1,648 missing Indigenous person reports in 20 years in Pierce Co. What’s being done?
When Joyce Robinson wakes up every morning, she thinks about her family.
She thinks about her children and her grandchildren, and wonders how they’re doing. When it comes to her 14-year-old granddaughter, Kassidy Buchanan, she doesn’t know. The Pierce County teenager has been missing for nearly a year.
Robinson wonders if Kassidy is safe? If she has clean clothes to wear? If she’s hungry?
Those are recurring questions that the Tacoma grandmother shared with The News Tribune in an interview on Aug. 5.
Robinson, who is an Aleut tribal member, is not alone. Thousands of Indigenous families are seeking answers about their missing loved ones in Washington state. In the past 20 years, there have been 1,648 reports of missing Native Americans in Pierce County alone entered into a national database, Washington State Patrol (WSP) alert system program manager Mary Jo Margeson told The News Tribune in an email.
Asked how many of those people have been found, she said the state does not keep data on the outcomes of those reports.
“We rarely learn the status of a missing person when the record is cleared,” she wrote. She also noted that the 1,648 figure includes separate entries for people who were reported missing multiple times.
Pierce County has a website about the crisis, including information about those who are missing.
“Washington state ranks second highest in the nation for missing and murdered Indigenous women,” the website says. “Tacoma is seventh in the nation.”
Native Americans make up 2% of Washington’s population, but account for 5.7% of missing people statewide, the Washington State Attorney General’s Office (AGO) noted in its 2025 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP) crisis report, which was published in June.
For every 100,000 Native Americans across Washington, 88 go missing, which is nearly three times the statewide average for all people, the report states.
As of Aug. 15, at least 116 of 2,089 missing people in Washington state are Native American, Margeson said.
As of that week, Pierce County had the third-highest number of active missing Indigenous persons cases in the state, with a total of 13 people, Margeson said. Yakima had 27 and King County had 23.
“When someone goes missing, it’s one of the most traumatic experiences a family can go through,” the Anti-Trafficking Program Manager for the Puyallup Tribe, Carolyn DeFord, told The News Tribune on Aug. 22. DeFord speaks from experience, she said. Her mother, Leona Kinsey, has been missing for decades from her home in La Grande, Oregon, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported.
DeFord said one misconception is where Native Americans go missing. She said most missing Indigenous people did not go missing from reservation land.
Of 820 Indigenous people in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System database in June 2023, “155 went missing from tribal land, 536 did not go missing from tribal land, and for 129” it wasn’t clear, according to a Congressional report.
“From the forced relocation of tribes to the violence that has persisted since the arrival of settlers, Indigenous people have faced systemic violence that continues today,” according to the AGO’s 2025 MMIWP Task Force report, which was also published in June. “Native people are 2 times more likely to be homicide victims.”
Robinson said the crisis has impacted generations of her family. She was bullied, abused and lived in an alcoholic environment, she said, causing her to run away as a girl. Now in her 60s, Robinson is seeing history repeat itself with the disappearance of her granddaughter, she said, who ran away from home last year.
She said harmful stereotypes about how society views Native Americans, including about substance abuse, contribute to the nationwide crisis by preventing them from getting support from school systems, law enforcement and other systems until it’s too late.
“We’re considered beneath everyone. We’re not worth it,” she said. “I know that it really hasn’t changed from me growing up to Kassidy because they still think the same.”
Recent state efforts to address the crisis
Various organizations, such as the WSP and the AGO, have taken steps in recent years to try to address the crisis.
A state law passed in 2019 created a tribal liaison program to build relationships between local law enforcement, tribal nations and families, Western Washington’s tribal liaison, Emily Main, told The News Tribune on June 18.
Main and her colleague compile and update a weekly statewide list of active missing Indigenous persons cases that were reported by law enforcement and are in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database. They know more people are missing than the data shows.
“When I pull the list, I know I’m not getting everybody,” Main said.
For example, a police report might not indicate that a person is Indigenous, she said.
“Racial misclassification remains a major barrier, often resulting in Indigenous people being recorded as an inaccurate race or ‘unknown,’ which skews public records and hinders identification efforts,” the AGO Task Force’s report said.
The WSP list is meant to bring awareness to the statewide crisis and those affected.
“We do it so that they are never forgotten. Each name represents someone’s mother, friend, or brother — and every one of their lives matters,” Margeson said.
The WSP also created an alert system in 2022 specifically for Native Americans called the Missing Indigenous Person Alert (MIPA). These alerts must be voluntarily requested by law enforcement, Margeson said. When requested, the WSP creates email blasts, social media posts and missing posters.
This alert system is “a long time coming,” Puyallup Tribal Council member Anna Bean told The News Tribune on Aug. 22.
As of April 2025, MIPA has assisted in the recovery of 124 of 153 missing Indigenous people statewide, the AGO’s report states. Margeson said 10 alerts have been sent for people missing in Pierce County, and that those alerts came from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office, Lakewood Police, Puyallup Tribal Police, Tacoma Police, and Fife Police.
The News Tribune asked why only 10 alerts have been activated in Pierce County, which has the second-largest population among counties in Washington state.
“That is a question for the local law enforcement agencies who request those alerts,” Margeson said. “We only issue them at the request of the agency.”
Bean said, “It’s relatively new. I think there’s always room for growth and education.”
Tacoma Police Department spokesperson Shelbie Boyd said Tacoma officers tell her when they want to issue an alert, and she then she makes the request to the State Patrol.
Asked why there haven’t been more alerts issued in Pierce County, Boyd said she couldn’t speak to that and that her role is to request the alerts from the State Patrol when a Tacoma officer asks her to do so. She also noted that the system is only three years old.
The AGO also released a MMIWP Toolkit this year to help families, including steps to take when a loved one goes missing.
“These are people. These are lives. These are families that are being affected,” Bean told The News Tribune.
The AGO started its MMIWP Task Force in 2021. The task force suggested a MMIWP cold case unit, which the AGO launched in 2023.
Cases are referred to the unit when local law enforcement has exhausted all of its resources and leads and asks the state to investigate the case. This June, the cold case unit charged its first suspect in a Port Angeles case.
The News Tribune asked lead investigator Brian George how many Pierce County cases the unit is working on. George said that they are working on five Pierce County cases, but declined to share the names of those missing persons with The News Tribune, out of fear that publicity might tip off suspects that they’re being investigated. That was a “strategic decision,” he said.
George did tell The News Tribune that one of the five cases they’re investigating from Pierce County is the homicide of Adre’anna Jackson, a 10-year-old who was killed in 2005 in Lakewood. The News Tribune reported earlier this year that the unit was investigating the case.
The News Tribune compiled information about all of the active missing Indigenous persons cases in Pierce County on the WSP’s statewide list as of Aug. 18 through interviews with local law enforcement, affected families, public records and other sources. In some cases, information was limited and photos of the missing person were not available.
Some of The News Tribune’s public records requests for police reports were denied due to active investigations.
Lawney Lapointe
Lawney Lapointe went missing on Aug. 8, according to WSP’s statewide list, and is classified as endangered. The News Tribune asked the Puyallup Tribe about information such as Lapointe’s physical description and age on Aug. 22. Bean declined to share information about the case beyond what’s on the statewide list to avoid compromising the investigation.
Those with information can call the Puyallup Tribal Police Department at (253) 680-5656, Bean said.
Kanwar Singh
After not hearing from 32-year-old Kanwar Singh since June 21, 2025, an out-of-state family member contacted Tacoma police to report him missing on July 19, 2025, Boyd told The News Tribune on Aug. 7.
The family had not seen Singh physically in over a year, she said.
He was believed to be last seen in Tacoma because he lived in the city, Boyd said, but the family didn’t know where.
Anyone with information can call the Tacoma Police Department at (253) 591-5950.
Kassidy Buchanan
Timothy and Joyce Robinson told The News Tribune that they haven’t seen their granddaughter Kassidy Buchanan since Sept. 24, 2024. Buchanan, 14, is Black and Native American, and belongs to the Aleut and Blackfeet tribes, Joyce Robinson said.
Buchanan had run away before, but always returned home within two days, Timothy Robinson told The News Tribune on July 28.
“I do believe she’s in danger,” her grandfather said.
Buchanan keeps in contact with her older sister, but doesn’t tell her where she is, he told The News Tribune.
“I don’t want to get a call that she’s no longer with us,” her grandfather said.
Buchanan likes to draw, write and make jokes, the Robinsons said. They described her goofy sense of humor, and said she sometimes dressed up in her grandfather’s clothes for a laugh.
“She’s got a good heart, a good soul,” her grandmother said.
They said they wish law enforcement would do more to help find her.
“Maybe they have too many kids they’re looking for, but I know that I feel they’re not trying to look for Kassidy at all,” Joyce Robinson said.
Boyd, the Tacoma Police spokesperson, told The News Tribune on Aug. 13 that law enforcement is responsive every time the family reaches out with new information.
“We’ve not ignored them,” she said.
Anyone with information about the case can reach the Tacoma Police Department at (253) 591-5950.
Takoda Johnson
Takoda Johnson went missing on Nov. 26, 2023, according to the WSP’s statewide list. The list indicates that Johnson is a juvenile.
The News Tribune asked representatives for the Puyallup Tribe about the case on Aug. 22. Council member Bean declined to give information about the case beyond what is provided on the WSP’s list. Anyone with information about the case can reach the Puyallup Tribal Police Department at (253) 680-5656.
Aidan Spear
Aidan Spear was supposed to meet up with her mother, Jessica Brown, on Jan. 24, 2022, after agreeing to go to rehab for substance abuse, Brown told The News Tribune on Aug. 12.
“She never felt more ready to get help,” her mother said.
Spear was 20 at the time she went missing in the Tacoma area. Her family is from the Colville and Coeur D’Alene tribes, her mother said.
Spear told her mom that they would have to postpone their meeting because she had to say goodbye to someone, Brown said. That was the last time Brown heard from her, she said.
It wasn’t uncommon for Spear to go a few weeks without speaking with her family, Brown said, but this time was different. About three weeks after they last spoke, Brown said her daughter’s close friend reached out to ask how Spear’s rehabilitation was going.
Brown recalled panicking because Spear’s friend usually knew where she was. Brown filed a missing person’s report soon after, she said.
Brown said she doesn’t believe that Spear’s case is being taken seriously because of her background and history with substance abuse.
Pierce County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Courtney Bealko told The News Tribune on Aug. 13 that the department has conducted extensive searches, interviewed suspects and people connected to Spear and exhausted every lead at this point.
Brown described her daughter as a “genuinely kind human being.” Spear was attentive to her younger sibling and wanted to turn her life around, Brown said.
People with information can call the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office at (253) 798-7530.
Amanda Green
Amanda Green has been missing for more than four years. Green, 36 at the time, was last seen near East 35th Street in Tacoma, “at an unknown residence,” on May 15, 2021, according to the NamUs website. She was getting off the back of someone’s motorcycle.
It’s unusual for Green not to keep in touch with her family and to miss important events, the website states. Green was three or four months pregnant at the time of her disappearance, The News Tribune previously reported.
Green is a member of the Cherokee Nation, The News Tribune reported.
Tips about Green’s case should be reported to the Tacoma Police Department at (253) 591-5950.
Andrew Claw
A sister out of state called the Lakewood Police Department on Feb. 22, 2021, to report her 62-year-old brother, Andrew Claw, missing after not hearing from him in a year, according to the police report.
Claw spoke to his sister every other month, so his silence was concerning, the report said. Their last conversation was in October 2019, and he stopped using his financial resources, the report said. Lakewood investigators found no one had seen or spoken to him since Feb. 20, 2020, records state.
Claw was homeless, the report said, and had been living near a convenience store on Solberg Drive Southwest. Two people who used to live with him there told police that they looked for Claw after they hadn’t seen him for a while, and that they found his belongings unattended, the report said.
Claw had been suffering from multiple health conditions, the report said.
“His safety and welfare are likely compromised and finding him is of utmost importance,” the police report said.
A relative reached out to law enforcement on June 15, 2021, to start the process of declaring Claw “presumed” deceased, the report said.
Giovanna Tyler
Giovanna Tyler went missing from her home in the 2000 block of East Gregory Street in Tacoma on March 28, 2004. The then 29-year-old mother of four disappeared “under suspicious circumstances,” according to the FBI’s missing persons website.
Two decades later, the FBI is still investigating the case, hoping to find her and anyone responsible for her disappearance, according to a Facebook post from the FBI on April 14. The FBI is offering up to a $10,000 reward for information about the case.
Tyler is a member of the Makah Tribe with ties to Tacoma and Neah Bay, according to the FBI’s website.
David Keesy
David Keesey’s wife reported him missing on Feb. 20, 2004, Tacoma Police spokesperson Boyd told The News Tribune on Aug. 8.
Keesy, 33 at the time, “left with others after a short” dispute, according to the NamUs website.
Tips were provided over the years about potential sightings of Keesy, but there were no major leads, Boyd said.
Asked where Keesy was last seen, Boyd could not provide further information.
Keesy is enrolled with the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, according to the NamUs website.
Anyone with information can call the Tacoma Police Department at (253) 591-5950.
Misty Copsey
Misty Copsey’s mother last spoke with the 14-year-old on Sept. 17, 1992, The News Tribune reported.
That day, Copsey went to the Puyallup Fair (now the Washington State Fair) with her friend. Copsey missed the last bus back home to Spanaway and called her mom. Her mother was working a night shift and told her to call when she made it home safely. Copsey, a Cowlitz tribal member according to The Daily News, never called or made it home.
Copsey’s disappearance has become one of the oldest unsolved cases in Puyallup, with over 30 years of investigation and dead ends, The News Tribune reported. Today, Copsey would be 46 years old.
Anyone with information can call the Puyallup Police Department at (253) 841-5415, according to a Washington State Patrol poster.
Looking forward
Native American families are advocating for more resources, support and answers to the crisis.
“I don’t think there’s a lot out there for this group,” Jessica Brown said. “I’d like to see more focus.”
The AGO’s efforts include working with tribal agencies to provide additional resources, evaluating systems to improve the data gathering process, and funding initiatives that support Native Americans, according to its task force report.
“The work ahead is complex and ongoing. The MMIWP Task Force remains resolute in its mission to transform systems to ensure safety, accountability and healing for all Indigenous people in Washington state,” the report states.
Receiving feedback from families and building relationships with survivors are among the AGO’s priorities to better understand the crisis, according to the report.
“I’m hoping that people will listen and realize that we need the help,” Joyce Robinson said. “I hope word gets out there for our children.”
Editor’s note: There are three names on the State Patrol’s list of missing Indigenous persons that The News Tribune did not include in this article, because officials and family members said they have confirmed that those people are safe. An earlier version of this article misstated Joyce Robinson’s tribal affiliations. She is an Aleut tribal member.
This story was originally published September 2, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
