Jun 191 min read

Limited Progress on 4-Year-Old MMIW Oregon Report Stating an ‘Emergency’

By Melanie Henshaw

Investigate West

Carolyn DeFord was hoping for change. She was hoping for answers. She’s been hoping for 24 years.

It was Feb. 18, 2019, and DeFord was making the long trip from her home in central Washington to Oregon — a drive she had made many times to search for her missing mother, Leona Kinsey, who disappeared from her home in La Grande, Oregon, in 1998. This time the drive was different. DeFord was traveling to testify in the Oregon Capitol.

A first-of-its-kind bill in Oregon would declare missing Native American women a statewide emergency, launch an investigation into the crisis and produce a report designed to decipher the underpinnings of the problem. DeFord, a citizen of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, thought it could make a real difference.

“I went just hoping to have a couple of minutes to share,” DeFord said.

She discussed the story of her mother’s disappearance, how she seemed to vanish. The coffee pot was on, the beloved dogs in the yard — but Leona was gone. Nearly 25 years later, Leona remains missing and police have made no arrests related to her case.

The 2019 bill, sponsored by Rep. Tawna Sanchez, passed, but it hasn’t made the difference DeFord hoped.

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Carolyn DeFord, whose mother vanished 25 years ago from her home in La Grande, Ore., has become a vocal advocate for improving the investigative response to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people.

Photo courtesy of Carolyn DeFord