Benjamin Youngbear, a 29-year-old member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, disappeared from Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico on May 25, 2015. His disappearance was treated as suspicious, and roughly six weeks later investigators, following witness information, found his body buried in a shallow grave at a residence within the pueblo. An autopsy confirmed he had been shot to death.

Federal prosecutors later arrested two non-Indian men, 66-year-old Jack R. Patterson, Jr., and 24-year-old Antonio Valdez. Prosecutors alleged Patterson shot Youngbear during a robbery at Patterson’s home and that Valdez assisted in burying the body; court documents also named Valdez’s father, Joey Valdez, as someone alleged to have known about the killing. The case against Antonio Valdez was dismissed in October 2015 for lack of sufficient evidence, and Valdez died in a car accident in January 2016. In April 2016 the U.S. Attorney’s Office moved to dismiss the murder charge against Patterson without prejudice, citing insufficient evidence to proceed.

Youngbear’s life included multiple family tragedies: sent to Ohkay Owingeh at seven after his mother’s death, he lost his father at age twelve. His sister Yvette died in March 2015, and another sister, Nicole, was killed in a July 2015 hit-and-run around the time his body was being discovered.

Did anyone in Ohkay Owingeh or the Northern Cheyenne community have information about Benjamin’s movements in late May 2015?