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Friends and family gather to celebrate Rosenda Strong’s 32nd birthday on Tuesday, April 16, 2019, at Yakamart, 111 Fort Road in Toppenish, Wash. Strong was last seen on Oct. 2 after visiting Legends Casino with a friend in Toppenish.

Murdered, missing and mysterious deaths of Indigenous girls and women on or near the Yakama Reservation, in urban areas and in other states:

This list, compiled from Yakima Herald-Republic archives, law enforcement, online and social media sources, is not complete. Email Tammy Ayer at tayer@yakimaherald.com if you have filed a report with a law enforcement agency about a missing person and want to add your loved one to this list, or would like to add other information.

The Washington State Patrol has a Missing Indigenous Persons section within its Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit. For more information, visit www.wsp.wa.gov/crime/alerts-missing-persons/missing-indigenous-persons/, email mupu@wsp.wa.gov or call 1-800-543-5678. Every two weeks, State Patrol publishes an updated list of active missing Indigenous person cases on its website.

State Patrol has a tribal liaison. Reach Dawn Pullin (Eastern Washington) at 360-890-0150 or Dawn.Pullin@wsp.wa.gov.

Anyone with information about any of these cases should call the responsible agency. People may provide information anonymously by calling Yakima County Crime Stoppers at 800-248-9980. Tips can be submitted online at www.crimestoppersyakco.org.

The FBI has jurisdiction to investigate serious crimes involving Native Americans on tribal lands. Call the FBI at 206-622-0460 (Seattle), 509-453-4859 (Yakima) or submit tips online at https://tips.fbi.gov.

The Vanished Map Key

Missing

• Latoya Salazar, 38, has been missing since Jan. 21, 2023. The Yakima Police Department is the investigating agency, 509-575-6200, and her case number is 23YOO6581.

• Mary Ann Young Running Crane, 48, of Selah was reported missing on Dec. 30, 2022. Last contact with her was on Nov. 15, 2021, according to her NamUs case. Young Running Crane is a citizen of the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana. She has a tattoo of a heart on her left wrist and is believed to be homeless in the Yakima area. The Yakima Police Department is the investigating agency, 509-575-6200. Her case number is 22YO43511.

• Benita Long, 40, was last seen by family on March 26, 2022, when a relative dropped her off the El Corral Motel in Toppenish. Long was wearing gray sweat pants and a black hoodie and had a black backpack. A sister said Long was in the Yakima area the last time she heard from her, according to a social media post. Anyone with information concerning Long's whereabouts may call the Yakama Nation Tribal Police at 509-865-2933 regarding case number 22-004079.

• Freda Jane Knowshisgun, 34, was last heard from at the Kennewick Walmart in October 2016. The Crow Nation tribal citizen and mother of three from Montana had traveled to Washington and was at the Walmart that Oct. 18, according to her missing person profile on The Charley Project. She called a relative saying she needed money to get home and a friend agreed to send it through an online money transfer to the store, but Knowshisgun never collected it. The investigating agency is the Crow Agency Bureau of Indian Affairs at 406-638-2631.

• Rosalita "Rose" Longee, 18, went missing from Wapato on June 30, 2015, notes information at The Charley Project website, http://charleyproject.org. The Charley Project, founded in 2004, has details on hundreds of missing persons cases from throughout the county. Longee left her residence after an argument and has never been heard from again, according to the website. Yakama Nation Tribal Police is the investigating agency, 509-865-2933.

• Roberta "Bertie" Jean Ranes, 37, was last seen in July 2001 with a man who has told authorities that he last saw her in Mexico. Her missing person case remains open with the Toppenish Police Department. Her last name has also been spelled as Raines. The number for the Toppenish Police Department is 509-865-4355.

• Eleanor M. Trujillo, 37, went missing from Yakima on Feb. 1, 1996, according to the Washington State Patrol list of missing Indigenous women and men. The Yakima Police Department is the investigating agency. Call 509-575-6200.

• Karen Louise Johnley Wallahee, 29, was reported missing on Nov. 9, 1987. Her name was on a reward list circulated by a local group called Yakamas for Justice and by tribal police. She was last seen by a relative at the Lazy R Tavern in Harrah on the evening of Nov. 7, 1987. The Yakama Tribal Police Department is the responsible agency.

• Janice Marie Hannigan, 16, disappeared after she was discharged from the hospital on Christmas Eve 1971 for treatment of numerous bruises on her head and chest. She was a sophomore at White Swan High School. See her case at The Charley Project here. The Yakama Tribal Police Department is the responsible agency.

Mysterious deaths

• Echo Kay Littlewolf, 31. Her mother, Jeanette Osborn, found Littlewolf's remains in a field outside Wapato on Aug. 15, 2017. Littlewolf had camped there off and on for a few years and had not been seen by family who lived nearby for a week. While the Yakima County Coroner’s Office listed Littlewolf's manner of death as natural, her mother still questions how she died.

• Daisy Mae Heath, 29, was last seen by family around the end of August 1987 and reported missing on Oct. 29, 1987. Partial remains found in late November 2008 on land northwest of White Swan in a closed, remote area of the Yakama reservation were confirmed in early 2023 as Daisy. Her backpack, keys and turquoise ring were also found in that area. Daisy was living in White Swan when she disappeared. She grew up as Daisy Mae Tallman, which was her mother's married name, but changed her last name to her father's name shortly before she went missing. The FBI in May 2009 referred to her disappearance as a suspected homicide.

• Alice Ida Looney, 38. She was reported missing on Aug. 16, 2004. A hunter found her body Nov. 30, 2005, wedged under a tree on a small island in Satus Creek, about 12 miles southwest of Toppenish.

• Teresa R. Stahi, 25. Her clothed body was pulled from a fish screen in a diversion canal off Toppenish Creek south of Granger on July 7, 1987. An autopsy concluded she drowned and had been in the water less than 12 hours. The Yakima County Sheriff’s Office said it ruled out foul play. However, an FBI memo listed Stahi’s case as a “mysterious death matter.”

• Sarah Dee Winnier, 24. She was found at 3:30 a.m. July 22, 1985, sitting upright in the driver’s seat of a burning car off McDonald Road about half a mile from U.S. Highway 97. Her body was badly burned and the coroner used dental records to identify her. Winnier lived in a remote part of the reservation and had worked at the Save More Grocery in Wapato after moving back to the area from California.

• Celestine Spencer, 21, of Wapato. Spencer went missing for about two weeks before her body was found Nov. 11, 1982, at the bottom of a gully in a field off McCullough Road along the north slope of Ahtanum Ridge.

• Lesora Yvette Eli, 19. A farmer found her fully clothed body face down in a drainage ditch along Parton Road near Toppenish on Feb. 2, 1982. While the Yakima County Coroner’s Office listed the death as accidental drowning, FBI investigators in a memo that year described it as a possible homicide.

• Sheila Pearl Lewis, 33, of Yakima. Her body was found Aug. 3, 1980, near Parker Dam south of Union Gap. She died of massive internal injuries, possibly as a result of being hit by a car or truck. She had been living in Yakima and worked for the state Department of Social and Health Services.

Unsolved homicides

• Anna Mae Comenout, 38, of Toppenish died of homicidal violence on June 24, 2022. Comenout was found unresponsive in the back seat of a car near a Wapato tire shop on Donald Road around 12:30 p.m. that day. Emergency responders administered CPR, but she was pronounced dead at the scene. Comenout did not have obvious injuries, but there was blood in the car.

• Tiana Lee Rain Cloud, 20, was shot to death around 11 p.m. March 30, 2021 in a home in the 3100 block of South Wapato Road, roughly 2.5 miles south of Wapato and 4 miles west of Toppenish. Yakima County sheriff’s deputies were initially called and found injured people at the scene. Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the FBI at 509-453-4859 or online at tips.fbi.gov.

• Angela Marie Heath, 41, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver as she tried to cross the street in the intersection of U.S. 97 and South Wapato Road about 11:30 p.m. on April 5, 2019. Washington State Patrol is the responsible agency. The phone number for the District 3 office in Yakima is 509-575-2320.

• Minnie Rainbow Andy, 31, of Wapato. Andy died from blunt force trauma to the head in July 2017 after being assaulted at 70 Egan Road in Wapato.

• Linda Dave, 38. Dave’s body was found Feb. 15, 2017, by state Department of Transportation workers conducting an inspection on a U.S. Highway 97 bridge at the intersection with Marion Drain Road. She had suffered a gunshot wound to her abdomen. Authorities confirmed her identity in April 2018.

• Naoma Alexandra George, 33. A mother of eight, George was beaten to death in an alley in Wapato early on Oct. 15, 2013.

• Charmaine Sanchey, 47; Toni Marie Green, 43, and Steve Alvarado, 52. Their beaten and stabbed bodies were found in a small trailer outside Toppenish on Jan. 16, 2003. Charmaine Sanchey’s brother, Arthur Joseph Sanchey, was the primary suspect, but was acquitted of charges in July 2004.

• Barbara Celestine, 44. Celestine died Sept. 5, 2005, from blunt trauma to the head while at a house in the Apas Goudy housing project in Wapato.

• Shari Dee Sampson Elwell, 30, of Wapato. Her sexually mutilated body was found Dec. 30, 1992, by a group of hunters northwest of White Swan in the closed and remote area of the Yakama Reservation. Autopsy reports indicate she had been strangled. Elwell’s family reported not seeing her for weeks.

• JoAnne Bette (Wyman) John, 44, of Wapato. Her skull and bone fragments were found Feb. 2, 1991, near Mill Creek southwest of White Swan. She was identified through dental records. The mother of 11 children, she had been listed as missing since Aug. 1, 1988. She was last seen at the Brownstown tavern. Coroner’s records list cause of death as “homicidal violence.”

• Rozelia Lou (Tulee) Sohappy, 31, of Brownstown. Her partially clothed body was found March 13, 1989, in a remote ravine along the south slope of Ahtanum Ridge north of Brownstown. She was identified through dental records, and an autopsy concluded she had been strangled. She was last seen New Year’s Eve 1988.

• Skeletal remains of an unidentified woman, believed to be Native or Latina and in her late 20s or early 30s. The remains were found Feb. 16, 1988, near Parker Dam. The woman had long black hair approximately 12 inches long. She was found wearing bowling shoes, lavender pants and a shirt with lavender tones and a Spanish label. No cause of death has ever been determined, but the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office considers it a homicide and is working with the Yakima County coroner to exhume her remains for possible identification.

• Jenece Marie Wilson, 20, of Toppenish. Her partially clothed body was found Aug. 8, 1987, in a remote area near Cherry Hill. She died of a severe blow to the head. She was last seen four days earlier leaving a party near Granger to hitchhike to Sunnyside. Samuel Posada of Hermiston, Ore., was arrested in 2009 and was acquitted in late 2011.

• Babette Crystal Greene, 26, of Toppenish. A member of the Warm Springs tribe in Oregon, she was last seen alive in October 1986. Her skeletal remains were found during the summer of 1987 off North Track Road near Wapato, but it took until February 1989 until authorities identified her with dental records. Coroner’s records listed her death as “homicidal violence," a phrase often used when a death is surrounded by mysterious circumstances but authorities lack enough solid evidence to pinpoint the exact cause.

• Clydell Alice Sampson, 25, of Klickitat. Her skeletal remains were found by hunters Dec. 28, 1986, below Hambre Butte south of Granger. An autopsy conducted by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office determined she died of a shotgun blast to the head. She was last seen two years earlier.

• Mavis Josephine McKay, 32, a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. She was found floating in the Lateral 4 irrigation ditch near the road leading into Elmwood Cemetery in Toppenish on Aug. 13, 1957. Mavis was in Toppenish visiting relatives and friends when she was murdered. She died of a broken neck and multiple contusions, according to her death certificate.

Yakamas in urban areas

• Sandra Lee Smiscon, 45, died of gunshot wounds in 2003 in Seattle when a man apparently angered after someone nearby set off firecrackers pulled out his gun and fired, then walked away. She lived in and traveled between Seattle and Wapato. Those with any information about her murder should call the Seattle Police Department homicide tip line at 206-233-5000.

Yakamas in other states

• Mona Renee Vallo, 56, was living in Acoma, New Mexico when she died of injuries consistent with a hit-and-run crash. passers-by discovered her body on March 9, 2022 near U.S. Route 66, New Mexico Highway 124, mile marker 20, in Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico. She may have been struck at approximately 7 p.m. that day, according to the FBI's field office in Albuquerque.

In the court system

• Rosenda Strong, 31, was reported missing on Oct. 2, 2018, after she disappeared on Sept. 30. She had gotten a ride to Legends Casino just a few miles from her home and was last seen at the casino that day. Her remains were found July 4, 2019 in an abandoned freezer outside Toppenish. Seven people have been indicted in connection with the deaths of Strong and her accused killer, Jedidah Iesha Moreno. Andrew Norris Zack, one of seven men indicted in connection with the death of Strong and her accused killer, has pleaded guilty to one charge in that case and one charge in an unrelated case. He will be sentenced Sept. 25, 2024 at U.S. District Court in Yakima. Six other suspects face trial on Aug. 26, 2024.

• Destiny Lloyd, 23, of Wapato. She was reported missing on Christmas Day 2017 after leaving her home with acquaintances and her body was found four days later off Marion Drain Road near Harrah Road south of Harrah. She died from a basal skull fracture as a result of being hit on the back of her head with something, according to the county coroner. Two people have been charged in connection with her death and trial is set for Aug. 19, 2024.

• Anita Lucei, 15, of Toppenish died from a gunshot wound to the chest on April 13, 2022. Yakima County sheriff’s deputies were called to a home in the 700 block of Nation Road around 4 p.m. for a report of a shooting. In April 2023 an 18-year-old Harrah man, Silaz Elijah James, was charged in U.S. District Court in Yakima in her death. In early January 2024, James entered a guilty plea to charges of second-degree murder and assault with a dangerous weapon in U.S. District Court. In return for his plea, prosecutors dropped two charges of discharging a firearm during a violent crime. He will be sentenced on April 2, 2024.

• Maria Martinez, 50, and Shante Barney, 23, were stabbed to death on April 9, 2020 in a trailer home near Brownstown. Edward Charles Robinson has been charged in federal court with with two counts of first-degree murder and a single count of assault with a dangerous weapon in connection with deaths of his mother and sister-in-law. His trial was set to begin May 16, 2022, but on March 24 Chief U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian issued an order granting a motion for competency restoration after a forensic evaluation indicated Robinson suffers from a mental disorder. A federal judge in July 2023 ordered that Robinson receive antipsychotic medication so that he can participate in his pending trial. At a competency hearing on March 18, the court determined it necessary to grant more time for Robinson to receive adequate treatment.

• Gail Teo, 63, of White Swan was found dead in her home on the evening of Aug. 7, 2019. She was wrapped in plastic and a rug, with stab wounds to her neck and a gunshot wound in her back, according to court documents. Security video from her home showed a man later identified as Michael Anthony Davis, 26, confront Teo inside the house hours earlier and attack her with what appeared to be pruning shears, court documents said. Davis is charged with aggravated first-degree murder, first-degree robbery and first-degree burglary in Yakima County Superior Court. Trial has been set for May 20, 2024.

Closed in the court system

• Mavis Nelson, 56, was found stabbed to death in the Kincaid Ravine near Ravenna Avenue Northeast and Northeast 45th Street in Seattle in June 2022. The location where she was found is on the University of Washington campus near the Burke-Gilman Trail. Nelson was a mother of three and grew up in the Goldendale area. Charles William Becker pleaded guilty in June 2023 and was sentenced to 34 years in prison.

• Alillia “Lala” Minthorn, 25, was last seen in Toppenish in early May 2019. Her body was found May 29, 2019 in a remote location on Ahtanum Ridge north of Brownstown, where a witness had told investigators she was shot May 3. Jordan Everett Stevens, 29, was found guilty of first-degree murder on June 10, 2021 in her shooting death. The jury also found him guilty of discharging a firearm while committing a crime. Stevens was sentenced on Feb. 21, 2023 to life without parole; the murder charge carries a mandatory life-without-parole sentence and the firearms charge has a mandatory 10-year sentence that runs consecutively to any other sentence.

• Catherine Eneas-Squeochs, 49, was among five people shot to death in the 5100 block of Medicine Valley Road in White Swan on June 8, 2019. James Dean Cloud was found guilty in the mass murders after trial in U.S. District Court in Spokane. Donovan Quinn Carter Cloud entered a guilty plea to carjacking and brandishing a firearm. Both were sentenced on Oct. 12, 2022.

• Felina Blanch Metsker, 33, was reported missing on April 1, 2016. The former White Swan resident was staying on Barkes Road near Harrah at the time. Searchers found remains of an adult female in a remote area south of White Swan on May 5, 2016. They were identified as Metsker’s about a year later. George Cloud was found guilty by a federal jury in January 2019 of first-degree murder and using a firearm in a violent crime in connection with Metsker’s death. He was sentenced in May 2019 to life without parole. Sisters Nicole Lee Sunny Cloud and Kristen Ashlie Windy Cloud each pleaded guilty to one count of misprison of felony in the case and were sentenced.

• Agnes Whitefoot Lora, 38, was murdered in the Yakama Nation Housing Authority's Apas Goudy rental housing park in Wapato on April 15, 1994. She died of internal injuries. Two Native juvenile males were arrested that June in connection with Agnes’ death, according to news reports. Not all involved in her rape and homicide were charged, family members have said.

• Barbara Jean Whitesell, 19, was raped and strangled near Troutdale, Ore., on July 13, 1990. Marcus William Blalock, 19, and another young man were arrested; charges against the other man were later dropped. Blalock was sentenced in October 1991 and is serving a life term at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, Ore.

• Katherine Piel Heath died of carbon monoxide poisoning in an arson fire in a home on Progressive Road on July 26, 1983. She had met Louella Solomon and Solomon's brother, John Wesley, at a tavern the night before and they offered Heath a ride, according to a summary of the case. Around 2 a.m. on the morning of July 26, the siblings met a 17-year-old relative who drove them all to the house. Heath was struck unconscious and money taken from her purse before a fire was started in curtains. The three drove away, leaving Heath inside. The online summary says Solomon was convicted for first degree murder and robbery and Wesley was convicted for first degree murder and arson endangering life. The younger relative received immunity for his cooperation.

• Rose Lonewarrior Rodriguez Sanchez, 26, was stabbed to death by her boyfriend, Ignacio Serrano Casares, in Yakima on Palm Sunday 1980. He was convicted in January 1998 and sentenced that May. He died of natural causes.

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