Brian Laundrie, who was found dead last month in a Florida swamp, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials announced Tuesday.Laundrie had been the subject of a manhunt for more than a month as investigators searched for clues in the slaying of his girlfriend, Gabby Petito, during their cross-country van trip together.The medical examiner in Sarasota County, where Laundrie's body was found, said in a news release that the cause of death was a gunshot wound, and the manner of death was suicide.Attorney Steve Bertolino, who represents Laundrie's parents, said in a statement that the family had been informed about the autopsy results."Chris and Roberta are still mourning the loss of their son and are hopeful that these findings bring closure to both families," Bertolino said.Found in a Florida nature preserve, Laundrie's skeletal remains were positively identified last month using dental records.The discovery of the remains concluded a massive search involving federal, state and local law enforcement that began shortly after Laundrie disappeared Sept. 14, two weeks after the 23-year-old returned alone to his parents' home in North Port, Florida.The investigation into Petito’s slaying, however, has not yet concluded. But only Laundrie was ever identified by law enforcement officials as a person of interest in the case.Petito’s family reported the 22-year-old woman missing Sept. 11, launching a search that garnered worldwide media attention and, in Laundrie’s case, focused largely on the Carlton Reserve wilderness park near the Laundrie home. It is a densely wooded, swampy area that’s home to alligators, coyotes, bobcats, snakes and numerous other creatures.Petito's remains were discovered Sept. 19 on the edge of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, one of the places the young couple had visited on the trip they documented through social media videos. Authorities said the body had been there for about a month.An autopsy in Wyoming concluded Petito died by strangulation and that it was a homicide. Laundrie was listed as a "person of interest" in her killing but he was charged only with fraudulent use of a debit card that was not his.Richard Stafford, attorney for Petito’s family, said they would have no immediate comment on Laundrie’s cause of death.

CHICAGO, Ill. — On the west side of Chicago, Damon Lamar Reed shows off a portion of his "Still Searching" portrait project.

"I was kind of oblivious to this stuff, and when I started doing research and finding out things, it was really shocking," he said. "I just wanted to do something."

He’s using his talent to draw more eyes to the dozens and dozens of unsolved cases of missing and murdered Black women that have plagued the south and west sides of Chicago for decades. It's an issue many may not have heard of outside of those neighborhoods.

"We're one of the biggest cities in the United States. Not only should this be a priority for our police department, but this should be national, international news," said Nikki Patin.

Patin is the community director for the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, one of the local organizations that have been sounding the alarm about what’s happening in the city.

Since 2001, at least 75 women, ages 15 to 58, mostly Black, who were missing were eventually found murdered in similar ways: most died of strangulation. Their bodies were found in alleys, dumpsters and abandoned buildings around the south and west sides of Chicago. Fifty- one of those murders are unsolved.

"The problem is that in most places, I think that would trigger somebody saying, 'Hmm, there's a pattern,'" said Patin, "but as far as I know, on like a major media level, there's not been a lot of discussion."

Advocates like Patin say the reason so many of these women and their families haven’t received justice is because of the color of their skin and the neighborhoods they come from. She says instead of seeing someone who needs to be found, many assume that Black women and girls who go missing led dangerous lives and put themselves in harm's way.

"That's why you choose to live in a civil society, right? Because you are paying into a system that hopefully has your best interests at heart, and I think that, especially in the cases of missing and murdered Black women, it's heartbreakingly clear that, that is not applied to all of us," she said.

Last year, 250,000 women went missing and 100,000 were women of color. On average, African Americans remain missing four times longer than white Americans. The highly-publicized Gabby Petito case threw into the spotlight the disparities in media coverage that missing women of color receive compared to missing white women. It's a statistic that Gabby’s father even brought up to the media himself.

"There's something wrong. and it's an American tragedy, " said Rev. Robin Hood.

Rev. Hood is a pastor in Chicago’s west side. As an ambassador for his own community, he’s been working with the families of many missing and murdered women. Recently, he’s been helping the family of Shawteiya Smith, who was murdered four years ago. It was recently found that DNA evidence from her case vanished in the hands of detectives.

"We have to protect all our women, all our girls, all our children, we have to protect and we have to demand this from a public official and law enforcement."

Natalie Wilson is the founder of Black and Missing Foundation. With her public relations background, she works with families whose loved ones don't get media coverage. She hopes that both reporters and folks from white communities help in the search for missing women everywhere.

"Media coverage is so vital because it alerts the community that someone is missing and it can greater the chance of the recovery, but it also puts pressure on law enforcement to add resources to the case," said Wilson.

Advocates in Chicago are doing what they can, but to find as many women as possible they say they need everyone – media, law enforcement and the public – to join their efforts.

"This is not a problem that Black women and girls are going to solve by themselves, nor should they," said Nikki Patin. "This should be, you know, of all efforts, this should be a group effort."

Decades after it was stolen, Canadian rock star Randy Bachman says he's finally found the rare guitar he used to write hits like "American Woman" and "Takin' Care of Business" after an internet sleuth tracked it down in Japan.

Bachman, of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive fame, said he was heartbroken when the 1957 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins guitar was stolen from a Toronto hotel in 1976.

"Part of me was lost," the 78-year-old told CNN, comparing the theft to the death of a family pet.

The orange Gretsch, like the ones played by his idols Chet Atkins and Duane Eddy, was the first really expensive guitar he owned and he had to work hard as an 18-year-old to earn the $400 he needed to buy it.

"So I have a paper route where you make, like, two bucks a week delivering the paper, you mow a lawn for a dollar, you babysit someone, you get a dollar, you're working at a car wash and you'd get 50 cents an hour. This is way, way back," he said. "So to save the 400 bucks was a big, big, big deal."

Bachman said he used to have a 12-foot-long tow chain that he would use to lock the guitar to something secure if he had to leave it when he was on tour, but on that day, the band's road manager wasn't as careful.

He called the Ontario Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to file reports, but they told him he'd probably never see the guitar again.

Bachman said he's told the story many times over the years on his radio show and on the YouTube channel he started during the COVID-19 pandemic with his son, Tal Bachman, who had the 1990s hit "She's So High."

A 'real-life puzzle'

Fan William Long came across the video after listening to some The Guess Who songs on YouTube and decided to get in on the search.

Long researches the infamous D.B. Cooper skyjacking case in his spare time and was looking for something different to do last year when he was mostly stuck inside because of the pandemic.

"My wife does jigsaw puzzles on the internet, and I thought, 'I prefer to do real-life puzzles,'" Long said.

He conducted elaborate internet searches to find photos of every orange Gretsch he could find and compared them to a video of Bachman playing the song "Lookin' Out For #1" on Dutch television with Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Long said Bachman's guitar had some distinctive patterns in its wood grain, which he was able to enhance on his computer.

He scoured the web for old sale listings and other sources in North America, Australia, the United Kingdom and Germany before he finally found a clue.

"I probably went through maybe 300 Gretsch images and I got pretty good at it so I could see them and I could know right away that it wasn't it," he said. "So it's eliminate, eliminate, eliminate, eliminate."

He tracked the guitar to a Tokyo vintage guitar shop, which had sold it, and then was able to find a video of Japanese musician Takeshi playing Christmas songs on the guitar.

"You can clearly see (that) all the grain and the marks and the fading on the guitar matches 100%," Long said.

He spent two or three weeks looking for the guitar, mostly after work while watching TV, and then he had to get the information to Bachman.

Long lives in White Rock, British Columbia, not far from where Bachman once lived, but he didn't know how to reach the rock star.

He said Bachman was shocked when he finally reached him.

"I see the guy playing my guitar, MY guitar, I can tell by the grain on it and I'm stunned. It's like somebody hit me in the face with a shovel," Bachman said. "It's just unbelievable because I've been searching for this forever and basically gave up on it."

Bachman said his daughter-in-law, KoKo, is from Japan and was able to arrange a Zoom call with Takeshi and translate the meeting.

He said he was tearful when Takeshi, who he described as the Japanese Brian Setzer, showed him the guitar on camera after all these years.

He said whoever stole it took good care of it, because it looked the same as it did back in 1976.

Bachman explained that he'd written many of his biggest hits on the stolen guitar and that "It is a very incredible, one-of-a-kind guitar that is part of me."

"And he says, 'Well, I didn't steal it,' and I said, 'Of course, you weren't even born when this thing was stolen, but you have it,'" Bachman said. "And he said, 'Well, maybe I was born to look after your guitar.'"

Bachman said Takeshi offered to return the guitar in exchange for one just like it.

"I'll give you the guitar, but you must find its sister," Bachman recounted Takeshi telling him.

Only a handful of guitars like this were made and they're pricey, so finding one in near-mint condition was going to be another challenge.

But Bachman had built relationships with guitar dealers around North America during his quest to reclaim the guitar. He'd also amassed a collection of more than 350 Gretsch guitars over the years that he sold to the Gretsch family's foundation in 2008 for their museum.

'It spoke to me like no other guitar'

A guitar shop in Ohio had what Bachman needed, and based on the serial numbers, the two guitars were probably made in the same week, he said.

"When I first strummed this guitar at the music shop in Tokyo, it spoke to me like no other guitar I've ever played. I knew and felt it was destiny -- I immediately and impulsively purchased it," Takeshi said in a statement that was translated by KoKo.

He said the guitar's connection to Bachman made it even more special.

"Every time I think about how this guitar has impacted and influenced Rock N Roll music that inspired me and other rockers in my generation, I get so excited," the statement said. "I'm so honoured and proud to be the one who can finally return this stolen guitar to its owner, the rock star, Mr. Bachman who was searching for it for nearly half a century and I feel very grateful for this miracle happening in both our lives."

Now they just need to make the swap.

Bachman said he's planning to travel to Japan to meet Takeshi and exchange the guitars once the country eases its COVID-19 restrictions.

They also want to jam together at the nightclub where Takeshi filmed the video that led to the guitar's discovery -- they'll play "Takin' Care of Business" and Bachman said he's going to learn one of Takeshi's songs.

"This guy is my guitar brother. Takeshi is my brother," Bachman said. "I can't even talk to him because he's Japanese, he doesn't understand me, but when we play the guitar together on Zoom, there's this connection."

Bachman said they've been collecting video footage throughout the experience in the hope of turning it into a documentary. He wrote a song about his lost guitar while working on a new Bachman & Bachman album with his son, and he said it will probably go on the soundtrack.

"To me, it's the most incredible Cinderella story of all time, except that when midnight comes the guitar won't turn into a pumpkin, and neither will I, and I'll actually have my guitar back at the end of the story," Bachman said.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — The issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people has gained more attention in recent years, but many who have lost their own say it’s not enough. A new state office that's the first of its kind in the country is working to change that.

Janice Hannigan, Roma L. Jim and Mary Johnson are just a few of the missing Indigenous people in the U.S.

Nicole Matthews, the executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, says most people don't know about the missing Indigenous people.

“Why hasn’t Sheila St. Claire from Duluth, who’s been missing for six years, why isn’t her story isn’t out there? Why don’t we know her name? How come we don’t know about Jojo Boswell, who's been missing for decades, and was 19 when she went missing," Matthews said.

Advocates say a lack of communication, combined with jurisdictional issues between state, local, federal and tribal law enforcement, makes it difficult to start the investigative process.

“Our relationship to the federal government is much different than other racial and ethnic groups. This is our land, everybody that is in this country is standing on Indian land," Matthews said. “So if a non-Native person comes onto our land and rapes a Native woman, our tribes have no recourse. So, if the states or the feds who do have jurisdiction in those cases decline prosecution, that person walks.”

It’s why Matthews was the Vice-Chair of the Missing and Murdered Women’s Task Force in Minnesota and that has led to the country's first State Office for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives.

Sen. Mary Kunesh spearheaded this effort in the Minnesota Senate.

“I’m still floored that we were able to do this good legislative in kind of a short amount of time," Kunesh said. “They were able to use funding’s through the governor’s office to initially create this but it will also be supported through public safety dollars.”

The office now has permanent funding, which means it’s not going anywhere. One of their main efforts is building a data base that will track those names and cases.

“We need to be able to have that liaison there that’s going to be able to go walk between and work between all these different agencies," Kunesh said.

Having no database has made gathering information tough. However, the task force was able to pinpoint some jarring statistics.

“In our task force work, we learned in a ten-year period, in any given month, there were anywhere from 27 to 54 Native women that were missing," Matthews said. “Native women represent about 1% here in Minnesota, but we represent about 8 or 9% of the murdered women in Minnesota. So that is a huge disproportionate impact on our communities.”

Marisa Cummings, the CEO of the Minnesota Women’s Resource Center says there is distrust in government from some tribal members, especially women. 

“I’m thinking about the lack of trust our people have with systems in this country. Systems that have been designed to exterminate us," Cummings said.

Now there is an opportunity to create trust through this office and its partnerships.

“I think the office can be a starting point if the office is staffed with native women that the community trusts," Cummings said. “All of these implicit biases, manifest in ways of oppression. So a lot of times our families, when they go to report someone missing, they are not believed, a lot of times a woman reporting a sexual assault, they are not believed, or deaths are considered explosion. She got really drunk and she just died somewhere and not acknowledging the psychical violence she experienced that left her in a field in the freezing cold.”

These women say Gabby Petito's case is not only a reminder of why this office is so crucial in Minnesota, but also how it can be adopted in every other state.

“The response that Gabby Petitio received is the response that all of us deserve," Matthews said.

“But I think we’re entering a time now where we’re demanding that there is some accountability and some equity in the way that these systems work in our country. Systems that we designed to eliminate us as the original people of this land," Cummings said.

“Minnesota has obviously made this a priority and recognizes this is an investment in our communities now but like we say in the Native communities, investment in the next seven generations to come," Kunesh said.

CINCINNATI — A memorial for a missing child and a murdered mother was set up on Friday near the place where a key piece of evidence in the case was located.

Lit candles, a small Christmas tree, and a stuffed bear were arranged alongside a picture of Nylo and Nyteisha Lattimore near the Purple People Bridge on Christmas Day.

Twenty-nine-year-old Nyteisha Lattimore was found stabbed to death along Pete Rose Way in the early hours of Sunday, Dec. 13. Her boyfriend, 20-year-old Desean Brown, is currently being held at the Hamilton County Detention Center, charged with murder in the woman's death.

Authorities have been searching for 3-year-old Nylo Lattimore, who was last seen on Dec. 4. According to police, a stroller belonging to Lattimore was found near the bridge and later identified by her family, but no other sign of Nylo's presence had been discovered. Police suspect foul play in the boy’s disappearance.

A team of divers with the Hamilton County Police Association Underwater Search and Recovery Unit searched the Ohio River near Yeatman's Cove but, so far, have found no evidence related to the case.

Cincinnati's Homicide Unit is investigating Lattimore's death. Anyone with information is asked to call 513-765-1212.

Video above: 'We don’t want to speculate': Family lawyer responds to continued search for Brian Laundrie

As authorities investigate Gabby Petito's death, a small crowd gathered Wednesday night in Salt Lake City to mourn the 22-year-old whose road trip with her fiancé ended in tragedy.

The couple had been visiting national parks in the West in their van, chronicling their travels on social media with the hashtag #VanLife, before Petito went missing. And though she never lived in Utah, Petito's love of nature and her time there — including an encounter with Moab police that was captured on bodycam — has connected her with the community.

"We won't forget about you. We won't let your light dim," vigil organizer Serena Chavez said before the group.

"We will remember other women or children who are missing," Chavez continued, raising a broader problem highlighted by Petito's disappearance. "Their families are devastated, and I can only imagine what Gabby's family is going through."

Petito's remains were found Sunday in an undeveloped camping area in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. She was reported missing by her family on Sept. 11, after her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, returned home to Florida from the road trip without her on Sept. 1.

Authorities have been searching a Florida nature preserve for Laundrie. And after her death was ruled a homicide Tuesday, the FBI turned to the public, asking for help finding him.

Before she moved to Florida, Petito had worked as a hostess at Smoke on the Water in Wilmington, North Carolina. Coworkers there say she made everyone feel loved, according to WWAY. It was another community upon which the young woman made her mark.

"She's not just a name. She's not just a case. She was a person, and she was very special to a lot of people and many of us here," the restaurant's general manager, Lara Witschen, told WWAY. "She was a good soul, a good spirit, and touched so many lives. That's what we want her to be remembered for."

Witness says she saw a 'commotion' involving the couple

Petito's story has become a national obsession for many, spurring digital detectives to comb through the couple's online trail to try to solve the case. The story has also further highlighted the nearly 90,000 missing person cases active at the end of 2020, according to the National Crime Information Center.

It also has spurred people to come forward with accounts of Petito's last days.

Nina Angelo and her boyfriend, Matt England, saw a "commotion" last month as Petito and Laundrie were leaving The Merry Piglets Tex-Mex restaurant in Jackson, Wyoming, she told CNN Wednesday.

Petito was in tears and Laundrie was visibly angry, going into and out of the restaurant several times, showing anger toward the staff around the hostess stand, Angelo said. The couple's waitress was also visibly shaken by the incident, said Angelo, who told CNN she did not see any violence or physical altercation between Petito and Laundrie.

A manager at The Merry Piglets, who declined to give her name, did see "an incident" at the restaurant on Aug. 27 and called the FBI on Wednesday, she told CNN. The manager declined to describe what happened and said the restaurant did not have surveillance video of the incident.

Separately, Jessica Schultz saw Laundrie parked in a white van on Aug. 26 at Grand Teton National Park, and no one appeared to be with him, she told the San Francisco Chronicle.

And in a series of videos on TikTok, Miranda Baker said she and her boyfriend gave Laundrie a ride on Aug. 29 in Wyoming — and that he claimed he was camping by himself for multiple days while Petito was back at their van working on social media posts.

Baker said they picked up Laundrie while he was hitchhiking in Colter Bay, Wyoming, which is not far from where Petito's remains were found. He offered to pay $200 for the ride before he even got in the car, she said.

The search for Laundrie continues

Investigators meanwhile are focused on finding Laundrie, who arrived at his parents' home in North Port, Florida, three weeks ago and has not spoken to police about the case.

His family told police he left home with his backpack on Sept. 14 and told them he was going to the nearby Carlton Reserve.

Authorities have combed the reserve over the past few days, and the search will resume on Thursday, said North Port Police Department spokesperson Josh Taylor.

A team of about 10 divers from the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office is taking part in the search, said sheriff's office spokesperson Kaitlyn Perez. The Sheriff's Underwater Recovery Force team is highly specialized, she said.

"In the state of Florida, we have really unique bodies of water from marshes to beaches to lakes and kind of everything in between," Perez said.

"These divers are specifically trained and very talented in low visibility bodies of water. They dive down where you and I can't see anything at all. They utilize technology and other special equipment to help them get down deep, into really deep bodies of water."

The North Port Police Department has "deployed numerous resources, and we are trying to cover every acre in this preserve," Commander Joe Fussell said.

911 call of a domestic dispute

Petito's mother received an odd text on Aug. 27 that became the last communication from her, police in Florida said in a recent search warrant affidavit. Petito also stopped posting to social media at that time.

Evidence from a 911 call about a "domestic dispute" involving Petito and Laundrie shows the couple's volatile relationship was not as aspirational as their sun-drenched lives on Instagram and YouTube suggested.

A man who saw the domestic dispute between Petito and Laundrie in Utah last month said, "They were talking aggressively at each other, and something seemed off."

In a handwritten sworn statement, the witness said it appeared the two were arguing over control of Petito's phone. "At one point she was punching him in the arm and/or face and trying to get into the van." The witness's first name is Chris and last name was redacted in the document provided by Moab City Police to CNN.

The witness said he heard Petito say, "Why do you have to be so mean?" although Chris added that he couldn't be sure if the comment was meant to be taken seriously.

Police later stopped the couple, and previously released police documents and body-camera video reveal what followed that day. Moab city officials are investigating the Moab City Police Department's handling of a possible domestic dispute, a statement from the city said.

Although Petito and Laundrie are described in a police report as getting into a physical fight following an argument, "both the male and female reported they are in love and engaged to be married and desperately didn't wish to see anyone charged with a crime," Officer Eric Pratt wrote in the report.

At the suggestion of police, the couple separated for the night, the report said, which described Petito as "confused and emotional."

A National Park Service ranger who also responded to the call spent about 90 minutes with Petito and warned her that her relationship with Laundrie had markings of a "toxic" one, the ranger told the Deseret News of Utah.

"I was imploring with her to reevaluate the relationship, asking her if she was happy in the relationship with him, and basically saying this was an opportunity for her to find another path, to make a change in her life," ranger Melissa Hulls told the Deseret News.

CNN has sought comment from Hulls.

In the months before Mary Johnson disappeared, her sister said she wasn't herself.

Johnson and her husband, who had been living in the home of her sister Gerry Davis in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, abruptly left and moved to Marysville about 40 miles away, Davis said. She rarely answered her phone when Davis called, and only occasionally responded to texts. Then one day, Johnson's estranged husband contacted Davis to say he hadn't seen his wife in weeks.

The last time anyone said they saw Mary Johnson — also known as Mary Davis — was on Nov. 25, 2020. Johnson, an enrolled citizen of the Tulalip Tribes and then 39 years old, was walking on a road in Western Washington, en route to the house of some friends in a nearby town. She never made it there.

It's been nearly 10 months since Johnson was reported missing. A billboard on Interstate 5 and local media coverage have yielded few credible tips, and tribal police have yet to make an arrest in the case. Only last week did the FBI announce it would offer a reward of up to $10,000 for information about Johnson's disappearance. While family members and advocates welcome the move, they also wonder what took so long.

"If that was a little white girl out there or a white woman, I'm sure they would have had helicopters, airplanes and dogs and searches — a lot of manpower out there — scouring where that person was lost," Nona Blouin, Johnson's older sister, said. "None of that has happened for our sister."

Those feelings ring especially true this week, as the case of missing 22-year-old Gabby Petito captured the attention of the internet. Meanwhile, at least 710 Indigenous people — more than half of them women or girls — were reported missing between 2011 and September 2020 in Wyoming, where Petito's remains were found this week, according to a University of Wyoming report. While about half were usually found within a week of going missing, as per the report, family members and advocates said none received the same level of media coverage nor the same urgency in law enforcement's response as missing white people.

Too often, that means families like Johnson's are left waiting without answers.

Johnson's disappearance remains unsolved

There's a lot unknown about the circumstances under which Johnson disappeared last year.

The following sequence of events, based on a CNN interview with Tulalip Tribal Police Department Detective David Sallee and a local news report in The Everett Herald, is what authorities have pieced together based on cell phone records and conversations with people who saw her.

At the time Johnson disappeared, she and her husband weren't in a good place, Sallee said. She was staying mostly with friends, returning to the couple's shared house every few days to pick up her mail and take a shower before heading out again.

On Nov. 24, a day before she was last seen, Sallee said her estranged husband dropped her off with a suitcase at a friend's house on the Tulalip reservation. Johnson stayed there overnight, and planned the next day to head to the house of a couple she knew in Oso about 30 miles away.

The friend she was staying with was supposed to give her a ride to a nearby church, where someone else would pick her up and take her to the couple's house in Oso. A second man, who had been staying at the same house as Johnson, wanted a ride, too.

But things went awry on Nov. 25, and Sallee said Johnson's friend backtracked on the offer to give her and the second man a ride. Johnson set out toward the church on foot around 1:30 p.m., and the second man also started walking away from the house.

A third man who was set to pick Johnson up at the church and take her to Oso eventually drove by and saw her walking on Fire Trail Road with the man who also wanted a ride, Sallee said. He indicated he only had enough room in his vehicle for one person and kept on going, ultimately declining to give her a ride.

Johnson never made it to the couple's house in Oso, Sallee said. But before she disappeared she left that couple a voicemail, desperation in her voice as she urged them to pick up, according to records obtained by The Everett Herald. She also made another call around 2:30 p.m. — the woman who picked up reportedly said to police that she told Johnson she was too busy to speak.

Police believe that someone may have picked Johnson up at some point, because cell phone records indicate that about an hour after her last call, her phone connected to a tower in the Oso area — too great a distance for her to have walked so quickly. The phone then went offline for a period of time, Sallee said, before again connecting to a tower in the Greater Marysville Tulalip area that night. It remained in that location until the next morning, when it eventually powered off.

The man who was supposed to pick Johnson up from the church reportedly told police that he hadn't seen or heard from her since Nov. 25. The man who had been walking with her said the two went their separate ways and that he'd had no sign of her either.

On Dec. 9, 2020, Johnson's estranged husband reported her missing.

In the nearly 10 months since, there has been little movement in the investigation, which Sallee said remains "open and active." He said the police department had identified multiple persons of interest, though it has yet to make an arrest.

Because a body hasn't been recovered, Sallee said it's difficult to establish the probable cause necessary to seek specific search warrants. Because Johnson's disappearance was reported weeks after the fact, he said surveillance footage or precise location information that could offer clues has likely been overwritten. And because authorities don't know for sure whether Johnson disappeared on or off the reservation, he said it's unclear whether they can leverage federal grand jury subpoena powers or not.

"We don't know if she was kidnapped, held against her will, if she has been murdered. It could be argued maybe she just wandered off in the woods and got lost. Maybe she overdosed and passed away somewhere in a remote area and we don't know where she's at. Maybe she's just hiding, maybe she's in treatment," Sallee said. "There's a lot of maybes."

Authorities are often slow to act, advocates say

To advocates who work on the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, however, such challenges and uncertainties come off as excuses.

Abigail Echo-Hawk, chief research officer for the Seattle Indian Health Board and an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, says one of the primary barriers in addressing this crisis is the "maze of jurisdiction" in Indian Country. Cases of missing Indigenous women are often mired in bureaucracy, with prosecutors and law enforcement having to establish whether the authority rests with the federal government, the state or the tribe. The time it takes to determine the jurisdiction of a case can ultimately affect whether those women live or die, she said.

"This maze of jurisdiction that exists — that is, who does what investigations and who's responsible for what — is part of this system of inequity," Echo-Hawk said.

It's why so many cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women remain unsolved, says Annita Lucchesi, executive director of the research group Sovereign Bodies Institute and a descendant of the Cheyenne tribe. Jurisdictional issues can limit tribal authorities from successfully prosecuting non-Native people for crimes committed on tribal lands except in some cases, and the federal government -- who typically does have that authority -- has often declined to act.

Another piece of the problem, as some advocates see it, is that Indigenous women are often blamed for their own disappearances, resulting in a lack of empathy for victims from authorities and the general public.

"They are assumed to have been killed, murdered or disappeared. They're assumed to have run away, to have had substance abuse issues, to have done something that caused them to go missing or to be murdered," Echo-Hawk said.

Those attitudes only perpetuate the problem and make it easier for perpetrators to avoid accountability, Lucchesi said.

"That kind of narrative about Indigenous people just lends itself to more violence so that when this violence does happen, it's not a disruption of the social fabric the way it would be when it happens to somebody else," she said. "Because we're already perceived as not part of the social fabric, because we're either dead and disappeared. We're less than human. We're so far away on some remote reservation that we're not part of the rest of the community."

The full scale of the problem is unknown

Johnson is just one of countless missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls in the U.S. — a nationwide crisis for which there are no definitive statistics.

The numbers that do exist are likely an undercount, in part because Indigenous women and girls are sometimes misclassified as white, Hispanic or Asian. Adding to the data problem is a historic distrust of law enforcement by Indigenous communities, which can lead some cases to go unreported.

About 1,500 missing persons cases of American Indian and Alaska Native people have been recorded across the U.S. by the National Crime Information Center, while approximately 2,700 homicide cases have been reported to the federal government's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

A database maintained by Lucchesi's Sovereign Bodies Institute puts the count higher, with more than 4,500 cases of missing Indigenous women and girls dating back to the 1900s, she said. There are nine such cases just in her own family, Lucchesi said.

"That shadow of death is always there," she added.

That's why advocates are pushing leaders and policymakers to do something about the issue.

The attorney general in Washington state, where Johnson was last seen and which has the second highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women cases, announced a 21-member task force to examine the systemic inequities behind the problem of missing Indigenous women and girls. Echo-Hawk's organization recently completed a project in the state with the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, reforming database systems and training staff to properly collect racial identity and tribal affiliation information for victims. And on the national level, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced a new unit earlier this year that would investigate the killings and disappearances of Indigenous people.

Advocates say such actions, however, are just a first step.

"There has to be money allocated. It can't just be a checkbox for some politicians [to say], 'We did this,'" Echo-Hawk said. "It has to be more than that."

The New Mexico Missing, Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives task force is still figuring out ways to solve missing cases. A big part of this is making sure a lot of these cases are known.

The MMIWR Task Force Project Coordinator, Jessica Gidagaakoons Smith said, “Family members who have share their stories of the issues that they have been facing or they have faced in the past and that is helping us to better formally ideas on legislation.”

In a 2017 report by the Urban Indian Health Institute, New Mexico is the state with the highest number of MMIW cases.

Smith said one thing to overcome is the attention that missing person cases get.

“It's crucial especially if somebody is missing today. Do you know if someone goes missing today I believe that it is very crucial to get any type of coverage of that missing person out,” Smith said.

Smith said the response for cases like Gabby Petito is far different from how MMIWR cases are investigated.

"It could really make a huge difference for our people. I meant she was found in like 8 days I think it was," Smith added. "We don't see that with many cases of our MMIWR."

Johnson's family hasn't given up hope

Johnson's sisters, Davis and Blouin, are trying to stay positive — though they're also mentally preparing for the worst.

They're heartened by all the people who have shared the poster with Johnson's picture on their social media accounts. They're asking everyone to keep their eyes out for a 5-foot-6, 115 pound woman with black hair and brown eyes, a sunburst tattoo on her upper right arm and a beauty mark on the back of her neck. And they want law enforcement to deploy every possible resource at their disposal -- because Native women deserve the same respect and compassion as anyone else.

"My sister is a wonderful person and we all love her dearly," Blouin said. "If you have any information, please just reach out to your local law enforcement, the Seattle FBI or the Tulalip PD. Bring her home. We miss her."

KOAT contributed to this report.

NORTH PORT, Fla. — Officials in Florida will resume the search for 23-year-old Brian Laundrie on Wednesday, a day after the FBI confirmed that remains found in Wyoming were those of his fiancée, 22-year-old Gabby Petito.

As of Tuesday, the FBI is the lead agency in the search for Laundrie, who remains a person of interest in Petito's disappearance and death.

On Monday, the North Port Police Department called off the search for Laundrie in a 25,000 acre stretch of Carlton Reserve in Sarasota County.

"At this time, we currently believe we have exhausted all avenues in searching of the grounds there (Carlton Reserve)," a spokesperson with NPPD said in a statement Monday. "Law enforcement agencies continue to search for Brian Laundrie. More updates when available."

However, the FBI resumed the search on Tuesday when they took over the case.

Authorities are now searching an area about 30 minutes from the initial ground of Carlton Reserve that police searched over the weekend.

Close to a dozen agencies are aiding in the search for Laundrie, including the North Port Police Department, the FBI, the Florida Wildlife Commission, sheriff's offices in Sarasota, Lee and Charlotte counties and police departments in Sarasota and Venice. K9 search and rescue teams are also assisting in the search.

Law enforcement is well-equipped to conduct its search.

"ATVs, UTVs, we have multiple drone operators that have been sent out in numerous teams, so we'll mix the resources and deploy them out so if they encounter flooded areas or terrain they can't access with these wheeled vehicles, we'll deploy our drones directly out into the wooded areas," Officer Joe Fussell with North Port Police Department said.

While authorities have several tools to help them in the search, tough terrain and wet weather have hindered the investigation.

North Port Police said the Carlton Reserve is a vast and unforgiving location, with water waist-deep in many areas. Crews are having to wade through gator and snake-infested swamps and flooded hiking and biking trails.

"Terrain is very difficult," Fussell said. "Essentially, 75% of it is underwater, and other areas that are dry, we're trying to clear. We are expecting to get wet by the end of the day and check the entire area for Brian Laundrie."

Authorities are using bloodhound dogs in the search. However, a former FBI agent who has worked in finding people in extreme environments said the amount of water in the area makes the search difficult for the dogs.

"They lose the sense that they're unable to continue tracking that scent," former FBI Special Agent Brian Kensel said. "I understand a few days ago; law enforcement did pick up some clothing, pieces of apparel from Brian Laundrie's house for that very purpose before they started the search yesterday, I believe."

When asked why the search was called off on Monday but resumed the very next day, Kensel had the same question.

"I saw that. I saw the announcement last night that we feel we've exhausted all methods — so, means — to search. And then something obviously changed overnight in terms of the information that was developed," Kensel said.

There have been reports that Laundrie was spotted in Alabama and the panhandle of Florida. However, authorities said that after further investigation, those claims did not hold true.

The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office released a statement via Twitter addressing rumors that Laundrie had been taken into custody.

Despite rumors on social media this evening, #BrianLaundrie is NOT IN THE CUSTODY of our agency at this time. We can confirm we have received reports of “suspected sightings” however, none have been accurate. pic.twitter.com/MrW4bKwuc2

— SarasotaSheriff (@SarasotaSheriff) September 22, 2021

This story was originally published by Vanessa Araiza on Scripps station WFTS in Tampa, Florida.

JAKARTA, Jakarta —

A Sriwijaya Air jet carrying 62 people lost contact with air traffic controllers minutes after taking off from Indonesia's capital on a domestic flight on Saturday, and debris found by fishermen was being examined to see if it was from the missing plane, officials said.

Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said Flight SJ182 was delayed for an hour before it took off at 2:36 p.m. The Boeing 737-500 disappeared from radar four minutes later, after the pilot contacted air traffic control to ascend to an altitude of 29,000 feet (8,839 meters), he said.

The airline said in a statement that the plane was on an estimated 90-minute flight from Jakarta to Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province on Indonesia’s Borneo island. The plane was carrying 50 passengers and 12 crew members, all Indonesian nationals, including six extra crew for another trip.

Sumadi said a dozen vessels, including four warships, were deployed in a search-and-rescue operation centered between Lancang island and Laki island, part of the Thousand Islands chain just north of Jakarta.

Bambang Suryo Aji, the National Search and Rescue Agency’s deputy head of operations and preparedness, said rescuers collected plane debris and clothes that were found by fishermen. They handed the items over to the National Transportation Safety Committee for further investigation to determine whether they were from the missing plane.

A commander of one of the search-and-rescue ships who goes by a single name, Eko, said that fishermen found cables and pieces of metal in the water.

“The fishermen told us that they found them shortly after they heard an explosion like the sound of thunder,” Eko was quoted by TVOne as saying, adding that aviation fuel was found in the location where the fishermen found the debris.

Aji said no radio beacon signal had been detected from the 26-year-old plane. He said his agency was investigating why the plane's emergency locator transmitter, or ELT, was not transmitting a signal that could confirm whether it had crashed.

“The satellite system owned by neighboring Australia also did not pick up on the ELT signal from the missing plane,” Aji said.

Tracking service Flightradar24 said on its Twitter feed that Flight SJ182 lost more than 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) of altitude in less than a minute, about four minutes after takeoff.

Television footage showed relatives and friends of people aboard the plane weeping, praying and hugging each other as they waited at airports in Jakarta and Pontianak.

Chicago-based Boeing said on its Twitter feed that it was aware of the incident. It said it was closely monitoring the situation and “working to gather more information.”

The twin-engine, single aisle Boeing 737 is one of the world’s most popular planes for short and medium-haul flights. The 737-500 is a shorter version of the widely used 737 model. Airlines began using this type of plane in the 1990s, with production ending two decades ago.

Sriwijaya began operations in 2003 and flies to more than 50 destinations in Indonesia and a handful of nearby countries, according to its website. Its fleet includes a variety of 737 variants as well as the regional ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop plane.

The airline has had a solid safety record until now, with no onboard casualties in four incidents recorded on the Aviation Safety Network database, though a farmer was killed when a Boeing 737-200 left the runway in 2008 following a hydraulic problem.

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago nation, with more than 260 million people, has been plagued by transportation accidents on land, sea and air because of overcrowding on ferries, aging infrastructure and poorly enforced safety standards.

In October 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet operated by Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. The plane involved in Saturday's incident did not have the automated flight-control system that played a role in the Lion Air crash and another crash of a 737 MAX 8 jet in Ethiopia five months later, leading to the grounding of the MAX 8 for 20 months.

The Lion Air crash was Indonesia's worst airline disaster since 1997, when 234 people were killed on a Garuda airlines flight near Medan on Sumatra island. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing 162 people.

Indonesian airlines were previously banned from flying to the United States and European Union for not meeting international safety standards. Both have since lifted the ban, citing improvement in aviation safety and greater compliance with international standards.

CLERMONT, Fla. —

A tragic story has come to an incredible conclusion in Florida.

The Clermont Police Department Detective Division said officials received a call on Sept. 2 from Angelica Vences-Salgado, who is the mother of the victim abducted from her home in 2007 at the age of 6.

The girl was allegedly abducted by her father, Pablo Hernandez. A felony warrant for kidnapping was issued for Pablo on Dec. 27, 2007.

Vences-Salgado told police she received a Facebook message from someone claiming to be her daughter. The person said she was in Mexico and asked Vences-Salgado to meet her at the Point of Entry located at the border in Texas on Sept. 10.

Multiple law enforcement agencies investigated and, based on documentation provided, determined that the woman was in fact Vences-Salgado's missing child.

"[Officials] determined that the female was indeed Jacqueline Hernandez who was abducted from her mother in 2007. At approximately 4:55 p.m., Jacqueline, now 19 years old, was successfully reunited with her mother," a news release said.

The Clermont Police Department thanked the Orange County Sheriff's Office, HSI in Orlando and Laredo, ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), US Customs and Border Protection as well as Laredo Police Department in Texas for their help in the case.

"This is a prime example of what can be accomplished when multiple law enforcement agencies and their respective communities work cooperatively together and maintain open lines of communication. In this case, several agencies in different counties and states across the nation were able to create a force multiplier and aid in reuniting the victim with her mother after 14 years," Clermont police Chief Charles Broadway said.

"A kidnapped daughter was reunited with her mother as a result of enforcement working together," said HSI Orlando Assistant Special Agent in Charge David Pezzutti. "This is a great example of how strong partnerships in law-enforcement can work to solve problems no matter the complexity or distance."

Police have not released the details surrounding what happened to Jacqueline Hernandez after her abduction.

HAMILTON TWP., Ohio — After an hours-long search for a missing 4-year-old girl in Hamilton Township on Sunday, authorities discovered her body in a pond near her home, according to Hamilton Twp. Police Chief Scott Hughes.

"Our worst fears came true," he said during a press conference at 8:30 p.m. "Just before 8:00 the dive team and the folks in the boats were scanning around the outside of the pond near where the rocks were and unfortunately they found Emrie's body there in the pond."

Several police and fire agencies from surrounding counties and cities, including the FBI, searched diligently alongside Hamilton Township community members to find the young girl, who was missing for just under eight hours in the Turning Leaf subdivision.

"This, this sucks, right?" said Hughes, fighting tears. "This just sucks. I mean, she was, she was four years old. There's nothing really you can say."

Hamilton Township police said Emrie was last seen around 12:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon. At a 4:45 p.m. press conference, Hughes said footage from a security camera showed Emrie walking away from her driveway with no shoes on.

Police said they were told Emrie liked to visit the pond to feed the fish with her parents and suspected she may have headed in that direction after leaving her home.

Hughes said later, they found a witness who spotted Emrie in the area of the neighborhood near the pond around the time she went missing.

"Early, when she first went missing ... we had a couple dogs and the dogs kind of led us up this way," Hughes said.

Officials aren't sure how exactly Emrie died and won't until the coroner's office releases its findings. Throughout the search, Hughes said there was no indication she'd been taken or led away and they didn't suspect foul play played a part in her disappearance or death.

Hughes said the community should be commended for the high turnout and determined efforts during the search, including fire and police from multiple townships, cities and counties in the area.

"This community just came together," he said. "We've gotta keep the family in our thoughts and prayers."

Dozens of neighbors and community members joined the search efforts early on, combing nearby woods and yards and driving through the neighborhoods, calling Emrie's name for hours.

"We've looked, we went through the woods, we looked everywhere we could," said Kaitlin Neumann, one of the many community members who helped with the search. "Like, anywhere you walked you were running into people, everyone was driving."

Sunday evening, Little Miami Schools tweeted about Emrie's death, expressing their condolences for the young girl's family and asking the Panther Nation to lift up her family.