Tanya Teresa Begay, a 36-year-old Navajo woman, was last seen on March 3, 2017, in Tohatchi, New Mexico, after a stop at her father’s home. She had been traveling from Leupp, Arizona, to her family’s home near Gallup, New Mexico with her then-boyfriend, Jason Alan Thornburg; that visit to her father was the last confirmed sighting by family. Tanya was close with her family and her two children and kept regular contact by calls and texts.

Her vehicle was later recovered, but no trace of Tanya has been found and her remains remain missing. In 2021 Thornburg was arrested in Fort Worth on unrelated capital murder charges; he confessed to multiple killings and reportedly told detectives he had killed and “sacrificed” his girlfriend, a name redacted in the warrant that family members identified as Tanya Begay. Neighbors reported seeing Thornburg burning unknown items near his home in Dilkon, Arizona two days before Tanya was reported missing.

The FBI lists her case as open, and her family continues to seek answers and justice.