Answers few in girls' Reservation deaths
source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/23/wyoming.reservation.deaths/index.html
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Wind River Reservation, Wyoming (CNN) -- On a warm summer night last June, James Gardner gave his daughter permission to sleep over at a friend's house, something he almost never let her do.
Ohetica Win, a member of Wyoming's Northern Arapaho tribe, was a tall, striking 13-year-old who looked much older. Gardner had lived most of his life on the Wind River Reservation and he didn't trust many people there.
But he decided to make an exception. Elyxis, as Ohetica was known, had been good lately. She ended the school year with decent grades and looked forward to starting her freshman year at Riverton High, the school off the reservation attended by white students.
"She was always with me because I was protective of her because she's a girl, and on this rez, there's crazy people," says Gardner, a maintenance worker at the Wind River Casino, one of the reservation's biggest employers.
Elyxis never made it home. Neither did Winter Rose Jenkins, the friend she was supposed to stay with, or Alexandrea WhitePlume, another friend who met up with the girls that night.
A day and a half later, the bodies of Elyxis and Alex were found in the bedroom of a tiny home in Beaver Creek, a low-income tribal housing community. Winter Rose's body lay about 20 yards behind the house.
The girls' families learned a month later that they had died from an overdose of methadone -- a painkiller used to wean addicts off heroin. But it was unclear where it came from or how they got it. The coroner ruled their deaths homicides.
Ohetica Win, a member of Wyoming's Northern Arapaho tribe, was a tall, striking 13-year-old who looked much older. Gardner had lived most of his life on the Wind River Reservation and he didn't trust many people there.
But he decided to make an exception. Elyxis, as Ohetica was known, had been good lately. She ended the school year with decent grades and looked forward to starting her freshman year at Riverton High, the school off the reservation attended by white students.
"She was always with me because I was protective of her because she's a girl, and on this rez, there's crazy people," says Gardner, a maintenance worker at the Wind River Casino, one of the reservation's biggest employers.
Elyxis never made it home. Neither did Winter Rose Jenkins, the friend she was supposed to stay with, or Alexandrea WhitePlume, another friend who met up with the girls that night.
A day and a half later, the bodies of Elyxis and Alex were found in the bedroom of a tiny home in Beaver Creek, a low-income tribal housing community. Winter Rose's body lay about 20 yards behind the house.
The girls' families learned a month later that they had died from an overdose of methadone -- a painkiller used to wean addicts off heroin. But it was unclear where it came from or how they got it. The coroner ruled their deaths homicides.
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