It was the winter of 2021 when Philbert Shorty’s family found his abandoned car stuck in the mud outside the small community of Tsaile near the Arizona-New Mexico state line. “We knew something had happened from the beginning,” said his uncle, Ben Shorty. “We couldn’t find any answers.”
Family members reported the 44-year-old man missing. And for the next two years they searched, hiking remote canyons of the Navajo Nation, placing ads on the radio and posting on social media in hopes of finding clues.
The efforts yielded no results. They had no way of knowing he had been murdered for more than a week before they reported him missing.
They remained cognizant of this even as U.S. prosecutors reached a plea deal last summer with Shiloh Aaron Oldrock, who was charged in connection with Shorty’s death as a result of a separate investigation into the murder and decapitation of Oldrock’s uncle. The 30-year-old man from Fargo, North Dakota, told authorities that his uncle threatened to kill him during an alcohol-fueled fight that occurred eight months after the couple conspired to cover up Shorty’s death by dismembering and dismembering his body. burn on January 29. , 2021.
In both cases, Oldrock told investigators, a night of heavy drinking and fighting ended in death at his uncle’s home near Navajo, New Mexico.
The details of this story are more gruesome than most. But for those living in Indian Country, the elements underlying the tragedy are all too familiar. Generations of unaddressed trauma combined with substance abuse create a dangerous recipe that often culminates in violence, and resources for law enforcement and social support programs are too scarce to provide much help.
Shorty’s story is one of many in the United States and Canada, where high numbers of missing persons and unsolved murders involving indigenous people have captured the attention of policymakers at the highest levels.
In 2019, former President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a task force. Congress followed suit in 2020 by passing two major pieces of legislation aimed at addressing the crisis. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, who championed legislation as a congresswoman, has worked under the Biden administration to address some of the systemic problems and jurisdictional challenges that have left victims’ families feeling invisible.
The Interior Ministry is almost three weeks past the deadline for responding to a set of recommendations from a special committee that spent months traveling the country to speak to relatives, advocates and police officials about how best to tackle the epidemic .
Commission members heard hours of heartbreaking testimony from family members who fought to keep their case in the spotlight, often remembering those lost with prayer vigils, special blankets and buttons, traditional ribbon skirts and red handprints painted on sidewalks and buildings.
Like others, Shorty’s family now knows that the suffering will continue, despite the increased focus on solving such crimes.
Shorty’s family “was left in the dark as to what had happened,” U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico Alexander Uballez acknowledged in a November sentencing memo that referred to Shorty only by his initials: PS. Uballez wrote: “They are only now beginning to grieve as they were only recently told that PS was dead and not missing.”
Uballez expressed hope that putting Oldrock behind bars would bring some closure, saying Shorty’s elderly aunt might stop watching the driveway in hopes that her cousin would one day return.
Uballez said Oldrock’s convictions were part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s duty to provide answers to tribal communities. While no amount of investigation or prosecution will bring back a loved one, he said, law enforcement partners will address each case “with urgency, transparency and coordination.”
That vow of transparency is what has frustrated Native American families. Many say authorities regularly fail to communicate about the status of ongoing cases. In Shorty’s case, unanswered questions about whether any remains have been recovered have left his family unsure whether they will ever be able to get a funeral for him.
“The investigators never called me. That was the intention, but it never happened,” Ben Shorty said in a recent interview. “It all happened behind closed doors.”
The FBI’s most recent missing persons list from the Navajo Nation still included Philbert Shorty. That’s despite investigators having reason to believe he was dead as early as October 2021 with Oldrock’s confession. A medical examiner’s report released the following spring stated that while it could not be conclusively confirmed, communications with law enforcement suggested that the charred remains found in Oldrock’s uncle’s home were likely those of Shorty.
Darlene Gomez, an Albuquerque attorney, has represented dozens of Native American families. The handling of Shorty’s case doesn’t surprise her.
“The FBI does this all the time,” she said. “They don’t even talk to the family until there are charges. And very often they don’t say anything at all.”
While it is necessary to keep certain details confidential as the investigation continues, federal authorities did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press about the process for sharing information with families and whether people had been designated to serve as liaisons to families to help as things develop. through the system.
The federal Not Invisible Act Commission devoted part of its 212-page report to related concerns and recommendations. The report points to stories shared by families about difficulties accessing police and autopsy reports: “Families are often left waiting, not knowing whether the identified person is their relative or not knowing the cause and circumstances of the death , nor how to find their relative’s body. was handled.”
It all makes sense for Bernadine Beyale, the daughter of retired Navajo police officers who founded the nonprofit 4 Corners K-9 Search and Rescue in Farmington, New Mexico, in 2022. Her group has conducted dozens of individual searches and she has helped build bridges between families and law enforcement agencies so families don’t feel like their cases are falling through the cracks.
“Even if law enforcement just talked to the families and said, ‘We don’t have anything yet, but we’re still working on it,’ it would help,” she said.
Records obtained by the AP show that a witness took a ride to Oldrock in October 2021. He had cuts on his face and blood on his hands and clothing. He told the driver that he had just killed his uncle, identified as Erwin Beach. He said he believed Beach had killed his grandmother a year earlier and would kill him too.
Oldrock told the FBI that he stabbed Beach repeatedly after Beach swung an ax at him during a drunken fight. Oldrock said the series of violent events on that October day began in much the same way as when Shorty was killed months earlier – with heavy drinking. Oldrock was sentenced in November to 35 years in prison for second-degree murder in Beach’s killing and involuntary manslaughter in Shorty’s death.
Whether details are revealed through court documents or come from investigators in the field, Beyale acknowledges that deciding how to share information with victims’ families can be difficult.
“If we find a body or remains, I don’t give a lot of details,” she said. “But I try to be as transparent as possible and tell them that we do not have a positive identity, but we have found remains in this body. area.”
Beyale tries to convince families who want to undertake their own search to let her do so. “I always ask them if they are not only physically ready to do such a search, but also mentally ready to find something,” she said. “They always say, ‘Yes, yes.’ But they’re not. I haven’t found a single family that was mentally ready for it.”
Shorty’s family is still hoping for a funeral. They are ready for closure, but still waiting for investigators.
‘What should we bury? Just nothing? At least some ash or something,” Ben Shorty said. “We still have nothing.”
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Sonner reported from Reno, Nevada. Associated Press reporter Susan Montoya Bryan contributed to this report from Albuquerque, New Mexico.