(Cinematic music begins) (Trent James) Round Valley is a very, very beautiful place.

It's usually always green.

It looks very serene and peaceful.

And I've never seen anything else like it.

It's at the base of the National Forest.

So it's very, very rural, just surrounded by mountains.

And then in the middle of town, you just have the one store, two gas stations, a couple schools.

Everybody knows everybody.

The surrounding area is ranch farmland.

It's approximately, depending on the time of year 1,500 to 2,000 people.

And by the time of year, I mean harvest for weed.

Because then you get an influx of outsiders that kind of boost up the population.

And some people I interacted with had actually never even left the valley before or even seen the ocean.

It's pretty crazy.

(Music ends) (Birds chirping) (Ronnie Hostler) After working in sawmills all my life, I'm up at 6:00.

I did a lot of, yard work.

We used to cut wood, Down at the trailer - we had had a little stove in it.

I did a lot of wood cutting.

Grandkids was our life.

Our daughter, son that we lost was our life.

A nephew that I raised - we raised.

He was - they were all part of our lives.

(Connie Hostler) Khadijah, growing up she always had a mind of her own, even at a young age.

Khadijah was - she's a little hyper.

She just loved people.

She was a very outgoing little girl.

And then when she got into high school, she was caring.

She made a lot of friends through basketball.

She's just a fun child.

Me and her used to fight a lot, but I'd give anything in the world to fight with her again.

(Melancholy music begins) (Ronnie Hostler) We always had hopes that she would go further than that.

when she turned 18, you know, graduated from high school.

She was her own boss then.

Nobody could tell her right from wrong.

She, some peers got into drugs.

That was a sad situation to know that.

(Trent James) What would happen is you have these girls that could go off to do whatever they wanted, but it's such a small community and they're young, they're naive, as most of us are at that age.

They don't know any better.

And they got these older dudes coming around.

Maybe they think they're cool... and they get them hooked on dope.

You see them as the years progress - and not Khadijah, but some of these other ones - I start arresting them.

That once they were young That once they were young and beautiful and had a lot of potential.

Now, they got sores all over their arms, their faces, their teeth are knocked out from their guy or guys punching them.

They're unrecognizable.

(Ronnie Hostler) I prayed that she would get out of that stage.

And she would - wake up.

Then get away.

She was still young enough.

She was only 23 years old.

Still young enough to do whatever she wanted to do.

Khadijah was living with Negie.

They were boyfriend girlfriend - on-and-off at the time - at Negies mom's house, Melissa Britton, at lot nine Agency Road.

kind of just down the street from Ronnie.

(Ronnie Hostler) Khadijah didn't want to go with him so she went to the bathroom.

So he kept hollering at her but she wouldn't come out.

He used a gun.

And I'm sure that Khadijah felt like she had to go with him because this guy Knew what he was.

That he would probably hurt somebody else besides her.

So she went with him.

(Trent James) And just starts beating her up, punching her, kicking her.

Apparently he had a hammer at one point that he had with him.

And hit her with it.

Forced her into his vehicle.

Drove back down the road.

She was able to get out of his car and ran away into a field.

And she's all beat up.

Ive seen the photographs.

Dirt along the whole side of her body - Fat lip - crying.

There's like mascara coming down.

And it's a mess.

When he beat her up in that yard, she wrote a statement to a deputy.

She wrote a statement telling exactly everything that he said to her, everything he did to her.

She wrote a statement.

(Trent James) And this is really weird because again, you don't do that out there.

You do not tell - you do not, I hate to use this term, snitch on, you know, that situation.

And it just doesn't happen.

(Ronnie Hostler) And I felt like if they would have put him in for domestic violence, that my granddaughter would still be with us.

For so long, and still to this day, Indians feel invisible.

They don't feel equal protection under law.

And we constantly see on TV when a coed goes missing, that makes national news, right?

It makes evening news, morning news.

But you don't ever see the Native woman or the the Indigenous woman on the news - hardly ever.

Why are we not notified as a tribe when our children go missing?

You know, why is the public not notified?

You know that's not okay.

Because they're not less valuable than any other child, These women on these reservations do not get the media coverage even a fraction of what a lot of these other cases, very similar circumstances that they get.

And the common phrase that we used around the office, the sheriff's office, is, oh, it's just Covelo, it's just Covelo.

Everybody said that.

And what that means is it's only Covelo.

Who cares?

It's never going to change.

This is how it's been for decades and decades and decades.

Nothing is going to change it.

And they looked at all of those people as criminals.

(Connie Hostler) My daughter, Khadija Rose Britton.

on the day she went missing, she called me on my phone and said, “Mommy, whatever you do, don't open the door and to lay low.” I immediately thought that her life was in jeopardy.

Because of how violent he is.

Prison guy.

Always beating her up.

Doesn't care.

Psycho.

Narcissist.

It's all about him.

And she's - in his mind, he's on prison rules still.

You're snitching me out to the cops.

You're dead.

So Khadijah is out with this house party.

Middle of the night, you know.

One, two, 3:00 in the morning.

Negie forces Khadijah into the SUV and they drive off.

And Negie, tells Sammy, “Hey, stop the car.

We're getting out.

And Sammy stops the car.

Negie drags Khadijah out of the car, tells Sammy to leave.

Sammy drives back to her house, which is about a mile away.

And then about 30 minutes go by, according to Sammy.

And Negie calls her while she's still at home, and he sounded distraught, upset on the phone and was like, “Come get me back out at the airport.” So she drives back out there, sees Negie standing there by himself, and she said, “Where's Khadijah?” And he wouldn't say.

(Ominous music ends) (Traffic noise) (Jesse Armstrong) Today we are in Ukiah, California for an MMIW rally.

Khadijah Britton's been missing since February 7th, 2018 and we've got a lot of activists here from across California.

I've got the family here of Khadijah over here ready to make noise.

(Native language) So MMIP/MMIW, missing and murdered Indigenous persons, or people or women.

The MMIW which is a giant movement and crisis, plagues pretty much every single reservation in the country.

(Matthew Kendall) we have drug dealers coming into impoverished areas onto Native American reservations.

and these folks, when they come in, they basically make victims out of everyone that they touch.

They turn them into slaves with drugs.

But everybody thinks that if you're on a reservation, that's your problem.

It's not my problem.

We're human beings.

We're not meant to be abused, to be raped, to be thrown away.

We're trying to save them all.

How do we do that?

We come together like this.

(Native singing) This could be your child.

This could be your neighbor's kid.

This could be your family member.

Now is the time for everyone when they see something to say something.

If they know something, then they need to say something.

The prison mentality does not work for society, and eventually it comes around to get all of us.

(Jesse Armstrong) I think our women are being heard, and I think us men have got to step up and be better role models.

If we're going to break this cycle, it's going to be up to us men.

You know us warriors to step up and say, “Hey, we got to quit this.” Lonnie May!

Found in Eureka!

Still no justice!

Mikey Logan!

Still no justice!

(Marge Grow) We're still praying for Khadija to come home.

We say her name.

Look at all this that we travel with.

She is always with us because we're hoping one day somebody comes up and says, that's that girl right there.

She's sitting right there.

Say her name!

Khadijah!

Say her name!

Khadijah!

Say her name!

Khadijah!

(Trent James) Unsolved murders for the MMIP, MMIW, the ones that have to continue with that obviously are the families.

That's who it affects.

And that consumes their entire life.

I mean, yeah, you look at Ronnie day in and day out.

That's all he's doing now.

The guys in his 80s, the last six years, that's all he does.

My husband has traveled.

He's been doing this many years now, till now, trying to get justice.

We want justice.

(Ronnie Hostler) They keep telling me that, you know, it's going to take time, but, like I keep telling them that Time is not on my side.

Its time for the community to give back.

His family's suffering right now.

There are people out there who know what happened here.

They just need to talk.

I don't want anyone going through what we're going through with my daughter and grandson.

About our family.

I'm talking about our little family.

I don't want to see anybody ever have to go through that.

(Dennis Ramirez) In 1994, my niece just turned 21.

She had dinner with her boyfriend - ex-boyfriends, parents and her little child, who was, two, three years old at the time.

She left the child at the parents place, and she went home.

And he was supposed to be there with the child.

Rode his bicycle across town, put it in the bushes, wore all black.

Went up to her apartment.

And went up - then into the apartment and it was a he said she said that, she wanted sex and he did not.

And supposedly she slapped him.

Well, what happened was he literally beat her, beat her bad, filled up the bathtub.

And drowned her.

And when it went to court, it was in Red Bluff.

And I blame the jury because it was all male.

And they were white it was his word against hers.

And he was sentenced to 7 years for involuntary manslaughter.

And he was out in five for good behavior.

(Sad music ends) (Eerie music begins) (Trent James) Unfortunately for anything to happen in Covelo in terms of cops getting off their butt to go do anything out there like the detective unit and that sort of thing, you have to have major pressure from the community and from the families onto the sheriff's office before they will get it into gear.

And that's what had to happen here.

The night my granddaughter was taken, the lieutenant at that time said, told all 3 or 4 deputies around him that he knew her.

And she was a tweaker, and she would show up someplace.

That's why there was no urgency.

1 or 2 weeks went by And you got Ronnie and Connie and Lidge, her dad, and a bunch of other people started to hound the sheriff's office.

Justifiably so.

Like, hey, what's are you guys not going to come out?

What's the deal?

Nobody came.

It took them two weeks to actually bring somebody up here to do something.

(Trent James) After 48 hours, your chances of solving a homicide go down drastically to almost nonexistent.

when it comes down to it, When it comes down to it, midnight on the reservation, nobody comes.

(Ronnie Hostler) And I still say right to this day if they would have came in that same day, she would be with us today.

(Trent James) Melissa Britton had been seen hosing out blood from inside the house one day.

I forgot what witness saw this and like, oh, well, they killed, Khadijah inside the house.

So we had the forensic unit, the Department of Justice come out from Sacramento And they obtained samples from the walls and all that stuff.

So there was blood in there, but it was canine blood.

Melissa and them had been just super high, killed a bunch of dogs, chucked them on a bonfire in the front yard.

I guess, as you do.

Nothing came of any of it.

They drained that pond out by the airport.

Where they thought that maybe Negie had thrown her body in the pond out there.

Nothing in that.

(Music intensifies) Eventually.

we were able to locate Negie.

He was out for, like, a month.

And Negies just sitting there in handcuffs - nonchalant Again, this is not his first rodeo.

So he's just like, “I don't know.

I don't know where she's at.

It's not my business.” So I was like, “That's not your business?

Arent you guys dating?” “I don't know.” The detectives like, “Well, you have daughters, right?” “Yeah.” “How would you feel if that was your daughter thats out there missing?” “Yeah, thatd be terrible.” Just like that.

Doesn't care.

There's no soul in that guy.

He doesn't have any feelings.

This will never be solved via confession, ever.

It's not going to happen.

(Ominous music ends) (Ambient traffic noise) (Abby Abinanti) Well, in any instance where you're trying to figure out whose problem is it, I think it is the problem of society.

It is a problem that impacts all of us.

And if you lose your humanity in a discussion and say it's okay to murder X people because they're just, you know, they don't count, that's not okay.

It wouldn't be okay if it was happening to non-tribal people.

It's just period, not okay.

We're still human.

We still have - Were still owed that justice, and we're still owed that respect.

When you have these cops and they look at these people like that subhuman, basically.

They don't they don't matter, (Native music playing) (Deserea Landley) Why would these women leave their homes?

Why would they leave their land?

Why would they leave their children or their grandchildren or their nieces and nephews?

You know, they mean something to their communities.

These women aren't just getting up and walking away, you know, put it into perspective of you.

Would you just leave your home one day and never return?

You wouldn't do that.

As Native women were here, were present, but most of all were important.

And we deserve to be able to be protected.

(Sad music begins) Three years now and we finally got our granddaughter finally got on the Channel 2 News in San Francisco.

We tried to do that from Day One.

It was told that It wasnt newsworthy because it was on the reservation.

(Piano begins) (Trent James) The family started to get very, very mad about this and sad.

And they started to realize like damn, she's probably not coming back.

And they saw Ronnie and them saw that the sheriff's office didn't care.

(Jesse Armstrong) People want to know why is this happening?

Basically, it's historical trauma.

To not care when our women and girls go missing, when our family members go missing just is another way to dehumanize us and to continue the treatment that we've been faced with since colonization.

(Deserea Langley) Native people have never mattered here within the state or the United States.

Right.

Native people have been an object that we needed to exterminate so we could have access to land.

Because without Native people being on the land, that means the United States or the California government has more access to those lands.

and Native lives are expendable in that way, right?

Because land is prioritized over basic human life.

(Angi Moon Cavaliere) So if you look at the history throughout from colonization forward from first contact, the best way to commit genocide was to ruin the future.

How do you ruin the future of a people?

You take their women and their children because that's where the future comes from.

And it's not just in indigenous cultures.

That's in every culture.

The future of the people come from the women and the children.

(Alanna Lee Nulph) It just switched from state sponsored genocide switch to boarding schools.

You know, kill the Indians, save the man.

And my grandmother, she had chains, scars on her wrists.

And I'm only 30 years old, and I remember that.

(Trent James) You have Khadija Britton, where her grandfather Ronnie is having to do all the work himself, calling all of these agencies, hey, can you please come out and help because nobody's doing anything.

One thing I want just, (Ronnie Hostler) One thing I want is justice, These people are never gonna forget me.

Never.

That's a promise.

(Sad music ends) (Traffic noise) (Native music begins) (Ronnie Hostler) Well, I had to go to Sacramento and that was really awesome that I got to talk in front of, like, 200 people.

Today our granddaughter and her daughter has been missing for five years.

People are starting to forget about our granddaughter.

They're forgetting about her, and we don't want that.

I need, I need all of you.

I need everybody to start getting involved in this, what's going on in these sheriff departments.

(Native music begins) (Crowd) Oh!

(Speaker) California women and girls are going missing and being murdered at exponentially increasing rates.

Over half of those cases documented in California have occurred in the last three years.

(Other speaker) This is a an emergency.

And I hope that this today is like a siren that goes off for law enforcement and everybody to respond accordingly.

To treat it as an emergency, that it is.

(Native music begins) (James Ramos) This is very important.

One in three women in Indian country statistics show that they will be involved in some type of traumatic experience.

1 in 3.

We should be able to come together as a community and as a state to change that statistic and data around.

That's what we need to do here in the state of California.

(Deserea Langley) I fear that there's never going to be a response, right, that people aren't going to be educated about this issue, that they're not going to want to do something about this issue.

(Inspiring music) I hope that the the louder that we are, the more publicity that well receive.

And we're not just waiting on lawmakers to make decisions on our behalf, but we have communities show up.

We experience violence at a higher rate.

And we need to make sure that our women and children are protected.

We are important, and we need the larger community to also understand and acknowledge that we're important.

(Sandra Knight) So I guess bringing awareness, right?

Keep talking about it.

And for us, it's lobbying for extra dollars to to have the capacity to do that.

And really lean on our local law enforcement.

If I could tell anybody in this world, show them anything, have them listen to me.

I would show them a picture of my niece.

I just want, the people that see this to understand that it's important to hang on to the loved ones to love them each day, that they leave that door.

I love my niece.

I miss my niece.

I wish she was around to see her son grow up to be a nice young man.

(Music intensifies) Such a broken system that guys get out like him to walk around free because he's never going to face the consequences of his actions, you know, and she doesn't get to be here anymore.

(Lydia Hostler) And I still her coming up our ramp and waiting for her to, you know, knock on the door.

But, you know, and it's hard.

It's hard.

(Connie Hostler) All I want is justice for my child.

I want somebody to care for my child.

(Music softens) I'm talking for her now.

Me.

And I'm going to keep talking.

Until I get justice.

Im not going to quit.

(Music begins)