The Stories No One Told Me to Expect

When I began writing about the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), I prepared myself for heartbreak. I prepared myself for long nights reading case files, talking with families, and carrying the weight of stories that should have never been forgotten.

What I didn’t prepare for was what would happen next.

Almost immediately, messages began pouring in—not dozens, but dozens upon dozens—from people across the country asking me if I would also look into the disappearances and unsolved murders of Indigenous men and boys.

At first, I assumed these were isolated cases. A few names here. A few tragedies there. But when I finally allowed myself to dig deeper, the truth nearly knocked the air out of me.

Because what I uncovered is a crisis hiding in plain sight.

More than 300 Indigenous men and boys are listed as missing on the Charley Project alone.

Three hundred and thirty-two, to be exact.

Three hundred and thirty-two fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, nephews, cousins.
Three hundred and thirty-two lives that mattered.
Three hundred and thirty-two families waiting, grieving, or still searching.

Scrolling through the names felt like reading a memorial wall—except these men are still missing:

• Vincent Frank Adamczak
• Stephan Mitchell Adams
• Odin Avery Anderson
• Jason Bruno Azure
• Calvert Baker
• Tobey Tweedy Baker
• Francis Lee Allen Charles
• Raymond Dean Clark
• Gene Jacob Cloud Jr.
• Daniel Reed Davis
• Matthew Warren Dean
• Terrell James Goldtooth
• Craig Alden Harrison
• Kent Jacobs
• Orlando King
• Brandon Lee
• Franklin Joseph Little Bear
• Dustin Thomas Martin
• Brian Nelson
• Ervin Nez Jr.
• William Boyd Pendergrass
• Joseph Spotted Calf
• Tyrannus White
• Zachary Martin Zazueta

… and hundreds more.
Names stretching across generations, across states, across Tribal Nations.
Names I couldn’t shake even if I tried.

One case in particular will stay with me forever: Eric M. Apatiki.

Eric disappeared in 2004 at just 21 years old.

He traveled from St. Lawrence Island to Nome to visit his pregnant girlfriend and cash his Permanent Fund check. He wore a red jacket with white stripes. A white tank top. Tan leather shoes. A dark blue baseball cap.

He should have gone home a few days later.
He never made it.

His family believes he met with foul play. They have lived twenty years without answers.

And here is what haunts me:

Approximately 20 Indigenous people have vanished or died under questionable circumstances in the Nome area since the 1960s.

Twenty families waiting.
Twenty families grieving.
Twenty families told “there is no serial predator” while no one can explain why their loved ones vanished.

Eric’s story is not an isolated tragedy.
It is part of a pattern—one we can no longer pretend not to see.

Why aren’t we talking about Indigenous men?

This is the question dozens of people asked me.

And now it is the question I cannot stop asking myself.

Indigenous men are:

• More likely to be victims of homicide
• More likely to go missing in remote regions
• More likely to have their disappearances overlooked
• More likely to be misclassified, misreported, or ignored

Their families are often left fighting alone—without media attention, without resources, and without the national outcry we routinely see for others.

The silence is deafening.
And it is dangerous.

This is not a diversion from my work. It is an expansion of it.

I will always fight for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
That commitment does not change.

But I can no longer ignore the families who have reached out begging for someone, anyone, to help tell the stories of their missing sons and brothers.

When people ask me why I do this work, the answer is simple:

Because forgotten people deserve to be found.
Because families deserve answers.
Because justice should not depend on gender, geography, or whether a case makes the nightly news.

Where I go from here

Over the next several months, I will be:

• Profiling individual cases
• Examining patterns and regional clusters
• Speaking with families, Tribal leaders, and investigators
• Mapping disappearances across Alaska, the Dakotas, the Southwest, and the Pacific Northwest
• Investigating systemic failures behind both the MMIW and MMIM crises

This is not a small undertaking.
This is not easy work.

But it is necessary.

And I’m here for it—with my whole heart.

If you are a family member of a missing Indigenous man or woman, please reach out. I want to hear your story. I want to say their name. I want to help in every way I can.

Because every missing person deserves to be found.

And because three hundred and thirty-two families—and countless more not yet counted—are still waiting.