Gaining the trust of a missing young mother’s family, AP tells her tragic story, illustrating the factors behind the disappearance and killing of Native American women across the U.S.
A photo of Emmilee Risling sits on a table at the Risling family home in McKinleyville, Calif., Jan. 21, 2022.
AP Photo / NATHAN HOWARD
In a powerful all-formats package that resonated for days with audiences and advocates, reporter and video journalist Gillian Flaccus documented the seemingly intractable problem of missing and slain Indigenous women by highlighting the case of one young mother in Northern California.
Portland, Oregon-based Flaccus and freelance photographer Nathan Howard traveled to Northern California’s rugged Lost Coast to tell the story of Emmilee Risling, who had behaved erratically for months, hitchhiking and wandering naked through two Native American reservations and a small town. When she was charged with a petty crime, her family hoped she would be forced by authorities to get help. Instead, she was released in October and has been missing ever since.
Risling’s disappearance and the ongoing rise in missing and exploited Indigenous women prompted the Yurok Tribe to declare a state of emergency and brought increased urgency to efforts to build the first comprehensive database of such cases in California. The AP team used Risling’s story as a narrative thread to illustrate the factors that contribute to the disappearance and murder of Native women. The situation is dire as studies show Native American women face murder rates almost three times those of white women overall — and up to 10 times the national average.
“You say, ‘OK, how did we get to this situation where we’re losing our children?’” said Judge Abby Abinanti, chief judge of the Yurok Tribal Court.
Missing woman Emmilee Risling holds her infant daughter at a home in California in a December 2020 photo provided by her sister. The 33-year-old college graduate — an accomplished traditional dancer with ancestry from three area tribes — was last seen more than four months ago walking across a bridge in a far corner of the Yurok Reservation. After her daughter’s birth, Emmilee’s troubles spiraled quickly, “like a light switched,” and she began to let go of the Native identity that had defined her character, said her sister Mary.
Mary Risling via AP
Her disappearance is one of five instances in the past 18 months where Indigenous women have gone missing or been killed in an isolated expanse of Pacific coastline between San Francisco and Oregon, a region where the Yurok, Hupa, Karuk and Wiyot people have co-existed for millenia.
Mary Risling via AP
Emmilee Risling, right, poses with her great-aunt and adoptive grandmother, Viola Risling-Ryerson, after her 2014 graduation from the University of Oregon in Eugene, Ore., in a photo provided by her father.
Gary Risling via AP
Mary Risling stands near a photo of her missing sister, Emmilee Risling, at the family home in McKinleyville, Calif., Jan. 21, 2022.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
At the family home in McKinleyville, Calif., Jan. 21, 2022, Gary Risling, left, and Judy Risling talk about the disappearance of their daughter Emmilee Risling. Emmilee was last seen more than four months ago walking across a bridge in a remote corner of the Yurok Reservation, two hours from the nearest town.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
Judy Risling wipes away a tear as she speaks at the family home in McKinleyville, Calif., Jan. 21, 2022, about the disappearance four months earlier of her daughter Emmilee Risling.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
At the family home in McKinleyville, Calif., Jan. 21, 2022, Gary Risling holds dancing regalia that had been used by his missing daughter, Emmilee Risling. The 33-year-old college graduate had been an accomplished traditional dancer with ancestry from three area tribes. She disappeared from a remote corner of the Yurok Reservation four months ago.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
A sign for the Pem Mey Fuel Mart, one of the only stores in Klamath, Calif., displays a notice about missing woman Emmilee Risling, Jan. 21, 2022.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
In Klamath, Calif., Jan. 19, 2021, Yurok Tribal Police Chief Greg O’Rourke visits the last confirmed location where Emmilee Risling was seen before going missing in October 2021. The remote terrain where Emmilee was last seen — two hours from the nearest town — presented obstacles in conducting a search for her.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
Yurok Tribal Police Chief Greg O'Rourke poses for a photo on a dirt road that runs between the Yurok and Hoopa reservations in Klamath, Calif., Jan. 19, 2021. O’Rourke, who knew Emmilee Risling well, says his work is frequently stymied by a broader system that discounts tribal sovereignty “The role of police is protect the vulnerable. As tribal police, we’re doing that in a system that’s broken,” he said. “I think that is the reason that Native women get all but dismissed.”
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
Yurok Tribal Police Chief Greg O'Rourke drives through the Yurok Reservation, Jan. 19, 2021,revisiting the sites where Emmilee Risling was last seen, in Klamath, Calif.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
The remote area known as End of Road is seen on the Yurok Reservation, Jan. 19, 2022, near the bridge where Emmilee Risling was last seen in October 2021.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
In Klamath, Calif., Jan. 20, 2022, Abby Abinanti, chief judge of the Yurok Tribal Court, talks about improvements to the tribal court system which she hopes would prevent cases like the disappearance of Emmilee Risling. Virtually all of the area’s Indigenous residents, including Risling, have ancestors who were shipped to boarding schools as children and forced to give up their language and culture as part of a federal assimilation campaign. Earlier still, Yurok people spent years away from home as indentured servants for colonizers, said Abinanti. The trauma caused by those removals echoes among the Yurok in the form of drug abuse and domestic violence, which trickles down to the youth, she said.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
Students at Trinidad Elementary School use shadow puppets to tell the traditional Yurok story of a little bird seeking refuge, in Trinidad, Calif., Jan. 19, 2022. Schools near the Yurok reservation have begun teaching tribal and non-tribal students alike about their peoples’ history as part of a plan to reinforce cultural roots with the tribes’ youngest members.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
Maile Kane, 13, left, and her sister Gracie, 9, jump on a trampoline outside their home in Hoopa, Calif., Jan. 20, 2022. The girls’ mother, Brandice Davis, said she grew up with missing woman Emmilee Risling and worries about the safety of her own daughters.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
Former Hoopa Valley Tribal Police Chief Bob Kane, right, who helped to investigate the disappearance of Emmilee Risling, embraces his wife Brandice Davis as they talk about Risling’s case at their home in Hoopa, Calif., Jan. 20, 2022. Davis, who knew Risling growing up, said that she worries her girls could could go missing like hundreds of other Indigenous women throughout the country.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
Brandice Davis hugs her daughter Maile Kane, 13, while talking about the disappearance of Davis’ friend Emmilee Risling at their home in Hoopa, Calif., Jan. 20, 2022. “Here, we’re all related, in a sense,” she said of the place where many families are connected by marriage or community ties. She cautions her daughters about what it means to be female, Native American and growing up on a reservation: “You’re a statistic. But we have to keep going. We have to show people we’re still here.”
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
Maile Kane, 13, walks with her grandmother's dog, Charlie, outside her family’s home in Hoopa, Calif.Jan. 20, 2022. Her mother, Brandice Davis, grew up with Emmilee Risling who has been missing since October, and Davis worries about the safety of her own daughters.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
The area known as End of Road, where Emmilee Risling was last seen before going missing in October 2021, is shown in Klamath, Calif., Jan. 19, 2021. Five Indigenous women in the past 18 months have gone missing or been murdered between San Francisco and the Oregon border. The recent cases spotlight an epidemic that is difficult to quantify but has long disproportionately plagued Native Americans. The crisis has spurred the Yurok Tribe to issue an emergency declaration and brought increased urgency to efforts to build California’s first database of such cases and regain sovereignty over key services.
AP Photo / Nathan Howard
Flaccus and Howard spent time with local officials trying to combat the problem, pressed law enforcement outside the reservations about why more wasn’t being done and, most powerfully, detailed the anguish Risling’s disappearance has caused for her family, especially her young son. Risling’s family had never talked to any media before and Flaccus went through several intermediaries to convince them to share the family’s story.
“It’s real difficult when you deal with the grandkids, and the grandkid says, ‘Grandpa, can you take me down the river and can we look for my mama?’ What do you tell him? ‘We’re looking, we’re looking every day,’” said Gary Risling, choking back tears. “And then he says, ‘What happens if we can’t find her?”
With text and video by Flaccus and evocative photos by Howard, the all-formats package scored near the top of AP’s reader engagement for the better part of a week — at a time when massive news like the run-up to the Ukraine invasion was dominating headlines. The story was used prominently across the U.S. West, including in Oregon’s largest newspaper and by large regional TV stations.
The video was produced by Seattle-based video journalist Manuel Valdes, and the story was edited by West Desk enterprise editor Katie Oyan; digital storyteller Samantha Shotzbarger assembled the text and visual elements into a compelling online presentation.
Flaccus received praise from people who have been working on this matter for years, thanking her and AP for the comprehensive and sensitive work. Gabe Galanda, a prominent Indigenous rights attorney in Seattle, tweeted: “Thank you @gflaccus for the most powerful #MMIWG story I’ve ever read. We need more such ‘360’ coverage of the epidemic.”
For compelling coverage of one woman’s disappearance to shine a light on a crisis besetting Native Americans, the team of Flaccus, Howard, Valdes and Oyan is AP’s Best of the Week — Second Winner.
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