Plot

The deaths of a group of Native American women in rural Montana are the focus as Native families, journalists, and local law enforcement reveal a violent crisis set in motion almost 200 years ago.

MURDER IN BIG HORN investigates the disappearances and possible murders of a group of Native American women in rural Montana. Within the last decade, dozens of young Indigenous women and girls from the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Nations have been murdered or have gone missing from Big Horn County and its surrounding area; arrests are rare in these cases and convictions virtually non-existent. When grieving Native families press law enforcement for answers, they are met with either indifference or silence.

Elsewhere in America, these crimes would have shocked a community and the nation. National media would have picked up the story. But outside of the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Reservations, it barely registers, leaving a bereft circle of family, friends, and activists on their own, fighting for justice.

This harrowing three-part series examines the circumstances around each disappearance, the searches for the missing, the details of these deeply problematic law enforcement responses, and the challenges with bringing perpetrators to justice. The series also reveals the historical forces at play that make Native American women some of the most vulnerable people in the country, not just in Big Horn County.

Told solely through the perspectives of those involved - Native families, local Native journalists and local law enforcement - what emerges is a powerful portrait of tribal members and their community battling an epidemic of murdered and missing Indigenous women (MMIW) that was set in motion almost 200 years ago.