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Daily Mail
a day ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Chilling video of girl, 14, who went missing from her group home... then was found dumped by the side of the road
Chilling police bodycam footage showed the moment an Arizona teen was found by the side of a road on one of the times she fled her group home before she was brutally murdered earlier this year. Emily Pike, 14, was seen in the newly-released video running away in September 2023, one of at least four instances she went AWOL as she 'hated' her foster home. The clip showed her being approached by a cop as she walked along the street, and she initially denied being the missing girl before telling the cop: 'I just want to see my mom.' The then-13-year-old cried as she told the officer her group home is 'not her home', and repeatedly said she wanted to speak to her family. 'I'm not going to go to that f***ing group home,' she said in the footage from ABC15. 'I hate it there.' The teenager eventually got into the car with the officer, and authorities said on each of the times she left her home officers either took her back to the group home or to a behavioral health center. Emily ran away for the final time on January 27, 2025, when she broke a door to her group home and walked out on foot, before her dismembered body was found almost three weeks later. No arrests have been made and no suspects named in her case, with authorities releasing the new bodycam footage as Arizona lawmakers opened an investigation into her murder and alleged issues in the foster group home. Although Emily lived at the group home due to mental health issues, her family lived nearby on the San Carlos Apache reservation. She had run away from the home on at least four occasions, with the final time coming in January when she was brutally murdered by an at-large killer. Authorities are offering a reward of $175,000 for information leading to her killer, with the FBI and the San Carlos Apache Tribe contributing to the fund. What exactly happened to Emily when she left for the final time remains a mystery, with her dismembered body found three weeks later almost 100 miles from the group home. Her remains were hidden in a forest off US 60 near Globe, Arizona, and investigators said her body parts were stuffed in several contractor garbage bags. Her head and torso were in one bag and her legs in another, with the teenager's arms and hands still missing. Alongside the release of the footage from September 2023, authorities also revealed footage from when she was reported missing for the final time. The bodycam footage showed an officer asking a staffer at her group home, operated by Sacred Journey Inc., if Emily had run away before. 'Yeah, she had a while back,' the staffer said. 'She's got a pink and gray striped long-sleeved shirt,' they continued. 'That's what one of the girls here at the group home said she had. 'I looked outside. The gate was open. The screen door, the screen window was kicked out.' The bodycams were shown as a legislative hearing last month opened an investigation into Emily's murder and protocols at Sacred Journey Inc. The group home does not have a contract with the state, but the Department of Child Safety told lawmakers Emily was in the care of Tribal Social Services as her native tribe placed her in the care of the home. The teen's family say they are told investigators are looking at three potential suspects, as her mother Steff Dosela described her as a 'very happy and kind person' San Carlos Apache Attorney General Alex Richie defended the home as he said Emily's repeat attempts to run away from the home led them to not be 'convinced based on what they were saying that the child was actually missing.' The teen's family say they are told investigators are looking at three potential suspects, but no names have been released and Emily's murder remains a mystery. 'She was just an innocent… she was a baby,' her mother Steff Dosela told WCJB. 'She was a very happy and kind person.'
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Yahoo
Annual sale: 5 reasons to subscribe to azcentral
[Subscribe now. Sign up here.] You can play a vital role in supporting local journalism that you and your community can trust. With an subscription, you can help our journalists hold those in power accountable. With a subscription, you can also be one of the first to learn about breaking news with news alerts, flip through a digital replica of the print paper, get exclusive newsletters and more. Already a subscriber? Whether you get home delivery of the print edition or have a digital-only subscription, these benefits are included. Check out our activation guide for help on getting started. Here are 5 digital benefits of a subscription to azcentral and The Arizona Republic: Brass knuckles, beatings, fear: Random attacks on teens loom over Preston Lord murder case. Gilbert police still face scrutiny over the teen attacks. Crime-free lease addendums: An Arizona woman's landlord accused her of a crime. It cost her family their home. Sexual assault, suicide attempts: Fourteen-year-old Emily Pike's painful past still lingers after her body was found dismembered off U.S. 60 north of Globe on Valentine's Day. 'Kind of like Uber': Arizona Christian football players were caught in a migrant smuggling scheme, yet those arrested were not prosecuted. Football fever: Arizona State star Cam Skattebo ran a 40-yard dash time in the 4.6-range. That doesn't mean he can't succeed in the NFL. Essential restaurants: Check out our guide to metro Phoenix restaurants, which includes 100 essential spots, new and iconic, for Mexican food, Italian, pho, pizza and burgers. Here's the full list. End of an era: After 75 years, Durant's, an iconic restaurant known for its celebrity clientele, red booths, martinis and steak, is closing a chapter on its storied past. Read about the passing of the torch. Mesa Gateway Airport: Passengers will have more flight options at Mesa Gateway Airport, including new routes from Allegiant Air, plus other improvements this year. To keep our subscribers informed, we email the most important articles to their inbox each day in the form of a daily AZ Briefing newsletter. Subscribers also get exclusive access to our Your Week newsletter. Each week, you'll get a note directly from our team with background on a big story from the week, a behind-the-scenes look at our reporting and links to some of our top subscriber-exclusive work. ► Sign up for newsletters: Browse our entire portfolio of newsletter offerings to pick more topics that interest you specifically. Great stories don't stop with great writing. With your subscription, you'll have unlimited access to bonus content not found in the paper, such as drone videos of dust storms. You will be able to stream our acclaimed documentaries and listen to our popular podcasts. You will see galleries filled with amazing pictures from award-winning photographers. You will be active participants in the news process. Miss out on recent news? Get the latest effortlessly with our Catch Up feature. The app also provides you with access to daily horoscopes and over 100 games. Want to follow the news from another city? You can add up to five of our sister publications across the country to get more news right in the app. ► Download the app: Get the latest news, sports and more Through the azcentral app, you can personalize notifications so you can know the news right when it happens. You can select alerts for breaking news, sports, entertainment, weather, traffic, and business. Quiet times for your alerts can be set within the app. Want alerts when we publish something new on a topic you're interested in? Sign up to follow specific topics of interest with the "Add Topic" button at the top of articles. Personalize your feed further in the For You front. Special offer: You can access the print edition daily on your computer, mobile device, or tablet by accessing the eNewspaper, a digital replica of the print edition of The Arizona Republic. The eNewspaper can be accessed through our app, available exclusively to subscribers. As an added benefit, subscribers can access the eNewspaper from any of our more than 200 sister papers across the United States, plus each edition of USA TODAY. ► Special offer: Save on a new subscription today. Right now, we have a special introductory offer. Visit our subscription page to take advantage of this limited-time offer. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why subscribe to azcentral: Unlimited access, personalized app
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Native leaders, advocates gather for Emily's Law bill signing ceremony
Gov. Katie Hobbs participates in a bill signing ceremony for House Bill 2281 ion May 21, 2025. Photo by Shondiin Silversmith | Arizona Mirror Surrounded by the flags of Arizona's 22 Tribal Nations, Indigenous leaders, advocates, and officials gathered with Gov. Katie Hobbs on May 21 to witness the ceremonial signing of a long-awaited law. ' We are here because the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people demands our full attention and collaboration,' Hobbs said. 'It demands action and it demands solutions.' Hobbs officially signed House Bill 2281, the Turquoise Alert System bill, into law on May 13, establishing a new system to issue state-wide alerts for missing Indigenous or endangered persons using the federally authorized Emergency Alert System. The alert applies to anyone younger than 65 who does not meet criteria for an Amber or Silver Alert. An Amber Alert is activated when a minor is abducted, and a Silver Alert is for when a person over the age of 65 or who has a cognitive or developmental disability goes missing. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX If a person who is 18 or older goes missing in Arizona, a public alert of their disappearance is not available nor required. That's a hurdle that many Indigenous families are familiar with. The Department of Public Safety will oversee the new alert system. Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said that the new alert system closes jurisdictional and age-related gaps, which will help better serve Indigenous people who go missing or could be in danger. 'The language provides for collaboration between Tribal, state and local police, and as we know from the success of the Amber Alert system, the sooner law enforcement and the public are alerted to potential danger, the stronger the likelihood that endangered individuals can return home safely,' he said. Lewis collaborated with Rep. Teresa Martinez, R-Casa Grande, who sponsored the bill, which passed through the legislature with unanimous support. ' I applaud all of the members of the legislature for their support for this bill and for taking this important step to addressing this longstanding, missing and murdered Indigenous crisis that continues throughout our state,' Lewis said. Arizona is the fifth state to implement a missing and endangered Indigenous persons alert system. The other states are California, Washington, Colorado and New Mexico. The bill is known as Emily's Law in honor of 14-year-old Emily Pike, a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe who went missing and was later found dead earlier this year. ' Every year, tens of thousands of people go missing who fall outside the criteria for an amber or silver alert,' Hobbs said. 'Emily Pike was one of those people. Her life and her story mattered.' Hobb announced that the state is contributing $25,000 to the San Carlos Apache Tribes' reward for information on Emily Pike's murder. Hobbs said the contribution comes after meeting with San Carlos Apache tribal leaders and asking them how the state could help support the investigation. The total award is now $175,000. ' I urge anyone with information to contact the Gila County Sheriff's Office or the FBI,' Hobbs said, adding that Emily Pike would have turned 15 on May 15. 'She should have celebrated with her friends and family. Her family deserves this justice,' she added. 'And in her honor, I am proud to sign Emily's Law to establish the Turquoise Alert in Arizona.' Lewis said the law will not bring Emily Pike back, but he hopes that Emily's Law will prevent another Indigenous relative, child, or teen from suffering the same fate. ' With the implementation of the Turquoise Alert System along with the Amber Alert System and Silver Alert System, together, we can collectively all work together to protect our children, our elders, our most vulnerable, our tribal members, and act quickly to bring them to safety,' he added. Emily Pike's mother, sister, and uncle, Allred Pike Jr., attended the signing. Her uncle spoke on behalf of the family, expressing that he is conflicted about the name, Emily's Law, because his niece is no longer here. ' She was murdered. She was dismembered. She was tossed to the side of the road like she didn't matter,' he said. 'She was our daughter, our niece, our granddaughter, our cousin, our friend, and we're here to tell you that she mattered, her life mattered.' Allred Pike said that it was hard to be at the signing, but the family understands that Emily's Law is a step in the right direction to move forward. 'We just don't want this to happen to anyone else out there and to make sure that this law helps save lives for other missing and murdered Indigenous women,' he added. The new Turquoise Alert System will operate in parallel with the Missing and Endangered Person alert code, a national alert code adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in the fall of 2024. The national code is being established in Arizona and is expected to be launched by the summer. DPS will establish the Turquoise Alert System, a quick response system designed to issue and coordinate alerts following the report of a missing Indigenous or endangered person. The alert would only be issued at the request of a law enforcement agency investigating a missing person report. DPS would approve and issue the alert, but for it to be issued, the missing person must be an Indigenous or non-Indigenous endangered person under the age of 65. Due to state work on implementing the FCC's new alert code for the last year, Hobbs said that the Turquoise Alert System can be implemented immediately when the law goes into effect, 90 days after the close of the legislative session. 'The Turquoise Alert will be ready by the end of this summer, and I'm so glad that we are able to come together in a bipartisan way to pass common-sense legislation that will increase public safety,' Hobbs said. More than 10,600 Indigenous people were reported missing in the U.S. in 2023, roughly 3,300 of whom were 18 or older, according to the FBI. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System reported that more than 23,700 missing persons cases were in the database at the end of 2023, and 255 of those were for Indigenous people. In 2021, Arizona was ranked as having the third-largest number of unresolved cases of missing Indigenous people in the country, according to NamUs. Currently, there are 93 cases of missing Indigenous people in the NamUs database for Arizona. The Urban Indian Health Institute reported that Arizona also has the third-largest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the country. Their study reported 506 known cases in 71 urban areas across the country, 54 of which were in Arizona, including 31 in Tucson. There is still no comprehensive database that provides accurate numbers or data related to missing and murdered Indigenous peoples across the country. Without a centralized system among the thousands of federal, state, and tribal entities, the information available remains limited. When examining the numbers, it's important to note that Indigenous people make up only about 6% of Arizona's population. The state has three major metropolitan areas, all home to large Indigenous populations. Each of Arizona's 22 tribal nations has many tribal members living on their tribal lands. The recommendation for a missing endangered persons alert in Arizona was first made in 2022 by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls ad hoc committee and has continued as a recommendation by the task force. Sen. Theresa Hatathlie, D-Coal Mine Mesa, said getting Emily's Law signed is a milestone, but that advocacy work will continue. Hathathlie, a member of the Navajo Nation and advocate for MMIP, said there have been discussions regarding jurisdictional issues, training requests and educational needs to address MMIP, but the work must be done collaboratively. 'We need to stop working in silos,' she added. 'We need to come together and have these difficult conversations because every single day, we have another missing person.' Rep. Myron Tsosie, D-Chinle, who is also from the Navajo Nation, said that Emily's Law brings some relief for Indigenous peoples and their families who have fought to have their voices heard. 'Our voices are being heard,' he said. 'This brings some relief to our tribal communities, not only here in Arizona, but across the country.' Tsosie said the fight for MMIP must continue and the community must help raise awareness. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE UPDATE: This story's headline has been updated for clarity.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hobbs signs Turquoise Alert bill, named in honor of slain teen Emily Pike
Allred Pike, Jr., wore a red shirt with the image of Emily Pike emblazoned on its front. He spoke about his 14-year-old niece and how her brutal murder shook Indian Country and the state. He had come to the Arizona Capitol May 21 to watch Gov. Katie Hobbs sign a measure that will establish "Turquoise Alerts" for missing Indigenous people. It's known as "Emily's Law," named in honor of slain San Carlos Apache teen Emily Pike. "I'm conflicted," Pike said. "This bill is named after my niece, my niece who's not here no more." He said the event and the name of the law reminded all that Emily is gone. He joined other members of the Pike family, tribal and state leaders and members of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Task Force for the bill signing. "It's a good thing that an alert system is here for all of Indian Country," Pike said. "But the hard part is it's named after my brother's and Steff's daughter, and she's not here no more." Steff Dosela was Emily Pike's mother, and Jensen Pike was her father. Dosela stood with Pike at the event but didn't speak. Jensen Pike is serving time in an Arizona prison for arson and criminal damage. "While this bill was being considered in the state Legislature, we learned of the senseless murder of this beautiful, 14-year-old Emily, a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe," Hobbs said. "No parent, no tribal community should lose their child, their young member to violence." Emily Pike would have turned 15 last week, the governor said. "She should have celebrated with friends and family." While the law won't bring Emily back, Hobbs said she and others hope the Turquoise Alert will prevent other such losses. The alert, which Hobbs said would be implemented later this year, will issue missing person alerts for Native people up to age 65 after a law enforcement agency determines the person is missing. Hobbs also announced that the state would add $25,000 from the Department of Public Safety anti-racketeering fund to two other rewards of $75,000 each offered by the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the FBI for information on Emily's case. DPS Director Jeffrey Glover said the last time DPS offered a reward was during the Freeway Shooter case in 2015. San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler said Emily Pike had fallen through the cracks. The teenager ran away from a Mesa group home in late January. Her body was found dismembered on a trail off U.S. Highway 60 near Globe, almost 100 miles away, on Feb. 14. "We need to change the term 'runaway' to the description 'missing,'" he said. "That heightens the response of everybody." Labeling a person as a runaway, Rambler said, gives them several days or weeks in the hopes that they will return instead of immediately searching for them. An investigation by The Arizona Republic revealed a raft of miscommunications, overlapping jurisdictions and policies on how runaway youth are reported. Missing children: How the death of an 11-year-old Navajo girl helped expand Amber Alerts to tribal lands State Reps. Teresa Martinez, R-Casa Grande, and Walt Blackman, R-Snowflake, spoke at the Capitol May 20, a day before Hobbs's signing ceremony. Martinez was lead sponsor on the Turquoise Alert bill, which lawmakers passed unanimously. She said the bill was the result of a bipartisan effort. State Sen. Theresa Hatathlie, D-Tuba City, and fellow Democratic Reps. Mae Peshlakai, Myron Tsosie and Brian Garcia co-sponsored the bill establishing the Turquoise Alert. "When we ran the bill in January, we did not know that Emily was missing," Martinez said. "Think about that. A little girl goes missing, and no Amber Alert was issued." When Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis testified for the bill in January, legislators didn't know the girl was missing. "By the time the bill made it over to the Senate, we had realized that she had been missing for a month," Martinez said. "It horrifies me to think of a mother, a father out there not even knowing that their little girl is missing." Much work is needed to protect women and children of the state of Arizona, she said. "No one should be forgotten." Lewis, named for his uncle who went missing more than 60 years ago, said the bill's fast passage and unanimous support reflect the serious need for such services. "These, issues of safety, life and death of our very relatives are not partisan," he said. Lewis also thanked Martinez and other legislators for helping address the long-standing missing and murdered Indigenous person crisis. Arizona joins at least five other states that have adopted similar alerts to rapidly publicize missing Indigenous persons. Hatathlie called for further discussions on the "missing links" with an eye to amending laws to cover kids beyond those who are wards of the court or under Department of Child Safety oversight. "We want to have those agreements so we're there when our vulnerable community members need us and stepping up the resources that we have for our children," she said. She agreed with Rambler that Emily Pike fell through the cracks of many systemic barriers. "That's where we need to have that conversation, so that we are not talking, having this similar conversation years down the road regarding our children," Hatathlie said. Children in distress: Tribes seek foster care for kids in need, but strained resources lead some to group homes The legislators' call for more cooperation came on the heels of an annual surge in FBI agents and forensic resources to Indian Country. In April, the U.S. Justice Department initiated the third year of a multi-year initiative to address the MMIWP crisis. The FBI will rotate 60 people to field offices in 10 cities, including Phoenix and Albuquerque, for 90-day temporary duty assignments over six months. The operation also supports Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal law enforcement agencies with the latest forensic evidence processing technology and analytical expertise to tackle hard MMIWP cases. Several people at the ceremony asked what would happen once this year's surge is done. Navajo Nation Council Delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty talked about the need for significant changes to the Major Crimes Act, which gives federal courts and law enforcement jurisdiction over felony crimes like murder committed against a Native person by another Native person on tribal lands. She said such changes could help return tribes the right to pursue justice in their own courts instead of waiting to see if the federal government will step in to investigate or to prosecute the cases. Jurisdictional issues like a non-Indian committing a major crime against a Native person and how far tribal courts can go to prosecute offenders have muddied the justice waters for decades. Crotty said that, absent making long-requested revisions to the law that took tribal prosecutorial rights away, tribes want to know how many cases the FBI is taking on. "How many cases are they declining?" she asked. "How many of those cases they are communicating and are they respecting our tribal law enforcement instead of segregating (cases) and making decisions without this kind of input?" But big questions about how to better serve justice in Indian Country and breaking down law enforcement silos wouldn't be answered this day. Instead, tribal and state law enforcement officials and leaders said they would continue working on intrastate communications and collaborations to help fill in the gaps that allowed Emily Pike to end up murdered on the side of the highway. Allred Pike thanked legislators and tribal leaders for sponsoring and passing the law and help save lives for other missing and murdered Indigenous women and people. "We thank you for keeping the memory of my niece alive," he said. "She was our daughter, our niece, our granddaughter, our cousin, our friend, and we're here to tell you that she mattered; her life mattered," Allred Pike said. The family understands that despite how hard it was to be in the spotlight, they must move forward, he said. "Emily's law is a step in the right direction." Arizona Republic reporter Stacey Barchenger contributed to this story. Debra Krol reports on Indigenous communities at the confluence of climate, culture and commerce in Arizona and the Intermountain West. Reach Krol at Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @debkrol and on Bluesky at @ This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Hobbs signs Turquoise Alert bill named in honor of Emily Pike
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Yahoo
From sexual assault response to missing person protocols: How systems failed Emily Pike
A memorial honoring San Carlos Apache teen Emily Pike can be seen at the intersection of Mesa Drive and McKellips Road in Mesa, the location where she was last seen in January. Photo by Shondiin Silversmith | Arizona Mirror Emily Pike's mother found out that her 14-year-old daughter had been murdered when she saw photos of garbage bags containing human remains posted on social media. Police didn't call Stephanie Dosela; she called them after viewing the photos that had been leaked from the Gila County Sheriff's Department. Emily, a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, had been missing for 18 days after running away from a group home in Mesa. 'A mother should not find out on social media about her daughter's dismembered body,' Dosela said in a written statement to Arizona state legislators on May 14. The unthinkable way that Dosela said she found out about her daughter's murder is emblematic of the poor communication and failures of the individual pieces of the tribal, county and state systems — first, to keep Emily safe, and then to find her after she went missing. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX During a Joint Legislative Oversight Committee hearing on May 14, Arizona lawmakers heard from law enforcement officials, leaders of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, Emily's family and the Arizona Department of Child Safety about the failures of the system and ways to prevent what happened to Emily from happening again. Police, legislators and Emily's family members alike could be seen quietly sobbing at various points during the nearly three-hour-long hearing. Emily went missing from the Mesa group home on Jan. 27. Her remains were found near Globe, just outside of the reservation where her family lives, on Feb. 14. But the systemic deficiencies that led her to disable the alarm on her bedroom window and to run away from the Mesa group home date back years. In 2023, a 911 call was made from a remote area of the San Carlos reservation near Emily's home, to report that she had been sexually assaulted. But instead of a San Carlos Apache police officer trained in dealing with sexual assaults, the tribe's fish and game department responded. San Carlos Apache Police Chief Elliot Sneezy couldn't tell legislators specifically why fish and game responded instead of one of his officers, but said that fish and game are the experts in finding people in extremely rural areas of the reservation and that police were 'busy' that day. At that time, Sneezy said, there were only 22 police officers on staff to cover the entire 1.8 million acre reservation. The family member who Emily accused of assaulting her was arrested, but was soon released without being charged. Emily, meanwhile, was taken into the custody of San Carlos Apache social services for her own safety and sent to the Mesa group home. The Bureau of Indian Affairs previously told the Arizona Republic that it dropped the sexual assault case due to insufficient evidence, but other agencies disputed that claim. 'My niece was a victim, but yet she was punished and removed from her home,' Emily's uncle, Allred Pike Jr., told legislators. 'That's how justice failed her. The person that she accused of hurting her got to go home. How is that justice? It's just backwards.' Terry Ross, director of tribal social services, told the committee that it's often difficult to prosecute such cases when family members decide to protect the accused. 'What I experience with our tribe is that all the families will support the perpetrator, and we can't do anything but to remove the child (for their safety),' Ross said. After tribal social services removed Emily from her home and sent her to Mesa, more than 100 miles away, she attempted suicide and ran away multiple times. She was placed in a residential mental health treatment facility for more than a year before being released back to the Mesa group home. In a statement read by family spokesperson Gail Pechuli, Dosela said that Emily experienced culture shock when she was taken from her rural home near the tiny town of Peridot and placed in Mesa, a city of more than 500,000 people in the Phoenix metropolitan area. 'My Emily was far from home, she was alone and homesick,' Dosela said, adding that she told her grandmother that she missed home-cooked traditional foods like acorn soup and tortillas. Emily lived on the reservation with her mother and other family members. Her father is currently in prison for an arson-related conviction. In her statement, Dosela said that she suffers from addiction issues and lives in poverty, but said she believed Emily was safe in the group home where she was sent. Sen. Carine Werner, co-chair of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on the Department of Child Safety, said that the group home was not given background information on why Emily was there, something that she said was vital to her caregivers' understanding of her behavior. While Emily was living in a facility that is licensed by DCS when she went missing, she was not in the department's custody — she was in the custody of the tribe, which contracts with the group home for placements. The San Carlos tribe has only one tiny group home on the reservation and must place children in other locations when it's full. Because Emily was in the custody of the tribe — a sovereign nation — certain reporting requirements outlined in Arizona law when a child in DCS custody goes missing didn't apply to her. Kathryn Ptak, director of the Arizona Department of Child Safety, explained that an amended state law signed last year in response to a surge in runaways from DCS group homes didn't pertain to Emily because she wasn't in the DCS system. The law requires family, friends and the school of the missing child to be contacted within 24 hours of their disappearance to obtain any information about where they might be. It also stipulates that the child's family and tribe must be contacted by phone and in writing to inform them that the child is missing. Therein lies one of the major issues identified by numerous people who spoke to the committee: Tribal sovereignty means that the state generally doesn't have the power to pass laws that control tribes. DCS has memorandums of understanding with four of Arizona's tribes, but not currently with San Carlos Apache. 'When a child is living on tribal land and either eligible for enrollment or enrolled in a tribe, the tribe has exclusive jurisdiction,' Ptak said. 'The state can't come in and tell them what to do with their children.' She added that, because Emily was never in DCS custody, the department didn't have access to information necessary to contact her family and friends. Sen. Theresa Hatathlie, a Democrat from Coal Mine Mesa and a member of the Navajo Nation, argued that, no matter their race or tribal affiliation, all missing children should be treated the same. 'Emily Pike was born in the state of Arizona, resided in Arizona all of her life, regardless of what tribe she's a member of,' Hatathlie said. The senator added that DCS should not just sit by and refuse to help because of jurisdictional issues. The group home reported Emily missing to police on Jan. 27, and the tribe was informed the next day. But her tribal case worker did not immediately consider her disappearance an emergency, San Carlos Attorney General Alex Ritchie explained, since she had run away and returned several times before. San Carlos Apache Social Services didn't inform Emily's family that she was missing until she'd been gone for a week. After Emily's body was found, the San Carlos Apache tribe called for an investigation into group home licensing, and also agreed to investigate how her sexual assault report was handled. Several of the speakers on May 14, including Ritchie, recommended that every child who goes missing from a group home be immediately considered missing instead of labeled as a 'runaway.' 'Our recommendation is that every child, the moment they're not accounted for, they are missing,' Ritchie said. 'That way the level of scrutiny is heightened. Of course, there will be folks who don't agree with that, but these are children. They are the most defenseless and the most in need of folks looking out for them.' But because teens will regularly run away from group homes for the weekend, only to show back up the following Monday, Ptak recommended that reporting requirements be loosened so that group homes wouldn't be required to report a child missing if they're told they can't go somewhere and they leave anyway, especially if caretakers know where they're headed. Nearly all of the speakers agreed that better communication between all the entities involved was vital to any attempts to prevent another tragedy like Emily's death from happening in the future. Suggestions included better sharing of background information about children in their custody between tribal social services and group homes, that group homes have pertinent information ready to provide to police when they report a child missing and that the tribes enter into agreements with DCS for information sharing about children in the group homes that they license. Emily's mother asked that the Gila County Sheriff's Office look into how it handles the sharing of sensitive information on social media, and that the San Carlos Apache Tribe open a larger group home, with better mental health services, on the reservation. Sneezy told legislators that group homes that house Native children should be better informed about their cultures, and that law enforcement entities should work on better communication, especially since local law enforcement doesn't have jurisdiction on tribal land. 'What I've heard today is the failure of agencies, our departments, our jurisdictional issues, federal, state, tribal,' Allred Pike said. 'We need to stop working in silos. We need to start sharing information. We need to start working together so this won't happen again.' The committee plans to host multiple stakeholder meetings in the coming months to figure out workable solutions, with plans to recommend changes in law during the next legislative session in 2026. 'This jurisdictional thing sounds easy but I know it's not, but I commit, and I'm sure the whole legislature commits to finding solutions to make sure that this never happens again,' said Sen. Hildy Angius, R-Bullhead City. The Gila County Sheriff's Office, along with the San Carlos Apache Tribal Police Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the FBI are collaborating in the ongoing investigation into Emily's murder. Earlier this week, Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a new law that would create a Turquoise Alert, a new kind of alert that can be issued by the Department of Public Safety when a Native person goes missing. The legislation was introduced before Emily went missing but was renamed 'Emily's Law' after her body was found. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
