APRIL 4 (Reuters) – An Arizona man has been charged with assaulting and carjacking Ella Mae Begay, a Navajo weaver who went missing in 2021.

Court documents show Tuesday in Arizona federal court against Preston Tolth for causing serious bodily harm to Begay and stealing her gray Ford F-150 pickup truck in Navajo Nation on June 15, 2021. indictment was published.

Last year, Bigey’s niece, Seraphine Warren, completed a walk of more than 2,000 miles from the Navajo Nation, which spans parts of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, to Washington, D.C., to find her aunt and her missing friends. Raised awareness about Indigenous women who were killed or killed.

Gerald Beghey, Ella Mae’s 46-year-old son, said in an interview Wednesday, “We’re getting somewhere. We’re taking the first steps towards finding our mother. He said it was to find his missing mother from his home near Sweetwater, Arizona.

Luke Mulligan, the federal public defender representing Torse, and Dimitra Sampson, a U.S. attorney and prosecutor, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Indigenous women are murdered at 10 times the national average, and homicide is one of the leading causes of death among young Indigenous men.

Families of the missing have blamed the crisis on confusion and apathy in law enforcement jurisdiction, racism and generational trauma rooted in European settler efforts to eradicate indigenous peoples. I’m here.

Tolth faces a formal arraignment and detention hearing in Flagstaff on Friday, according to Begay’s attorney Darlene Gomez.

Over the past five years, about a dozen states have established task forces to bring together tribes, families of victims, law enforcement agencies, and activists to solve crimes.

Special agents were appointed at the county, state, and national levels, and the FBI began compiling a missing persons list specifically for Native Americans.

Still, FBI data show that the number of indigenous peoples missing or killed has changed little from 2016 to the most recent data of 2021.

Reported by Andrew Hay of Taos, New Mexico. Edited by Donna Bryson and Daniel Wallis

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