A Native American teen who disappeared one month ago in Arizona was found dismembered on the side of a highway.
Emily Pike, 14, a member of the San Carlos Apache tribe, disappeared on January 27, sparking a multi-agency search.
Grim news then came on Valentine’s Day when remains of an unidentified female were found by police in a wooded area.
After testing of the remains, police confirmed that they belonged to Emily on the one-month anniversary of the girl’s disappearance.
Her body was dismembered and stuffed into trash bags, with her torso and head in one bag and her legs in another. Authorities have yet to find her arms.
Emily was living in a group home before she disappeared. Anika Robinson, a foster care advocate who knew the teen gave a devastating theory to local news outlet, AZ Family.
‘I can only imagine the fact that her hands and arms haven’t been found is because she was beating up and hurting her attacker,’ Robinson said nearly in tears.
‘I think all of us were shocked that that was her demise. I know that her staff and the girls in her home are suffering greatly because of it,’ she added.
Emily Pike, 14, was found dismembered after authorities searched for her for a month
Emily was remembered as a kind young girl who loved painting by her heartbroken mother
Emily was living in a group home in Mesa, but her family lives on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation.
Robinson said Emily had a history of running away, telling AZ Family, ‘I think for any child who has been placed outside of their home and wishes to return home, we see this so often where they are fleeing. They are leaving. They want some sense of independence.’
Her mother, Stephanie Dosela, said that she was notified of her daughter’s disappearance by her case manager a week after she went missing.
Dosela described her daughter as a ‘very happy and kind person’ who loved painting and aspired to study art in college.
Hundreds of questions remain over what happened to Emily in the month she was missing.
‘Why did it go that far? She was just an innocent… she was a baby. [It’s] pain that I hope no other mother would go through,’ Dosela said in a phone interview with AZ Family.
‘You’ll never be forgotten. I love you. Until we meet again, rest in peace,’ she said in a phone interview with the local outlet.
Emily’s family has set up a GoFundMe to raise money for the teen’s funeral. ‘Emily left her family so tragically.. only Lord knows the hardships coming their way,’ the description read.
The Mesa, Arizona community is advocating for justice in Emily’s gruesome death
Anika Robinson, a foster care advocate who worked with Emily’s group home spoke about the devastation that the young teen’s death has caused
A missing persons alert for Emily went out last month
Foster care advocates will honor Emily on Sunday morning by placing yellow ribbons where she was last seen alive.
Dosela said that authorities came to her home for a DNA test to help identify her daughter.
Her mother added that police said they have three suspects, but didn’t reveal their identities.
Emily’s death was ruled a homicide and the case is being investigated by the Gila County Sheriff’s Office with help from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the San Carlos Apache Tribal Police.
Authorities haven’t named suspects in the case and are encouraging the public to come forward with information that may lead to finding Emily’s killer.
Emily’s foster care advocate pled with potential witnesses to help police. ‘Somebody had to have seen something, right?’
‘Someone had to have seen her face, had to have seen her yelling, had to have observed something or taken part in this or they know someone who did.’ Robinson told AZ Family.
Emily’s tragic and gruesome death further illustrates the horrors facing Indigenous women.
Emily’s remains were found dismembered in a trash bag on the side of a local highway
A sign that read ‘Justice for Emily’ was put up in Arizona after news of the teen’s death broke
Emily lived in a group home in Mesa, but her family lived on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation
Indigenous women and girls are murdered 10 times more than other ethnicities, with murder being the third leading cause of their deaths, according to the Native Women’s Wilderness organization.
The organization also cited statistics from the National Institute of Justice Report that said more than four out of five Indigenous women have experienced violence and half have specifically experienced sexual violence.
The rates of violence against Native American women are the highest among any socioeconomic group.
The statistics become even more staggering when taking into account that Native American women only make up 2.2 percent of the population of women in the US and 1.1 percent of the total population.
Dailymail.com reached out to the Gila County Sheriff’s Office, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the San Carlos Apache Tribal Police for comment on Emily’s case but didn’t immediately hear back.
