Lissa Yellowbird-Chase

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Lissa Yellowbird-Chase
Born (1968-06-13) June 13, 1968 (age 53)
White Shield, North Dakota, U.S.
Alma materNorth Dakota State University
OccupationWelder
Known forCreating the Sahnish Scouts
Reserve-de-Fort-Berthold

Lissa Yellowbird-Chase (born June 13, 1968) is the creator of the , an organization that searches for missing people, particularly those whose cases face jurisdictional problems related to tribal versus state and federal jurisdiction.[1][2]  Lissa Yellowbird-Chase identifies primarily as Arikara, but is also of Mandan, Hidatsa, and Standing Rock Sioux descent.

Life[]

Lissa Yellowbird-Chase was born in 1968 in White Shield, North Dakota, and was raised primarily by her mother, Shauna Yellowbird-Chase.[1][2] Growing up, she moved around, living in Wisconsin, California, and North Dakota.[3] Yellowbird-Chase graduated from North Dakota State University with a degree in criminal justice.[1] Yellowbird-Chase has been a bondsman and tribal lawyer on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, United States before founding the Sahnish Scouts.[4]  In 2002, a freight train derailment hospitalized two of her children, Obidiah and Micah.[5]  After being convicted and serving time for possessing and intending to distribute methamphetamine in 2006, Lissa Yellowbird-Chase moved to Fargo, North Dakota.  Although she was unable to attain a Private Investigator license due to her previous felony, she began her first case searching for Kristopher Clarke in 2011 after Yellowbird-Chase was released from prison.[2][6] She currently works as a welder full time while leading the Sahnish Scouts.[4]

Sahnish Scouts[]

The Sahnish Scouts is a non-profit organization founded by Lissa Yellowbird-Chase in 2013. Sahnish is the Arikara word for Arikara.[3] They spread awareness for and organize searches for missing peoples, particularly missing and murdered Indigenous women.[7] The Sahnish Scouts is primarily composed of women and operates in the United States and Canada relying primarily on donations.[2][6][3] They have organized large-scale search efforts for missing peoples sometimes exceeding one hundred people.[7] Lissa Yellowbird-Chase's work with the Sahnish Scouts earned her the 2015 Arc of Justice Award from the .[1]

Notable Cases[]

  • KC Clarke was a 29-year old white man from northwest Washington who moved to the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota for work. Clarke worked for a friend's trucking company that delivered water to oil fracking sites, but in February 2012 he was officially reported missing. Clarke was missing for weeks before Yellowbird-Chase heard about the missing person case, her first case she investigated after her release from prison, and she was determined to find justice for Clarke and his family.[8] Yellowbird investigated Clarke's case for four years, sometimes with police but not always, gaining information from potential suspects and traveling to the North Dakota badlands, tracking and digging up suspected locations of his remains. However, in May 2016, KC Clarke's employer, James Henrikson, confessed to having hired a person to kill Clarke as well as another business rival. Henrikson admitted to being enraged with Clarke when he informed him that he had wanted to start or join a new trucking company.[9] Herikson was charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and solicitation to commit murder-for-hire for KC Clarke and four other men.[8] To this day, KC Clarke's remains have not been found.
  • Olivia Lone Bear was a 32-year-old mother of five from New Town, a small city on the Berthold Reservation. She was reported missing by her father, whom she cared for, when he saw her wallet and phone were at his house. [10] Her last known location was behind the wheel of a teal Chevy pick-up truck that she had often borrowed from a friend. Lissa Yellowbird-Chase was informed of this case and immediately began investigating where Lone Bear could be. Searches were conducted throughout the reservation and phone lines were set up in the Sheriff's office for any known information. These searches were quickly suspended, as the harsh North Dakota winter set in and Lake Sakakawea froze over. This delay frustrated Lone Bear's family, as well as Yellowbird-Chase, who believed that Lone Bear was in the lake and had to wait until spring to do proper searches. Once spring hit, Yellowbird-Chase and Lone Bear's family put in efforts to have the police department dredge the lake, but to no avail. In July 2018, Yellowbird-Chase drove to Lake Sakakawea herself with a 14-foot boat—that had a half broken motor—hooked onto her truck and a set of fishing sonar.[11] Within a hundred feet from the shore of the lake, her sonar picked up a rectangular object in the water which she later learned was a vehicle. She captured photos of the vehicle and presented them to the sheriff's department, who immediately wanted to know what was in the lake. On July 31, 2018, North Dakota Game and Fish, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and deputy officers from the surrounding counties congregated by Lake Sakakawea and spent the next few hours recovering the vehicle from the lake. Once the vehicle emerged from the water, the search for Olivia Lone Bear came to an end. [1]
  • Carla Yellowbird was a 27-year-old Native American woman from Fort Berthold Reservation, and also Lissa Yellowbird-Chase's niece. Carla went missing around August 2016, but her family was not concerned about her disappearance since she was known to disappear and reappear every so often (Carla Yellowbird struggled with addiction). Yellowbird-Chase was not notified of Carla's disappearance until a few weeks after her disappearance, when Carla's family came to understand that something bad must have happened to her. Lissa quickly began investigating Carla's disappearance and eventually arranged a phone call with a man she suspected had information on Carla's disappearance. She had several phone calls with this man to gain information about Carla, but almost every call was unsubstantial and pointless to the case. Finally, however, the man confessed to Lissa and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he knew where Carla was and who had killed her. The two other men involved in Carla's murder received a 50-year and a 28-year sentence and were charged with use of a firearm, conspiracy to commit a robbery, and second-degree murder, but the informant was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d e Yellowbird-Chase, Lissa (18 November 2021). "Lissa Yellowbird-Chase". Facebook.com.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ a b c d March 25, Jessica Lussenhop Image credit: Colleen Hagerty/BBC; 2019 (2019-03-25). "The woman in search of Indian Country's missing". www.hcn.org. Retrieved 2021-11-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ a b c Murdoch, Sierra (2021). Yellowbird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country. United States. ISBN 9780399589171.
  4. ^ a b LeMay, Konnie. "Searching for the Murdered and Missing". Indian Country Today. Retrieved 2021-11-18.
  5. ^ Ahtone, T. (18 July 2015). "Bringing up the Bodies". AlJareeza America.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ a b "The amateur sleuth who searched for a body - and found one". BBC News. 2019-03-25. Retrieved 2021-11-18.
  7. ^ a b "SAHNISH SCOUTS". SAHNISH SCOUTS. Retrieved 2021-11-18.
  8. ^ a b "706: A Mess to Be Reckoned With". This American Life. 2020-05-30. Retrieved 2021-11-23.
  9. ^ "Oil truck operator convicted in North Dakota murder-for-hire case". Reuters. 2016-02-25. Retrieved 2021-11-23.
  10. ^ March 25, Jessica Lussenhop Image credit: Colleen Hagerty/BBC; 2019 (2019-03-25). "The woman in search of Indian Country's missing". www.hcn.org. Retrieved 2021-12-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ March 25, Jessica Lussenhop Image credit: Colleen Hagerty/BBC; 2019 (2019-03-25). "The woman in search of Indian Country's missing". www.hcn.org. Retrieved 2021-12-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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