@tailyrirvine

Aiyanna Highwolf, one of Allison Highwolf’s four daughters, tends to her mother’s grave in Busby, Montana, a town on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Allison Highwolf’s body was found alone in a motel room in February 2015. She died at 26 years old of smoke inhalation from a fire of unclear origin. Six years later, the circumstances of Ms. Highwolf’s death remain a mystery, one of many involving Native women who disappear or meet violent ends with alarming regularity. Her family and the local authorities agree that the case was shoddily handled and the initial investigation haphazard, as is often the case for Native Americans. “They put her in the category of ‘just another drunken Indian,’” said one of Ms. Highwolf’s sisters, Rhea New Holy. “But she wasn’t.” Today, under pressure from her family and an advocacy group in California, Ms. Highwolf’s case is under review. Pauline Highwolf is relieved it has been reopened, but she says a six-year effort to get there underscores the need for change in the way such cases are handled. “We want to keep fighting, until we are heard,” she said. “And we want everyone who lost someone to keep fighting and know they’re not alone.” My latest work for the @nytimes. Head over to read more words from Elizabeth Williamson on #MMIW and the Highwolf family.