In many Indigenous families, someone holds the honor of being the best breadmaker. No recipe, no measuring – just hands and muscle memory. For Katrina Yazzie, that person was her cousin.
“She was a good tortilla maker,” Katrina said with a smile on her face. “She’d make tortillas and sell them, that’s how she made her money.”
Molina Yazzie, known by her loved ones as Shaggy, was a jokester with “a heart of gold,” Katrina told Arizona Luminaria. She’d give the shirt off her back to anyone who needed it, she said.
It stood in contrast to the response her family said they received when Molina went missing in 2017 from the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation based in Parker. She was found dead a few weeks later, though her family still has doubts about what officials determined happened to her.
This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two Spirit and Transgender People (MMIWG2T).
Years have passed with no police report, no real explanation. Just silence, and a lot of wondering – a pattern Indigenous people often say they face when a loved one goes missing or is murdered on tribal land.
The exact number of Indigenous people who are missing or have been murdered in Arizona remains unknown. In 2017 alone, at least five Indigenous women were killed, according to a database launched by Arizona Luminaria earlier this year. The database isn’t a complete accounting, but so far reflects just under 100 Indigenous women and girls missing or murdered in Arizona.
The year before Molina’s disappearance, another member of the Colorado River Indian Tribes, Cynthia Williams, also went missing and was found brutally murdered in the same community. Her killers were eventually convicted and sentenced in 2018 to 25 years in prison.
Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized Tribal Nations, and was identified in a 2018 study as having the third-highest number of Indigenous women and girls going missing or being murdered in the country.
In 2020, a legislative study found that 160 Indigenous women and girls were murdered in Arizona between 1976 and 2018 — a total that steadily increased in those 40 years. Additionally, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System showed just over 90 Native Americans were reported missing in Arizona as of Wednesday.
‘We’re going to have to do it ourselves’
Molina was technically Katrina’s cousin, but they grew up in the same house and were raised by Katrina’s parents. “She was more like my big sister,” Katrina said.
When Molina went missing in mid-August, Katrina says her family tried to file a report with the Colorado River Indian Tribes Police Department, but the agency refused to take one. By then, a week had passed since anyone had heard from her.
“The cop said maybe she didn’t want to be found because she’s an adult, but that wasn’t like her,” she recalled. “She kept in touch with everybody – if it wasn’t with me…it was always somebody within the family.”
“I was really upset because of the fact that the authorities didn’t want to help us,” she said. “So I took matters into my own hands and got my family and told them that if they’re (the police) not going to help us, then we’re going to have to do it ourselves.”
Katrina says they searched day and night for Molina, asking if anyone in the community had seen her. One of Molina’s four children was pregnant at the time but still joined the search.
“She was out there saying, ‘Mom, if you can hear me, tell me you’re here,’” Katrina recalled. “It really made me upset.”
At one point, the family was shown surveillance footage from a local gas station that likely captured one of Molina’s final moments alive in late August.
“She bought two hot dogs, two chips and two Pepsis, and she doesn’t drink Pepsi,” Katrina said, adding that Molina kept looking out the window and seemed to be stalling. “I thought that was weird.”
Days later on Sept. 8, a farmer working a field on the reservation south of Parker found a body and reported it to tribal police. It was Molina.
Official findings
To this day, her family hasn’t received the police report associated with the discovery, despite requesting it at least once a year, according to Katrina. They have a copy of her Sept. 11 autopsy report from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, which ruled her death an accident caused by a drug overdose. The office in 2017 performed autopsies for La Paz County when needed, but didn’t formally take over as its medical examiner until a few years later.
The autopsy report also notes that Molina’s eyes, “digits of the left hand” and most of her internal organs were absent without offering possible reasons why. Pima County Chief Medical Examiner Gregory Hess told Arizona Luminaria in an email that “absent” meant they were missing due to “both decomposition and animal activity.”
But Katrina says her family was told at one point that Molina’s eyes were intentionally cut out. She initially attributed that information to the medical examiner’s office, but later said she couldn’t recall who or when exactly it was said.
Hess said radiographs were used to look for inflicted injuries on Molina and none were found. He also explained that exposed areas like fingers and eyes are “consumed by the environment more quickly” than other parts of the body when left outdoors.
“We would be happy to discuss with family if they wish,” Hess wrote. “I don’t see any notes indicating anyone has reached out to us concerning this death.”
“There is no indication that Molina’s eyes and fingers were intentionally removed so I find it very unlikely that someone in this office would opine such without any evidence,” he later added.
Rebecca Hsu, an independent forensic pathologist who reviewed Molina’s autopsy report, said her body’s condition would’ve made it nearly impossible to detect subtle injuries like strangulation.
“I am not saying it is or is not a homicide,” she said. But it is ruled accidental because they don’t have any reason just by looking at the body, keep in mind that’s all they have.”
While Hsu referred to the report as “very limited,” she also concluded that Molina’s missing features were likely due to animal activity, which she agreed is common in outdoor recoveries. She said the office’s radiographs and photos, if taken, could still be used to help explain what caused Molina’s limbs to go missing, though, she noted that such graphic materials are rarely shared with families.
Hsu said the report should have more thoroughly explained the office’s findings, adding that missing or vague language risks confusing families and deepening their distress. While national standards recommend that autopsy reports include interpretive details and scene context, Hsu noted those guidelines are broad and unenforceable, and that ultimately it’s left to each examiner’s discretion.
Community advocacy
Almost a decade later, Katrina says her family still believes Molina was murdered and that tribal police and Bureau of Indian Affairs’ investigators closed her case too quickly. Neither agency has responded to inquiries from Arizona Luminaria about Molina’s case.
Katrina also expressed skepticism in Pima County’s autopsy findings and follow-up responses to Arizona Luminaria, questioning how they could definitively know Molina’s missing limbs could be attributed to animals.
“I stand on what I believe,” she said.
She said the area where Molina was found further raised suspicion because it isn’t a known hangout spot – it’s dark and secluded, and she can’t think of any reason Molina would’ve been there. There have also been rumors in the community about what happened to Molina, but no one has officially come forward.
“I feel like the people that she was hanging out with at the time, they all know. But nobody’s gonna say,” Katrina said.
Katrina had known about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People movement long before Molina disappeared. Her friend Raymond Meza, Cynthia Williams’ brother, had been advocating for the cause in their community and sharing Cynthia’s story – efforts Katrina quietly supported, at first.
“I didn’t know what it was really about until a year later, when she (Molina) passed away,” Katrina said. “I knew what it was all about then.”
Now, she helps Raymond organize community events and shares her own family’s story more widely. The work has also made her more aware of how drugs and alcohol seem to be driving the issue in her community, and how law enforcement often seems indifferent.
The trauma of losing Molina has seeped into Katrina’s everyday life. She takes photos of her children anytime they leave with someone, just in case she needs to describe them later. “I know it kind of sounds sad,” she said. “But don’t end up like how we did, not knowing what she was wearing, where she was at or who she was with.”
Talking about Molina isn’t easy, but Katrina says it helps. It’s how she makes sense of what happened, and why she keeps going.
“I have to do it,” she said. “I want to be the voice for them because they’re not here.”
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
