The body of teenager Selena Not Afraid has sparked national outrage over the dozens more indigenous women missing or murdered in the US (Picture: Facebook)

The discovery of a missing Native American teenager’s body has sparked national outrage in the US over a crisis of indigenous women and girls going missing.

With little to no police presence or help in the vast rural areas where these women lived – as mothers, sisters, cousins and friends – their disappearances have remained largely unsolved.

Selena Shelley Not Afraid, 16, vanished at New Year becoming the 28th murdered or missing indigenous woman in rural Montana, US, since 1990.

On Monday, police confirmed Selena’s body had been found less than a mile from where she was last seen alive, at a rest stop on a barren stretch of freezing highway in Big Horn County, where 65% of the population is Native American.




Detectives said a van carrying her home the day after a New Year’s party in Billings, Montana, had pulled into the rest stop after breaking down.

It had reportedly started up again and driven away without Selena – with nobody hearing from her since.

Police said Selena was last seen leaving the vehicle and walking into a field, with the FBI describing her as not dressed for the weather conditions.

In a Facebook post after the discovery of Selena’s body on Monday, her aunt Cheryl Horn wrote: ‘We brought our baby girl home.

‘Now she can Rest In Peace.’

Selena Not Afraid’s body was found on Monday, after she disappeared on New Year’s Day (Picture: Facebook)

Henny Scott, 14, was found dead two weeks after being reported missing (Picture: Facebook)

Kaysera Stops Pretty Places was found dead days after she went missing in August shortly after her 18th birthday (Picture: Facebook)

Selena’s death has sparked calls from across the US for immediate and thorough investigations into other women who have been killed or disappeared in treacherous conditions.

Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, a demographer who grew up in Big Horn County, told the New York Times: ‘Native women have been dehumanized from the very beginning.

‘The law has failed us time and time again. We’re tired of it. We’re tired of our people dying, of our kids going to jail.’

Amid snow blizzards, Selena’s family held candlelit vigils and took part in rallies calling for the police to do more to help Native Americans.

Selena’s aunt told the NYT: ‘We’re here demanding it. We’re not being quiet. We’re not leaving.’

Among the missing and murdered women whose families are calling for justice is mother-of-six Bonnie Three Irons who was found dead in the mountains in Montana in April 2017.

Mum-of-six Bonnie Three Irons who was found dead in the mountains in Montana in April 2017 (Picture: Facebook)

An FBI release after Selena went missing on January 1 (Picture: Big Horn County Sheriffs)

Henny Scott, 14, was repeatedly reported missing by her family in December 2018 but it took weeks before a public notice was put out. She was found dead two weeks later.

Her great-grandmother Rose Old Bear was murdered in Hardin, Big Horn County, in the 1950s, and her great-aunt Harriet Wilson was also murdered outside Hardin in the 1970s.

Kaysera Stops Pretty Places was found dead in a garden near her home four days after she went missing in Hardin in August, two weeks after her 18th birthday.

She had gone missing a total of nine times.

Her aunt Grace Bulltail, an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the NYT: ‘Why does nobody care about this?

‘We’re not being given any information.’

Families of the missing and murdered women and girls have taken to social media to raise awareness of their fight for justice (Picture: Facebook)

Relatives and campaigners hold candlelight vigils and protests outside police buildings to demand the deaths and disappearances are investigated (Picture: Facebook)

Police have been labelled negligent in the cases of the missing indigenous women and girls, while others have been prosecuted for sexual assault.



Selena’s own family tragedy did not begin with her death. Her brother Preston was shot dead by police officers in Billings.

Her sister Tristen was hit and killed by a car and her twin sister died by suicide when she was just 11.

Law enforcement officials have said the missing cases are extremely difficult to investigate, sometimes ranging over vast expanses of territory, but that they are committed to solving them.

Police have now been pushed to investigate the people Selena got a ride home with before she disappeared.

Her aunt compared Selena to missing teenager Kaysera saying: ‘This is the justice that Kaysera didn’t get.’

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