MISSOULA, Mont. – Montana has become all too familiar with Murdered and Missing Indigenous People (MMIP) cases going unsolved on reservations across the state. Loved ones are left with little hope that cases will find justice or get a conclusive answer. However, a Native American doctoral student at the University of Montana, Haley K. Omeasoo M.A., is developing a tribal DNA database, with the aim to bring a new light to missing person cases.
For many Native Americans living on a reservation in Montana, the burden of a love one who was killed or has gone missing is way too common.
“This goes back to like 1940. We have over 60 some cold cases here on the reservation. We have three people missing,” said Rhonda Grant Connelly, a Browning resident on the Blackfeet Reservation and the Aunt of Matthew Grant, who was killed in 2016.
According to the Montana Governor’s Office, Native people make up about 7% of the state’s population. But, that same group accounts for a quarter of missing persons cases in the state.
MMIP cases often go cold either due to the lack of resources accessible to law enforcement on reservations or the little amount of DNA data from various tribes, data that could help match cases with unidentified human remains.
“Due to a lot of the mistrust between Native American people and researchers, there isn’t a whole lot of data out there that represents Native Americans,” Omeasoo explained. “It is difficult when you’re trying to match human remains to these databases because there’s not a lot of that Native representation.”
Haley Omeasoo is an enrolled member of the Hopi Tribe and a descendent of the Blackfeet. Her former high school classmate, Ashley Loring HeavyRunner, went missing in 2017 and is yet to be found to this day.
Omeasoo now has a Forensic Anthropology Master’s Degree and is working to get her PhD in Molecular Anthropology at the University of Montana. Omeasoo, 27, is also raising two kids with her husband, Vince Omeasoo M.B.A.. They recently opened a company called Ohkomi Forensics and are beginning to create a DNA sample database for Native reservations that the Tribes can trust.
“I’m really hoping to help bridge that gap between researchers and Native American people,” Omeasoo said.
Many tribes oppose DNA analysis because traditional forensic techniques require destroying bone samples during analysis.
That is why Omeasoo is using a DNA sampling technique that can extract the DNA without damaging the bones and using a specialized kit to process the samples that will link Native relatives in the database to unidentified human remains.
“I definitely think that DNA can be very helpful and useful in a lot of these cases, and, just making sure that we’re going about it the right way and representing the DNA in the right way as well,” Omeasoo said.
Omeasoo is hoping to eventually make a DNA sample database for all the Tribes in Montana, but, so far, only the Blackfeet Reservation has agreed to join the database.
“This summer, I’ll be collecting around 100 samples of DNA for a living tribal member that we can use to try and match to those cases where we are presented with human remains that are unidentified,” Omeasoo explained.
Omeasoo hopes one day she can set up a forensics lab on the Blackfeet Reservation that will provide much needed services to the Native American population and, ideally, bring light to many murdered and missing unsolved cases, not just in Blackfeet, but all over Montana
“There’s too many broken hearts on the reservation. From murders, missing people and Fentanyl, we have lost too many people,” said Grant.
To learn more about Omeasoo’s work and Ohkomi Forensics, please visit their website here.
