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September 5, 2018 The Skanner Page 9 News Haunting Stories Behind Missing Posters of Native Women Families tell stories of indigenous women who’ve disappeared do that.” For five years, Waynette called the po- lice every week, hoping a new tip or DNA would lead to Lakota’s killer. She did not want her sis- ter forgotten. “She was loved,” Waynette says. “She had lots of friends and family.” In January 2017, she says, her sister’s boy- friend contacted her and denied having anything to do with Lakota’s death. Waynette has little hope now that the case will ever be solved. By Sharon Cohen and Mary Hudetz Associated Press eona LeClair Kinsey was a fiercely inde- pendent woman who could go pheasant hunting, serve the bird for dinner, then take the leftover feathers and turn them into an artistic gift. Her daughter, Carolyn DeFord, remembers how they’d also hunt deer, elk and antelope and pick mushrooms and huckle- berries near their home in La Grande, Oregon, a rural community in the eastern corner of the state. “She was confi- dent in her ability to not need people to do simple things for her,” DeFord says, recalling how her mother would chop fire- wood and change her own tires. Kinsey was 45 when she disappeared from La Grande in October 1999. DeFord believes her mother was likely a victim of foul play at the hands of a man she was supposed to meet who reportedly was a drug dealer. His whereabouts are unknown all these years later. Kinsey had struggled with alcohol and drugs. A member of the Puyal- lup Tribe, Kinsey worked as a landscaper, a janitor and a motel housekeeper. She had a quirky sense of humor but also “a very dark and real concept of life,” her daughter re- calls. “She knew there were bad men,” and when her mother was in her early 20s, she had a phys- ically abusive relation- ship. DeFord was 25 when her mother disappeared, and for nearly a decade, whenever she met some- one new, she’d bring her mom up within min- utes. “It was like I wore a nametag, ‘Hi, my name is Carolyn. My mom is missing.’” About 10 years ago, De- Ford held a memorial for COURTESY OF CAROLYN DEFORD VIA AP L Lakota was buried on the South Dakota reser- vation. Her headstone is engraved with an angel. “We’re just not the same anymore,” Waynette says. “It’s agonizing to not know who did that, why they did that.” At first, Waynette says she was angry with the world because of Lakota’s murder. Now, she says, breaking into tears, she feels differently, believ- ing that whoever killed her sister “will deal with this — either in this life- time or the next.” Rita Papakee told her mother she loved her, then turned and walked into an Iowa casino. That was in January 2015. She hasn’t been seen since. Iris Roberts says her daughter, then 41, strug- gled with a drinking problem but would al- ways call her when she went off with friends. But after she dropped her daughter off at the Meskwaki Bingo Casi- no in Tama, Iowa, there was nothing. Searchers See MISSING on page 11 This missing person poster provided by Carolyn DeFord is seeking information in the 1999 disappearance of her mother, Leona Kinsey, in La Grande, Oregon. DeFord believes her mother, a member of the Puyallup Tribe, was likely a victim of foul play at the hands of a man she was supposed to meet that day. No one has been charged in her case. her mother, telling other mourners that “not a day goes by that I don’t miss her.” In recent years, she has become an activist in the missing and mur- dered Native American women movement, estab- lishing a Facebook page featuring dozens of cases and reaching out to fami- lies to say: “’I’m so sorry that you’re on this jour- ney. ... I know the chaos that you’re in right now. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.’” She is still healing herself, but sharing her mother’s story, DeFord says, has given her pur- pose and a chance to raise awareness. “It’s a way to be a voice for women who haven’t found theirs yet.” Lakota Rae Renville was so shy as a teen that when she graduated high school she was reluctant to walk across the stage. She was a straight- laced girl who didn’t smoke cigarettes, drink or take drugs, says her sister, Waynette. But her life took a dramatic turn after she met a man on- line in 2003 and moved from South Dakota to the Kansas City area. Lakota, a member of the Sisseton Wahpe- ton Oyate Tribe, told her sister that she had a boyfriend who had two jobs, so she didn’t need to work. She kept secret most everything else about her life. Two years later, just 22 years old, Lakota was murdered. Her badly bruised, naked body was wrapped in a carpet pad, rolled in a blanket and dumped in a gravel lot in Independence, Missouri. No one has been arrest- ed. Police say Lakota was a prostitute who worked in Kansas City, but Waynette believes her sister was a victim of sex trafficking — a growing concern among law en- forcement and activists in Indian Country. “She had to be forced into that line of work,” she says. “She would never, ever A career you can be proud of. Being a carpenter isn’t just a job. It’s a way of life. 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