The Vanishing of Sharon BaldEagle

She was twelve years old — a child of the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota — when she vanished into the wide, unrelenting silence of the American plains.

Her name was Sharon BaldEagle, and she disappeared on September 18, 1984. For forty-one years, her family and community have lived with the same unanswered question: Where is Sharon?

Sharon was born on June 26, 1972. She was young, tall for her age at 5’3”, with black hair, black eyes, and pierced ears. On the day she disappeared, she was wearing a black-and-yellow tiger-striped top, black shoes, and carrying a red bag.

She and a 15-year-old friend had run away from home — two Native girls searching for something better, or perhaps just a sense of control in a world that rarely offered them any. They began hitchhiking near Casper, Wyoming, unaware that their path would soon cross with pure evil.

The girls were picked up by Royal Russell Long, a 49-year-old former truck driver. What began as a ride quickly descended into horror.

At his home in Evansville, Wyoming, Long bound the girls at gunpoint, beat Sharon, and raped her friend. Later that night, the older girl miraculously escaped and alerted authorities.

When police arrived at Long’s home, it was empty. Sharon was gone.

Long was captured a week later in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He claimed he had driven Sharon to Cheyenne, found her “a ride to Texas,” and left her there. It was a lie — one of many he told before his death in prison in 1993.

He never admitted what truly happened. He never revealed where Sharon was.

And so, her family — and the community that has long cried out for justice for Indigenous women and girls — was left with silence.

Sharon’s case is more than a tragedy; it is part of a devastating pattern. Indigenous women and girls in the United States are disproportionately targeted by violence, their disappearances too often ignored, underreported, or forgotten by the very systems meant to protect them.

Sharon’s name deserves to be spoken — not as a statistic, but as a child who never got the chance to grow up.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Sharon BaldEagle, please contact the Fall River County Sheriff’s Office at (605) 754-4444.

Even the smallest lead could bring a measure of truth to a family that has waited far too long.

A Note from LaDonna

I write about girls like Sharon because I believe stories hold power — the power to heal, to ignite outrage, to demand action. Sharon BaldEagle deserves more than the quiet file her name has been trapped in for four decades.

She deserves to be found.