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Indigenous families in Montana are learning forensic skills to search for their own missing relatives.

At a campground on the Blackfeet Reservation, community members recently practiced walking in coordinated lines, documenting disturbed soil and identifying objects that could become evidence in a missing-person investigation.

The two-day course was organized by Ohkomi Forensics, a nonprofit founded by forensic anthropologist Haley Omeasoo to support Native American families affected by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis.

Native Americans make up about 7 percent of Montana’s population but accounted for approximately 31 percent of the state’s missing-person cases in 2025.

Rural and tribal law enforcement agencies are often understaffed and underfunded. Investigations can also cross tribal, state and federal jurisdictions, creating confusion and delays. As a result, relatives and community members frequently organize their own searches.

But searching without training can accidentally damage evidence.

Omeasoo’s course teaches participants how to conduct systematic line searches, record GPS coordinates, photograph objects for scale and recognize possible human bones. Searchers are instructed to flag potential evidence without touching it and immediately contact law enforcement.

Once evidence is moved or contaminated, investigators may struggle to reconstruct what happened, and it can become harder to use in court.

Omeasoo founded the organization partly because her former classmate, Ashley Loring Heavyrunner, disappeared in 2017 and has never been found. Many participants also had relatives who disappeared or were later found dead.

Among them were Irene and Asiah Pepion, whose 3-year-old relative Arden Pepion vanished in 2021. Their family is preparing to search for her again.

Omeasoo says families should not have to become forensic searchers.

But until every disappearance receives the resources and urgency it deserves, they are learning how to search carefully, preserve evidence and bring their relatives home.

Learn more:
“On the Blackfeet Reservation, families learn to search for their own missing relatives.” Montana Free Press.