10
S moke S ignals
NOVEMBER 1, 2017
'Her life mattered'
MISSING continued
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River and Shasta Dam.
“It was the last time anyone
heard from her,” Gleason-Shepek
said. “She wasn’t dating him any
longer, but they were still in the
same circle.”
Lusby’s criminal record in Shasta
County Superior Court shows that
he has been charged with nine felo-
nies since April 2012, four of which
were reduced to misdemeanors.
The Sheriff’s Office confirmed that
Lusby had been in custody at the
Shasta County Jail 11 times.
Lusby also spent time on Shasta
County's Most Wanted list until he
was arrested in 2015. Additionally,
an article in the Porterville Record-
er noted his arrest for car theft,
stolen property and possession of
methamphetamine in November
2012.
Cameron also had a criminal
record in Shasta County, which in-
cluded three felonies, two of which
were reduced to misdemeanors.
Family members recall that al-
though Cameron struggled with
substance abuse, she was a good
mother who regularly saw her
children no matter what else was
going on.
“Her life mattered,” Gleason-She-
pek said. “Whether or not she used
drugs isn’t the point. She has three
little girls growing up without a
mother. It breaks my heart. Five
years is a long time not to know.
“I just hope our Tribe becomes
interested in this issue and breaks
these old thoughts that domestic
violence is a family issue. It’s a
community issue. I want to raise
awareness and increase justice,
and show people that we honor
and respect the sacredness of our
women. As I reflected on my time
on Tribal Council, (not being able
to do so) has been my biggest dis-
appointment.”
The day she disappeared
On Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012, at
approximately 2:50 p.m., Cameron
called 911 three times from Lus-
by’s cell phone near the Keswick
Dam area, claiming she had been
drugged and needed help. A male
voice could be heard in the back-
ground.
Police conducted an extensive,
multi-agency search, according to
the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office.
Lusby was interviewed as a prima-
ry person of interest in the case.
“He was (formally) interviewed
on three occasions, but never ar-
rested,” said Shasta County Sher-
iff’s Office Sgt. Brian Jackson. “He
is still a person of interest and this
case is still open. … There is still
information we are trying to cor-
roborate.”
Lusby was last interviewed in
April 2014. When he was asked
why Cameron used his cell phone
to call 911, he told police that she
had walked off and had taken the
phone with her, Jackson said. The
cell phone was never recovered.
In this screenshot from a Tribal video, former Tribal Council member Tonya Gleason-Shepek discusses the
disappearance of her cousin, Heather Cameron, more than five years ago in northern California during the Oct. 1
General Council meeting. Gleason-Shepek encouraged the membership to keep domestic violence victims in mind
when funding Tribal programs.
Jackson said that the location
Cameron called from was remote,
with steep hills and canyons, and
cell phone reception was poor, re-
sulting in the multiple and dropped
calls to 911.
After an initial search, which
included all-terrain vehicles from
the Bureau of Land Reclamation
and a California Highway Patrol
helicopter, Cameron was not found,
nor was there any evidence of sus-
picious activity, according to the
Sheriff’s Office.
On Sept. 4, 2012, almost two-and-
a-half weeks later, Cameron was
officially reported as missing by her
estranged husband to the Redding
Police Department, which referred
the case to Shasta County.
“Our office then began a missing
person’s investigation and multiple
searches of the area the follow-
ing week,” Jackson said. “Family
members also went out and did
several searches with ATVs and on
foot. She is still a missing person,
the case is still open and other
suspects have been excluded. We
want to find out where she is, so
we continue to do follow up on any
information we receive.”
Cameron’s cousin, Shannon Hau-
berg, created a Facebook page, Find
Heather Cameron-Haller, soon
after she went missing. Cameron
also is listed as a missing person by
the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office
and on the National Missing and
Unidentified Persons database.
Additionally, Cameron is one of
2,033 missing people from Cali-
fornia profiled on the The Charley
Project website, which has approx-
imately 9,500 "cold cases” from
across the United States. There is
currently a $5,000 reward being
offered for information that leads
to solving her case.
“Heather wasn’t given a very good
chance at life,” Hauberg said. “Her
parents struggled with drugs and
alcohol. She went back and forth be-
tween Grand Ronde and Redding.”
However, Hauberg recalls fond
times with her when they were chil-
dren, growing up in rural Redding.
Hauberg and Cameron spent
their summers riding in dune bug-
gies, fishing, boating and partici-
pating in other outdoor activities.
“She knew the area very well,”
Hauberg said. “We were pretty
Native kids. My grandma used to
call us ‘Pocahontas.’ We loved to
wander around in the woods and
be in nature.”
On the day Cameron disappeared,
Hauberg said she had recently
checked herself out of a drug reha-
bilitation program and was picked
up by Lusby. It was the last time
anyone confirmed seeing her alive.
“The whole family is struggling,”
Hauberg said. “Heather was al-
ways in contact with her children’s
fathers, so when they didn’t hear
from her, we knew something very
bad had happened. I remember
her as being a great mom and very
family-oriented.”
Lusby did not respond to several
attempts by Smoke Signals, in-
cluding a phone call to his place of
employment and a Facebook Mes-
senger message, seeking comment
on Cameron’s disappearance.
Violence part of larger issue
A Cheyenne proverb states: “A
Nation is not conquered until the
hearts of its women are on the
ground. Then it is done, no matter
how brave its warriors or strong its
weapons.”
It is particularly telling when one
looks at national statistics regard-
ing missing and murdered Native
American women.
Under the 2005 Violence Against
Women Act, a national study au-
thorized by Congress found that
between 1979 and 1992, homicide
was the third leading cause of
death among Native females aged
15 to 34, and that 75 percent were
killed by family members or ac-
quaintances.
Title IX of the act required the
National Institute of Justice to con-
duct a national baseline research
study on violence against Native
American and Alaska Native wom-
en, including domestic violence,
dating violence, sexual assault,
stalking and murder, evaluate the
effectiveness of federal, state, Trib-
al and local responses to violence
against these women, and propose
recommendations to improve the
effectiveness of responses.
The report, released in May 2016,
found that 84.3 percent have expe-
rienced violence in their lifetime,
including sexual, physical, stalking
and psychological aggression. Also,
39.8 percent have experienced
these types of violence in the past
year.
Compared to non-Hispanic, white
women, Native American and Alas-
ka Native women are 1.2 times
more likely to have experienced
violence during their life, and 1.7
times more likely to have experi-
enced it during the past year, the
study found.
The study further found that
medical care was the most common
service needed by the victims of life-
time violence. Among the women
seeking services, 38 percent were
unable to get the help they needed.
Grand Ronde Domestic Violence
Prevention Coordinator Anne Falla
said that intimate partner violence
is not always limited to just phys-
ical abuse.
“Abuse is also emotional in na-
ture and it is easy to discredit peo-
ple who report it by making them
look bad,” Falla said. “For example,
people will say the person making
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