Montana’s Big Horn County will establish a task force to investigate missing persons cases following the death of a girl there.
Big Horn County Attorney, Jay Harris, says he’s forming a task force to address suspicious deaths and missing persons cases. The decision comes less than two weeks after marchers stood outside the Big Horn County Courthouse, demanding action on the death of Kaysera Stop Pretty Places, an indigenous girl whose body was found in a Hardin backyard this August shortly after her eighteenth birthday.
In a press release, Harris, who’s an enrolled member of the Crow tribe, referred to the march, saying that it should be, “viewed as a rebuke of any status quo that does not fully accept the call to action.”
Harris says that Big Horn County, which includes part of the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Nations, “finds itself in unprecedented times,” because of methamphetamine use and distribution.
There are currently five missing persons cases being investigated by the Big Horn County Sheriff's Office on the Montana Missing Persons Clearinghouse.
Harris says the task force will supervise the conduct of the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Office and County Coroner during suspicious deaths and homicide cases.
The first meeting will be next week.
Olivia Reingold is Yellowstone Public Radio’s Report for America corps member.
