‘There need to be consequences:’ Families and experts of MMIP say justice system failed them at Billings hearing

Steven Bearcrane-Cole was killed on his day off.

It was Feb. 2, 2005, and unusually warm. Steven, a 23-year-old Crow tribal member, had wanted to run errands, pay some bills and spend time with his 3-year-old daughter, Precious, when he received a call from a coworker.

It was Bobby Gene Holcomb, a fellow ranch hand at Leachman Cattle Co. ranch on the Crow Reservation, and he needed help with the horses. Steven had a soft heart for the animals, his mother Earline Bearcrane-Cole remembered, and Holcomb was a friend. They’d spent a Christmas celebration together, and Steven planned to teach Holcomb how to cook with a pressure cooker.

“Steven was that kind of guy,” Earline said.

Steven and Holcomb worked in a nearby field for a few hours before reportedly getting into an argument about a horse.

Holcomb left Steven and drove back to the barn in a truck, while Steven followed bareback about 30 minutes later, ranch foreman Roger Reitman reported. Holcomb and Steven met in a bunkhouse trailer.

What exactly happened next has been debated for over 11 years.

Holcomb told authorities that Steven kicked open the trailer door and attacked him with a knife. He shot Steven between the eyes with a .22 caliber pistol. When Holcomb called 911, he told the dispatcher it was self defense, Earline said.

Except, the knife Steven allegedly used was sheathed and underneath Steven’s body. Reitman, the only witness, reported he hadn’t seen the knife the first time he saw Steven’s body — only the second time, after he stepped out of the trailer.

Because it happened on a reservation, the FBI was given jurisdiction. They accepted Holcomb’s self-defense account within weeks and told Earline and her husband, Cletus Cole, the case was closed around eight months later. At a meeting shortly after Steven’s death, the lead FBI investigator Matthew Oravec allegedly kept checking his watch and asked, “Who is Steven?”

Cletus and Earline were shocked. When the FBI announced they wouldn’t charge Holcomb with any crime, it was the nail in the coffin. Holcomb would spend one night in jail for a separate DUI offense.

The Coles fought the FBI in court for 11 years, claiming Oravec and the FBI mishandled the investigation and held prejudiced beliefs against Indigenous people. In the end, the Coles let go of their case because of a lack of energy and resources. The FBI never admitted any fault.

“It tore our family apart,” Earline said, recounting the story to a crowd of around 150 people. “We kept saying to ourselves, ‘The wheels of justice will turn for us. We just have to wait’ … We realized the FBI wasn’t going to help us.”

Earline Bearcrane-Cole is far from the only grieving mother who feels her loved one didn’t receive justice.

On Tuesday, she sat on a panel of three, representing families and survivors of missing, murdered and trafficked Indigenous people, and retold her experience at a hearing held by a federally organized commission called the Not Invisible Act Commission.

The goal of the Not Invisible Act Commission, or NIAC, is to create a list of recommended solutions to state, federal and Tribal governments. In order to do that, they held a series of hearings where private citizens and experts could tell their stories and offer their own thoughts on solutions.

While many in the audience were grateful for the efforts to bring justice to their loved ones, some had doubts. It was a lack of federal support, urgency and transparency that created the problem, one speaker said. How could they trust more federal intervention?

Earline said she didn’t know what would work, only that she would do everything she could to “turn the wheels of justice.” If that meant helping the NIAC, so be it.

“I’m not sure what the solutions are,” Earline said. “I can only tell you what I’ve done.”

NIAC hearings

Secretary Deb Haaland of the Department of the Interior helped advocate for The Not Invisible Act, which was signed into law in October 2020.

Its commission was created shortly after, composed of Tribal leaders, law enforcement, federal partners, service providers, families of missing and murdered Indigenous people, and survivors of human trafficking.

Their responsibilities include tracking MMIP and human trafficking data; coordinating resources between federal, state and Tribal lands; keeping Tribal governments included in investigations on Native lands; and coordinating a final report due this October reflecting the best next steps for federal, state and Tribal policy.

As part of this report, the NIAC traveled across the nation for seven in-person hearings, the last of which was at the Billings Hotel and Convention Center on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Hearing locations were selected with both travel distance and MMIP severity in mind.

Indigenous people are four times more likely to go missing in Montana, according to Blackfeet Community College’s MMIP MT project website. A 2022 report from the Montana Department of Justice said Indigenous Montanans made up 30% of missing persons in 2021 despite only making up 6.7% of the population.

The hearings begin with a moment of silence, in which people may speak the names of their missing or murdered loved ones. Of the roughly 100 private attendees, at least 146 names were spoken at the Billings hearing, which included attendees from across the northwest region.

Shortly after, present committee members introduced themselves, and a public panel including Earline Bearcrane-Cole was held.

Recommendations

Committee members were able to direct questions to Earline and her two fellow panelists, who were Mary Kathryn Nagle, an attorney with the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, and Carmen O’Leary, the director of Native Women’s Society of the Great Plains.

Nagle explained one of the greatest barriers to solving the MMIP crisis is a breakdown in federal communication with state and local governments.

When violent crime happens on reservations, the federal government is automatically responsible for the investigation, including the gathering of evidence, Nagle said. However, if federal investigators don’t gather or release evidence, U.S. attorneys can’t prosecute anyone, effectively allowing some criminals to walk free.

Additionally, if a county or state investigator rules the cause of death to be “natural causes” or “suicide,” other investigators may say they are unable to prosecute or investigate further, Nagle said.

Then, even if families are unsatisfied with the investigation or ruling, the Tribal government doesn’t have the authority to challenge it, she said.

“We’re forced to rely on the FBI, which isn’t doing its job,” Nagle said. “We need federal solutions.”

O’Leary added that many families have little to no understanding of the investigative process.

Because of the shock and stigma that centers around missing and murdered people, families can be frozen, having no idea who to contact, O’Leary said. Even the basics like getting food and going to work can feel impossible, and that lack of maintenance can deprive families the energy to push for criminal investigations and prosecutions.

If the FBI or equivalent isn’t guiding the families through the process or connecting them with critical resources, the families won’t be equipped to spot red flags and missed opportunities, O’Leary said, nor will they be able to recognize if their loved one’s investigation isn’t progressing as it should. It can be a form of exploitation.

She advised trauma-informed care be at the top of changed policies. Nagle agreed, remembering the case of Lindsay Whiteman, when an FBI agent dropped off the clothes she was murdered in at her brother’s workplace one year after her death.

The agent arrived without notice and allegedly never discussed the results of the investigation with the family, which further traumatized them, Nagle said. She said she frequently sees families who have no idea if or when their cases will close.

“There need to be consequences,” Nagle said. “Transparency is key.”

Delays in charges

Some families said the investigation isn’t the problem; it’s the prosecution and trial process.

Wa Coomth’ Gail Renee Teo, a Yakama Tribal member, was murdered Aug. 7, 2019, in her home on the Yakama Reservation in Washington state. Her alleged killer, Michael Anthony Davis, a non-Native now 27-year-old man, was apprehended the same day. Video evidence showed him attacking Teo in her home with what appeared to be gardening shears.

Davis was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree robbery and first-degree burglary, and a trial date was set by Yakima County. However, the trial date was repeatedly delayed, and by the third year of delays, the case’s lead investigator and prosecutor retired, Gail Teo’s daughter, Ty’Castni’ Agnes Bautista reported.

The case was reassigned to a prosecutor who’d never done a murder trial, and the Teo family took their concerns to the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington. The Teo family was told the U.S. Attorney would keep an eye on the case. A month later, the case was reassigned after their assigned Yakima County prosecutor was charged with sexual assault.

Now, with their most recent trial date coming up in October and a new prosecutor, Bautista fears yet another delay will come.

“We have been abandoned by the government that made a Treaty Trust Promise to her Ancestors to keep her safe,” Bautista said in a written testimony given to both the NIAC and the Billings Gazette.

While delayed trials were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bautista said she felt four years without prosecution was unacceptable. A lack of capable attorneys available to Indigenous people means even less justice for MMIP, she said. She demanded future reform to address the lack of access to quality attorneys.

“The United States, at minimum, needs to prosecute her murderer,” Bautista said. “The crisis of ‘no justice’ or ‘delayed justice’ for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) is something we as Yakamas and throughout Indian Country have endured for far too long.”

What comes next

Shortly after the panel ended, personal testimony began. Private attendees discussed their perspectives as families and survivors of MMIP and human trafficking. Although the media was barred from the testimony to protect the speakers’ privacy, the testimonies may be released to the public in the future.

NIAC will use the testimonies to inform their final recommendation report coming later this year, committee speakers said.

Some private speakers said they were hopeful the testimonies would bring about change. Others weren’t so certain, and at least one wondered about the ethics of repeatedly asking traumatized families to reopen their wounds for the sake of action.

“This report scares me,” Carmen O’Leary of the Native Women’s Society said. “(I fear) it’s going to be used against us.”

Mary Kathryn Nagle of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center wondered how much could be accomplished without the Department of Justice’s collaboration. She mentioned how she saw considerably more effort to attend meetings from the Department of the Interior and non-federal groups than the DOJ.

Although the DOJ did not comment before publication, a June press release announced the launch of the MMIP Regional Outreach Program, which aims to permanently place 10 attorneys and coordinators in five designated regions across the United States to help combat the MMIP crisis.

For people like Earline Bearcrane-Cole, she said it’s hard to trust action will be taken, especially after months of silence from investigators during her own MMIP case.

“Why did they keep us in turmoil for so long?” she asked. “Maybe they thought we would just go away and accept it.”

Above all else, she implored the committee to highlight care in their recommendation list. She remembers the callous way she was told her son was dead: with an even stare and a uncaring tone, she said.

“I support the blue, but some people in the blue should not be there,” she said. “I know from experience there is a basic lack of compassion.”