in the water until December, despite his frequent pleas. He’s working to develop a protocol for missing person cases for North Dakota’s tribes “that gets the red tape and bureaucracy out of the way,” he says.
The FBI is investigating Olivia’s death. “She’s home,” her brother adds, “but how did she get there? We don’t have any of those answers.”
Other families have been waiting for decades.
Carolyn DeFord’s mother, Leona LeClair Kinsey, a member of the Puyallup Tribe, vanished nearly 20 years ago in La Grande, Oregon. “There was no search party. There was no, ‘Let’s tear her house apart and find a clue,’” DeFord says. “I just felt hopeless and helpless.” She ended up creating her own missing person’s poster.
“There’s no way to process the kind of loss that doesn’t stop,” says DeFord, who lives outside Tacoma, Washington. “Somebody asked me awhile back, ‘What would you do if you found her? What would that mean?’... It would mean she can come home. She’s a human being who deserves to be honored and have her children and her grandchildren get to remember her and celebrate her life.”
It’s another Native American woman whose name is attached to a federal bill aimed at addressing this issue. Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, 22, was murdered in 2017 while eight months pregnant. Her body was found in a river, wrapped in plastic and duct tape. A neighbor in Fargo, North Dakota, cut her baby girl from her womb. The child survived and lives with her father. The neighbor, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced to life without parole; her boyfriend’s trial is set to start in September.
In a speech on the Senate floor last fall, North Dakota Democrat Heidi Heitkamp told the stories of four other Native American women from her state whose deaths were unsolved. Displaying a giant board featuring their photos, she decried disproportionate incidences of violence that go “unnoticed, unreported or underreported.”
Her bill, “Savanna’s Act,” aims to improve tribal access to federal crime information databases. It would also require the Department of Justice to develop a protocol to respond to cases of missing and murdered Native Americans and the federal government to provide an annual report on the numbers.
At the end of 2017, Native Americans and Alaska Natives made up 1.8 percent of ongoing missing cases in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database, even though they represent 0.8 percent of the U.S. population. These cases include those lingering and open from year to year, but experts say the figure is low, given that many tribes don’t have access to the database. Native women accounted for more than 0.7 percent of the missing cases — 633 in all — though they represent about 0.4 percent of the U.S. population.
“Violence against Native American women has not been prosecuted,” Heitkamp said in an interview. “We have not really seen the urgency in closing cold cases. We haven’t seen the urgency when someone goes missing... We don’t have the clear lines of authority that need to be established to prevent these tragedies.”
In August, Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, asked the leaders of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to hold a hearing to address the problem.
Lawmakers in a handful of states also are responding. In Montana, a legislative tribal relations committee has proposals for five bills to deal with missing persons. In July 2017, 22 of 72 missing girls or women — or about 30 percent — were Native American, according to Montana’s Department of Justice. But Native females comprise only 3.3 percent of the state’s population.
It’s one of many statistics that reveal a grim reality.
On some reservations, Native American women are murdered at a rate more than 10 times the national average and more than half of Alaska Native and Native women have experienced sexual violence at some point, according to the U.S. Justice Department. A 2016 study found more than 80 percent of Native women experience violence in their lifetimes.
Yet another federal report on violence against women included some startling anecdotes from tribal leaders. Sadie Young Bird, who heads victim services for the Three Affiliated Tribes at Fort Berthold, described how in one and a half years, her program had dealt with five cases of murdered or missing women, resulting in 18 children losing their mothers; two cases were due to intimate partner violence.
“Our people go missing at an alarming rate, and we would not hear about many of these cases without Facebook,” she said in the report.
Canada has been wrestling with this issue for decades and recently extended a government inquiry that began in 2016 into missing and murdered indigenous women. A report by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police concluded that from 1980 to 2012 there were 1,181 indigenous women murdered or whose missing person cases were unresolved. Lucchesi, the researcher, says she found an additional 400 to 500 cases in her database work.
Despite some high-profile cases in the U.S., many more get scant attention, Lucchesi adds.
“Ashley has been the face of this movement,” she says. “But this movement started before Ashley was born. For every Ashley, there are 200 more.”
See next week’s edition of the Navajo-Hopi Observer for the final part in a series on missing Native American women.
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