Shawnee woman speaks for the dead
June 28, 2004
By: Sam Lewin
Native American Times
Shawnee woman speaks for the dead,
Works to solve open murder cases-many of them Indian
A member of the Shawnee Tribe has dedicated herself to identifying and helping to solve the murders of missing Indian men, women and children and she needs your help to do it. Keely Denning, 44, is the Kansas Director of the Doe Network, a group that describes itself as a "volunteer organization devoted to assisting law enforcement in solving cold cases." They run a website containing information about unsolved slayings and unidentified homicide victims.
" We care about the victims and their families," Denning said.
Denning grew up in Wichita and it was while working at the Saline County Sheriffs Department in Kansas that she experienced first hand the frustration of trying to determine the identity of an unknown murder victim. A woman had been found slain, tossed off of a bridge on I-70.
" I was doing historical research, and when our missing was found in 1986 I was pregnant with my first child. I'll never forget that case," Denning said.
The woman was not identified and the case was never solved.
The website, doenetwork.org, has a search database detailing 840 unidentified victims and 2650 missing persons. The number of American Indian/ Alaska Native victims on the list is extensive. Some examples:
- A female homicide victim discovered March 28, 2002 in Avondale, Arizona. Investigators believe she might have been as young as fifteen.
- An Indian man struck and killed in a hit-and-run accident on July 27, 1988 in Seattle, Washington.
- An infant found in a plastic bag on March 3, 1999 in Cumberland County, North Carolina. An autopsy showed the child was beaten to death. According to doenetwork.org: "The day before the baby was discovered, a witness remembered seeing a couple acting very distraught in a nearby clinic. The woman, who was pregnant at the time, became anxious, according to deputies, when a doctor told her she needed to go to the hospital for a specific maternity test." A hair left at the scene is believed to have originated from a member of the Lumbee Tribe.
- A woman found shot to death on December 22, 1991 in West Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. Investigation revealed that she was a biracial mix of American Indian and Caucasian. She was wearing Indian-style jewelry, including a ring with a description of a turquoise bird with a red tail.
Some of the victims have been identified, and now the focus is on finding the perpetrator. Others have simply gone missing and never been located. One of them is Virginia Sue Pictou-Noyes [pictured upper left]. Noyes, a member of the Mi'kmaq Nation, disappeared April 24, 1993 in Bangor, Maine. She left behind five children.
Why so many such cases? Denning says there are many reasons, and a lack of effort on the part of police is not one of them. A lack of money is.
" Law enforcement does not have the finances to keep up with these cases when new cases come in," she said. " These cases are not going unsolved because of the officer. I have met law enforcement officers who still dream about these open cases."
Dennis believes that there is also disproportionate attention placed on certain missing people at the expense of others. Just about anybody who watched the news this spring recalls the case of Dru Sjodin, the pretty Caucasian woman from Minnesota who disappeared and was later found murdered. Many other people went missing and were murdered during the same time and you never heard about it.
" I understand what it is with the media," Denning said. " There are so many missing persons cases out there and they cannot give attention to all the cases-but they give so little attention to many of the cases."
Another problem the Doe Network faces, in Indian Country at least, is a lack of visibility. The organization has only been around since 1999 and relies on police departments around the country for information.
" We have quite a few missing Indian people-men, women and children. Indian law enforcement doesn't know about us-that we are here to help. One of my goals is to learn more about their cases."