Remains of Missing Native American Woman Found in Unplugged Freezer

Victor Westerkamp
By Victor Westerkamp
July 16, 2019US News
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Remains of Missing Native American Woman Found in Unplugged Freezer
Stock image of police tape. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

The remains of a missing Native American woman have been found in an unplugged freezer in Washington state.

Rosenda Strong, 31, went missing last October after leaving with a friend to go to Legends Casino in Toppenish. The mother of four had been staying with her sister in Wapato at the time, reported The Seattle Times.

Her remains were found on July 4 in an unplugged freezer by two homeless men near Toppenish in Yakima County on the Yakama Reservation, the newspaper reported.



“My baby sister Rosenda (Strong’s) remains (were) found in a freezer. Yes it has been confirmed to me this morning from the FBI agent working on my sister’s case,” Strong’s sister Cissy Strong-Reyes said in a Facebook post on Friday, July 12. “We have her back; not the way we wanted but we can after 275 days of looking, wondering, our baby sister, mother, aunt, cousin, friend is coming home to our mother.”

“That’s not something I wanted to carry my sister with,” Reyes told Yaktri News. “I wanted to grow old with her. She’s my sister.”

Dental records confirmed the remains to be those of Strong. Her death has been classified as a homicide and the cause of death is still under investigation, the Yakima County Coroner’s Office said in a statement.

Reyes had been increasingly outspoken about her sister’s disappearance and has said she believes the perpetrators are within the tribe’s community.

“You know who you are. (You’re) still walking the streets and my sister goes missing and the last ones she was around were her friends,” Reyes has said, according to the Seattle Times. “(You) were last to see her alive. (You) were the last to hear her cries. (You) were the last to see her pain.”

Since Strong’s disappearance, Reyes had passed out flyers and posters and held meetings. She also created a Facebook group called “Help Us Find Rosenda Strong.” The aim was to create a platform where people could give tips and share information about the high number of casualties among American Indian women. In Yakima County this year, there have been 18 homicides, with Strong included.

The Yakama Nation Police Department has asked anyone with information to call 509-865-2933 or the FBI at 509-990-0857 regarding case number 18-010803.



A report from the Washington State Patrol released in June (pdf), found that at least 20 indigenous women were missing in Yakima County at the time. However, activists believe the number is closer to 32, according to Yaktri News.

More than half of native women encountered sexual and domestic violence at some point in their lives, according to a 2010 Department of Justice report (pdf).

One estimate from the National Crime Information Center shows 5,712 reports of missing Native American women in 2016 alone, CNN reported.

In some states, the homicide rate of local American women is ten times higher than the national average. Nationwide, murder ranks as the third-highest cause of death, according to statistics of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Yaktri News reported.



On Sunday, July 14, friends and family commemorated Strong during a candlelight vigil at Pioneer Park.

Strong’s family plans to bury her alongside her mother’s in Mother Earth’s womb in their home at Umatilla Reservation.

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